At the break of Gawn

Goody looking a bit more relaxed which is great to see. Love that the boys are doing hard and contested training. I’m pretty confident we’ll do ok against the Lions.

Joel Smith - from a 4 week injury in mid March to gone for the whole season. FMD.

Would love Hill but crazy he never opts to kick with his opposite foot ever. His disposal efficiency is a bit off as well. 31 disposals and only 80 something ranking points is rare.

Think he had the highest SC score for a qtr this year. 86 pts in the last qtr - unbelievable.

Knowing our luck, we’ll play them after the bye next year and they’ll break that hoodoo against us.

Also have a gut feeling we’ll win. Not much logic involved, just a feeling.

Still looking like he's a bit nervous at the start (like he has the past couple of weeks). He's clearly worried about the scrutiny. Makes a world of difference when you're winning and these sort of press conferences are just fluff like they were last year.

The problem with “free style set shot kicking” is that it doesn’t recreate a real-game situation. As all scientists know, in order to prove something you have to recreate the conditions as much as possible. What’s severely lacking with their goal kicking practice is the “social pressure”. That is, when a player misses a shot he feels the social shame from the crowd, his team, his opponents. With free style goal kicking practice, there’s no one really watching them if they miss. A good exercise to do would be to allow only one person kicking for a goal at any particular time, with one person on the mark, and the rest of his team mates watching him. Also, some form of consequence needs to occur if they miss. Making everyone do push-ups won’t work as the sports scientists will go nuts, but I’m sure they could think of something internally. Utilising the above steps would emulate the social pressure more and allow them to get used to the feeling and feel much more conditioned in real-match situations.

Somehow we’re actually favourites for this game according to Sportsbet. I’m not worried about Hogan. His goal kicking issues are just as bad and he’ll be too much inside his head to play well against us. Walters is a very good player but I feel Hibberd might be ok for him. I’m more worried about Fyfe and Hill. This game will be a real slog. It’ll be low scoring and if we win it’ll be less than 20pts.

I went to the Essendon game last night with a couple of Essendon supporter mates . I surprisingly had a good time watching it. It was a nice change to watch a game of footy where you’re not overly stressed and too emotionally invested. Despite our season being done, hopefully there is still some form of entertainment for us “neutrals” in the finals series such as GWS knocking over the Pies in the GF, or Geelong failing to win a final at the MCG. A cherry on top would be for us to beat the Pies in rnd 21 and kill off Collingwood’s hope of top 4 (or I’ll even settle with top 2)

Weid was our best forward. Tmac should go back to Casey against Freo - he’s not going to find the form at this level. He’s had 12 weeks. I’m not 100% convinced he’s injured. Has not once alluded to it in interviews and has continuously talked about his form issues and ways to try and get out of his slump.

Jones is on the couch now. I know his on-field has dropped off, but he speaks very well and articulates our deficiencies very well (and always has). Gawn matches him with this; if not more.

This is actually a very pertinent comment. I can’t think of one club. Even Carlton has Cripps. Maybe Gold Coast,

It has to be Max. At a minimum he’ll be a co-captain but I’d prefer if he was sole captain.

Nice of Jonesy to bring up the ton.

He’s become our Richie Vandenberg. Apart from being a tough player, I don’t know what he offers. He has no weapons by foot, he’s a bad decision maker also. i just struggle to see how we can have a captain who’s supposed to lead by example but then makes bad decisions and turns it over. It’s hypocritical if he pulls another guy into line when he’s doing it himself. We just need one captain in 2020, and it’s Max Gawn.

All their goals came at the top of the goal square pretty much. I can’t recall one difficult set shot they nailed. That’s a coaching thing.

I can’t remember a more inept forward line for such a long time. Also, the play on at all costs needs to be thrown out during the bye. It’s not a winning formula. Just drop it and formulate something better with this list.

Placing all our chips on Tmac is a good as investment as Enron. What a disaster.

They are hands down the worst.

I think he was named as an emergency but obviously lower down the ladder to be recalled of the 4.

That would be a handy out.

I don’t mind the Cox in. Reid had been ok for them and Cox has had a number of weeks off. I would have been more worried about Reid as he’s a pretty smart footballer. It also might be a bit slippery due to morning showers. Frost will take Cox Lever on Mihocek May on De Goey Stephenson is a bit of a worry, due to his speed. I think Hibbing will take him.

Definitely looks like nerves - he wasn’t like that at all last year so it must be about the perceived pressure. Hopefully he starts to feel better. Also noticed that he’s sitting as another poster has mentioned, so potentially finds that a bit easier.

No way. Beating someone up after they know they've had a poor shot on goal just drives more fear and anxiety into the next time it happens. Gawn, Smith, Garlett also missed easy shots. Gawn's miss against Geelong in round 1 was considerably worse. It was closer in, dry ball. Just a shank kick.