Wiseblood

I thought he was. I was wrong. Sorry.

Corey Wagner injured.

That is it - get the [censored] out of our football side ANB! Enough is enough!

And that's a good thing. Not because it keeps Spargo out, but because it creates that healthy competition for spots. If Lockhart and Wagner can keep this up then it's a huge positive for us.

Shiel is they key. His breakaway pace from stoppages has been excellent all night, and we need to find a way to stop it. Do that and we'll probably win this one.

It feels a little similar to the same game last year. We struggled early, then everything clicked and we ran over the top of them. Let's hope the second half is similar to that one tonight.

Great play by Lockhart!

How are we going? I can't really tell based on this thread.

You didn't try to 'walk the dog', BBO?

Not enough. We got this.

Mick McGuane wrote a good article today in the Sun around solving our problems when going forward, and this part of the article makes me feel a little better about tonight and the direction we are heading. As McGuane says, it's only a small snapshot, but proof that we can fix some of the things that are missing right now. MISSED OPPORTUNITIES It seems strange to talk this way about a team that lost by 80 points to Geelong, but things could have been a little different but for missed opportunities. At halftime, the scoreline was Geelong 46 to Melbourne 22. In the first two minutes of the third term Melksham missed everything with two kicks for goal. Those two shots resulted in two boundary throw ins. That’s fixable. The third entry saw Weideman almost mark, but spill it 35m out. Fixable. Then Christian Salem hacked it on his left foot for better composure. The result was a boundary throw-in, from which Angus Brayshaw’s quick kick saw Alex Neal-Bullen spill a mark 15m from goal. A fifth entry saw a committed Neville Jetta win the ball and with good composure find Weideman in front, but he hooked the kick. After the kick-in, the Demons won the ball across half back then went back in at speed before Petracca mistimed his jump and went at the ball one-handed when he had Tom Stewart cooked. That’s fixable. Too much over-finessing the ball before it landed in the arms of McDonald, who hit the post. Stiff. Jack Viney won a free on the boundary, had a left foot snap and overcooked it. Another behind. Then came a hurried left foot from Nathan Jones to a contest 45m from goal in the “trampoline zone”. The kick should have been aimed more along the boundary to create a stoppage. Geelong won the ball to the wing, before a lazy free kick was given away by Sam Frost to Esava Ratugolea. The result: the Cats went in deep and another free kick was given to Gary Rohan at the top of the square against Steven May. For all that toil, there came nine inside-50s and three behinds to one inside-50 for a goal in 12 minutes of play. That’s fixable. The effort, contest, pressure, territory and structure are all positives in this small snapshot of the game.

I blame Jack Watts.

I think it will be a pretty scrappy affair to be honest. Our midfield should win more than it's share of clearances again this week, it's just what we do with it that's the key. Essendon's backline isn't as good as Geelong's, but if we go the bomb then we could be in trouble. I'm tipping us by 4 goals, but not with a lot of confidence. In fact, I'm pretty nervous about this one.

Yep. We made massive mistakes in their time at the club, and they are mistakes I hope we never get close to replicating. Still, at least we aren't drug cheats.

Let's wait and see how the game plays out before we throw ourselves off the West Gate Bridge.

We really will sook about anything these days.

The first part of your post I agree with, yet what does it have to do with the post I quoted around us shuffling deck chairs? The players we have are more than capable. And I wouldn't have argued that Jeffy is underdone. He did the whole pre-season. He might lack a bit of match fitness, but other than that he should be right to go IF they want to select him.

With the injuries we have, we only really have deck chairs at the moment. What else do you want them to do?

I agree with Tom. It won't happen straight away, but what might happen is we start to turn the tide and win a few games in an ugly manner. Friday night might not be great to watch, but I can see us beginning to hit more targets forward of the ball and to work better as a unit. It won't be perfect, but I think that is what Tom is getting at. We just need to continue to work hard at it. These next three games are all extremely winnable, and while some of our footy might not be very good, I can see us building up the consistency to do it for longer, and thus winning these games.

That's a fair point, JV. We were a little slow out of the blocks, and we really struggled during Rounds 4 and 5. And what was the game that got us back on track? Round 6 vs. Essendon. It took us a half, but then we got the ball rolling (including two rippers from Maxy in the pocket) and we spent the next month and a half winning games of football. Let's hope the same thing happens with the Bombers tomorrow night. A big opportunity to get our season back on track, and I reckon we'll do it.

Tomorrow night.

And you know what? You might be right, bobby. But we could do worse than give him a crack. We need a bit of spark down there and Jeffy is still capable of that. At any rate he deserves the chance to show he's still got it. And if he doesn't? Well, then we know.

In all seriousness, that should be an unbelievable show @Gorgoroth. I wanted to get tickets but a close mate's 30th got the nod. Disappointed, but I'll listen to the album over the weekend instead.