Bring-Back-Powell

Another way of looking at is that Collingwood withstood massive territory dominance by the MFC by bringing elite pressure for most of the game and winning countless defensive 50 intercepts. I can’t see their prelim opponent dominating territory like we did, and accordingly they will account for their prelim opponent quite easily.

Losing a final with + 32 inside 50’s. How is that possible? Pies will easily cruise into a GF with a laugher of a home prelim final against Port or GWS. Neither of those sides are going to dominate the obscene amount of territory we did.

So have we

I thought out form was pretty decent in the last 4 rounds of last year. That's why I was blind sighted by going out in straight sets. Beat Freo by 7 goals in Perth, a 7 point loss to Pies in a high quality game, a 5 point win over Carlton and 10 goal win at the GABBA. All were top half of the ladder teams. I think last year was more injury related than form related. Losing to Collingwood and Carlton in straight sets will be 55,000 times worse than losing to Sydney and Brisbane in straight sets.

Yep I am a bit. After the Freo game, we were found out in defence by only having May and Lever as tall defenders. Since then we've gone with either Tomlinson, Petty, Turner or Smith as that third tall defender. Smith was that third key defender in the Carlton game which we lost before he was sent forward late. Can only imagine Smith will be a defender tonight.

Brad Scott's after him.

He might be a solid chance given the default J Selwood option isn’t available this year. Seems like a genuine, genuine good person.

Really! After our round 2 2021 win over the Saints I was daring to dream about finishing 8th.

Good for basically 2 goals a game in his career so far. I wouldn’t be saying no if the price and draft capital is low.

He’s been our number 1 supporter all year from the media fraternity. His mate King jumps on and off us depending on the weekends result.

T Mac or Smith will play back IMO. The last time we went small in defence with the May/Lever/Hibberd combo was the Freo loss. We rectified this by bringing in Tomlinson the next week against Carlton in order to have a recognised third key defender. And the results have seen us with a 10-3 record with either Petty, Tomlinson or Turner as the key third defender. I have no clue why we’ve abandoned this proven formula other than they’re playing Smith down back tomorrow.

Noble dropped for Collingwood after 83 straight games. Hopefully the Pie players are rattled by this, a permanent fixture getting dropped.

Can anyone elaborate as to why Salem would be a bottom 60 player in the comp at the moment? I agree that he’s not shooting the lights out but bottom 60 is damning for a player of his class.

T Mac a confirmed IN according to Mitch Cleary. Hibberd a possibility.

The BOM has updated for Thursday. It's gone from 2-8mm to 1-4mm. 20 degrees at lunchtime. 14 at the first bounce. The iphone weather app (yeah I know LOL!) is saying that all the rain will occur from 7pm to 10pm.

Assuming we make it to a prelim (fingers crossed), we'll be definitely playing on the Saturday IMO. If the Pies beat us, they'll obviously get the Friday night prelim being the #1 seed. We'd travel to Brisbane or Port to play a likely Saturday twilight. If we beat the Pies, Brisbane or Port will host the Friday night prelim as they're both higher seeds than us. We'd play a Saturday late arvo or twilight game at the G. The higher ranked team always hosts the Friday night prelim.

We only had one wet game last year, Vs Freo at Optus.

Definitely due a warm GF this year. 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022 were all either 14 or 15 degrees in Melbourne. (Even the 2021 GF day was a cool day in Melbourne if memory serves...)

I’d love to claim credit for my top 5 B&F call for Hunty back in June, but as long as an Eagles player was upright and available week in week out, then he’d be a fair chance for top 5.

I think McVee will be perfectly suited to Ian Hill given his form on the 175-184cm small forward. Some serious consideration would be given to Hibberd, however Hibberd played both games last year against Collingwood and Elliott ran riot in both games.

I sincerely hope the NBA isn’t flirting with the idea. But, yeah here’s an article from 2020 https://www.nbcsportsboston.com/nba/boston-celtics/should-nba-allow-higher-seeded-teams-to-choose-their-playoff-opponents/341551/

As you should be. He kicked a combined 7 goals against us in our two losses to them last year. This year he missed our Kings Bday win against them.

This gem from the Collingwood board: “Given this year's scenario, why not have Cwood v Port at the MCG?- Cwood get advantage for finishing top and Port still play an interstate final. Brisbane v Melb at Gabba - Brisbane get home final and Melb don't get any advantage”

A Collingwood supporter on Bigfooty campaigning that the AFL should intervene and make a last minute change to the 2023 finals structure: Given this year's scenario, why not have Cwood v Port at the MCG?- Cwood get advantage for finishing top and Port still play an interstate final. Brisbane v Melb at Gabba - Brisbane get home final and Melb don't get any advantage. Hopefully that “woe is me” attitude permeates through their club.

So N Daicos started running today and will be playing a critical final 4 nights later. Righto.