Rab D Nesbitt

Credit to Fremantle. Not many sides can make Carlton look this good.

West Coast and Fremantle game-time booing now at franchise records of 87% and 72% respectively.

Strap yourself in old dee. If our forward line clicks we're coming home like Australia II back in 1983.

Jesus. Just tuned in. 16 scoring shots early in the 2nd quarter for the bummers.

Always preferred Kehoe's round the corner for an after work pint or my local the Leeson Lounge.

With a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy?

Schache mounting a case to be named as an unused emergency in the senior squad next week.

Yeah, for sure Kev. Gave me the impression that the majority of their members might be GA as level 3 was quite full. We would've had at least 2k in the bottom deck behind the goals at the Bourke St end.

I'm on the Sunbury line THBT so I feel you. At least I could catch a V-Line train in and out yesterday as there's a station almost the same distance from my nearest metro stop. I think the stadium is a bit like the Docklands area itself and might take a few attempts to get it right but you can't deny that the ground itself is in a great spot.

We sat on level 3 on a dockside flank and it looked like an even balance of supporters in our area at least. I think there were a lot more than 2k of us there. It's true the ground doesn't have a lot of character but the AFL are working on changing that as could be seen with all the boarded up entrances to the ground. It's in a prime spot of the city with metro and country train lines feeding into it too. I have to laugh when I hear people say they won't go to a ground in the centre of town of the same city because it's soulless. They've clearly never had to make the journey to VFL Park. Can you imagine a supporter of Spurs or Arsenal scoring tickets to an away game against each other and saying they would love to go if it wasn't such a soulless bowl. I just read it as they can't be @rsed going, which is fine.

AAMI Park was built for football and rugby so those sports will always take priority there. It sucks from a track watchers perspective but at least Casey has all that is required as a training facility and I'd guess that most AFL footballers would live on the eastern side of the city although Ben Brown wouldn't necessarily look forward to the daily commute from Ascot Vale.

Will need to watch the replay but having read some of the comments on the thread I'm not sure we should equate St Kilda down three players = Melbourne were poor for not putting them away. Both sides had their issues to deal with, theirs on the night and us coming into the game with another makeshift forward combination and a less experienced midfield due to pushing Trac forward. It felt a bit like the Suns game where they were really hard at it throughout but we did just enough during the periods where we were in the ascendency to keep them at bay by being better in front of goal. I was really flat after last week but it helps just to look at how a game plays out in isolation rather than what it does or doesn't do for our premiership chances. We're already into the back half of the year and a long summer without any football is just over the horizon.

I'm worried we won't be able to keep them under our score of 4.28.52

Why didn’t GWS have a banner? Not enough AFL funding? 😂 Lack of experience shouldn’t be a thing. They’ve been in the league for long enough. You’ve been to banner making, DP. It’s a lot of work but it’s not rocket science. 🙂 I also think the game being played in Alice might be the reason. They didn’t have a cheer squad there and maybe they didn’t have enough ppl to raise a banner. 🤷‍♀️ Yes and it's not rocket science to take advantage of Demon Army's offer of shared resources either for the Alice game. Oh well, just another disappointing moment from GWS. But having witnessed our cheer squad in action, I'm just surprised at the lack of effort. Good thing we've got the best cheer squad in the league 😁 There was a time back around 1990 or so when we played Fitzroy at Princes Park. Both the club and the cheer squad were a rabble by then (I think we won by 130 points or so) and an hour before the game they asked if they could borrow our new state of the art poles as they couldn't find theirs and had nothing to lift up their run through. We of course said they weren't getting within 100 metres of our poles but if they could organise their team to delay coming out of their race by 2 minutes we would lift ours, strip the poles, run over to the southern side of the ground, tape their run through on to them and lift it up in time for their team to break through it. It went like clockwork.

Selectors seem to be throwing darts when it comes to picking a forward line. This is the least enthused I've been about a game in a long time.

The way we're currently travelling it won't be long before we're death riding our own picks.

Due to list constraints and salary caps we can only turn over so many average players each year. In Europe any forward playing as poorly as ours are would just be shipped off to a side in a lower league or to another country to find their true level and instantly replaced. In our game there’s also a finite number of high quality individuals you can target to improve your team. All sides have to carry a sizeable number of average footballers and try and coax the best they can from them and it’s just unfortunate that ours are mostly at one end of the ground.

I'm the furthest thing from an expert you'll find on this site but basing your game on creating forward half turnovers means you're inevitably kicking into a heavily congested forward line where pinpoint passing to a target can be so important, particularly in challenging conditions. In contrast a clearly inferior opposition fed off our scraps and on the few occasions they got out the back had a paddock to run into. I get more frustrated by really cheap misses early like Fritta today and Joel Smith last week. This game could have been over before it ever became an arm wrestle.

Geez. Dominated 110 of the 120 minutes but coughed up another 4 points. I messaged a mate online at 3/4 time to say we could keep GWS goalless if we dominate territory like we did in the last part of the 3rd quarter and we almost did. Can't fault the effort. I thought Mcvee and Bowser were very good and JV was ridiculous. Trac is maybe trying too hard. I still think we're easily the best of the sides vying for 4th spot but you wouldn't put any money on us finishing there.

I'm glad to see the back of him to be honest. He made it so difficult to hate Celtic for those two years but normal service can now be resumed thankfully. My team 'down south' is Brentford but I hope he sticks it up all the naysayers down there and win a major trophy with them.

I'm certainly happy about his appointment A F.

Pity our chances of finishing 2nd have almost been snuffed out but that's on us. That said, if we had to miss out on a home Qualifying final then Essendon losing after the siren is how I'd want it to happen.

Seeing so many reprobates in the crowd enjoying themselves is putting me off my dinner.

I'd wager that Collingwood still look to see when they are playing Carlton first and vice versa. Essendon are more interested in trying to play and win a final than anything else but would also consider those two clubs as being their biggest rivals and the teams they want to beat above anyone else. I agree that the others you mention will certainly be circling us on the fixture as we arguably stand in their way of any immediate success, much like we do with them but that would have to play out over a longer period of time I think for it to manifest into much more than that. For what it's worth I'm not really bothered about whether we have a rival or not, real or manufactured. We're a boutique middle of the road sized team in the biggest footballing city of the country and I'm quite happy with that as I don't think it affects our chances of being successful and I don't particularly want to be a club that everyone hates.

Hi AF. Yeah, I'd agree that the Bulldogs are probably the closest thing to having a genuine rivalry but it probably needs to play out over a longer period of time before we'll know for sure. Add a couple of onfield incidents to the mix and we'll be well on the way to an annual grudge game.