BoBo

We dominated that game for large portions and should’ve won by 3-4 goals. Tonight our forward line consisted of: Fritsch (with 1 game returning from injury) TMAC (first game after how many weeks since his last AFL game?) JVR (who is probably 2 years from beginning to hit consistency) Just not going to be winning many BIG final games with a forward line in that state when big pack marks are needed especially when we bomb it in repeatedly. That isn’t a knock on those blokes at all, but be realistic, if you’re a defensive unit and those 3 (2 of them having JUST returned to AFL level) are the main targets of the opposition, you aren’t going to be sweating the ball coming down there. And they didn’t, so we lost.

We can’t score.

On Swan Street having a bresky, reckon it’s about 65/35 to Collingwood in terms of numbers. We gotta be LOUD otherwise we’ll be drowned out badly.

I really hope he goes into the media and maintains this style of delivery. Dry but with a lot of clarity. He doesn’t inject any ego into it which is refreshing!

Thanks Bates, yeah true, now you’ve mentioned all that, I expect every step along the way to take longer. 6.30 is probably a good shout.

Need some logistic advice from folks: The game starts at 7.20, is 6.45 arrival at the gates enough time to get in and find seats etc. I assume it’s plenty of time, but has anybody found it has taken longer than this to get into the G with a packed out crowd?

I like the bye week but bloody hell, having to wait for this game is really ramping up the butterflies in the stomach. Tomorrow and Thursday are going to be loooooonnnnnnngggg days.

Lots of great points in this thread, IMHO, this game will come down to basic pressure and physicality around the ball. Mccrae is a smart coach and will have something up his sleeve to alter the game plan that us and Brisbane had figured out by blocking the corridor. Collingwood don’t appreciate being bullied around the ball. I’m talking Geelong V Sydney last GF. Geelong won that game by making Sydney players think more about the Geelong player that was about to tackle them, than by what their disposal should be. Slow the game, don’t let them dictate a fast tempo, be vicious around the ball, make our pressure rating off the scale. If we do that we’ll win.

Yeah I think you’re right. To me Chol looks like a very gifted athlete playing AFL rather than a footy player. Silvagni is a mid-tier player with limited abilities, tries his heart out, but could fit into a team as a role player IMO.

Is he better than Silvagni?

Watching McVee progress. Call me crazy, but there is a very good midfielder in that kid. Hope he gets a chance to spend some time in middle in the coming years as his player awareness is Pendlebury like.

Genetics mostly. Or decreased levels of certain hormones. Keep in mind you could have two people in the same family that have differing levels of hair body hair so it is complicated. That, or they shave.

I’m very tempted to call into a radio program he’s on and ask him about it.

That's really nice! I'll always have a soft spot for Sydney because of Kenny Williams and Adam Goodes. They seem(ed) like thoroughly good people.

Libba is a very good player. Would he be included in the conversation if his name wasn’t Liberatore? Yeah, nah.

On the couch tonight, Gary Lyons introductory question was: ‘Did North do the right thing in forgoing pick 1 for a rare victory?’ That is an implicit endorsement of the tactics of ‘tanking’ being not only a legitimate but a preferred option to obtain higher draft picks. I hope people but this in their memory banks for future accusations of tanking, as we now have a clear statement that this is perfectly fine by a senior AFL journalist on the premier FOX footy show. Unless there is an article that comes out in the next week that questions this framing (remember that Lyon is commenting on the capacity of a journalist), then we have absolute confirmation that tanking is again, not only fine to do, but preferential. [censored] unbelievable how the narrative has changed since we got fined. The AFL has ZERO standards. Just remember this post whenever anyone complains about tanking again.

YES! This is definitely the case for us. Team footy over depending on individual performances. I’ll take it every year. Easy to stand out in a team that is doing poorly.

Obviously the 5 weeks in a row of Freo fans absolutely blasting the kid for poor efforts are well forgotten now.

Yeah true. De Goey gets plaudits because he does ‘spectacular’ things from time to time. Viney consistently does the hard in and under work. So, not very sexy.

Viney > De Goey. There’s not even a discussion to be had.

I made a catastrophic error and foolishly made another topic about this… But in it I said, I don’t think this list is wrong necessarily. Maybe May and Lever yes (I’d take both over Stewart but I’m probably biased), but our backline load has been shared around a fair bit I reckon. Mcvee has been awesome back there, Bowey cops a bit of flack but he wins more than he loses and is a very reliable kick out of the backline. English and Marshall are ahead of Gawn this year I’d say. Right now, I’d take Marshall over English. I think Marshall is underrated if anything. Jackson is WELL below these two. My point is, i don’t think we’ve had too many stand out players as we really have been playing as a team for so much of the year that it makes it hard to find too many standouts, outside of Viney, Tracc, May and Lever. Been a great collective year in my opinion.

Mate stop taking the P*SS. Selwood will obviously be captain. Psssh.

Oh oops, didn’t realise there was already a thread on this. @Demonland feel free to merge or delete 😬😬😬

So the all Australian Squad has come out and interestingly only Viney and Petracca are in it. Pretty interesting considering we’re 4th on the ladder. I don’t know if others think this is a damning indictment on the squad selection or this means that we have spread the load across all of our players so much that apart from Viney or Tracc, there haven’t been any other glaring standouts. I view this as a good thing in a way. Thoughts?

I feel like 20 years ago it was also 12 months to get back to full fitness, I’m surprised the recovery time isn’t shorter now. I know absolutely nothing about sports injuries though.