Great Northern Summer

How so? If St Kilda win, they'll still be a win ahead of us. Think you mean we could be 3rd.

The AFL won't do that, because it'll mean one of Port or Adelaide will have an extra home match for the season as against each other

They are the worst with 'white line fever' during a game, esp with the continual booing - I mean they probably booed when a free was paid against Gaff when he king-hit Andrew Brayshaw! When the game isn't on, I've found them fine.

Been to many games in Adelaide against Crows and Port. My experience is totally the other way around. Never ever had an issue with Crows supporters, at any of the half dozen games i've been to there. In fact, even congratulated after we won. By comparison, my experience with Port supporters is horrible, as bad as it gets. Some years ago I was walking down Rundle Mall with my father to grab a bite to eat before the game. The Port Army or whatever they are called were walking in the other direction. I didn't say or do anything, but all of a sudden was shirt-fronted - yep, basically hit, from one of their supporters, who pretended he didn't do it when I confronted him about it after. At games as well, I've found Port supporters to be quite nasty. That's just my experience though.

The season is a marathon, not a sprint. We need to peak when it matters. We're not losing next week, so why not start rotating the list a little bit and giving a few blokes a rest next week. Will refuel the batteries and ensure we can go the distance. We have the depth and need to use it. It's what hurt us last season in the end.

My unfortunate view on the difference between the Lions win in Round 23 and the finals loss. Some generalisation about our 2022: (1) We were awfully inaccurate in so many games that it cost us wins. (2) We usually dominated first quarters and sometimes first halves, but too often gave little in second halves or couldn’t run out games. This is exactly why we smashed Brisbane in Round 23 and lost the final. - We were unusually deadset accurate in the first half of our Round 23 game, nailing even the most unlikely of goals. Interestingly, the scores after half time were fairly level. We were just so far ahead the game was over. - We were typically inaccurate in the first quarter of the final. If we had have had the same accuracy as the Round 23 game, the game probably would have been over at 1/4 time. So, in a nutshell, if we weren’t deadset (and unusually) accurate in the Round 23 game, our lead at 1/2 time wokld have been much slimmer, potentially opening a door for the Lions to think they were a chance, especially how average our second halves had been (and it was nothing special either in the Round 23 game).

Grundy must just come in handy after all (to all those doubters)

So we get North Melbourne and Hawthorn twice - massive win. Both likely to finish bottom 4. Can't see how either can pull anything out to prevent that. We also have Brisbane Lions, Richmond, Sydney and Carlton twice too. Likely to all be top 8 sides, maybe even top 6. That's relatively though. Slightly better run home too in our last 5 games than this year - (r.20) Richmond), (r.21) North, (r.22) Carlton, (r.23) Hawthorn, (r.24) Sydney. The last the only potentially troubling road trip.

It shouldn't matter whose home game it is in this 'Gather Round', aside from the two unlucky teams that get drawn to play the South Australian sides. The two South Australian teams obviously get an additional home game too. This is all because they're not playing a Showdown in this round (which they really should in order to be as equitable and fair as possible). For all other 14 teams, the only difference is 7 have to wear white shorts (and potentially an alternative guernsey) and 7 home shorts and guernseys. Normal 'home game' benefits regarding member attendance doesn't apply with this round. Teams still play 11 home and 11 away games each apart from this.

Don’t be surprised if it still goes ahead. Remember some years ago Melbourne and Freo reported that the Hogan deal was dead and buried only to be suddenly reincarnated some days later…

Anthony Ingerson and Jarred Rivers applaud this!

2007 was certainly amongst the worst, but yep, two of the worst three

At worst, it comes out as a one-all draw for him. I guess the fact he won this one at the 'G in a 'normal' environment (i.e. with family allowed), he'll take it ahead of what could have been last year's one. Still thought it would have been more satisfying being part of a drought-winning team rather than a regular top 4 finisher.

Nothing he would have said would have stopped the article being printed.

If he was put on the spot, he would have been foolish to take the call. Whether he is innocent or guilty, either way, he would have been best positioned after this happened to seek legal advice about how the handle the situation. I'm sure this is exactly what he did.

Reckon we'll probably get in Caracella if Yze leaves.. he's been involved with Geelong and Richmond flags, so has some pedigree..

On Footy Classified, Wilson said that if Yze gets the job, he'll try to take Mark Williams with him... Adem - you leave to take this role with our blessing. Don't steal our resources on the way out!

My impression was the same. However, Neale actually got 29 possessions (2nd most on the field) and the highest AFL Fantasy Points on the ground (whatever that means). Still, the game was set up in the 1st half and surely with an 11 goal lead at half time, Melbourne players should have been 3/2/1 in that game.

Howe is having a howler. Great to see.

Watching the games this weekend has been awfully frustrating. We would have given Geelong a far better contest than Brisbane last night, not provided a training run. We were far more competitive against Sydney than Collingwood. Collingwood are only still in this game because of their unbelievable accuracy (bit like when they played us). Wish I wasn’t having visions of Melksham right now.

Sadly it was more bad luck that an AFL conspiracy about our rough draw. As a top six side last year, we played one team that finished 7-12 and another that finished 13-18. They just happened to be Fremantle and Collingwood, both who improved more than anyone else this year. Each of these games just happened to be played in the second half of the season too, making it a fixture from hell, given we basically played finalists in about 9 of our last 12 games. We were the hunted, everyone wanted to beat us and primed themselves for us, and we never had an easy game at all after round 10. The three teams that weren’t finalists that we played were Carlton (in the eight when we played them), Port (who had a top 8 worthy second half of season) and Crows in Adelaide (who were very competitive near the end). You can understand why we were so banged up and fatigued now - Goodwin should have been resting players and rotating good performers in from Casey. Casey has lost one game all season! This is where we failed. On the other hand, Geelong played return games against WCE (7-12th) and North (13-18th). When the fixture came out, there was nothing to suggest return games against the Fremantle/Collingwood double would be a harder task than WCE/North. The other issue is our first 10 games were almost all played against average sides. We were lazy in most of them, allowed bad habits to slip in, relying on pure talent to play one or two good quarters to win most of them. Then when we got to 10-0, coming off a premiership, we knew we had secured a finals birth and most realised something would have to go majority wrong to miss top 4 from there (god forbid we almost did). Psychologically, this made the second half of the season against quality opposition difficult, knowing there wasn’t much to play for, to dedicate that extra 10% (which every other side was doing). We need to be smarter in 2023, looking at the season as a marathon and not a sprint, and properly utilising our list rather than being loyal to fatigued bagged up players, some out of form. Game plan and regular inaccuracy also issues but I won’t turn this post into an essay on a Saturday morning.

I stand corrected by I think Yze was a Bombers fan growing up, not that it is relevant to anything.

Yep, agree. Would have expected the job was 50-50 his partway through 2021.

4.60 with Ladbrokes

Me too!!