Bring-Back-Powell

Had a brief look at North's squad and it's pretty strong compared to ours. Scoreboard's irrelevant tomorrow but the form of some borderline '23' players isn't.

Yeah for sure. Our round 1 team will need plenty of solid minutes against Freo because when we play GWS they'll be 4 quarters ahead of us in preparation. I doubt Kozzie will play Freo. Sounds like he's playing tomorrow instead.

#moreuselessinformation We lost our last 7 games at Arden street, some by hideous margins. Our last win there came in 1976. 23 point win. (although we did win a praccy match there in 2020 if that counts...)

David King, who's been on seat 1A of our bandwagon this summer has ruled us and 6 other clubs from premiership contention this morning. Cornes, who's reluctantly been on seat 46F actually disagreed with King and said you can't 100% rule us out. FWIW I agree with King (as I don't think we're capable of applying enough scoreboard pressure to be a flag contender) but man that bloke flip flops with his opinions.

For those wanting to watch the game live on Foxtel it appears to be on channel 505 at 10am (at this stage)

Not the first time he's talked us up this off season.

Re: our opponents, it was great to see the AFL go hard with suspensions on the big names such as Thomas, McMullin, Fonti and Fahey, all household names that will miss our round 1 game. Whilst all these champions of the game didn't play in the semi final Vs Brisbane I'm sure it was due to injury as to why their services were missed. Meanwhile the no name hacks like Toby Greene, Whitfield and Idun, who were as much complicit as anyone in the ill fated end of season party, escaped with a fine.

Petracca unlikely this weekend. Mitch Cleary last night suggested that Trac will get some minutes next week against Freo.

I reckon you nailed your own question. North have done this the last 2 years in their match sims vs Richmond and Collingwood. It might give both clubs an opportunity to chase a close deficit in one scenario and hold a close lead in the other. We need practice in this area as we lost a lot of close ones last year.

Sucks that we have to play these mongrels twice again. It's the only time I don't enjoy going to the footy and something disastrous on-field always happens when we play them.

I get the impression both clubs are not fussed about fans turning up for this one. Even over at the North website there's no information or details about this weekend's game on its home page. Where as in the lead up to last weekend the club was making a massive song and dance about their intra club game last Saturday (which MFC if you're listening, is an appropriate time to have an intra club game/family day).

Thanks GW for the inside info. Hopefully the MFC and NMFC websites can also confirm to the public.

I don’t think Harmes would’ve made a difference to the win/loss in the Pies final. We were 28 points down in the third quarter in slippery conditions and were always losing that final when they got off to a hot start. i think he could’ve made a small difference in the Carlton final. 30 minutes of fresh legs coming on as the sub replacing T Mac, beats 0 minutes from Schache, which will go down as the worst MFC tactical move under Goodwin. I understand that he was coverage for Gawn but it simply didn’t pay off.

Tom Green’s a chance to miss round 1 with a calf injury. Epic out if that comes to fruition.

Yeah that makes sense given the closures started last year. I'll miss having 6 bays to myself on the top level of the AFL members.

Yeah I think you're right. They did this yesterday with the WC/Rich and Geel/Hawks game. In 2022 I think Kayo had exclusive rights to these match sims and were not shown on Foxtel which I found bizarre at the time. They rectified that the following year.

I will happily eat massive humble pie if we're 3-0 after round 3 and the loss of Kozzie has no impact on our W/L record. We lack serious X-factor, class and potency when he doesn't play. Think of the early season Sydney and Brisbane losses last year when we were actually up and about as a side, but his absence stuck out like a sore thumb. We were an impotent forward line and overall team last year even with him in the side, I can't imagine it being any better without him.

Hopefully Foxtel revise their scheduling by using one of their other sports channel to show our game live. At the moment Fox Footy is showing Carlton V St Kilda live but not our game. Seems odd that you pay more for Foxtel than Kayo and yet Kayo only shows the game live.

Tim Kelly was a shocker when it came to this. Pleaded with Geelong to trade him back to WA on humanity grounds. Tim was in his early 20's and had young children, and he and his partner were desperate for family support. He was well in his rights to request a trade back to WA but then had the nerve to demand to be traded to West Coast because they were only 12 months past a flag while Freo at the time were...well... Freo.

Get the best small forward not currently on the list that is AFL ready. If that's Henderson great. We essentially need a small forward for a 3 game contract given Kozzie is suspended and Spargo's only just got going and might not be ready for the opening rounds.

In the same breath this morning Cornes also said that we should dig our heels in and hold him to his contract.

Langford and Sharp would be the two front runners. I'm not as confident as Lindsay debuting in the early rounds due to his late pre season. Campbell would be clear number 1 if Gawn was unavailable for round 1, touch wood that doesn't happen.

We play West Coast there later in the year. We might be in a bit of danger in beating that crowd if we're no good by then and the fact that most MFC supporters hate going to Marvel. They'll close the top deck for the Dees/Eagles game there as they'll want to create the impression on TV that people are actually there.

From memory in 2018, Collingwood (as they usually do) spoilt the party for us. Had they lost to Freo on the Saturday and we beat GWS on the Sunday we would've made top 4. Given the Pies won, we had to beat GWS to host an elimination final Vs Geelong, which we did. Had we lost we would've travelled to Sydney for our first finals win in donkey's years. It was a special win over GWS and the vibe was electric at the time, with respect to being an MFC supporter in 2018. I'd argue just as much as 2021. Spot on with the year and crowds. We don't draw well Vs GWS for obvious reasons.

We got 42,000 when we played Sydney in 2023 (a great win ironically without Kozzie) on the GP Sunday. Probably about 2,500 - 5,000 less than hoped. On that basis, I reckon the GWS game will go from 28,000 to 25,000. We once got 37,000 to a GWS game at the G, but in that game we'd just made finals for the first time in years and the vibe around the club was a lot better than it is at the moment.