Bring-Back-Powell

I take back my optimism about May for the year ahead. I’m tipping a “retirement” in the early rounds. His body can no longer stand up to the rigours of AFL football will be the explanation.

You really would like to think so. They’re going to get a massive amount of exposure on Anzac eve and Kings B’day.

I'm a little surprised we keep dealing (or will in future) with GWS. They did super well out of us with Bedford who's turned into a fine player (worth more than the pick 44 they gave us), refused to release a player to us who proceeded to play a grand total of 0 senior games the following year and paid way below market prices for Clarry. Yes I get any club would have fleeced us for Oliver, but still....

I recall Max mentioning that he'll be playing State of Origin and then give Practice Match #1 a miss.

Did anyone lazily read the bit about Simon Goodwin and thought it read "Lever still doesn't agree with the Simon Goodwin decision" (sacking) A fit and firing Lever will make our defence far better this year. An outstanding reader of the play at his best. And if May can start moving like a professional athlete on the field again (as opposed to the version we saw at times last year) then I can see the "old firm" leading our backline again for round 1. They only played 5 games together last year - one of them being the impressive Sydney win.

For those going, don't expect to see Kozzie or Max in action.

Dockers are brilliantly set up forward with the show pony, Josh Treacy and Amiss. Imagine if we had that forward line. The mob down the road might be in a better position to have a crack at JVR. Last year JVR looked imposing up forward in the practice match v North with 4 snags. Then he got injured in the first minute of the Freo practice match which may have stifled his confidence as he was Casey by round 6. He ended up kicking 1 goal a game which was a worse rate than everyone's whipping boy Petty when he was played as a permanent forward from round 6. Hoping for a much improved year from JVR.

I don't disagree with any of that. SEN interviewed a Fox Sports journo (Ben Cotton) last night and he mentioned that Gold Coast have essentially one person in the rehab group and that's Charlie Ballard who's recovering from an ACL. Meanwhile we've had half a suburb frequent the rehab group this summer. We certainly haven't given ourselves the best chance of success if a collectively good pre season is the key indicator to a good season ahead. 2019 anyone!

I don’t think Pickering had Bowey listed as a B grader and he certainly didn’t have Steele as a B grader. Bowey was a high end B grader at times last year and was even talked about as an AA Smokey. Sadly we don’t have him for a bunch of the year. On the flip side Pickering had washed up Richmond has beens such as Lynch as Prestia as B graders (therefore having more A’s and B’s than Melbourne) so he’s possibly got no idea.

Yeah Liam Pickering on SEN last night was also extremely down on the Dees for 2026. He rattled off an exercise where he would list every club’s A and B graders and tally the total up. I think he had Brisbane up top with 14 or 15 A and B graders. Then right at the bottom he had Melbourne, North and West Coast at a stinking low 6 A and B Graders combined. Even Richmond had more. I can’t remember exactly who the 6 were but Gawn and Kozzie were A graders and Viney, Melksham were B. Mihocek may have been another? Maybe these media blokes are correct. Maybe we’ll be bottom two with 3 or 4 wins.

Anyone know what the issue with Melksham is? Seems to have been in rehab the entire pre season.

He may have been in the main group in early December off memory but good to see him in the main group now (in terms of round 1 selection)

I’m interested to see whether we can beat North this year in the membership tally. Unfortunately Dogs and St Kilda have left us for dead.

I think he meant 1990 too. I was being a bit disingenuous.

That was a heart breaking loss. Steven Clark had to kick a goal from 50+ metres out after the siren to draw the game with 5,000 Essendon supporters on the mark. Darren Bennett kicked 1 goal that day.

Can't be any worse than giving the MFC a bye in opening round and then giving them their second bye after Brisbane, Sydney, Carlton, Collingwood, Hawthorn and GWS have all had both their byes despite playing in opening round.

St Kilda supporters were furious they traded him. I'm cautiously optimistic about him but he didn't have a particularly good 2025.

Out of those 19 locks for round 1, I have queries about the two Xaviers for round 1 - Lindsay and Taylor. Only going by training reports but I haven't heard any positive reports for Lindsay (comparable to others) and he's been in rehab a fair bit. Meanwhile Taylor sounds like he might need some development at Casey before being considered for AFL selection. Out of the 13 players fighting for the last 4 spots, does anyone have intel on Melksham or Mihocek's chances for round 1? What are their plans in February in terms of ramping things up?As I intimated earlier, I can see Petty starting the year up forward if Jeffo doesn't have a good practice match series and Kentfiled isn't ready (assuming Melk/Checkers are unavailable)

I’d have Petty as a forward in round 1 particularly if Mihocek misses the early rounds. One of the man reasons he was swung forward in round 5, and permanently remained there, was because he was quite frankly poor as a key defender, particularly his infamous performance V Geelong. Therefore I’m not sure why he’s going back. He’s the best contested mark that our forward line has to offer and will kick 35 goals if he plays an entire season as a forward. Disco, T Mac, Lever, May and Adams provide plenty of options down back to cover Petty.

Along with the previous training reports, your post reinforces that Windsor, Kozzie, Culley and Salem would be in the top 5 pre season performers at the club in terms of match sim and availability. And if you had to choose a player to have an outstanding pre season, Windsor would be high on that list, touch wood. Hopefully JVR has a big February on the track after a solid hit out yesterday. After a 4 goal performance against North in the first practice of last year, he got injured in the opening minute of the Freo praccy game which ruined any momentum going into round 1. He never got going last year.

I said the same thing down at Geelong one day in 2013 when Chris Dawes kicked half our total score of 30 points and we got wiped off the floor by Geelong in pouring rain on a 10 degree day “it will be all worth it one day when we get to the see the boys win a flag at the G.” Still might one day but we’re now miles away IMO. We finished top 2 in 2022 and should’ve made a grand final with essentially the same side as 2021 although we paid the price by only trading in Dunstan from St Kilda. Premiership teams should be adding more established guns to their list to keep ahead of the pack. As for the question, Goodwin was definitely a factor in the premiership win /the 40 minutes and richly deserved all the credit in the world. He absolutely coached his tail off that year as he turned his team around from a poor to middling side (2019 and 2020 respectively) to the tremendous product we all saw while negotiating the challenges of COVID. He sold a vision at the end of 2020 and the players clearly brought in. And that all culminated in the 40 minutes in question as the team knew when to turn it on at the exact time required. A pity that he went backwards as a coach at a pretty fast rate and the club made the courageous but painfully obvious call in August last year.

Josh Jenkins, who has always been on seat 1A on the anti Melbourne bus and predicted our downfall before anyone else, has somehow given us a chance to make the wild card weekend. Interesting as I would’ve thought he’d be backing us to win the spoon.

I’d be happy with 12th this year. Definitely the upper end of what we’re capable of this year.

I don't disagree with any of that but didn't Max miss 6 weeks of pre season last year and then went onto have one of his best seasons ever? I'd be surprised if this injury impacts his performance at all. Melksham also had a bunch of time on the sidelines and proceeded to play some of his best ever games last year. Meanwhile blokes like McVee and Kolt had interrupted pre seasons last year and went onto have poor seasons. The best teams no doubt have the best pre seasons but some players can seemingly get away with a poor pre season.

WIth King's apparent round 1 "clean slate" it wouldn't shock me if Sparrow's not in it. A nice-ish handy player that's become a part of the furniture and has only managed 20+ touches in 8 of his last 50 games. He tantalised us all with a 23ish possession 3 goal game in a 2024 pre season game V Carlton but couldn't parlay that A grade level into home and away form. I like that he can take a strong grab (his point of difference as a player of his size) as that high forward outlet but I want more.