Ollie fan

Yes. It was interesting to see that absolutely nothing has changed – incredible hometown bias, overwhelming majority of Geelong supporters because Melbourne supporters simply couldn’t get tickets, and the extraordinary homeground advantage, which means Geelong of almost impossible to beat down there. Our mission this year, and over the next few years should be to make them our bunnies.

What a pleasure! And how beautiful a kick was Travis Johnstone? I had forgotten the pleasure of watching him when he was on song.

Panic merchants?? Two years in a row the meanest defence in the league?!!!!

I think the answer to this might be that there are two types of attack from the opposition. The first is setting up a chain of chip and run, which we try to defeat by all-team defence, putting pressure on their ball-carrier and all receiving options, starting at our forward line. The second is when they get the ball from a contested situation, which, as MP describes, can be stymied by having the ruckman play a kick behind.

PS He is also a huge Clarrie fan - sees him as an all-time great.

Has anyone read the Mongrel Punt 2023 season review about us? THE BIG QUESTIONS – MELBOURNE 2023 SEASON PREVIEW Some interesting points - particularly that Fritta has kicked more goals in the last two years than anyone else bar Hawkins -pretty amazing. The MP does not agree with the “selfish” criticism… Like me, he is pretty bullish about 2023- particularly Gawn/Grundy and Langdon/Hunter. A good read if you can get it.

I think if you watch the match again, you will see that we were going pretty hard through the second half, not at our best, but by no means stopped to a walk.

In the last five minutes of the Brisbane match, we were anything but at a walk.

I just watched the second half of that match again. We got killed by the umpires, Kozzie missed two shots he should never ever have missed, yet with a minute to go, we were a real chance. The way I and everyone else on Demonland has reacted, it was a disaster and we were hopeless. Sure, we all wanted to win the premiership and believed we could, but we played a team which had been highly predicted to be the premiers themselves , and had every chance to win it, and it was an extremely close and exciting game. I have never been as optimistic coming into a season as I am for 2023. I think Grundy and Gawn will be incredible together. People say that Oliver is “one of the best midfielders in the competition”. Rubbish. He is hands down the best, not “one of the best”. Petracca is one of the best. Viney is one of the best. We have the best defence in the league, two of the best wingers, and we all hope we will now have a functional forward line. I can’t wait!

True. I dont know why anyone can base a strategy on someone who has yet to play a solid game in the seniors.

Gee, they are pretty good goals!

The problem with the Petracca one was simply that he missed the shot himself. As we can see from the highlights reel, he made up for that with many many goals from difficult shots. The problem is, criticism like this meant that he then spent several games giving off to other players, when he should have taken the shot himself, only to watch them miss it, and, and some cases, lose us the game. He is paid to kick goals, not to assist.

I’m 100% with you on this. It drove me crazy.

To drag this thread back to Clarry: it makes you marvel at the level that he was playing at in circumstances where he had difficulties with his handballing and dominant hand!

That reel shows what a truly class player he is. I would rather have him kicking around the corner from the middle of a crowd than, eg, Tracc lining up for a set shot 20m out. As I have said in other threads: he is there to kick goals and the criticism of him being selfish was totally wrong. He is not like Spargo, there to assist; he is there to finish.

This is a worry!!!

He was also a Federal Minister, and he is one of the all-time great Australians.

Since there are so many certified oldsters, in this particular thread, I wonder if anyone else would like to comment on my long-held belief that Clayton Oliver is very similar to Ron Barassi. I see it in his relentlessness, his determination, and also in things like his kicking style. Some of you are obviously older than me. I remember Barassi, but I was very young. Those who remember him well: do you agree?

That ladder goes to show: there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. We all know that Geelong has numerous players who are right at the end of their careers, and a whole pile of young players who may not turn out to be any good. On the other hand, we have many players in the 23 to 27 bracket. The average is arrived at completely differently.

I thought we had Salem, Bowey, Rivers, Brayshaw and a couple of Casey kids…..

Naturally, Collingwood’s game against Geelong – Geelong’s home game – is at the MCG.

I think he’s yet another reason to get excited about 2023 and beyond. Our player development now is terrific with players being given plenty of time at Casey to fill out and strengthen and learn the game. Looking at the training pictures of JVR and you can see that he has now become an adult. I think Jefferson will be the same. I love his one grab marking, and with time, there is every reason to think he will be a great pick up.

Why oh why do they have to keep messing around with things? This new rule has no point whatsoever except to stop the cheating everyone but MFC did within the totally unnecessary medi-sub rule.

Get real.

Fix the rules and that would fix the umpires. With the present interpretative rules, more umpires means more inconsistency.