Brownie

Who woulda thunk 4 umps would slow the game down.

Yep, screen shotting and saving to your phone is a good idea. After just doing a 4 week road trip holiday, I don't think there's much money being spent on mobile networks either. Taking out the risk from any point of failure is a good idea

Should this be Gil's parting epitaph?

Didn't this happen at the Ed Sheerhouse concert the other week as well? People couldn't access their tix on their phones and had to line up at the box office to get a hard copy ticket printed to get in. I believe some were lucky enough to not get in until half way through the concert 😃

Cotchin wore his forearm out on Harmes' face

JVRs pretty good on second and third efforts at ground level too though. I'd argue he's a better straight swap for Fritta than TMAC or BB if he had to come in.

If Fritta is out, why wouldn't they play him?

It's not about being better as such, it's about running out games. This game is more and more about fitness. We had multiple injuries to multiple players in the second half of the season and I think we should have rested them and played some of our not so better players to.... 1. Develop them and build their confidence 2. Rest our key players to play finals even if we ended up in 6th or 7th position. The likes of. Smith, Tomlinson, Turner, Mcvee, Chandler, Bedford and Especially JVR should have been stepping up to rest our key injured players. It shows inflexibility by the coach. Most importantly I look at this situation and think what does it say to someone like JVR? If he doesn't get selected again in round one this year what is he going to be thinking? "What more do I have to do to get a game when there's blokes out there on one leg falling apart in the second half?" We talk about him being our future key forward. Will he stay at the next contract renewal? Some of these players should have been given a chance to step up and our key players fitness and injuries should have been managed more effectively. We probably weren't destined to win a granny last year but we should have swung the changes in the back half of the season. That's a better roll of the dice rather than running our players into the ground IMHO.

Interesting. Yep it's professional and it's a workplace. Sometimes you turn down bigger $ and packages to stay at a place because you love the team and environment you work in. I think that's been a thing this club was missing until Roos and Jackson came on board. Culture, environment and success are probably the three big things for player retention. Sometimes they'll still leave for the money etc but we seem to be Retaining most of our key players which is a really good sign. We've also been attracting better players as well. Can't believe the media noise on this. If I was Kozzy, I'd be delaying signing and hoping for a cracker start to the season to get the best deal possible at our club hopefully.

Our season is ruined

Thanks Binman. I was at the last home and away against the Lions. While it was great, it proved to be an anomaly. The lions defence was woeful that night. Even Kozzy seemed to be proppy that night. I couldn't work out during the season why we seemed to get more and more predictable kicking into the forward pocket. Was it a deliberate ploy because we knew we only had Fritta left as our sole fit Key forward. I'm encouraged by the training reports and hope we're both fit and willing to take the game on and go the corridors and switch play.

Yep, I think I remember that was part of the general strategy from Burgess for players with niggles to just keep playing through them. It worked for May in the granny. However, when there's 10 or 11 (so the rumour goes) players carrying injuries and going into their shell once we're in front, we were always going to fall short. We really didn't look fit enough to run out games. Our disposal was sloppier towards the ends of games. I think other teams worked us out a bit. I think we may have been mentally fatigued and not ready to go to another level to win another flag last year. I'm hoping we'll come back harder in all of these areas this year.

Just rubbish. I know I'm biased but I've never understood the spite dished out for her on social media. Maybe she doesn't yell enough or state the obvious dumb things over and over. Gaaah

Gillard, Hanks, Bannon. It's been years of pioneering the comp and building a talent base for it to get eroded. We've built a brilliant culture though. Hope it makes most stick fat with us. No penalty for dragging your feet in this league hey.

About time. We really are slow to react.

I think Robbos using AI now. It's called chatGnT

For those that wasted their time going to Goschs yesterday, I'd recommend kicking an email to Kate Roffey. From My experience she seems to really appreciate the value of passionate supporters to the club. Hopefully they'll put a decent notification system and process in place. With technology these days it's not hard to do. They've got to let the team know in advance, so surely it's simple to let supporters know too. If it's a closed session, just call it a closed session. On another note, I know it's a waste of time but does anyone have footage of Selwood kicking Clarrys hand last year? A so called innocuous kick seems to be costing Clarry a lot of ongoing pain and discomfort.

You do have to watch it multiple times. You'd swear everyone else is just stationary as Koz just blasts through traffic. I can't wait to watch him work through the midfield this year. Imagine having to try and tag the bugger.

Looking forward to less "kick it long down the wing and into the pocket" and more "hard running and switching with precision kicks into an open forward line" The pressure on the players outside of the core group to fight to get selected must be immense now. I'm struggling to think of a time in the last fifty years where we've got so much potential depth to our list. (Feel free to throw this back in my face in a mid season selection thread) 😊

https://youtu.be/JqxC5I1eVl8

I think she should be straight into the men's senior coaching team as soon as we can possibly get her back. Listened to this wonderful podcast from her on the way up to watch the AFLW grand final win last year. A true highlight for me in over 50 years supporting this club was being there to witness the victory and watch a truly wonderful Melbourne team playing for each other. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/so-much-more-than-that-daisy-pearce-on-finding-fulfilment-outside-flag-dream-20221115-p5byi3.html An amazing leader and human being. I love the way she's been outspoken on a number of issues in footy over the last couple of years. A great football brain and commentator. She is just all class. Please don't stay at the cats for too long Dais.

I'm sure they'll get Goody to swing by and pick you up. 😁

I'm with you @binman. He gets your heart pumping even as he approaches the contest. I've been wanting to cancel my Foxtel sub and roll to kayo for a while now. The fact he looks like doing more midfield time this year in there with Clarry will have me reaching for the rewind button even more. The way those two navigate through traffic is a thing of beauty. My wife is likely to cop even more of "Hey babe did you see what Kozzie did just then? here watch this" He's the kind of player that brings new kids and supporters to our club. On the derailing part of this thread, I remember reading post season that we had about 11 players in the finals playing with injuries. Yeah nuh.

Thanks for all the reports. Great to see TMAC and BBB getting back into fitness. We really missed these two last year (even though BBB played, he wasn't fit) I think general fitness for the whole playing group killed us at the pointy end of the season. Fingers crossed for a team that can run out games haaaaaard! This year. Choccos goal kicking drills sound pretty cool too. The cats dominated last year with fast switching and accurate field kicking. Hope we can do the same but harder and faster this year. Happy 2023 everyone. Let's break this god forsaken premiership drought.

Best of luck to Ben and the demons. Addiction is a horrible thing and it would be great if he bounces back and helps the club become successful.