JimmyGadson

Hibberd was on Zuhuar for a good chunk of the game and also thrashed him. Our entire defence thrashed North due to our complete dominance as an entire side. I wouldn't take too much out of Smith's individual performance in that game. I'd take almost none.

I think you're overestimating. Carlton and Richmond get a crowd of 80k when they're crap which is enormous. They are two of the most followed sides in the AFL. Wednesday night. Middle of the week. Makes it very hard for any regional supporters to want to travel in. Biggest crowd us and the dogs have pulled is not even 50k. I'm not sure how you think we'll pull anything near 80k given covid, it's the middle of the week and we're up against a side who has a similarly small supporter base at an away ground. I'll be impressed if we were to hit 70k but I'm thinking between 55-65k. Really they should have fixtured this on the Thursday or better, the Friday night if the AFL wanted us to get close to cracking any sort of record. But Carlton and Richmond is guaranteed $ for them regardless of their ladder positions. The Wednesday fixture was never going to give us the opportunity to fill the stadium.

I can only assume you're a youngster... We reached approx 53,000 members after our grand final win. Some of those members were WA people who support other clubs but purchased a membership to gain GF entry. Where do you believe another 15-20k members are going to appear from by the middle of the year? The only possible way that could possibly happen is if the MFC/MCC dual membership came down to some ridiculous price. I don't understand where you think that amount of new members will come from if not from the MCC?

Still not as putrid as us cobba.

It's hard to fathom that posters think it's hard to fathom that we have similar membership numbers to teams like St Kilda. Really, I don't know how people think sometimes. It's as if they've already forgotten how bad we were and for how long. From 2006-17 we didn't once play finals and many of those years we were bottom 5 with a couple of wooden spoons and several false dawns. We made a prelim in 2018 and then undid all that good work by finishing second last the following year. Two seasons later and we've won our first flag in 57 years. It takes a decade of competitive football, unearthing stars and playing regular September footy to build a strong membership base. Not being a flash in a pan side.

On a mobile away so can't access/download an extension to bypass pay wall. Would love a pm of the article!

Could someone pm me also? Don't have a subscription and don't want one. Ta! Also, go dees. Still can't believe it.

I love life.

Fair point. I want both though. To soak up this dream and also intel on Cerra. We deserve it!

Trac rides the highs and lows of the external talk too much. It's great when it's positive feedback but when it's negative, he is affected easily. And being Captain, one needs more of a carefree approach ala Maxy. Trac has more sensitivity to him, so it's Lever for next Captain for me too. Trac will be one of the greats, he's the perfect vice skip in time but let's let him keep growing and dominating for the next couple of years.

Tom Morris and 'No idea' Ralphy said Cerra was to nominate Carlton as his preferred some point this week. However, I've read and heard elsewhere that he's yet to make up his mind. Wish @Chook in Perthcould give us a little teaser...

I have a feeling you don't know what you're talking about a lot of the time on here.

Unfortunately, to win flags you have to be ruthless. If giving up Sparrow and Jordan for picks to help land Cerra is on then it's a no brainer. Cerra would be unbelievable for us. He is a top 5 pick pick and I watched him multiple times live in his draft year. We're in our window now so ruthless decisions have to be made. Not sure why anyone would be upset to lose Sparrow/Jordan if it meant we could get Cerra.

Surely a bit more detail @Chook in Perth?

Does Ralph provide anything? The amount of nothing articles that circulate the news outlets are soooooo tiresome. He provided absolutely nothing new in the above. And he has no idea whether or not we can facilitate a trade. Why would he use the word impossible? How many times do we see a player nominate a club of choice, only to be denied? Rarely if ever. If we've met with him, the longer he waits to nominate, surely the likelihood of him wanting to come to us goes up given we're still playing.. No? Ralph is such a facepalm.

Is this what Heaven feels like?

May as well post it here @Lord Nev. We all want in on it now. It is a supporters forum after all.

Got me..

Cameron gave him a bath. What were you watching? Smith has potential and an athletic profile that you'd kill for. But that's it. His defensive positioning and football IQ is not there. That was evident against Cameron on multiple occasions.

If he nominates us, we'll facilitate a trade. In past seasons where trading future picks weren't a thing, we'd have little to no way of executing other then giving up a quality young player or two. But we could make this happen with smart trading of picks and maybe we'll be giving up a weed or someone on the fringe to acquire more picks. There will always be clubs looking for bulk pick swaps for one high pick. It can happen. And it's exciting. Perhaps I've got my dees cap on, but if I was Cerra I'd be concerned about what's gong on at the blues atm. They're a rabble. We're in the best position we've ever been in regards to being a destination club and it doesn't always last long. So in my view, if we're a sniff for landing him we should be going hard at it. I watched Cerra in his draft year when I was doing some scouting and he is all class. His use and composure is something we've lacked and he's exactly what we're missing in that midfield mix. Also, hasn't had a break out year so his potential is still enormous and works in our favour as far as facilitating a trade goes.

In the big league and in important games you can't only provide that off the ball as a key position forward. He had 4 touches. If it was a defensive forward role and he was instructed to shut an important oppo player down and only had 4 touches then we'd view it differently. But he was poor again for the second week in a row. Really poor. Just look at his body language post game, he looked dejected compared to everyone else. Tricky situation. I'm of the believe that we function better one tall less. So I'd look at dropping T Mac and potentially bringing Melksham back depending on who we play. T Mac and Brown were also going up for the same ball on many occasions. I don't think they compliment each other. I have no idea what we'll do, but we've carried Tom the past two weeks.

Great win last night. However, our inability to stop the best small forwards in the game is still evident which is why Maynard would be such a great addition. Our keys are the best in the game. But when you lump Salem, Rivers and Hunt together, they're all too offensively minded. Bowey has only played a handful of games but he's another who will be best used as a ball user and runner coming out of d 50. Joel Smith got a massive lesson last night and if we end up playing GWS in the prelim I think I'd prefer Hibberd to be playing a lockdown role. Maynard is the logical Hibberd replacement. Tough, uncompromising, plays the lockdown role, quick, good user. Ticks every box. Land him and we will be breaking all sorts of AFL defensive back six records and will have one of the most intimidating, impenetrable defensive units the game will have seen. No joke. Our list is in a great spot but we still need a couple of tinkers. One more ball user/outside linebreaking mid imo. And the forwardline is interesting. Still getting the job done, but it seems we function better a tall less? Brown, T Mac and Jacko/Gawn isn't working. T Mac has again put up a stinker which has me intrigued for selection in two weeks. He had four touches. That's a big yikes. Unreal watching our side at the moment, super exciting. Keep riding the wave. This post could have been in a different thread but I don't care. We're into a prelim. Let's go. Go dees.

lol. Have you heard of that salary cap thingo?

Unbelievable win, still in disbelief. Wins like that build a club. We're onto something special here. Let's go.

Smith was okay, did some good and some bad but imo he was in due to matchups and to allow Lever to play his intercept role. Brisbane only have two genuine marking talls, it's their small forwards that are dangerous and Smith tends to go up when he doesn't need to. Smith comes out purely because of matchups. Sparrow for Jordan is the only other one I can imagine happening.