Great Northern Summer

He said he would if we beat Collingwood today. Sad to know that I know this, I know. I need to spend the valuable time I have in my life listening to more relevant people that offer something useful.

Collingwood have been average the last three weeks. They beat Carlton easily on the scoreboard but inaccurate kicking cost Carlton, should have been a lot lot closer. North got within 5 goals or thereabouts and West Coast were only two goals down at one stage in the third quarter. They’re just going along and are tired. I think they’ll drop a few games now, including tomorrow. There are no excuses from us.

I realise i'll be mocked here for saying this, but what about offering Jesse Hogan a two year contract? I understand he's out of contract at end of season. Surely this would be worth the risk? He seems like he's been more switched on over the last few seasons and improved his discipline.

Sorry? Trying to work out the logic of your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. You’d rather finish 5th than 3rd? 😲 You think if we finish 3rd, we’d have 0% chance of beating 2nd? If we finish 3rd and win the qualifying final, we are straight through to a home preliminary final. If we have no chance of beating 2nd in a qualifying final, regardless of where the game is, we are no chance of winning the flag and we’re just making up the numbers.

Although they came good in the third quarter against us, and out scored Port in the last half last week. Cause for optimism

100%. Never been this evident.

Garfield is Gary Ayres. His other nickname :-)

Garfield was not a thug thank you. Just because he won a Norm Smith against us, doesn't make him that.

I had the same thing many years ago, a few weeks before I was about to run the London marathon. The GP said 'you can't run for a month now, there's major risks exercising with an infected blister'. I went to get a second opinion from Doc Reid, he said 'you're an [censored], of course you're running'

Also has us as Premiership favourite by some way. I get how it uses some formula to predict finishing positions after H&A season based on opponents and current ladder position, but how on earth does it determine likelihood of finals matches outcomes?

Would’ve been dropped anyway

Yep and Collingwood are seemingly making the same mistake we made last year - not resting players when they have the golden opportunity to. They could leave half a dozen of their big names home this weekend and easily account for WCE. % is irrelevant for them anyway as they're likely to finish clear 1st after the H&A season - doesn't mean much if they aren't able to peak come the finals, which I suspect is what will happen

I agree. We will win. But he's right in saying the result isn't the 'be all and end all'. I suspect both sides will make the top 4 regardless of the result - it's all about peaking, being most fresh and ready when it matters in September.

Not controversial at all. Should have been a 7-8 goal win. Being at the ground, our structure looked as good as it's been for a while, we dominated all key KEI's except free kicks, we were winning clearances. If the win was 7-8 goals, people would be saying how we're back.

Teams like us and Geelong, both know it's not about peaking now and looking a million dollars. It's what happens in three months time. Geelong learnt this the hard way over many seasons, and we did after last season. The teams right up the top now are those that haven't achieved anything yet, with their current groups of players. Like someone said the other day, Saturday felt like a repeat of the GWS loss in 2021. We all know what happened after that. I'm therefore confident we will turn things around when it matters. We have a great run home; in fact, still second favourites to finish top 4 (by nature of our fixture, no doubt). Things are different to last season, where we basically played a finals contender every single week before the finals. This week is crucial, but i'm still confident we'll be alright.

and that's why BBB isn't getting a game, because he only gets the ball with silver service - which doesn't always happen with our game plan anyway. He's useless at ground level, gets out-marked, no good at chasing his defender running off him. I totally get there's pros/cons with each of TMac and BBB - I suspect the match committee have come to the conclusion that TMac has fewer deficiencies than BBB even though he's very very limited.

The difference between them is TMac makes a contest, BBB doesn't. I suspect that's why they've gone for TMac.

What history? I've been to almost all Melbourne games over the last 30 years. Stop attacking one of your own. You have a different view to me which is fair enough. That doesn't warrant attacking me - grow up.

Who exactly? You're calling me clueless? Grow up

He was meant to create a precedent about stating his intentions before a season ended? Really? Something that never happened before? Yes, I clearly don't get that!

I'll never quite understand the obsession some had/have with booing Tom Scully, or even being overly negative about him. The bloke was 20 with suspect shoulders. Got offered $6 million over 6 years, over a decade ago. Would hate to think what that is worth now under the current salary cap. He would have been an [censored] to knock that back, given the circumstances and situation. He was at our club when it was frankly unprofessional. Everyone has heard the China trip stories. He was obsessed with getting the most out of himself - non-drinker, immaculate trainer, etc - Melbourne wasn't the place for that, at that time, unfortunately. Is it because he didn't tell anyone before he officially left that he was leaving? What was he meant to do? It was not acceptable to do that, and I'm not sure anyone ever did announce before the end of a season that they were going elsewhere the next season (unlike the NRL). I was always indifferent to him when he left - he was just an opposition player to me. No reason to hate him though.

10 rounds is enough of a sample size to make fairly concrete observations. Everything King said tonight was fact. I'd be surprised if those things were not already pulled apart by the coaching group. King is an interesting one though - only last week he was saying the logical person would have Melbourne as Premiership favourite and claimed we looked so hungry and brutal. Amazing how much a controversial 4 point loss changes all of that. If we hung on, he's still be singing our praises. The positive is teams generally learn and take more away from a close loss than a win, which often cover over cracks. Hopefully that game, in particular, ends up holding us in good stead over the next four weeks and rest of the season. We are fortunate to be 4th with a good percentage, with plenty of upside to improve deficiencies. We are also fortunate we get North and Hawthorn again at the end of the season. We just need to make the next 4 games count.

David Noble's son killed Nathan Buckley?

Well from what I recall, Connolly specifically said it - that we aren't to win, so he should have taken blame. Bailey was coaching the team with his hands tied behind his back - the absolute scapegoat. I have no sympathy for Connolly whatsoever by the way, he was the architect (with his mate Schwab) in undermining Bailey and essentially leading to our 2011 demise.

Maybe, but I think the quicker ball movement and current game plan would suit him well, particularly where we share goal kicking around rather than having one or two focal points