Hopeful Demon

Win's a win. The first three quarters were far from enjoyable but I like how we responded in the last. Van Rooyen was incredible late. Looks a gun. Chandler's fast becoming one of my favourite players. He's tough, quick and super composed. Love him.

Chandler was kept out of the team for too long.

Why the [censored] are we giving Cumberland a field day? He's not that good.

Already kicked 11 goals this season. Not bad for a 'lazy' footballer.

We've started in the very same fashion as we did against Brisbane.

Very harsh on Trac imo. I thought he was arguably our best player, especially in the second half.

I'll definitely take that. West Coast made us play an absolute scrapfest in the first half but in the end our class and fitness got us over the line. It was great to see Tmac find some form and Trac get back to his goal-kicking best. I'm also loving the look of Mcvee at the moment. You wouldn't have thought it was only his fourth game if you watched him play closely.

Fritsch has a love affair with this ground.

Now that was a win and a half. We looked mentally shot early in the third quarter but the way in which we halted Sydney's momentum was reminiscent of 2021. Our midfield responded brilliantly after last week. Grundy was BOG in my opinion. Oliver was back to his best. Petracca started slowly but got going in the second half. More importantly, I'm loving our forward mix right now. Chandler was excellent. Frtisch was vital. Van Rooyen looks a player. It feels so surreal watching us beat up Sydney like that.

Fritsch really knows how to turn the momentum of games.

There's never a stress-free game against Sydney.

Already love Hunter as a player.

Yeah nah

Great quarter. Hibberd's showing that he's too good for the VFL.

Basically a carbon copy of the West Coast game in 2021. The only difference is that we were the ones playing catch up this time.

What's with our inability to take a mark?

We're miraculously still in this game.

Easily our worst quarter in three years. Yes, we're missing Gawn and May but surely our mids can win a clearance.

What a way to start the season! We looked so much sharper than we did towards the end of 2022. We were faster with our ball movement and our forwardline looked very settled. Gawn was simply outstanding. Lever was BOG in my opinion. I lost count of the number of goals he saved, especially during the second quarter. Also a shout out to Tomlinson. People were questioning his selection but he made a huge difference to our backline.

So much for the myth that Lever can't function without May.

Disagree. We've all seen what Pickett can do when he's at his best. And 2021 showed that Brown and Tmac can be very damaging when they're both fit.

I feel that Petracca is badly under-represented here. In terms of natural talent and watchability, he's very high in the list of best Melbourne players over the past 20 years. If he improved his goalkicking he'd be absolutely unstoppable.

The best 5 players of my lifetime (20 years) would be: 1. Gawn 2. Oliver 3. Petracca 4. Neitz 5. Yze

Oliver is so glorious to watch when he's on the outside.

The Gawn/Grundy combo looks top notch already.