Bring-Back-Powell

But for every Geelong there’s a Port in 2022, Collingwood in 2021, GWS in 2020, Dees in 2019, Adelaide in 2018. Clubs that didn’t recover after an exceptionally bad finals performance the year prior.

Brisbane won’t recover from this. How often does a club get spanked in a final and then go dramatically backwards the next year.

It would help a bit if they’re marquee Brownlow midfielder could touch the prune more than twice a quarter.

Geelong are well truly prepared to win this years flag. They’ve had the luxury of resting players and look supremely fit across the board. And tbey’ve been mostly excellent at the G. Poor Holmes looks done for with a hammy.

Lachie Neal still hasn’t touched the prune since early in the second qtr.

Lions were $8 at half time last week.

Lachie Neale- 1 possession in the second quarter so far. You stop him, you stop Brisbane.

Brisbane been taking lessons from our inside 50 entires? Geelong have taken about 58 intercept marks by half time.

Hipwood the hero last week. Tonight 0 possessions and responsible for a Geelong goal because he missed a sitter.

I think Geelong are streets ahead of Brisbane.

Its an embarrassment by channel 7. Richo: We should look at moving the bye to the week before the grand final to allow concussed players to not miss out BT: C’mon Richo, we already have enough byes, and you want to introduce another one! Richo: No BT, I’m looking at moving the bye from pre finals to pre grand final. BT : Disagree Richo. We have enough byes! Has BT an early onset of something??

Looks like Brisbane celebrated their grand final last week.

Swap Duursma with Rozee or Butters and we might have a conversation.

Did have a 6 game patch mid season where he kicked 11.3 goals but as others have mentioned, has stalled since his impressive 2020. He's also kicked 26.21 so isn't exactly the dead eye Richard that we're craving.

I would be happy with first three listed getting a regular game with us. Far better than Brisbane's list of Fort, Lester, Prior and Mathieson. Geelong should have more depth across the ground to get the win tonight.

Americans say "could care less" Australians say "couldn't care less" Both have the same sentiment.

Bit of a worry given they had the week off between round 23 and the QF to rest up any lingering issues.

Can only hope the coaching staff go to school on the second half of the year and identify what went wrong. You're right in that our injury list wasn't as horrendous as people make it out to be. We just had a bit of bad luck with in game injuries, (particularly the Freo, Sydney, Pies mid season disaster) but compared to other sides we were going into games with the vast majority of our best 22. I could be pessimistic and predict us to fall down the ladder, but I'll give us the benefit of the doubt after such a fantastic 2021 and a very good first half of 2022.

I'm more disappointed we didn't win a final than actually winning the flag itself because history was always against us in winning a flag. It was the media more than anyone who declared us premiers before we the whips started cracking from round 11 onwards. Since the VFL became the AFL, only 21% (7/32)of premiers have gone back to back. The stat is even worse for the grand final loser who has made amends to win a flag the next year only 15% (5/32) of the time. Refer to sides such as the Dogs, GWS and Adelaide of recent years who have been scarred by a GF loss. The moral of the story is that it's more unlikely than likely for a reigning premier to go back to back so the fact that we didn't win a flag isn't a disaster. It's the way we lost games in a similar manner, team selection, injury management etc... was a bit disappointing. Definitely excited for next year though.

Unless Kozzie says to the club that he’ll refuse to return under any circumstances, he’ll be at the MFC next year. No chance in the universe that the MFC will entertain a trade here, unless Port offer us something stupid like Butters or Rozee in return. However it’s a problem to deal with next year.

Not sure about his accuracy but he's kicked 26 goals in 10 games and had some statistically "off the chart" games in the midfield. Back on topic though...

Sheezel’s going to be an absolute super star IMO. A natural forward that would slot in very nicely into our forward line.

That is a really good point you make regarding the round 23 game last year. Geelong lost some shockers at home (in 2020 and 2021) against the likes of Carlton and GWS in front of no fans, and who knows how the last quarter would've played out in front of 30,000 rabid Geelong fans. And if the AFL granted Pert's request to play our qualifying final at the MCG last year, who knows how that would've played out given we were patchy at the G in the last half of the season. As you pointed out, things happen for a reason, we won the flag. Too bad we couldn't back it up on our home turf.

Probably also goes some way to explaining our 10-0 start to the season. 7 of our first 10 games in VIC with 6 of them at the G, thus a very settled schedule. I think we often play more games at the G in the first half of the year than the second. Next year I’m hoping for a more even spread of MCG games and to have a season (ignoring the Covid years) where we play less than 7 games interstate (despite our perfect record this year) That brutal stretch away from the MCG between round 16 and 20 probably took its toll in the end

Therein lies the problem. He has a degenerative knee issue that has to be maintained and is only going to get worse not better. Can anyone see him fit and firing at the business end of 2024 which is when his contract expires?