Bring-Back-Powell

Aside from the GABBA game in round 16, our form away from the MCG has been deplorable since the ™Business Trip. Most of the angst this year has arisen from the Perth/Optus games and the Dogs Marvel game. Most of our MCG games have been pretty darn decent. I expect us to be flat for this one but then give it a red hot crack for Collingwood.

Deserves a farewell for his 2021 efforts. But it should be the Collingwood game in front of the fans. Do we owe Hunter a 200th game? I suspect I know the answer.

Tomlinson should get dropped for breaking a team rule in the third quarter. He took a mark in the centre of the ground, took on his opponent, recorded a quick inside 50 entry thereby causing a bit of stress on the Port defence.

Billings miss was no harder. But yeah, 80% of AFL players make that shot.

Whenever he plays us: He plays like the second coming of Polly Farmer when he rucks and the second coming of Wayne Carey when he plays forward.

I’d be more than delighted if we played a home game at Marvel instead of Alice Springs.

BT just mentioned that the crowd number at Marvel is impressive. Does he realise half the top level is closed and the other half isn’t even full? Woudn’t be much more than our 17K of last night.

Isn’t that exactly what we need in this club? Our skill level is a disgrace all over the field and a major reason why we lost last night. We need help in this area. Oh, and he got in the best players on the AFL website’s match report for probably the 20th time this year. I’m not advocating trading pick 6 alone for him and I suspect the club won’t either, therefore he’ll probably go elsewhere or stay at Port. But you seem to be denigrating a player who is quite frankly more skillful than any MFC player on display.

Clearly our second best loss of the year behind the Brisbane Gabba game. If you told me before the game we would be leading for over 60% of the game I would have well and truly taken that. I thought we’d put the cue in the rack during the Dogs game, so the response was appreciated. We need to ensure everyone is available for day 1 pre season, which is what derailed our 2024 season. If that means surgery now then do it. If Gawn doesn’t need surgery then keep him in the side as he’s keeping us afloat. We’d be stuffed without him. We also need to heavily practice last 2 minute scenarios over summer like Collingwood have done in the past, when we’re behind and trying to take the win away from the oppo. We’ve had plenty of practice with 4 or 5 close losses this year but haven’t nailed one aside from the North game, but we were in front. Really disappointing that with about 1:12 left on the clock, JHF marks the ball in his defensive 50 and Port manage to nurse the ball down to their forward pocket by games end without us realistically getting near it.

A lot of Melbourne supporters will embrace those time slots next year.

Really poor turn out by our fans on about as good a night as you’ll get in August. Our record low crowd is 12k V Port.

GWS going to win another game purely on accuracy. Are they going to win consistent finals kicking 5 behinds a game? Is it sustainable in finals?

Unfortunately we’re back to the days of hoping for 100% effort and as close to a 4 quarter performance as possible. Looking forward to seeing the future on display tonight - JVR, McVee, Rivers, Kolt, Kozzie, Houston.

Collingwood were the better team on the night. Pure and simple. They had a lead of 33-6 early in the second quarter and 58-31 at the 25 minute mark of the third quarter. You ain’t coming back from that deficit in a final against the minor premiers. And before you use the Brayshaw excuse, the inside 50 and possession count was so lop sided before the incident even happened. Collingwood were ready to go from the opening bounce and we weren’t. The Carlton semi final loss is the one that got away, but the Collingwood final - we were beaten by the better team.

Collingwood’s last quarters are as bad as ours. Even against Richmond they got outscored by 3 goals. Round 24 will be interesting now that both clubs are out of business.

I would still like us to pick up a genuine ruckman this off season. We can't have a repeat of the Freo game where we've got literally nobody to counter Darcy and Jackson. That was an absolute list management bungle of the highest order. Kane Cornes last night suggested having a look at Riley O'Brien from Adelaide. I don't mind it on the proviso: 1) Max is willing to have some weeks off if the injury curse doesn't get him first 2) Riley is willing to play VFL with clear scope for senior appearances. The only negative is that JVR would still be rucking 7 minutes a quarter.

In my post I wrote a player "LIKE" Brynn Teackle. The operative word being like, with full knowledge that we had our pick after North.

Houston was a 2023 All Australian. Houston is tracking towards a 2024 All Australian as suggested by Kane Cornes who is on the committee himself. I note that he wasn't in the mid season mock All Australian sides but appears to have stepped up his game in the second half of the year. Champion Data have him as the top 5 best user of the footy in the league. Imagine having an MFC player that is in the top 5 users of the prune in the league. Last year against Essendon, Houston kicked what I consider to be the best after the siren winning goal behind Mal Blight in the mid 70's. To be potentially a back to back All Australian means you're a player at the absolute peak of your career and clearly an A to A+ grade player. That in anyone's language is worth a pick 7. The risk I concede is that Houston is probably having the best 2 seasons of his career, and may not be able to replicate them again if he were to cross over to the MFC.

Very good point. I can see the rationale behind shopping early before everyone else gets a chance in November. However, I still think the mid season draft should be used to satisfy mid season deficiencies, and we clearly had a pressing need for a second ruck. Someone like a ready made Brynn Teakle type player (North Mebourne) would have been a smart selection for us in order to allow JVR to focus 100% on his forward craft and development.

I was lucky enough to attend the round 3 win and it was definitely one of our best wins in recent years. That last quarter was inspirational in hostile territory and the boys refused to head out of Adelaide Oval without the 4 points. A completely different attitude to the one post round 9.

For those that keep a close eye on the oppo's ins/outs each week, when was the last time our opposition lost a key player to injury heading into our game. Seems like key players always come back in for our game, but never go out. Georgiades is a big out for them.

Fair call about Salem continually breaking down. Our fitness guru didn’t exactly sound convincing about Salem’s availability this week.

4 possessions and 1 mark a game probably suggests there’s some scope for improvement. I wonder if we were tempted to recruit a ready made ruck in the mid season draft if one was available?

Any chance we can bring the attitude and zest for the contest that we brought to the recent Brisbane game as opposed to the suburban league level pressure we brought to the Freo and Dogs games? Even the GWS game was more than acceptable. Feels like we’re picking and choosing which games we can be azzed turning up to.

Guessing the player was Brayden Preuss or Sam Frost?