Bring-Back-Powell

What does Tomlinson have to do to stay in the team? Plays a near career best game (10 marks) against the league leaders and yet still gets dropped? Troy Chaplin, in the DL podcast, suggested that Petty will resume his role as a forward which should keep Tommo in the side as that third tall defender to support May and Lever.

Not that I'm complaining but why are we a 10% better chance of winning the flag over the 11-2 Collingwood?

Was it not 2 June v Carlton that he was concussed rather than 27 May V's Freo? You could be 100% correct but I recall Bowey played in the Carlton game.

60 smackers to sit in the designated away bay. $30 more than the world class stadium up the highway.

Three factors that can only improve our prospects: 1) Danger was influential and C Guthrie received 2 brownlow votes with 28 and 2 gls. Neither are playing. 2) Our ruck duo were really poor that night. Gawn returned from injury and had no impact while Jackson was invisible with his stock standard 1 mark a game that defined his woeful 2022 season. I'd like to think our current duo will take more than 1 mark between them and have influence. 3) We came into the corresponding game on a 5 day break coming off a win in Adelaide. We're surely much fresher with 1 game of football between 3 June and 22 June. However, we have a 15% success rate at GMHBA since 2000 so I'm not getting my hopes up too much.

Very interesting. Thought the players would prefer to sleep in their own beds the night before the game, given the venue is only 60 minutes down the highway. I wonder what preparation approach we took in 2021 as that one worked.

Loved everything about Gather Round this year except for that one game between 3:40pm and 6:15pm on the Saturday.

Freo were garbage yesterday evening. Pure and simple goat manure. Couldn’t execute a basic under 11’s chain of possession for most of the night. I predicted this team to finish top 6 after they knocked us and Geelong off in consecutive weeks. Turns out our loss against Freo is ageing terribly and our lost to Port is ageing quite well.

He’ll get off. Was similar to the J Smith tackle last week in that the head in the ground wasn’t a result of the initial tackle, and the ‘victim’ wasn’t concussed.

That Port game was a genuine honourable loss on hostile territory, and is ageing well. The Freo and Essendon Gather round loss, not so much.

Edit...

Because GMHBA. I don't know if it's the skinny wings, the lack of crowd support, the wind, the one hour drive or Geelong being extra motivated to beat Melbourne specifically, but all those combined factors simply result in a continual bad day at the office for us. Even in 2021 we were pretty damn average in the middle two quarters before our memorable last quarter. With respect to travelling down there, we have been scheduled the most of VIC clubs since 2000 for a total of 19. (It's technically 20 as we were scheduled there in 2020 before COVID amended the fixture) North 18 and Dogs 15. St Kilda, who ain't a financial powerhouse, have been scheduled just 11 games, and zero between 2005-2012 when they were a consistent finals team. A pity the same sort of courtesy hasn't been shown to us. I hope Pert's had a word to the AFL about this.

More expensive than Perth? (WCE in round 4) Fair effort to attend 23 games.

Did anyone else read the thread title and thought it was in reference to the GWS game in Alice being transferred to the MCG like it was mooted weeks ago?

Assuming we hold our ground and finish 3rd, I think it might be best if Port finish 1st and we have a crack at Collingwood (second) in week1. The last three encounters we’ve had a substantial portion of the lead against Collingwood, and therefore we hopefully should match up ok against them in a final.

We have a better defence than Port but I think it’s fair to say they’re a more skilful side than us. Some of their I50 entries are surgeon like.

JVR's sealer, with the knowledge that (1) we were finally going to beat Collingwood at the G since 2017 and (2) that this kid loves the big moment on the big stage.

$64,000 question. Probably Geelong winning would be preferable as that will keep our dream of top 2 well and truly alive. However a Geelong win will give them massive confidence into our game next week.

I know many posters can't stand David King, but the footage he and his team provided on AFL360 last night was damning for Daniel Rich from a defensive stand point. Can barely get out of a jog when the Lions don't have the ball. Gunstan's form has been extremely underwhelming for a bloke of his ilk.

Hawthorn should do a bit of heavy lifting for the usual minnow VIC clubs and be fixtured an away game down at GHMBA next year, for a side that's gone 5 years without finals action. Hawthorn are the designated home team for Easter Monday next year, so there's no reason why they can't be fixtured an away game later in the year at GMHBA.

In - Oliver Out - Spargo, JJ. Spargo or JJ to be sub. JJ would have to be one of the unluckiest player in the AFL. He stood up during his game time. Bowey misses out in favour of the excellent defensive unit of last week. I could be wrong but historically Goodwin doesn't like to make unforced changes after a watershed win, and last Monday you could sense was one of those wins judging by his post game reaction. Petty was quoted as many as 6 weeks and the Geelong game will be just under 6 weeks. Therefore I think they'll be conservative with Petty.

In the corresponding game last year we had a 5 day break coming back from Adelaide against a Geelong that had just come off a 120 point training drill against North at the same venue. We faded badly in the last 15 minutes of the game. This year, we'll have a 10 day break against a Geelong that will be coming back from Adelaide (albeit a 7 day break) so heavy legs/fatigue shouldn't be an issue in this one.

The bye certainly came at the wrong time for the boys from Cockburn. GWS would have to be a chance this week but seem unable to string 2 wins together.

I honestly don't think the AFL industry has heard of him until recently. For example on the TAB website, he is unlisted for the Rising Star winner. You can't even put a bet on him On the flip side, Jefferson and Jed Adams are $501 while Corey Wagner (ex Dee) is $251 and he's 6 years too old to win the award!!!

I think there was some GA available at the gate on game day. Top level Southern stand and Olympic. They really need to re-look at what constitutes a sell-out. For example Dream time sold out and they didn't even get 80K.