titan_uranus

We do have all four of our KPDs in the seniors this week, which I imagine won’t be a common occurrence…

But it does show that we are more than a little light on KPD depth on our list.

Adams isn’t it, sadly.

2 hours ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Are GCS really that good!

Huge wins vs Cats, Eagles and Tigers. Yesterday's results say it all about the last two. Cats were missing Danger, Stengle and Cameron and the game was played in hot humid weather.

So nothing to rave about for them so far.

Their midfield this week is rather ordinary. Neutralise the injured Rowell and we will win!!! We can either have Kolt shadow him for the day or have Steele guard him at CB and Howes pick him up when he goes forward. Sure they still have Anderson and Miller but that won't be enough.

Maybe sacrifice JvR or Melk's game to lead Collins away from our targets.

Dees by a heart-stopping 7 points.

See you at the G D'lamders ❤️💙

Love the optimism but if Witts, Anderson, Rowell, Miller, Powell and Weller is “ordinary”, I shudder to think what word describes our midfield!

Witts is one of only a few rucks in the league who challenges Gawn regularly, which hurts any advantage we might otherwise have had with Max.

I agree with you though that they haven’t been properly tested this year, given the Geelong game was at home in humid conditions, and obviously they’re missing their best player from their first three games (Trac), but they’re still a lot of talent.

1 hour ago, praha said:

Let's be honest, if Gold Coast is serious then it will win and win comfortably. Just as Sydney flexed last night, if you're a contending team then you just don't drop games like this. A pass mark for me is a good contest within 5 goals.

Agreed. Like Fremantle, they’re just a much better side than us, particularly in the middle.

I’m hopeful that we start well and maybe put them under early pressure, which they haven’t really had this year so far. But if they are 30 up at quarter time, I won’t be surprised.

13 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

The Eagles are way more important to the competition than the Suns and GWS combined.

Freo don't really cut it.

Yeah but is their current period of awful-ness impacting their existence in any way?

2nd most members in 2025, at 107,079, up nearly 4,000 on the previous season (despite 2025 being a 1-win season, and their fourth consecutive season in the bottom 3).

They have a wait list for reserved seats. They averaged over 42,000 to their home games last year - Fremantle, who were a top 4 contender for most of the season, averaged 46,000.

Their supporters haven't dropped off yet. They finally have some promising young talent (Duursma, Reid, CDT, Shanahan).

They're effectively the biggest/richest club, whose demise is almost entirely self-inflicted. The AFL doesn't have to worry about them, because they'll always be big/rich, and the tide will eventually turn.

Keeping GC and GWS viable and ensuring there is constant competitive/interesting AFL product in NSW and Queensland is far, far more important to the AFL than helping West Coast get out of the hole they built for themselves.

22 minutes ago, Nascent said:

I think Luker will come in for Fritsch.

Laurie is competing with the likes of Sharp, Chandler, Latrelle and perhaps Culley, and is fighting a losing battle with his lack of pace and size.

Would've loved to seen him get more games under Goodwin when he deserved a run at it. Unfortunaly for him I think it's going to be another bridesmaid year as an emergency.

(Now watch me be wrong tomorrow)

We’re going to be extremely tall if we are replacing Jiath, Cross and Fritsch with Turner, Melksham and Kentfield.

4 hours ago, Redleg said:

So what do we actually know?

We know that a player and his partner were discussed at a partners’ online meeting with club officials.

We know that the intention of the meeting was a welcome and to show that the club supported players and their partners.

We know that this discussion occurred, but that it wasn’t the reason for the meeting.

We don’t know what specific details were discussed and if they were public knowledge, or private communications, or came from other sources.

We don’t know if any person prior to the meeting asked for some info on the situation, for whatever reason.

We know that someone leaked the meeting to the media.

We don’t know how the other attendees felt about the discussion.

We don’t know if the leaker was accurate, truthful, or had an ulterior motive for involving the media.

We don’t know if the person who went to the media, first raised a concern with the club and if they did, what the club response was and why they then felt it necessary to go public.

We don’t know if anyone, including Officials present, suggested an end to the discussion or that it was inappropriate to discuss.

We do know for a fact though, that many on here love to go off without proper and full knowledge and understanding of an issue and spout garbage condemning people.

We also know that some people on here think that any story with a shred of criticism or negativity towards the MFC is a witch hunt.

The club issued an apology within an hour or so of the story coming out yesterday.

Morris has heard the recording of the meeting, and quoted directly from it - Richardson felt the need to say words to the effect of “can we keep this information to ourselves”. We don’t know what he said which led to him then asking everyone to keep it on the DL, but if he felt the need to tell everyone to stay quiet, that’s pretty much all we need to know - he should not have been sharing any information which he wouldn’t be comfortable with being out in the open.

It’s a bad mistake. The club has owned up to it.

It’s not a witch hunt. It’s not some sort of “media madness”. It’s not a storm in a teacup that Demonlanders are over-reacting to.

Didn’t think we’d see Turner, Petty, Lever and TMac in the same side this year, but there we go.

[censored] hell.

Just when we thought we had turned a leaf on this [censored].

There may be mayo on it from the disaffected whistleblower but even then, how did anyone at the club not clock that sharing private information about sensitive, personal allegations was inappropriate?

Well-intentioned, sure, but not smart.

At least we appear to have acknowledged and apologised for it today.

On 31/03/2026 at 06:39, dees189227 said:

He can also use the ball properly.

He has been outstanding & it's good we've finally recruited a player from another team who isn't a dud

To be fair his kicking is probably his biggest weakness. Hasn’t been disastrous for us yet, and he’s easily making up for it with the rest of his game, but his kicking isn’t ideal.

Is the Fritsch thing official?

If so - [censored].

Just when he hits form. With games against Essendon and Richmond on the horizon, too.

Melksham presumably comes in but maybe Jeffo can hit some form at Casey and get a run?

It’s the announcement of our (retro) Gather Round jumper, I think.

3 hours ago, jnrmac said:

Against Freo after quarter time it was 10 goals to 9 goals

Just need to stop the blow out starts as its clear we can run out games

King’s said the last two days that he views the two poor starts vs Freo and Carlton differently. Against Freo he said it was their intensity/skill which overwhelmed us, but against Carlton he said it was just our own mistakes. I tend to agree, but either way, we have work to do. Gold Coast won’t let us bring a 43 point lead back (most sides not called Carlton won’t).

40 minutes ago, Dannyz said:

Salem’s defensive hardness has never been his one- wood. It’s just a little more exposed for the lack of small backs that we have currently.

His field kicking, kick ins, defensive positioning and transition work outweigh the odd poor defensive effort.

I’ve had the occasional run in with @DubDee over this.

The balance is the other way around IMO, in that I reckon his kicking/etc isn’t making up for the poor defensive/contest stuff. Personally I think his kicking is overrated but even if not, I don’t think we can carry a (relatively) slow back half player who can’t/won’t defend or win a contest.

I know many disagree and that’s fine - it’s not like we have a plethora of options to replace him and his experience. But with Rivers out of the side and AMW fit again, I’d have Salem’s spot under serious watch.

If the story is true, and I suspect it probably is, that tells you everything you need to know about why we punted him.

Couldn't get his [censored] together to show up for Gawn's 250th, after everything Gawn did for him over the last 3 years.

We'd be rooted without him.

He and Gawn were holding us together in the middle early yesterday, until we got going later.

Sticks his tackles (would have been a focus for everyone after the poor tackling efforts vs Fremantle, but he nails that brief week in, week out). Doesn't shirk. Runs both ways.

I expect a loss but the more I think about the timing of the match up, the more I start feeling weirdly optimistic.

No Petracca, no Humphrey, (probably) no Rowell, at the G, they're off a bye, we're off a confidence-boosting win, when we're on we're on, we weren't even that bad for 2.5 quarters vs Fremantle...

Nah, still a respectable but comfortable loss coming up.

Surely...

8 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

There were a heap of ex players there on the day including Hunt who was in the rooms.

Go look at his instagram story. Funny stuff..

They were all on the ground pre-game for a photo with Gawn and TMac and were there when they ran through the banner.

I saw Spargo and Weideman outside the ground and spotted Howe and Harmes on the ground, but haven’t yet seen a photo of all of them together. Seemed a fair few though.

29 minutes ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Hewitt raised the ball to shoulder height with both hands. Even tho it was a split second that action made it 'prior opportunity' as he could have hand balled unimpeded while raising the ball as the tackle was about hip height.

Evans did a fend off type action first which is prior then ducked into the tackle.

That’s a good defence of the Hewett free kick but IMO in real time, no benefit of replays or slow mo, that just wasn’t holding the ball.

The Evans one I think was line ball so IMO wasn’t egregious at all, but the Hewett one was a mistake and I’d have been livid if that had been against us, at that stage of the game.

We're not dropping Petty, not against Gold Coast and not, at the absolute least, until Turner's fit again.

May well just be finding a replacement for CJ - could be Rivers, but not sure what he learns about himself without a run at Casey. Could be AMW, but he may need another week at Casey.

I feel we're a touch too short and Gold Coast may exploit that. Not sure if we're going to change the forward line dynamic to get Heath in (or, later on, Kentfield) nor how we'd do it (might be Cross who makes way).

6 - Steele
5 - Kozzie
4 - Gawn
3 - Lever
2 - Sparrow
1 - Fritsch

That's the second time in three weeks I've had such fun at the footy, although this time obviously only for half the game.

It might be 3 years since we've had fun at the footy this much across a three game period. That of itself is noteworthy.

We must gain so much confidence and belief from holding firm to how we wanted to play despite the abysmal start. King said it in his presser though, unlike last week where Fremantle smacked us across the park, the start this week was more about how awful we were. When we are bad, we are terrible - fumbly, over-running the ball, kicks missing targets. Kozzie was emblematic of it.

But the way we worked through that and turned the game on its head was remarkable.

Felt to me like we ditched the tag and stopped running Tholstrup in CBAs in the second half, which helped us match them. Not sure if causation or correlation but our ball movement also felt better after Jiath went off.

Koz's second half was stupidly good, but Steele's first half was so important when most of the 23 were down. Sparrow's game was a stand-out too. Not sure how related it is to Rivers coming out of the middle but if that was part of it, then Riv's got a bit of work to do as that level from Sparrow makes us such a better side.

Major improvement IMO from Langford, Culley and (a bit less so) Lindsay. I'm really hoping that they are just starting to find themselves in this side and are gelling with each other, as seeing Langford get into the game and on the scoreboard is critical to balancing our midfield.

Loved the MFC supporter energy in the crowd. Probably outnumbered by Carlton fans 2-1 but the noise when we got going was pulsating (at least on the members' side of the ground it was).

Expecting another come-down next week vs Gold Coast but, like Round 1 into Round 2, I'm OK with that. We are building belief in a brand of football that stacks up. It won't work every week, and against the best sides we just won't be good enough for long enough, but we're 12 quarters in now and 8-9 of them have been pretty good.

I personally haven’t been overly concerned with Rivers so far this year, despite acknowledging he has a fair amount of room for improvement.

I’m not quite sure dropping a core player, these days a leader, after two games into a new era at the club is the right move, but then again many spent the last 9 years complaining about Goodwin never dropping players so this approach is a new to us!

Rivers dropped!

Well done @Bring-Back-Powell

1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

He’s probably on notice this weekend.

I don’t think King would’ve been too impressed with him dropping a handball pass from Steele that resulted in a costly turnover on the wing.

You’re probably right, but I highly doubt he is getting dropped off one mistake (or 2, or 3). King spent all summer talking about how our players need to stop being afraid of making mistakes as we learn how to adapt to the new style/coaching.

If anyone gets dropped I suspect it will be for structural or more basic/fundamental reasons (effort, intensity, etc).

10 hours ago, DubDee said:

Always keen to jump on Salem when he has a bad game hey? You know he was 5th in our BnF last year

Calling a 200 game player soft after putting his body on the line for 12 years and winning us a flag, is pathetic

I wish more of our players displayed his composure, skill and loyalty

I’m with @dazzledavey36 , at least a bit.

Salem frustrates me. Yes, he has skill and loyalty, but to me he dines out on those attributes whilst putting teammates under pressure with nothing/dinky kicks and then, as on the weekend, not going when it’s his turn.

The clips Riewoldt mentioned are in this video from the 34.43 minute mark: https://youtu.be/iQ-FM--mTLQ?si=bVT2FXNfmnG5n5t8

IMO it’s absolutely fair to call out Salem, a leader, for this stuff. In addition to the poor showing in the clips, on the weekend he had 7 pressure acts (5th worst for us, excluding Disco who already had 6 before his injury) and 0 tackles.

I reckon this happens often with him and then posters like you will say “but he’s a classy kick” or “look at his B&F finishes”.