Bring-Back-Powell

Can't imagine Jeremy Howe will be that gracious when he does his farewell speech. Remember his very first pre season games in 2013 against North at Marvel when he nailed a set shot from outside 50. Thought we had a ripper on our hands. (Hogan also made an appearance in that game despite being underage) Was it the GWS round 23 game that he got injured and therefore missed the 2018 finals?

Off to the Essendon BigFooty forum for a morning giggle. Well done to North. Kind of like our Paul Roos moment in late 2013 - on the road to some relevance for them.

Hugely important game for our flag chances and whether our home and away season could be considered a success. Not many clubs win a flag with their most recently consecutive win coming in round 16. Would be disappointed to end the season in an “also ran” position of 6th after starting 10-0. A win and the sky is the limit for us!

If we do win on Friday night, the Sydney V St Kilda game is going to remind me of the round 23 Sunday twilight game of 2017 - West Coast V Adelaide. Fox Footy will be putting the live ladder after each goal and we'll be celebrating or commiserating after each goal. In reality, we're probably finishing 3rd and heading up to Sydney assuming we win. We'd have to win by about 12-15 more points than Sydney. Here is a possible scenario that would get us to second: Melbourne 100 - Brisbane 76 Sydney 90 - St Kilda 78 Melbourne - 127.9% Sydney 127.7%

100% disagree with this comment from an Australian perspective. Until the state governments remove the 1 week isolation period upon testing positive with COVID, Australia is most certainly not living with COVID. Assuming you do the right thing by the general population and isolate, you could miss out on your own wedding, birthday or attending an MFC premiership live even if you're not particularly sick. We have nowhere near moved on from COVID.

The falsifying of COVID test results should have resulted in suspensions to the parties involved. Although looking at the three clubs topping the list, it's not really surprising how they got away with a smack on the behind.

I'll never forget watching the West Coast V Adelaide game with the live ladder changing after each goal. Charlie Cameron kicked a goal for Adelaide at the 20 minute mark of the last quarter to put us into the finals.....only for the Eagles to kick 2 late ones and we were back out. I always thought that it was the Eagles that ran way with it after 3 qtr time, but it was actually Adelaide that won the last quarter. Pure torture and you rightly point out that we blew it against Brisbane more so than the rd 23 game against Collingwood. Buckley had just re-signed before round 23 and the shackles were off for the under achieving Pies that year.

I think we can all tolerate Dunny coming back to the club as a supporter but we need to draw the line if Jeremy Howe gets onto the 2026 MFC bandwagon.

Harmes in due to his rd. 15 scalp over him Neale. Although I'm hoping he wasn't on Neale in the final last year as Neale got 46! I know Sparrow was one of our 22 premiership heroes but I think it's time he gets dropped after a couple of 10 possession games. I like him at times, but I feel as though Harmes is a more important rotation in the midfield this week with Neale on the other side.

Absolutely agree with this summary. Finishing 6th and a potential Brisbane or Sydney semi into an MCG prelim is far more desirable than finishing 5th and potentially facing a Freo semi away into a Bris/Syd prelim. The only thing is a lot of AFL members are hoping Collingwood go nowhere near the top 4 as GF tickets are extremely limited to non Collingwood supporting AFL members. (but that's not an MFC issue)

Haven’t never beaten the Brisbane Bears come Lions on a Friday night in QLD since their inception in 1987. In fairness I think we’ve only played them once on a Friday night up there and that was the famous Smith mark in 1995.

T Mac to make the trip up to Brisbane to continue his training program and will resume full training next week, if you believe ch 10 news.

If you stack up round 20, round 21, and round 22 2021 with the same three rounds in 2022, I reckon our form stacks up. And both round 19s we lost to the Dogs. Round 20 2021 - A walk in the park 96 point win against a Gold Coast Suns who had clocked off for the year and had a last second venue switch from Metricon to Marvel put on them (as for us too but we had plenty to play for) Round 20 2022 - Arguably our best win of the year against Fremantle in hostile territory. A road win over a top 4/5 side is a brilliant effort. Round 21 2021 - A fall over the line win against a West Coast that fell off the cliff after round 16. Played 1 really good quarter that night. Round 21 2022 - Led for at least 90% of the night against a red hot Collingwood that had an unsustainable level of accuracy. The major disappointment that night was that we had no answers to their pressure in the last 5 minutes. Round 22 2021 - A win over a bottom 4 Adelaide, but one must remember that they got within a goal mid way through the third quarter before Fritta went off and we won by 40 odd points. Round 22 2022 - A thrilling win over a desperate Carlton side showing excellent composure. The point is we've played 3 finals like intensity games for a 2-1 record compared to a 3-0 record last year but with games with extremely low intensity with little to no crowds. You could argue that each round this year has been better than last year corresponding rounds. Lastly, one also needs to recall that we were pathetic for a portion of the round 23 Geelong game last year.

On the topic of Ed, any reason why Carlton supporters were booing him on the weekend? Were they sticking up for Collingwood or something?

Yes, he did play well on the weekend, and clearly his best game since the Brisbane win. Full credit to him. Hopefully he'll play career best footy in the next 5 weeks.

You gotta love Elliott playing the game of his life last week against us, and then doing stuff all today.

Essendon ending the season as they started it for those that are footy tipping watching.

So it’s either Richmond at the G or Sydney at the SCG in week 1.

The more Collingwood hang around the more likely they are to win this. They love playing from behind from a scoreboard perspective.

De Goey a late out with an injury.

Or a Thursday night. Saturday would be perfect. They will be having a Thursday night week 1 final.

All three scenarios have their strengths and weaknesses. We’ve had awful trouble against both sides at the MCG, with the Pies recent dominance over us since 2017 and Sydney since quite frankly 2002. On the other hand, we’re a largely unproven quantity at the SCG with sporadic games in 2016, 2019 and a disastrous loss to lowly Collingwood last year. Two things I do know: 1) If one of the above scenarios arose, then we’ll be opening our campaign with a side that has the wood over us if you value history. 2) The club’s front office will be hoping for scenario one and three given the devastation of 30,000 odd MFC, MCC and AFL members missing last years grand final/premiership in addition to the other finals that were missed by even more members and supporters. Furthermore, it was rumoured that Pert wanted to play Brisbane at the G in week 1 last year behind empty stands. Thus clearly the admin are hoping for an MCG final over the SCG.

I absolutely despise Collingwood, particularly after beating us twice, however is it actually better for us if they beat Sydney today? If we beat Brisbane and Collingwood win twice then I think we’d play the Pies (2nd v 3rd) at the G in week 1. I’d like to think the boys have learnt a few lesson from our two encounters against them. Conversely, if Sydney beat Collingwood and St Kilda they probably get us on percentage which would mean a trip to Sydney week 1 assuming we beat Lions. Really torn on what’s the better outcome for today. (Ofcourse all of the above will mean nothing if we lose next week)

Fantastic to get a win in front of the faithful after losing 6 out of their last 7 games in VIC. You could’ve written your own ticket for a Melbourne win after Curnow kicked what seemed like the sealer at the time. Carlton supporters don’t bother me as much as others here, the Filth are far worse. However, can someone advise why they were booing Langdon tonight? Pretty sure he was trash talking Collingwood last week and had absolutely nothing to do with Carlton.

Geez Freo hate the wet. Down by 3 pts to WC in a game WC have no business getting within 10 goals.