Bring-Back-Powell

Raised this on the game thread but if Viney’s opponent’s head made contact with the ground in the tackle then he’ll get an automatic 1 week at the MRP I’d imagine.

Will Viney miss next week with his illegal tackle early in the first quarter?

Harmes has to be the obvious sub. BBB would never be sub while you’d imagine we would’ve seen a mid week video of Woey if he were playing tonight. Turner an outside chance.

We’re 11-6 when Joel Smith plays, since the 2018 prelim.

Haha, so true. I have tried to erase the memory of the 2018 prelim but if memory serves he kicked a goal in the goal square during junk time of the 18 prelim.

Random fun fact: Joel Smith hasn’t kicked a goal since the 2018 prelim final. Not much in the world has happened since…

Some serious questions would need to be asked of the players and coach if we fall to 7-7 with a low to moderate injury list.

There’s a real opportunity for Essendon to make and lose another final.

Very interesting stat re: Gawn and Grundy. Against Gold Coast they combined for 4 and sure enough we won.

Getting tired of my Carlton supporting colleagues saying we'll beat them by 10 goals. They'll be the same people on Monday morning proclaiming that their boys are back and that it was a Carlton win for the ages (if we lose)

Should easily place in their top 5 in the Eagles B&F.

A lot’s been made of Carlton’s extensive injury list but it’s more quantity than quality. They still have their midfield class in Cripps, Walsh and Cerra which is better than our midfield that’s missing Oliver. Meanwhile Curnow and McKay can be dangerous on any given night. The Pittonet injury is the most significant for them, but having said that Gawn/Grundy couldn’t take advantage of Jackson on his own last week.

May, Lever and Tomlinson have only played once together since Tomlinson’s ACL. It was against Port last year when we held them to 1 goal to 3 qtr time. Edit - he also played with May and Lever in the other Port win late last year.

And it will be probably the longest post game thread ever if things go south.

I would even consider Schache as a key defender. He played really well as a defender against us in our 2021 loss to the Dogs. Must have been a one off as he was a forward again by the 2021 finals series. On another note, why not start T Mac as a defender to help out May and Lever?

Hopefully he does a Jake Melksham of last year's game and gets them completely off guard with a 3-4 goal game.

Selection needs to be based around helping May and Lever play to their strengths. They are absolutely key to our success and we can't afford Jake Lever taking just 2 marks a game and dropping one crucial one in the dying minutes to concede the sealer. The fact that they only have 10 coaches votes between them (I think they've only polled in 1 game each) tells me their either out of form or are badly affected by our new look defence, sans the one less tall defender and less Max Gawn helping out. Once these two players start dominating games again, we will consistently win again.

Can't believe May has only polled 1 coaches vote for the one the best defenders in the game. You'd have it imagine when May and Lever start getting among the votes more regularly, we'll start winning the clutch games (i.e. - Port and Freo)

A win or loss is worth 15,000 people going through the gates on KB. If we stink the joint up on Friday night, then I can see a crowd of only 70-75k the following week.

Exactly. We sure didn’t play like a top 4 team in last years finals.

I know were not in the draft so it's a moot point but Marty Hore's doing well and is up there in the VFL coaches votes. We could've done worse than have another look at him. O Mac would've been a good option to support Lever and May assuming they've totally given up on Tomlinson.

We have 2-8 record on the Holiday Monday against Collingwood in the last 10. It's starting to get humiliating. We've won 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2016, 2017. There is a myth going around that we also won the Queens Birthday game in 2000 where Farmer kicked 9 but that occurred on the Saturday of the QBDAY weekend. Fantastic news with Oliver.

Freo at $3.75 on the Monday before our match was a tantalisingly emotional hedge.

I reckon 85,000 if we beat Carlton. 70,000 if we lose to Carlton. You know 50,000 Collingwood will turn up.

Could've been a useful sub option.