Bring-Back-Powell

Can only imagine Lever’s ankle is 100% cherry ripe. Be unlike the MFC to take a risk.

Channel 9 news reported about 9 days ago that someone trodded on his foot at training and that he was ruled out for the Saints game but the club expected him to play some minutes against Richmond. Hopefully it’s just precaution, he’ll play some minutes in the VFL next week (if there is a praccy game) and be ok for round 1. Anyone attend training this week and can advise of his progress?

It was weird last year. The music went away by the Freo game in round 10, but then somehow came back for our "home game" finals, as if everyone missed it. I get that we want to model ourselves on the USA for pretty much everything in life, but surely we can maintain a bit of AFL/VFL tradition and do away with the music.

Apparently his second favourite was Geelong V Sydney last year.

Richo was just on SEN, interviewed by everyone's favourite shock jock in Kane Cornes. Nothing much to add to the obligatory Kozzie question that came his way, other than "we're confident where things sit" and "Kozzie loves his club." Sounds like this is the company line that will be trotted out for the near future. Richo was a bit of a smart alec to Kane when he asked Kane if he was speaking to Kane Cornes or Jason Cripps of Port. Richo also dropped the first bit of ill will I've heard from the club towards Luke Jackson. When asked at what point he thought LJ was gone, he said for basically the entire season they were confident without really knowing, but then sounded dismayed when he read Freo's website confirming that Jackson had chatted with Fremantle mid season.

I’d have this number 1 on the improvement agenda. If we’re not playing our best footy and not winning more than 60% of our games at the G, then we’re not making prelims and granny’s.

Death, taxes and playing like [censored] at the MCG. I really hope this is rectified this year considering 6 out of our 8 losses took place there last year.

Interested to know how Jay Clark’s crystal ball has performed over the years.

Pies to be Hawks by 48 Port to beat Freo by 6 Bris to beat Geelong by 30 Dons to beat Saints by 22 Blues to beat Swans by 9 WC to beat Crows by 15 GWS to beat GC by 20 Dogs to beat North by 3

Would have been the perfect opportunity for Dunstan to replace Viney, as he did for Anzac Eve last year and the North game. However, he's got a hammy and probably won't be cherry ripe for round 1 selection. We are 8-2 without Viney's services since the start of 2021 including top shelf wins over Sydney, Dogs and Brisbane in 2021 and to a lesser extent Richmond in 2022. The win-loss suggests we can cover him but we've got an extremely tough first 3 weeks coming up.

Trac was just on SEN with Whately. Sounds like he won’t be one of the players rested for this weekend and is looking forward to the game. Said he had butterflies last week for the first time in his career with respect to a practice match. I know words are just words but it sounds like they mean business this year and are looking for atonement. They also reflected on the amount of leads they blew last year and looking at ways on how to halt momentum of the opposition. A shorter pre season between 2021-2022 was also a negative factor. Fair to say the Dogs didn’t exactly shoot the lights out last year with their shorter break. Trac said he felt mentally refreshed after having the opportunity to head overseas this past summer. And credit to Whately for asking a Kozzie question that didn't revolve around his contract status.

Absolute garbage that Cripps got off on a technicality and then went on to win a Brownlow. I'm glad their now looking at keeping the Philadelphia lawyers out of the tribunal system.

Damien Barrett and one of his AFL website colleagues spent a segment last week talking about Pickett leaving.

Amazing isn't. He was -5 in free kicks last year compared to 2018 and 2019 where he averaged an amazing +33. He really didn't have a good 2022 for multiple reasons.

Which is ironic because when he was North, all an opponent had to do was breath on him and he'd get a free kick. That was one of the reasons I was excited about when we picked him up.

Interesting that in recent years we take the first practice match more seriously than the second one in terms of selection and on field results. In 2021 we rested half a dozen best 22 players in the second game to the Dogs and last year we didn't bring much intensity and let Carlton waltz all over us in the midfield in that second game of the 2022 pre season. Can't really argue with this preparation given we've got a combined 19-1 record for the first 10 rounds of 2021 and 2022. We need to his the ground running into round 1 as we have the Dogs, Brisbane and Sydney to start the season.

Out with a head knock for next week's game V Port.

Absolutely fair call. Between 1999 and 2023 we’ve been scheduled to play interstate once and that only game was in 2020 against West Coast in an empty stadium, which is very fortunate. Although in 2022 and 2023 no Victorian club was fixtured interstate for round 1.

Melksham, Spargo and Sparrow to be the first ones to be blamed after every loss.

Me too please if you’re not already sick of PMing people. Greatly appreciated, thanks.

Good shout. We’ve played at MCG or Marvel in the final round just twice between 2016-2023. The rest have either been interstate or in Geelong.

Agreed on both points. 1) the legend of his third quarter artificially grows by the day. He got a couple of possession and maybe 1 or 2 clearances as well giving away 1 or 2 fees. I can think of a few players that had far more influence in the 3rd quarter of the Gf. 2) He was everywhere on Friday night because technically he played in various nominal positions.

Typical game from the overrated forward- ruckman. Did a couple of very nice things as a ruck-mid but next to stuff all besides an uncontested mark/goal as a key forward which is where Freo will play him for 70% of each game.

Why not?

Losing to Sydney and Collingwood without fail.