Bay Riffin

yeah not sure he starred. he played a decent game, turned it over a bit but got 20 possies.

Seston hardly tapped it with his foot. He can kick them.

I heard Yze quoted as saying in his time at the hawks and us there are no harder trainers than JJ (and Spargo) leaving no stone unturned trying to improve. It seems to be working.

we need to bring in a brother rule.

yep thats what I was looking for. 10 min to go 3rd quarter Sydney was coming and we couldn't stop it (and they kicked points). Who stood up ? Oliver and with great defensive efforts all day. most tackles with 7 as well (interestingly JVR next with 6).

based on what ? they've beaten us 4 out of last 5 games.

nail on the head there. we have some better kickers now and need to get it into their hands. and when we had nothing to lose looked so much better. we played that was in 2021.

Petty made Thomlinsons life easier as he took the best forward. lets keep things in perspective here. Pettys going nowhere.

His teamwork is great I iagree but he would have to improve his field kicking substantially to be top 10. Hes a great long kick but not kicking to position.

was just about to type that with all the whingeing of playing injured players. How many here would have wanted us to omit May for the Grand Final ?

great to have you back guys. I thought that was our most 'skillful side in a long while watching Hunter, Grundy, Chandler, Bowey help move the ball end to end. I consider Hunter a lock and he makes us look so much better. Do you think Bowey and Chandler will play round 1 as they played well.

a few here bagged Grundy. If thats his stats spudding it up, We will be happy with that.

Watching his rookie footage he's a very smooth mover. Burgoyne type balance and watching him live reminded me a bit of Zac Williams when he put the jets on. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/players/5688/judd-mcvee

yes like the Rivers move but geez his field kicking was terrible today. kicked a great long goal though.

totally agree. well summed up. his elite qualities are his tank (but so is Hunter who's a superior kick) and I think needs to be in the middle. He looks a natural inside footballer to me so a good stint as Casey using his '1 wood' might be what the doctor ordered. and who knows he might go up the pecking order.

to be fair theyve laid down all their money on the favourites. nothing too surprising there.

They have found a way to get back to premiership successover the journey but that last few years have been sweet. The last 2 days games in particular have been mass whinge fests by hawks supporters over umpiring decisions. After all those years of #freekickhawthorn. The last game Ben Brown was given about 4 free kicks in fornt of goal. None of which were near 50/50 but hapless attempts by Sam Frost to stop him by any measure. Not that it mattered as they booed the umpires till the bitter end. Entitled ? oh yes.

that could be timely given we don't know when Salem will be available.

what i liked about our 2018 drafting is we chose players with X factor, a real point of difference. The type you need to win premierships. i.e Jackson and Kozzie. We just cant afford to lose both. It's so hard though when teams are throwing ridicuolous amounts money at them. and iff there is one team in the AFL that is obsessed with 'flashy' players its Port.

I'm not sure I'm buying this revisionism. We came out and won the first 10 games in convincing fashion. I'ts not like we didn't hit the ground running. We were clearly the best side in the comp till the half way mark. A more likely argument would be we went too hard early and were phyicially spent by the end of the year compared to other sides. and that might be just one factor.

good points there. One big improvement I think could be overlooked is if Thomlinson can get back to his form pre-injury, which was absolute A grade. Last year he had no acceleration but signs are hes getting better. That is high quality depth to add to our backline. Also I think they biggest improvement will come if we have our 3 talls in TMAC, BB and JVR playing most of the year. it felt like most of last year we have 1 tall, one one leg. The next improvement would then be probably Hunter who we didnt have last year. Grundy might be an improvment of Jackson but not as much as Hunter might provide compared to JJ.

I think Casey this year could be more of a breeding ground for us than last year. The spine will be pretty new which is exciting and and a host of second and third year players like Howes, Laurie, JVR, Woewoedin will be expected to push hard for selection.

yep. He certainly has earned his chance and was knocking the door down this year but its a big step up. I just dont quite see the X factor that maybe others do.

Chandler has yet to prove he is good enough at AFL level.

what is this based on may I ask ?