Grr-owl

Even Gawn can't afford Malvern.... had to settle for Malvern the Lesser.

Good point. I work in said windswept soulless high-rise wasteland these days with said overseas students. Have made it standard practice to tell them that all overseas students are obliged to support the Melbourne Football Club. I explain that it is a law, and say that they ticked the MFC box on the landing card as they flew in and now must follow through. Doesn't seem to be having the effect I assumed it would, but you never know...

Nah, there's nothing in that...

Unless they're from Adelaide.... BROO-HOO-HA-HA-HAAAA! Oh...... love an incest joke. Probably won't make it past the mods.... 🤪

Marginal seat. Didn't used to be. Is now.

Great news.

Dew could get a job as a ship.

And the teams responded tactically.... Five years on, we aren't going to win that way. Don't have the right players.

And then how would the defence set up? Chaos for them; chaos for us, too. In other words, we'd have to win by luck. The way we attack has a defensive function. It locks the oppo in to a spot they can't get out of. Hence the huge number of re-entries. It keeps the balls in our hand and not the oppo's - with the welcome consequence of them not being able to score - and tires them out. We wear them down with superior fitness and kick goals (most of the time) and win.

EXACTLY. Didn't mean to type in all-caps, but that was the way it came out and I'm accepting the Freudian Typo... The alternative would be spearing it hard and fast to leading players who are surrounded by defenders in the zone (that's what a zone is for) who would spoil it for a quick rebound with multiple options out. To be fair, that's not much different from the situation now, though that difference must be significant in some way, otherwise we wouldn't be doing it. If I was to speculate, I'd say the stats for either marking it or crumbing by blokes running toward goal from the fifty or out the back are better than those for cleaning up after a spoiled lead, offensively and defensively. Dunno. What're the stats on our returns from different types of entries in games we win vs games we lose? Not sure it actually matters; missed shots on goal is the most important stat in footy.

Cheers, Champ. Devastated that I will no longer be able to bellow "HIB-BOW-AH!" at the tele every time he gets the ball...

Two talls in the backline. We don’t win with two talls.

Wet weather. Play slow. Kick behinds. Lose.

Not telling, darling...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARC!

With the caveat that this is mildly tongue-in-cheek and obviously exaggerated, would Binman please explain himself? I took my seat in the top deck of the G — amidst a throng of similarly-bearded amateur tacticians — expecting to observe an outfit at the peak of conditioning whizzing about the turf in uncatchable arcs. But they didn't turn up. In their place I witnessed the stodgy, second-to-it, fumblemaniac leadfoot brigade of the mid-season-preseason struggle to propel the ball over the goal line from 40. Slip n' slide conditions acknowledged, where was the energy?

Occurred to me that the kick into the pocket plays a defensive role. If we turn it over, the oppo is already hemmed in and therefore it's easier for us to keep it in our fifty. My 2c

Debacle in de desert….

Beware the price setting power of the Communist Party of China....

Was gonna make the very same comment... even the Cox bit.

nor teeth

If an opportunity arises for some lighthearted chat, I'd like to know what gets on Rick Lever's nerves. And then, once Rick is down, what Steven does to make things that much worse for him. 😉

Gutless. Where's the comeback? Where's the grit?

My folks live near the new Anzac station and I live in Caufield very close to the racecourse. Never takes me more than 15-20 to get to my folks and that's straight up Dandenong Road.....

Good point this past one.... jokes about the river aside. That bloody bay gets in the way....