Bring-Back-Powell

Is it fair to say the Dogs are officially out of the premiership race? Need to go 9-1 to sneak into the top 4.

Let’s call a spade a spade- BBB is having a poor season. Nowhere near the Coleman contenders for someone that’s a professional goal kicker.

You can't hear the chanting of the MFC cheersquad and general crowd with all the 90's nightclub songs blasting over the speaker after each goal. Not a great initiative that the club has brought into the home game entertainment package this year.

I've had the opposite feedback. The night after we beat the Dogs in round 1, a couple of non Melbourne supporters I work with commented on how unnecessary and mean spirited we were with our booing of C Weightman and B Smith. With regards to the Freo supporter raised in the opening thread, I guess it's easy to be magnanimous when your team won. She probably would not have been so complimentary if the scores remained the same from half time to full time.

A salient point made, sir.

If Dogs lose tonight, they'll be 6-6 and probably have to go 9-1 in the last 10 games to finish top 4, and thus have any genuine hope of winning the flag this year. No team has ever snuck into the top 4 with 14 wins. Even if they win, they'll still have to go 8-2 to make top 4 with Melbourne, Brisbane (away), St Kilda, Fremantle, Sydney (away) and Geelong (away). I'm ruling out the Dogs to win the 2022 premiership.

Spot on. A+ is too generous. Us and Brisbane have the toughest fixture on the run home, closely followed by Bulldogs and St Kilda in that exact order. Excluding the bottom 6 sides starting from Hawthorn and below who won't be playing finals, Gold Coast have by far the easiest draw while Collingwood, Richmond and Geelong have the next best runs home in that exact order.

If Casey were playing after the seniors, I could see a situation where he starts as a medical sub in the seniors and plays up to a half of footy if we cop an early injury. However given that Casey play before the seniors, I'd expect he plays one game at Casey and returns for Queens Birthday. If Rivers has another poor game this weekend, he goes out for Salem for Queens Birthday.

Disagree.

Unless the VICS are struggling for numbers I wouldn't have Lever in there. Has missed a handful of games, and some of the games he's played have been un Jake Lever like.

Saturday's game will be 20 days after he injured is hammy back on 15 May.

Sparrow got coaches votes as recently as the North game 2 weeks ago. No chance he gets dropped, but he certainly hasn't reached the stage of his career where he's playing a week in week out consistent high standard of footy. In - Tomlinson, T Mac, Langdon, Harmes, Out - May, Weid, Melksham, Bedford, Dunstan I reckon the club would like to give BBB a run at Casey to rediscover some form and confidence like they did with T Mac, but Weid just can't be trusted to step up in his absence. Harmes' hammy must have been minor, as they usually miss 3-4 games. Assuming we take Goody at his word.

Our third quarter against the Roys in that game was reminiscent of our third quarter against Freo last weekend.

5pm

St Kilda?

a) I haven't read confirmation of this b) needing more time to prepare the case shouldn't be enough of a reason to extend the hearing.

I hope the club doesn't stand in his way if he wants a trade and we can only get peanuts in return. The bloke clearly needs a fresh start to realise the talent that he possesses. You don't accidently have a 24 possession/7 mark/3 goal performance in a final under the Friday night lights in front of 90,000. He also kicked 2 in the following final. However, it's not working at Melbourne. He was called in to hopefully be an able replacement for an inform T Mac and he couldn't produce, and it's happened far too often with him. The Freo game should've been a line in the sand game for him but it was more of the same unfortunately.

Good crowd on Saturday. We average 19,000 against Freo at the G, so the club would be happy with 29K. Agree with another poster in this thread in that the Freo supporters were extremely upbeat and excited for a home and away game.

He's the only bloke that you can trust around goals these days. No way would you drop a player who's kicked 22 goals in 10 games, and is on pace to kick 50 goals this year if we make the finals.

He's been out for 11 games. As much as I'd love him back in the side, you don't want him blowing up in the last quarter with the game in the balance. I'm assuming Petty misses next week under worst case scenario. Langdon in for Melksham T Mac and Tomlinson in to play May and Pettys role. Harmes in for Bedford. Stiff on Bedford, but he needed to do more than just the two nice goals he kicked. Dunstan drops out of the 22. If Petty plays next week, then T Mac goes forward and either BBB or Weid get dropped. BBB might need to get some form for Casey. It worked for T Mac. Any chance Jackson can take a contested mark for someone of his height?

If Petty is out along with May, I'm more than comfortable for T Mac to play down back along with Tomlinson who appears an obvious in. T Mac is an excellent one on one defender who is hard to be out marked. Of course allowing T Mac to go down back is predicated on BBB and Weid having more than 3 possessions between them, and dare we say it, Brown kicking a goal or 2 which is what we brought him in for from North.

They put up way more than a fight than us, considering both teams lost their key defenders.

That was clearly evident last night.

Q’Bday suddenly looks like a tough assignment.