Bring-Back-Powell

Hard to know what's more important: Player availability which he excelled in this year. Or the ability to win close games and dominate last quarters which he indirectly failed in his brief. Either way, back to back 14th placed finishes is going to cost jobs, and given he's out of contract you'd have a hard time convincing yourself that he'll be returning next year.

Not great I’d suspect.

Imagine having to now rely on Essendon to get you into finals.

A very on brand Bevo pre finals choke performance today by the Dogs. Saw some vulnerabilities in their game when we played them the other week.

My thoughts too. The last 2 weeks at the G it’s felt like supporting an interstate side, such was the lack of noise after a goal. It got a bit better in the second half last night, but the supporters have unsurprisingly called it a day the last fortnight.

We need not have bidded on Levi Ashcroft. This guy has more upside.. Langford, Clarry and Hogan have clearly had the most accomplished debut seasons for our club in recent years. He hit a high watermark last night and I’m sure that the four clubs that overlooked him in the draft may have a bit of buyers remorse. (Although Lalor looked fantastic early days and Smith had an ACL)

Yes Culley was in the hands of the trainer and walked off gingerly. He was the logical player to get subbed out at the time.

It’s not the close losses to GWS, Pies x2, Dogs and Adelaide that bother me and have let us down for the season. It’s the losses to BOG ordinary sides like St Kilda, Essendon, North, Port and Carlton that have been a stain on the season. If we brought last night to those sides then we have a record of about 12-11 and a fraction off the 8. And that’s not factoring the toss of the coin losses to the good sides. Hopefully a new coach can give this team belief to hold onto the close ones like McRae did on 2022, and we could shoot up the ladder accordingly as long as we don’t go all rebuild mode in October.

So do I but in order for the Pies to have the opportunity go out in straight sets they’ll need a percentage booster tonight over us.

Agreed. He’s done so well not to get rubbed out this year. Would cap off a dresdful season if he were to miss the first 2-4 games once again. I’ll call tonight a win if we stays out of the umpires notebook and the Pies have a very modest win costing them top 4.

1) yeah the last 2 seasons have absolutely done my head in, in terms of the onfield product we dish up, and the sooner I can accept we’re a genuine bottom 4 team the better. The core premiership players do not appear to be taking this club any further, and it’s the younger brigade plus the hope (rather than expectation) of some savy and aggressive trading are the way forward. 2) yes I was thinking of Mitch not Jeremy. The former was playing decent footy as a defender for a while but I’m in agreement that he’s probably coming to an end. 3) my post was more of a reflection of May than McGovern. I think it would be best for all parties if May was traded or calls time a year early if that’s the quality of footy he’ll be producing next year.

Phoned it in at selections. Presumably we’ll phone it in on the field too.

Happy with AMW re-signing. I know it was only a match simulation against North but he looked terrific that day and he was absolutely penned in for the GWS round 1 game in the absence of McVee. (Mind you JVR played his best game of the year in that match simulation so I'm sort of arguing against myself...)

I reckon he'd be secretly hoping his team loses week 1 so he can have a crack at the GF.

If Steve May's performance last Saturday was indicative of his projected 2026 footballing, then I'd replace him with McGovern in a heart beat. An absolute heart beat.

Trac is now completely unreliable in front of goals which isn't good enough for the third highest AFL player next year. Something for him to work on over pre season. The club's overall accuracy has been pleasing since the mid season bye. 108.87 (55%) which is significantly better than the 46% before the bye. Continue this into next year and we'll be giving ourselves at least some chance of winning some early season games rather than beating ourselves.

He’s definitely over compensated. For example in round 4 vs Geelong, he deemed Dangerfield in the best 3 players of the round with a 3 goal/20 possession game. Sure he was good that night and kicked a couple of snags in the last qtr, but was he in the top 3 out of 207 players for the round?? And fast forward to this weekend. Why did he give Gunston votes but not Harry McKay who also kicked 7?

I assumed Howe would be playing as he was progressing well last week from concussion. Aside from Hill, they're basically full strength and in a good position to attack September. On King's B'day they had Maynard, Schulz, De Goey, Lipinski and potentially others out.

The eye test confirms to me that our defence has gone down the toilet these last 2 years. Yes, we've definitely sacrificed some defence in exchange for offence which is understandable. However our lack of hunger at times is clearly obvious. The failed/half hearted missed tackle by Ed Langdon on a Bulldogs player in the second quarter of round 22 sums up a bit of our 2024 and 2025 seasons IMO. The times where the oppo just waltzes past us because we can't put enough pressure on. In order to win a premiership you need to have your defence in order. The last 10 premiers have typically been the second or third best defence (on average) in terms of points against with Melbourne in 2021 and Hawthorn in 2015 being the #1 defence. I'd be worried if I were Brisbane or GWS who are 8th and 9th respectively in points against.

Trac's on $1.35 million next year if you believe Jon Ralph. I would be amazed if teams in the window could afford the third or fourth highest paid player in the league who's more likely than less likely to be declining and is a horrendous kick of the football.

I know Garry Lyon's most valuable player on AFL 360 (best 3 players across the entire round) isn't the be all/end all of awards and talking points but I feel like an opposition player always features in his weekly 3-2-1 votes without fail. Greene, Dangerfield, Rankine, NAS, Gunston, Richards, Rowell....the list goes on. The point being that most weeks we've had a player that absolutely dominates us whether it be in the midfield or a player kicking monster bags on us. This just didn't happen much before this year.

The margin probably could have been as low as 3 goals given Sharp missed a couple of goals in the last quarter that a half forward flankers is paid to do and Gawn missed his 35th elementary set shot for the year. If Harry Sharp isn't nailing his goals, I'm not sure what else he's bringing to the table??

The margin will be interesting in this game. Hopefully we can keep things respectable and deny the Pies a top 4 gig. Very rough calculations but if the Pies beat us by 60, then the Suns would have to beat Port and Essendon by an approx combined 120 points. If they beat us by 40, then the Suns would have to beat Port and Essendon by an approx combined 100 points. Fair to say if we can keep it within 20, the Pies supporters won't be overly happy.

Interesting given May, Turner and Howes were all at sea and T Mac has been our most dependable defender this year.

Happy for May to go as long as we keep T Mac. May's game on the weekend was one of the poorest MFC's performances I've seen from a senior player in recent years. And his game before that he allowed a woefully out of form Charlie Curnow to kick 2 quick first quarter goals to set the tone for Carlton.