BigFez

I reckon the Bombers beat the Pies tomorrow. Pies scraping over the line against North and Adelaide, Bombers deciding to have a crack once their season is over. They'd love to dent Collingwood's top 4 chances, and I think they are playing well enough to do it.

Tomorrow night like a final for the dogs.

Got a feeling Weid is going to have an Elimination final 2018 type of game tomorrow night. Based on absolutely nothing.

Regarding Ben Brown. I agree he is down at the moment, and gets outmarked and moved out of the way too easily, but he does quite a few intangibles that aren't obvious in the play or on the stats sheets but I'm sure the coaches would value it which is why he continues to play. Below is a few grabs form Petracca's first goal. You can see he is being held by Doedee who is also trying to move him under the ball so O'Brien can take a simple intercept mark. Ben manages to get an arm free and spoil the mark, the ball lands in Trac's lap and results in an easy goal. Ben creates this type of contest multiple times per game as well as any tall forward we have available at this stage, which is why I think (IMVHO) he continues to get selected despite a relatively dry run of goals himself. He allows our superb fleet of smalls to go to work by creating that contest.

We usually save our best for other contenders. Here's hoping that continues tonight.

Pfffft what would AFL coaches know about who played well? According to opposition fans on Facebook he only gets 30 backwards handpasses a game and doesn't hurt the opposition. They'd know more than the coaches wouldn't they?

Had a bit of a look at free kick stats to see if there was any data to back me up. Up to and including the bye rounds, 73% of games had 40+ free kicks paid. Since the bye rounds (small sample size I know), 11% of games have had 40+ free kicks paid. There has been, on average, 9.3 less free kicks paid per game since the completion of the bye rounds. Early days but I suspect there has been a directive to let it go a bit more.

No Stewart and no Kolodjashnij limits their intercept ability, my prediction is they'll stick with the smaller setup. Weideman and Brown out for Gawn and Jackson. If Jackson isn't available I suspect it will be M. Brown out for Gawn, but wouldn't bother me if it was Weid for Gawn.

Our old mate Jesse Hogan playing with a dry ball in the pouring rain in Sydney. Marking everything.

It looks to me in the last couple of weeks the umpires have been directed to put the whistle away. I don't mind it, the game was being over officiated and the umps seemed to feel the need to make a decision in every contest. Fans were getting really sick of it. I think it is annoying how the AFL just don't come out and say it, they are loathe to ever make comment that could be seen as admitting they were wrong. Also, that Mitch Brown blocking free was as bad as I've seen.

Looking forward to seeing the crowd figure for the Pies vs Giants today. My Collingwood supporting mate gave it to me about the 37,700 on Thursday night. Couldn't be many more there today by the looks of things.

Carlton will be a handful. Looked good today with some quality to come back in.

10 scoring shots in a half. Brown 4.6.

Mitch Brown 0.5, not even halfway through the second. All gettable.

Haven't heard Rivers' name called yet. Did he stay in Melbourne as an emergency?

Mine not stopping and starting but very blurry. Haven't had any clear vision yet.

Despite many attempts of excavation, I believe Mav Weller is still somewhere beneath the turf after that one. Brutal.

Spot on. Plus he is generally disliked by opposition supporters whereas the other guys aren't. His game is constantly disrespected by opposition fans. His 45 on the weekend were "only against North". Or his 22 contested possessions were "throws" or "nothing backwards possessions". "How many flops did he get" etc etc etc. Outside of Demons supporters, only true football fans understand exactly how good he is. One of the authors for The Mongrel Punt is one such fan and is always raving about him for exactly the same reasons we all do. It's a shame the other supporters can't see past their own personal opinions of the great man so they can appreciate an absolute master and future GOAT in action.

That is an excellent package. Couldn't love that any more.

Very surprised someone gave Oliver 4, and even more surprised that Viney received 0 from one of them.

My favourite. The Washington Generals would have a better chance of winning. In a twist, the AFL are going announce a combined team on Thursday night made up of the best of our available list and theirs. They're going to call it "Melbourne".

I first noticed in the Richmond game. Bolton is a genuine star and Hunt kept him very quiet indeed. Liam Ryan had 5 touches yesterday. He has all the tools to do that role well and I'm stoked to see him performing. One of my favourites for sure.

The Richmond GF game day thread is quite the eye opener. Most other clubs' supporters were very generous with their praise and understanding of the greatness they were witnessing. So many Richmond supporters were lamenting the fact they weren't in there because they could have easily beaten both grand finalists.

$19 for a two horse race is outrageous. not sure I've ever seen it, not even at our worst or even when GC/GWS first entered the league. I reckon a few have thrown a bit of money at it purely for that reason, shortening the odds slightly.

Found it. Also, someone calls Christian Salem "Christian Slalom" and really enjoyed his own work. "they are corporate - of course they are hypocritical. Its not so much the affair which ruined him with the league - it was all the stuff that happened in the Gold Coast hub period. The Cotchins, Kebabgate etc. As i have said before, i have it on very very good authority that at a time when the AFL were scrambling to keep the competition running to avoid tens of millions of dollars lost....a literal lifetime or achievements [censored] away in one massive pandemic wee .... at a time when they were trying to work out the near impossible logistics of running a national league in a hub, re-accommodating 16 clubs, their entire list + their families, staff..... our club was BY FAR the most annoying, entitled and consuming of their time. Our demands were ridiculous - we had players contacting the VERY HIGH UP AFL officials about ridiculous request like asking for food to be delivered to their rooms at the AFLS cost. One story i heard was that a player contacted Gil directly to ask about getting their pet dog bought up to the hub on the basis that it was his GF's "emotional supporter" animal - it was totally, ******* ridiculous stuff. It all boiled over with the "Cotchins Wife" massage parlour thing. The club then got its [censored] together and just on the cusp of [censored] getting really dicey, Stack and CCJ pulled the "Kebabgate" [censored]. The AFL had ZERO time for our [censored], they saw 17 clubs doing everything they can to make this work & 1 being petulant flogs taking up their valuable time & then still nearly risked it all when they got in a streetfight breaking hub. The AFL had to suck some serious [censored] to convince the QLD govt to not send the entire league home. It was a BIG BIG DEAL.All the while when this is going on, the ******* coach was shacking up with a younger employee inside that same hub while his much adored wife sat at home with the kids. The AFL had a gutful. As i said, when Dimma STUPIDLY made those comments about Stack missing a ******* VFL game about Dan Andrews - the AFL had zero ******* time for it & wanted him under that bus as quickly as possible. You reckon that [censored] blew up into front news story by accident?? the AFL had already seen our behaviour damage their reputation with the QLD govt, & here he is now damaging our reputation with the VIC govt - another ALP govt. They are not going to take the knee off the RFC till Dimma is gone. Just like the Carlton / Elliot, Bombers / Hird & Collingwood Buckley/Macguire problem - it will not end till they have a scalp to hang on the wall as a clear example of "DO NOT fu** WITH THE SYSTEM" The best thing we could do is let the blood be spilt, bottom out & take the pick along with the medicine they want to serve us. Its over folks. 33-13 says it all"