Gawndy the Great

Me same.

I’m looking at my 2022 options and really wanted to get something in the Olympic stand as that is where the fans seem to congregate. However everything seems to be sold out on level 2 reserved seating. I’m looking now at Trident level for me and my son in the southern stand just on the HF flank. Never watched a game from there but managed to get this Virtual view generated online. Seems pretty good but not sure how immersed well be with other Dees fans on this side of the ground. my son wants ground level (10yo) so he can be closer to the action but I told him it’s not as good to watch the game unfold and you end up watching the game in the screen.

I think we need to timebox the draft picks...at this rate it'll take longer than the AFL trade period.

My order is still awaiting fulfilment. Bought on the night of the GF win.

Hi all looking for some feedback on 2022 memberships. Looking to upgrade and wanted some ideas on best options. i like the idea of being in the Olympic Stand but don’t like being at ground level. Not a huge fan of the SOuthern Stand as we seem to be away from the crop of Melbourne supporters. In the Olympic Stand the Q section Is the top tier and according to the seat map is public admission. Is this available to the home membership (base level)? If so are there any additional charges on the day as opposed to the southern stand)? Q2 is there a trident family equivalent or at least a junior variation to the membership? If so Is this considered reserved seating as it appears to be a waiting list involved here. Not sure I’ll get access to this though. any other options? Looking to spend ball park $500 for myself and son (10 yo) and optionally mrs. Any recommendations greatly appreciated.

Assuming this is the case, can you imagine how good LJ will be in his mid 20s!

i can just see this years trade as Saad and Williams v2. The issue has never been with the talent they have on the list. The situation is comparable to an amateur golfer buying the new sexy driver at $1K thinking it will make them a scratch golfer. Carlton's problem is gameplan, plain and simple. Maybe Vossy will make a difference, but i think they will endure a lot more pain in the short term (like we did when Roos came on board) before they really really commit. its not like a light switch that you can just switch on and say im going to be selfless or a defensive gameplan is just going to work. These changes will take years and i wouldnt be surprised if Carlton go backwards a bit before they improve. Im not phased that Cerra went to Carlton tbh. Im actually stoked that we got Dunstan. He is a clearance specialist, which will work really nice with our new found weapon in scores from clearances.

This has to be the strategy in the draft. Midfielders are a dime a dozen. But a KP player is always hard to come by. Somebody of the McKay or Logan ilk will have the perfect opportunity to develop under our system and will be ready to go in 2-3 years time without being rushed in like his predecessors. We have a few years to get this right and still have Weid as a backup. But for the sake of longevity and continued success this is the area we need to have longer term solution for.

I agree re: Lockhart. Have we heard anything about his desire to play elsewhere? He had some talent, so not sure if his condition, lack of VFL exposure or desire is at the heart of this call.

There were times in the past 5 years that we would get carved up in the middle and at stoppages by a select few teams. St Kilda was one of them and i remember Dunstan was always one of the main culprits. Glad he is on our side now. This will put the focus on one of Sparrow / Harmes / JJ / Viney though in the team. But a bit of competition for spots is always a good thing. Our midfield talent / depth is becoming very enviable at the minute.

And it’s the slowest part of the day too which adds salt to the wound.

Can’t stand him so naturally everything he says will irritate me as this list has done. Tries to be like Kano but at least Kano’s dribble makes sense some of the time.

watched almost all the analysis with exception to Q2. Im not happy with the sentiment that Q3 stoppage wins were 'lucky' to fall our way, because luck would have a way of evening out. The other thing that struck me was that in Q3 the 2 centre clearances won by the Doggies were actually by free kick rather than talent alone. Good work by the analyst, but there is a bit of bias in the story telling.

I absolutely loved Browny growing up. He was such a heart on sleeve player and was courageous and left nothing out on the field. Bumped into him at Southland once and felt like a little kid having a chat. If he is half as talented as his old man... we are due for a few F/S coming our way.

100%. The only issues id see here is licensing and use of the other radio streams. All roads lead back to the AFL so im sure they are on top of this. Id also like to see an audio option where the team & coaching panel do some commentary - almost like a 'directors cut' type of thing. Not sure 4K would be an option as the channel 7 camera's at the ground are probably not capable of that level yet given they still broadcast in a poor man's HD (720p) format.

I did see it up on our shop initially but its not there anymore. Do you know if they will be relisting this? As this is probably new territory for all of us, i am hopeful that they have some additional features over and above the game.

They increase training load to maintain / extend fitness levels so they can hold up in September. Short term pain for long term gain.. think of it as a mini preseason during the season.

We were rated the most inaccurate for a fair chunk of the season. Improve that and perhaps we can go even better!

17-1-4 (130.8%) for a total of 70 pts was our record in the 2021 home and away season. 3-0-0 (213.1%) was our finals record taking our overall season performance to 20-1-4 (139.4%). We had some fantastic wins with 80% win-loss against the top 8 sides. But i want to examine how close we really were to pulling off one of the most amazing seasons in AFL history. Our finals will go down in the history books as being one of the most dominant and clinical performances, effectively putting to bed beyond any doubt that we were the best team in 2021. But this thread is not about that. I wanted to hone in on where we left some points on the table and determine how close we were to pulling off a lossless season. Round 10: AFC vs MFC 96-95. It was a tantalizing game of football by one of the up and coming (surprisingly) teams in the AFL. The Crows put up a performance that everyone was probably a little unprepared for including the players out on the ground. We hadn't seen that brand of fast ball movement and tactics against our defensive structures. Whilst the Crows were at/near the bottom, they were definitely giving us a sneak peak of the threat they will pose with their list in the years to come. How close were we? Really really close. I think we all agree we were robbed in this game of at least 2 points. A few very controversial non free kicks in the last 1-2 mins. It was also probably the first signs of fatigue starting to set in in the season. Salem was rested, our forward 50 connection was not where we wanted it to be. Some interesting stats from the game. +37 disposals Crows, +7 i50 Dees, +23 clearances Dees, +11 contested possessions, 15-6 to 14-11 and we were in front for about 70% Round 13: MFC vs CFC 63-80. We actually started this game well, but you could tell there was a lack of intensity in comparison to the Pies from the get go. Could have been that wave 3 was kicking in, but probably had more to do with the Pies playing out of their skins for Bucks. In retrospect, this was one of, if not the worst performance of 2021 and it was only a 3 goal loss. We have all heard that good teams can still find a way to win, even if they are not playing well, but we didn't use the ball well enough (despite having lower turnovers that the Pies). The Pies were able to get their kick-mark game going (97- 124), which we were never really looked to undo. Surprisingly we took back the lead in the 3rd quarter and also won the free kick count (28-17), but after being beaten in the clearances and back-to-back-to-back goals to start the last quarter, it was just not going to be our day. How close were we? Had a sniff. I'd say that the occasion had the Pies playing well above themselves and that a few players had already checked out for the upcoming bye. Round 16: MFC vs GWS 55-64 Cant say i recall too much from this game other than thinking we were outcoached. I have always rated GWSs stoppage work - they are so tenacious and clean at the contest and were able to get the ball out of traffic quickly and seamlessly, to their runners with such ease. Our goal kicking accuracy also really let us down with a 2.4 to 1.2 last quarter performance that had it been reversed, would have just got us over the line. We had +1 scoring shots, had much more of the ball but were smashed in the stoppage game. The narrative of the inevitable fall was also starting to take hold in the media. Only lead for 2 mins, but probably was the impetus of GWS late season build of form. How close were we? Could of, should of, would of. Bad kicking = Bad football. Round 18: MFC vs HFC 79-79. I hate the Hawks (lot of rivalry with mates during early 2000s) and so whenever we dont win, it feels like the end of the world for me at least. This game had a cracking first quarter, but my attention was drawn to the intensity of HFC and thought it was not going to be a walk in the park despite where they were on the ladder. It had some similarities to the Crows about 2 months earlier. Whilst we beat them comprehensively earlier in the year, it was only the last quarter where we were able to build a generous lead. We all know the genius coaching of Clarko and how he is able to take our game away from us and we saw it again on this occasion with a Clarko masterclass. We had well and truly settled into being one of the least accurate goal kicking teams with another poor 11-13 to 12-7 display. How close were we? Statistically speaking, this was ours, but had the game gone on another 1-2 mins, you feel like we were lucky to hang onto the 2 points in the end. Round 19: MFC vs WB 65-85 Our first and only back-to-back loss of the year but more importantly, our last one too. Like the first encounter, it was a subdued game where both teams were trying to find a weakness but not really challenging each other. The Doggies were able to adjust their game style to suit the conditions. The umpires had an absolute howler of a game where they were responsible for changing the momentum in the last quarter even though we got to within a goal of the margin. Doggies had a freakish forward 50 stoppage conversion game and our goal kicking accuracy again haunted us with a 1.4 opening quarter. How close were we? Loading, umpiring & goal kicking accuracy. Projected score (champion data) had us winning by 1. So there you go folks, we were 18 points away from the statistically perfect season. We had no blow outs, despite clearly hitting some form issues after the bye and our total losing margin for the whole year was 49 points. FORTY-NINE POINTS! I still cannot believe that. An amazing 2021 capped off in the best way possible. It is going to be tough to top that in 2022 but it is absolutely possible.

I’ve watched the Kayo mini about 10 times and bits and pieces of the full replay on and off for the last 7 days so couldn’t say precisely. I could watch the last 8-10 mins of the 3 rd quarter infinitely it was that good.

Don’t forget we’ll have a look at Jeff Whites young boy in about 4 years time as well. The kid is 194 cm at 14 yo and playing well.

We would have got peanuts for Weed going by these trades.

I was thinking back to the comments in the media last and earlier this year around Petraccas comparison to Dusty and how he’d have to prove it on the big stage. I know Dusty has 3 ( 1 should have really gone to Bachar) Norms but I think Tracs performance is leaps and bounds ahead of Dusty’s and i think is now the new bench mark. I don’t think this performance has been lauded enough for what it was imo. Maybe it will be spoken of more in the coming years but it will go down in history as one of the best GF games anyone has played. Really wish he got the 40 touches and kicked 1 more goal… so close.

I think the bottom 4-6 players as a unit have all improved but the one player I noticed yelling at much less was ANB 😀 so he takes the cake.

If I was Norf I’d go for him at pick 1 and make the Doggies cash in a lot of future picks and fringe players. The fact they can finish as they have in the past two years and get the crème of the crop is fundamentally wrong. We get robbed of Mac Andrew and the team that caused that rule change will still get another top 5 draft player albeit via F/S just doesn’t sit well.