BigFez

Rivers?

May would get Mihocek, not sure if Lever is the right matchup on Ginnivan. Problem with Lever's matchup is that all of their forwards can be dangerous, even the mid year recruit Johnson has shown he can kick goals. Elliot, Ginnivan, Hoskin-Elliot, Johnson, Mihocek, De Goey when he's down there, Carmichael when he's not in the sub vest. With so many forward options they could play through Lever's man if he zones off. I reckon Pig goes to De Goey when he's forward, and Hunt will get Ginnivan. Lever could go to Johnson and as you say Petty to Cameron/Cox.

Would Goody be willing to play one of those guys forward? Have we employed Spargo or ANB as a tagging forward before? Looking forward to seeing how we line up. Prior to his injury Hunt had been having success on the crafty small forward. He do a job on Bolton from Richmond among others, wouldn't be totally surprised if he went to Ginnivan.

Will N. Daicos be minded by Melksham or Harmes? The games I've watched they go to him every chance they get because he is such a good user and decision maker. He gets lots of cheap possessions through handball receives while his opponent is in the defensive zone, but he probably should be shown some respect since he sets them up quite well. Hibberd to Ginnivan? Or Elliot?

Same here. Can't stand them, nor their supporters.

Cats form at the G isn't super compelling. 4 wins 1 loss sounds good, but they beat early season Essendon and Collingwood, fell over the line against Richmond and then beat Carlton, who are presently showing us how well they are going. Chuck in a loss to the Hawks and it is a bit meh. Having said that, they look seriously good at the moment. Tackling hard, great ball movement, playing with dare. Definitely a different proposition to last year.

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.