Bring-Back-Powell

I get that 2021 meant a heap for Melbourne supporters, but how much better is it watching games live at the G again. Relevant games at that.

Further to your point: We’ve beaten Sydney twice since 2001 at the MCG. Just TWICE. That is quite frankly embarrassing over a 21 year period. The pressure will be on us more at the G than at the SCG. It’s unequivocal now that our preparation and execution for interstate games is second to none, dating back to August 2021.

Sydney 100- St Kilda 50. We finish 3rd. Keep an eye on this kind of score.

Spot on and he was instrumental in the last quarter against Carlton. However, Salem will be back. Will he replace Bowey or Hunt? Goody knows what he’ll get from Bowey in a finals series. Having said all that, I assume Bowey will be dropped for Salem.

Rapt for Hunt if he plays finals, but Salem needs to replace a defender tonight.

Ok the TAB, we’ve closed the gap to Geelong from about $2.00 to $0.15

We’re the first VIC club to go 7-0 interstate in a season. (I just made up that stat but I reckon it’s correct)

If the Saints can keep things to a respectable 7 goalish loss, then we’re back at the G for finals!!!

If he got McCluggage in the head, I reckon he’ll be rubbed out for week 1 as it was off the ball and intentional. But good to see Hugh back on the field which will help matters.

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.