Bring-Back-Powell

I can handle Jackson playing a year or 2 at North if it means we have to decline Peter Bell's inevitable final offer of a second round draft pick and Ethan Hughes thrown in as a sweetener for LJ. He's going to be horrid to deal with if history is any guide.

Difference is Papley was under contract with Sydney when he wanted out. Sydney held all the power.

Absolutely it does. If he nominates Freo, he will get to Freo one way or another. I honestly can't recall an occasion recently when an out of contract high profile player was not traded to the club of his clearly communicated choice. Would love to hear an example to the contrary.

Which they clearly won't be.

I guess it depends which way you look it at. If you take a short term view and we win back to back flags with LJ playing 2 good grand finals, then you'd say the recruitment was a roaring success, we shake his hand and get some good compensation. If you take a long term view, it's an absolute disaster to lose a pick 3 that the club clearly had a 15 year view of that player being the number one ruck and franchise player of the club, irrespective of what state they're from. I think Taylor and Co. will avoid WA (and even other states) if we ever get a prized pick again (i.e. - top 5)

Tipping Trac's got a 30 possession / 4.0 goal game coming up within the next few weeks. Not too fussed about Clarry. He's a non goal kicking midfielder who's job is to supply the goals more so than kick them himself.

Sydney and Collingwood have caused Goodwin all sorts of problems since he began coaching. We've lost 5 out of 6 against Sydney with our only win being a tight 10 point win over them last year. We've been a debacle against Collingwood since 2017. We've lost 6 out of 8 games against them including missing the finals in round 23 2017 from the loss. We really need to put in a good showing against them in round 21 in the event we meet in finals.

Great point re Seedsman. He was so dominant in our MCG game last year. Walker got May last time with 3 goals. It's very unusual for someone to kick multiple goals on May but Walker did and he also kicked the winning goal.

If you believe in the law of averages, then these three should be dead eye Richard's by finals time given that Trac and ANB bat at about 56% each over their career. Oliver is just under 50% But yes, 9.21 for Trac and 3.12 for ANB is incomprehensibly bad.

Good explanation of the current and future outlook. Sounds like 6-2 (17-5) on the run home will pretty much guarantee a top 2 spot.

I'd back in Lord Nev's knowledge of footy over SWYL any day of the week. BBB was fairly ordinary the other night, but he's slowly improving from the lows of the Freo and Sydney debacles and we certainly don't have any other options at the moment.

Agree with your first point about Mitch Brown. Just doesn't have what it takes anymore to be a regular AFL player. With your last point, in fairness Geelong also have a five day break too. I expect multiple Geelong restings given they have North at home next weekend.

The Walker/Fogarty combo requires some consideration given they kicked 10 between them yesterday. Whilst they were playing nobody yesterday, 10 goals is still 10 goals and both were instrumental when they beat us last year, with Tex kicking the winning goal. We did well against Brisbane's big "3" last week but all three are yet to hit peak form/fitness yet. These Adelaide blokes are at the top of their game. If we were to somehow lose to Adelaide next week, I'd imagine these two lads would've had a big say in the result.

The games in Alice Springs and the maximum temperature could be as low as 15 degrees for mid July. Certainly won’t be more than the low 20’s and shouldn’t be taxing.

They reek of “pointy end of season” unfortunately.

I think it’s more about how good Collingwood are as opposed to GWS not turning up. They’re strangling GWS and making them earn every possession. Pies did this to us too.

Classy comment…

Collingwood to finish top 4 and a genuine chance for a GF spot. They’re fixture on the way home is a joke and they’re quite frankly too hard to play against. They make you earn every possession with their red hot pressure.

The early season win over Essendon that year was a fantastic performance against the league leaders that year. We kicked about 20 goals that day and the Wiz was amongst the goals. Hopefully you can get your hands on that particular game. Beating the Hawks in round 4 by a point under the Friday night lights was the other highlight of the year.

And to rub salt in the wounds he was able to serve 3 of them in the 2001 Ansett Cup.

Collingwood V GWS is a big game today in respect of Collingwood’s finals chances. Does anyone see them as a premiership contender or a mid range side in the middle of a winning streak? All I know is that we’ll need to play a lot better, for longer, against them in round 21. They’ve well and truly had the wood over us since round 23 2017.

Handy that Tom Stewart will miss our round 17 game with suspension (unless he somehow gets 1 week) No change this week unless someone has a niggle. Don’t rush Max this week with a 5 day break between Adelaide and Geelong. We need to somehow find a happy medium between getting the 4 points against Adelaide but not going “Bull at a gate” like we did against Brisbane, considering we have the toughest assignment in footy 5 days later.

I’m seriously impressed with Carlton and Geelong at the moment. If we unfortunately miss the GF, I can see these two playing it off.

That’s awesome mate. Please send Demonland yet another photo as well…….

37,000 is an outstanding non school holiday crowd and will only strengthen the claims for more Thursday night games next year, particularly given the benefits of the floating fixture where the AFL can mix and match. The club/AFL promoted the game well with $12 tickets but the BCNA event probably drew more people that it otherwise would've. I'm not averse to attending Thursday night footy a couple of times a year but I'm hoping our week one final (assuming we qualify for finals and we're at the G) isn't on a Thursday night. Would much rather Friday night or Saturday twilight or night for our first final. There will be a week one final on Thursday night.