Bring-Back-Powell

Don't know why but I'm super looking forward to the Pies V Blues game. Hopefully Collingwood can get up. The lesser of two evils.

He may have finished 14th last year but there's no way on earth he's finishing that low in this year's Bluey, unless his form falls off the cliff in the second half of the year. His games against Essendon and St Kilda this year were absolute top shelf. His better than expected form is obviously holding things up IMO.

Exactly right. We will lose our home ground advantage if we play Carlton as they will outnumber us 70/30 and their supporters will be incredibly hungry to see some finals. Richmond are another side which will outnumber us in an MCG final. We had the crowd in all of our finals last year. Might not be the case this year.

Fair enough. Richmond shouldn't be slept on. Seemed to have got their mojo back since Dusty has returned.

If it's not as good as Melbourne's, it's not that far off. Once again, you like other posters appear to be writing them off. That's fine. I see a team that's 8-2 and has an ability to blow away sides by half time with leads that are too hard for the opposition to come back from, as we saw with Sydney last week.

But the thing is Carlton haven’t lost one single game when they’ve had a big lead. This tells me their leads have been more then enough to win the game, and they’ve got the composure and maturity to hang on, which will hold them in good stead in September. Clearly everyone here isn’t taking them seriously, but I am.

Maybe, after another season of being in and out of the side, and for arguments sake, is not seen after round 18, I would say it's a possibility that he changes his mindset and would look for another club where it's almost certain he'll be playing 20-22 games a season. The guy's in his 7th season of footy and clearly has enough talent to be a staple in a club's forward line, rather than playing VFL 2 in every 3 games. I'd rather keep him, but also don't want to stand in his way if a better opportunity arises for him next year, on the assumption that T Mac ends the year in strong form.

If T Mac's still in our planned best 22 for 2023 and they anticipate JVR will be ready to play AFL, the club really needs to strongly encourage Weid to actively look for a new club next year, even if we only get a ham sandwich for him. He's good enough to play 22 games for a club lacking key forward options (eg - Pies, North, Essendon). Sam should prioritise playing a regular game over the hope of winning a flag at this point in time.

Oh well, I hope Goody and co study the Carlton AAMI loss a little more than posters here who are willing to chuck it in the bin and pretend it never happened. We were utterly destroyed in the midfield that night.

Looks lie their prayers will be met. Saturday looks pretty dry at the moment. 0-1 mm.

Carlton's midfield destroyed us in the AAMI practice match at Marvel. We lost the possession count by 70, clearances by a staggering 23 despite having our entire starting midfield available and they out tackled us by 14 despite having more of the ball. Most here will write it off as just a practice match, but it was a match nonetheless. And a lot of people are bagging Carlton for giving up big leads. They've had big half time leads on 5 occasions (including our praccy match) which the opposition have reeled in. And guess how many times they've lost in those scenarios? Zero, which shows that they've got the maturity and game awareness to hold on when the pressure is well and truly on. A good sign for them in September IMO. I wouldn't be sleeping on Richmond either. Particularly given they might be fielding a stronger side than they did on Anzac eve, should we meet in a final (in fairness we were also missing Viney and Lever). Carlton and Richmond concern me more than playing Brisbane or Freo in an MCG final as they'll unfortunately have more or the crowd support at the game.

That's a good point you make. All the public holiday marquee games start at 3:20pm which lead into the Ch 7 news.

Not sure if anyone noticed but Melksham lost a one on one ground ball get on the Docklands wing in the third quarter and let his North opponent waltz out of traffic and kick inside 50. Very un Melbourne like circa 2021/2022. Then 10 minutes later he nailed a beautiful and classy 52 metre goal when we were in a hint of trouble in the 3rd quarter. Kind of sums Melksham up as a player. In - Viney (if it's actually hamstring awareness rather than a tear) Out - Langdon Bedford to be the sub on Saturday, though it would be nice for him to get a sustained run in the seniors. I wouldn't bother with Baker. Not sure what value he'd add in a top 4 matchup.

BBB would need a month of what he dished up on Saturday evening to be on shaky ground I reckon. I think he's clearly best 22. Even though he didn't hit the scoreboard, the two goals we kicked in the third quarter were set up by BBB which the coaches will give him credit for. I agree with you that he should've kicked that sitter in the second quarter.

First game of the year whereby the losing side kicked 100 points. Last year it happened twice. In 2000 it happened 8 times in the first two rounds of footy. How footy has changed over the last 20 odd years.

Clearly the Hawks v Lions game has been one of the matches of the year so far. Lets hope the Hawks can pull it off!

It’s also well known that his partner is dead against a move west.

The only reason I wouldn’t want to play Carlton in the finals (aside from their strong midfield and Curnow/McKay) is that they (and Richmond) would out number us as a crowd at the MCG and take our home ground advantage and atmosphere away from us a little. We had the majority of the crowd on our side for each final last year and it surely had a positive effect on us, particularly the GF. Just a small 1 percenter, but we’d have the crowd on our side against Brisbane, Freo, St Kilda, Sydney, Geelong and the Dogs in finals. Carlton - no.

The AFL will be desperate to get the round 22 Melbourne V Carlton game on Friday night, more so because of Carlton than Melbourne. If Carlton are still top 4 by then, it will be billed as Carlton’s massive test before finals and this could seriously attract a bumper crowd because of their large supporter base that are attending games at the moment. The three Marvel games in round 22 looks on paper to stop this from happening. However, the way around this is as follows: The AFL can schedule the round 22 St Kilda V Brisbane game at Marvel on the Thursday night. Neither side up until that point would have had a 5 day break. Furthermore, Brisbane will likely play Carlton on the Friday night of round 21 so won’t even be imposed a 5 day break into a Thu night rd 22 game. On the other hand, St Kilda must play Hawthorn no later than the Saturday of round 21. I would say the AFL are working on having the Dees V Carlton game on the Fri night by exhausting all options. That’s the point of the floating fixture and the allowed one 5 day break for each side.

A bit of a concern for the Freo game you’d imagine.

Heeney’s been pathetic tonight.

Wouldn’t be surprised if we play the Blues week 1 at the G. (1v4) And they’ll probably out number us as well in terms of the crowd. Although given their recent form they might finish 3rd.

I hope the Bulldogs are out of business by round 17 to make a mockery of the floating fixture. Essendon certainly have in the upcoming weeks when they have a mortgage of Friday night games.

Plenty of consternation around here over the most minor of minor team selections in a game which we're expected to win by 11 goals.

In fairness, only 3 out of 9 games are televised on FTA most weeks so the odds are high that we're going to have quite a few weeks on Foxtel. Although 5 weeks in a row is quite stiff.