Bring-Back-Powell

Voted Petty. Petty was surprisingly awful as a key defender in the North and Geelong games before he was permanently moved forward in Gather Round. He's been serviceable as our number 1 key forward but we're not going anywhere if he's our #1 in years to come. Turner has played his best footy when played exclusively as a key defender this year and should remain there all game, unless we have an injury to a key forward - per the WC game.

Assuming Viney's finally in, it will be interesting whether they go the obvious out in Howes or whether they want Windsor to have a full game at Casey this week to regain some form and confidence. Windsor announced himself as a serious talent at this exact game/oppo/venue early last year with that phenomenal goal left of screen.

Wrong thread...

You could make an argument that the loss to St Kilda was worse than the North game in round 2, given what was at stake and how talent-less St Kilda is.

Good point. I can't recall what happened in 2020 but from 2021 onwards the only game he's missed (that wasn't through suspension) was due to COVID in 2022. Therefore it's more than warranted to give a player a very long contract with NIL injury history. And I'm knocking on a lot of wood here!

Freo supporters over at Bigfooty are like a dog at a bone re: Kozzie: "All good, we'll just trade for him in 2 years and Melbourne can pay half his salary....haha.....lol " Let it go guys. Go now put your eggs in the Chad Warner basket.

Are Troy and Justin Longmuir brothers?

For those that don’t like the re-signing of Kozzie, I implore you to rewatch the Freo game, the Sydney game and the clutch goal he kicked to put us in front during Monday’s finals like game. A genuine game changing super star appropriately getting a game changing super star contract.

If you read Bigfooty, many Port supporters would also take great joy in that.

Yeah good question. I have a gut feel we'll put in a terrific performance and a stinker either side of the bye. Just not sure in which order. We've shown we can match it with the better teams this year so a win over GC isn't out of the question. We've also been BOG ordinary against some of the bottom 10 sides this year, so a poor loss against Port could also be on the cards.

This would have to be the most exciting and unlikely news we’ve received in years, if this actually transpires. The scary thing for the comp is that the quiet games such as the St Kilda loss last week are becoming few and far between and are being replaced with more high end 20 disposal 3 to 4 goal games, particularly given he’s spending significant minutes in the midfield. There’s not a coincidence in the world that his return to the side in round 4 has seen us become a far more competent side (aside from the Gather Rd disaster ) and the one week he was down on output, we were atrociously down as a side.

Hopefully we can get to 10 wins and presumably avoid the bottom 4. Our list is better than a bottom 4 finish and I can't really stomach giving Essendon a super high pick off us. More importantly I hope we can beat some teams in the hunt for a finals birth on the run home such as a Hawthorn, Carlton or Bulldogs and actually put some learnings in place in terms of winning close games and rectifying our accuracy. If we can made amends on this front, then we can head into 2026 with some hope and confidence.

And meanwhile Disco Turner is providing encouragement and positive reinforcement to Max. Liking this guy more by the week.

I need to correct myself and adjust the W/L to 3-9 in 6 point margins or less from round 16 2023 to today. I forgot to include the Brisbane 1 point win in round 18 2023.

Just to isolate and cherry pick the close game record of 6 points or less margins, we're 3-9 since the GWS Alice Springs game where Josh Kelly got us with 1-2 mins left on the clock. But even more disturbingly, and as the OP mentions, 1 of those 2 wins was against North last year where we went scoreless in the last quarter and did everything but blow a 6 goal lead, and it had to take a debutante to lay a game saving tackle. I had zero confidence we were going to navigate ourselves to a win during that last quarter yesterday.