Swooper1987

the silver lining to the Oliver injury.

Massive kudos to Smith for how he took that. He went right up in my estimation after that. He would've fitted in perfectly in the 1980's. Win 'em and wear 'em.

N55 - happy days

The Tigers never had more than 2 selected in any of their flag years. 2017 Rance and Martin, 2019 Grimes and Houli and 2020 only Martin. The AA team is not always a good indicator of who is the best team in club land.

He was great. Right man at the right time

He's an excellent footballer. When the game was at it's hottest he looked very comfortable. Great skills under pressure and a great footy brain.

Ryan Clarke in for Papley. Looks like Oliver will have more company.

Fantastic news. He's doing a great job.

McCartin - very bloody lucky

He was moved off Oliver in the last and on to Rivers. And as to winning, he cleaned up Daicos and Liberatore before he went off and they won both of those. Face it, like everything there is a time and a place for a good tagger.

Clearly there is because Oliver was largely an irrelevant factor in the game for probably the first time in his career. Nobody else has managed to achieve that.

A good win against a team that has improved markedly over the season. Mitchell is an outstanding young coach. Hawthorn have some excellent players and as maddening as it is, they will become a very good team quite quickly. We did what we needed to do. Our defence, in particular Lever, Rivers and McVee were outstanding. No great influence from Petracca and Oliver and nothing at all from Pickett only enhances the win. I wish Goodwin had let the Maginess question go through to the keeper. His response was churlish. The game has a place for everyone and taggers have been around for a long time. Oliver was beaten, accept it and be better next time. Nicks' presser last night was the template for class under pressure.

Bombers have been lame ducks for a while now. Scraped over the line against two of the worst sides in VFL/AFL history. Their form is putrid. Collingwood would need another 6 of their best dozen out to lose to these guys next week. Hard to judge the Giants when they are playing witches hats, but I do hope they belt Carlton next week.

Here it is:

He's become a very important player. Our most improved and top half dozen in the Bluey I'd say. I always feel confident when he's near the ball - that he'll win it if it's in dispute and that he'll use it well when he get possession. Fast becoming my favourite player.

A superstar. The best ruck of his generation with a record comparable to the greatest of all time. The most influential Demon of my time supporting this club.

Listening to the First Crack crew it's all down to Gawn. A crazy stat relating to his rating points. Above 13.7 and basically we don't lose. Less than that and we are basically 50/50. Another stat relating to his score involvements. If he has 5 or more a game we basically don't lose. Only once this year he had less than 5 and we won - that was against Collingwood.

Hope whatever it is doesn't keep him out. Game 200 against the Hawks for the champ.

Was a hard watch. Based on that Spargo maybe and Tomlinson if we want the extra tall back were the only listed Demons worthy of consideration. I think we need more run against Hawthorn.

Just need to get it done against the Hawks then we can do whatever we need to against the Swans to get the final match up we want. The exact reason why all last round games should be played at the same time.

We can't let Newcombe do as he pleases. The guy is an absolute gun.

Hawthorn playing great footy. We need to be on right from the start next week.

Can't agree with that. He, along with nearly every other forward on the ground was ordinary last night. He was stiff against North - should've had about three frees that weren't paid and before that has been very good. He is very good in a defensive forward role. As I said, the logical match up for Sicily.

Melksham must stay in next week. He's the logical match up for Sicily. If we shut him down, we win. Need to keep his intercept game under control. Gawn to ruck solo. The Hawks run well and are surprisingly, for a young team, running out the season very well. Schache is not the answer forward. We need competitors and he is not one. We have a days extra break on them but this is now must win to lock up top 4. Can't see Carlton losing either of their last two. A win this week for us locks up top 4 and then we get to choose how we go against the Swans depending on the finals possibilities.

A great game of footy. We put ourselves in a losing position early in the last with some terrible centre clearance work. And that was a collective poor effort from Brayshaw, Petracca, Oliver and Viney in that period. We steadied eventually and proved that we were as good as them at our best and time ran out. The Grundy experiment - I like him but he doesn't add what we need. No goals and no idea of forward craft really. Hard to judge entirely on last night - it wasn't a game for big forwards. Our best hope is Fritsch and TMac get back quick. When last we saw him, Tom looked cooked, hopefully he has one shot left in the locker. Leading and contesting is what we desperately need. Looking at what's left of the available options you can put a line through Brown on that front. We have won 5 in a row and could mount a case that we were a bit unlucky not to be celebrating our 6th in a row yet there is still so much room for improvement. Unfortunately, the Hawks next week is now must win. Carlton should win their last two and if we drop both we finish 5th and from there it can all be over very quickly.