titan_uranus

He didn’t “replace” Gawn. He was subbed in but it’s not like we asked him to play ruck. He played 3.5 quarters in his preferred forward role. He had no influence. It’s a minor spot in the 23 but if there are others at Casey in form it’s hard to justify Melksham getting another game ahead of them.

At Round 10 last year were were 10-0 with a percentage of 161.7%. We were two games and 18% clear of the next best side at the time, which was Brisbane, and we were 33.4% in front of the side with the third best percentage, which was Fremantle. We looked, and were, "scary good" last year. Again, it's March.

Hopefully after last night we do a bit less "banking" of wins and we treat each game as it comes. We should be stark outsiders to beat Sydney next week, then we're on the road back-to-back, including on a six-day break into the Gather Round (although so are Essendon) before ANZAC Eve. We're also on another six-day break from Hawthorn into the road trip to Port Adelaide.

I think Hibberd coming in for Harmes is a good idea. Whether it's Rivers or Brayshaw who push up the ground more, I like it more than swapping Harmes for say Dunstan.

If it's a medial, it'll be, what, 4-8 weeks? We're still looking at a minimum of a month of no Gawn. Our next eight: Sydney, West Coast (away), Essendon (Gather Round), Richmond, North Melbourne, Gold Coast (away), Hawthorn, Port Adelaide (away). If it goes beyond 8 weeks, the next three leading into the bye are all at the G: Fremantle, Carlton, Collingwood

Let Collingwood be flag favourite. It's March. Remember what the media was saying about us in March-May last year? About how we were unbeatable and we were going to break winning streak records and we were miles in front of the rest of the competition etc? I don't want us to fall too far off the pace but we're also one year removed from a stark reminder that the side who wins the flag isn't always the side in peak form in March.

So JVR doing enough in the ruck to take Gawn's spot? Or TMac's spot?

Goodwin in his presser said we didn't handle the conditions well, but also mentioned that the centre square is on a cricket pitch which we don't often play on. We haven't played on the Gabba this early in a season since 2018, when we beat Brisbane, but they were a bottom 4 side that year. Since then, the earliest we've played on it was Round 15 2019 (June), with all our other games July or August. I have zero idea whether playing on it 4 months after the cricket season makes any difference as compared to playing on it weeks after cricket, but it sounds like Goodwin thinks it might have. If it did, I have no idea how, but anyway. I'm not using this as any sort of excuse, by the way. We knew about this fixture since December.

Trying to piece everything together, it seems the physical tests done on the night were negative but there remains concern it's an ACL so they are waiting on the scans, which suggests to me the concerns come from his symptoms (e.g. he's reporting some sort of instability or pain which would tell a doctor/physio it's an ACL and not something else), or perhaps because he heard the dreaded "pop" or something. It just seems like there is some reason to think it's an ACL but the tests were negative which means they have to wait on the scans.

We can infer it - if it was positive they would have said so. I imagine if it was positive they wouldn’t have said all the stuff about “we don’t know”.

Where did 8 say anything about expecting perfection or even that I thought Grundy was poor? I’m just concerned he doesn’t have the aerobic fitness to cover as much ground as he’ll have to without Gawn. Round 14 2020 vs St Kilda, we kicked 8.4. But that was a COVID short game. Last full length game was Round 3 2019, we kicked 18.4 v Essendon.

MFC when Viney plays since Round 1 2020: 35-1-18 Is there really a trend here?