Bring-Back-Powell

Who knows, he could be a massive bust?

Jackson a goal assist in the first minute of the game.

Weid already has two goals. With Peter Wright gone for most of the year, he’ll be the main focal point and will probably kick his 35-40 for the year.

I thought we were offered Toby Greene in addition to Dom Tyson as steak knives but we weren’t interested.

He was responsible for 2 of our 3 first quarter goals. Pretty good performance overall.

Tomlinson 19 possessions and 7 marks. Essentially Steven May stats. Massive kudos for his performance tonight and has proven to be a good insurance policy.

Gong it make a wildly controversial statement but I think McVee got the points tonight out of the 3 boys. Composure excellent for a debutant.

The average crowd since 1990 is 31,000 for a Dogs V Dees game at the MCG. I wouldn’t be expecting more than 40k tonight.

Hope you’re right but wouldn’t have thought they could give Freo a serious challenge.

I wonder if Hunter gets the MCC wing or will he and Ed change it up? Definitely looking forward to his MFC debut and what he can contribute to the side.

We’re now equal favourites with Geelong to win the flag ($5.50) according to the TAB.

Collingwood to make a grand final at the minimum. I was on their wagon last year and nothing tonight would suggest otherwise. They have absolutely mastered the art of playing at the MCG as indicative of winning 14 of their last 17 games there. I think they play 14-15 games there this year and always play well in WA and SA for some interstate wins. (To argue against myself I’d be interested to see how this rematch goes in the cold and heavy MCG track in July with Geelong more conditioned) I only hope our boys can start mastering our home ground. That will go a long way to us contending this year.

Must be predicting a crowd of sub 30,000 if they're closing the top of the Ponsford. If they opened it up for the Melb V Freo game last year where just a couple of blokes and a dog sat up there, then surely it's opened for this one.

The outs are better than the ins. We lose our premier defender and our premier forward. There are some terrific ins in Hunter, Grundy and T Mac, but I just feel the loss of May and Fritta tip the scales to last year's round 23 squad. We saw how we functioned without May in the Sydney, Collingwood (and most of Freo) losses and it wasn't great.

Any ideas how he went in the Casey praccy match against Richmond? Perhaps he played well in the match sim last weekend? As you said, maybe he just had a plain old bad day against St Kilda. They guy can play at this level. Aside from getting torn apart by Sam Reid mid last year and an ordinary game against the Dogs late last year, every other game for the MFC he has been serviceable to more than serviceable as a defender. Tomlinson won't be the reason if/why we lose tomorrow night. It will be missing S May that will be more of the reason.

Thought Lynch got the better of Waitering in the second half and obviously had a major impact on the result. With regards to Cerra, Kane Cornes went on a rant about him last week and clearly believes that he's an overrated disappointment.

Hopefully someone down at training can give a May update and whether he looks like he'll be ok for next week, or whether it's multiple weeks.

I would guess they'll extend breaks by 2 minutes at quarter time and 5 minutes at half time, and probably employ more water boys/girls. Not sure if the roof on Marvel will help or make conditions worse for that game. Sounds like Saturday afternoon is going to be horrid and windy but they reckon 26 degrees by game time for our game. 22 by game's end. Should be a lovely night for footy.

And Gardiner who played basically every game last year for the Dogs. Is it too late to give JVR a debut video and send Tom McDonald back? Could be the Brisbane final last year in reverse. JVR selected all week until Max ended up retaining his spot.

Serious consideration needs to be made to bring Turner in. I don't feel comfortable with only Petty and Lever trying to man up on three of JUH, Norton, Darcy, Lobb and English at the one time. We'd definitely be a key defender down. The other options are playing T Mac as a key defender, which is probably the most reliable option but we're back to square one in terms of missing his link and run further up the ground as well as a much needed goal kicking option in the absence of Fritta. The other option is Tomlinson who was serviceable in the first 4 rounds last year as a key defender, but is badly out of form going by pre season game reports. May out is a shocking loss and our defence went to pieces after half time in the mid season games he missed last year.

McClure's a fool if he thinks 55,000 is a disappointing crowd for these 2 teams. If he did his research he would've noted that 31,000 is the average attendance for these two clubs at the MCG since 1990, excluding the 1994 semi final. The average crowd at Marvel would be a fair bit lower when these two sides meet. Dogs fans don't turn up to the G, much like we don't really turn up to Marvel (i.e. -13,000 to an MFC game last year at Marvel when we were 9-0) I'm expecting 45,000-50,000 for this game as I don't expect many of their fans to turn up.

Congrats to the debutants. Given that we’ve got no inclusions and have probably lost an additional best 22 player from the Richmond game, it was inevitable that 2 of McVee, Laurie and Woey would retain their spot. I thought Laurie was unsuccessful in his audition, but at least he’s had a taste and might be better prepared for the AFL tempo.

Is Ryan Gardiner a very good defender and a key out for them? Or have I overrated him? Weightman is a handy out for sure.

Heading to Gather Round and planning to see 6 games including a random Freo V GC game on a Friday arvo at Norwood. A Dees win and a Freo loss would make for a pretty damn good footy road trip. Might head to the Sydney game in round 24 or interstate final (if we're travelling) later in the year to use up some flight credits.

The picture on the right was Luke Jackson in last year’s finals campaign.