Bring-Back-Powell

Just mention to your wife the you missed the majority of games in 2020 and 2021 including one pretty big game in particular, and I'm sure you'll then get a leave pass. Agree with you in that Mother's Day is a poor fixture and the AFL deliberately have two Friday night games that weekend in order to play one less game on the Sunday.

On another matter the Swans V Lions game this weekend should not be the 4:40 Sunday slot. It's the game of the week and should be on prime time.

Sydney play two Friday night games in a row before our meeting in round 12 so they might go for some variety and put the Dogs V Geelong game on Friday night. Collingwood can't play Hawthorn on that Friday night as they've already had a 5 day break and play on Sunday in round 11. For round 15 (Melbourne V Brisbane), they would've chosen Geelong V Richmond forever and a day for Friday night but I don't think you can go pass the perceived number 1 v number 2 seed for the Friday night game that weekend. Sydney V St Kilda an outside chance for Friday night, therefore giving us either Thursday or Saturday night. For a leftfield prediction, They may indeed give us Thursday night for Melbourne V Brisbane, so they have the 5 day break policy up their sleeve and thus give us another Thursday night game later in the year. We and Brisbane both have the bye the week before so the AFL can easily schedule a Thursday night game for this one.

As Dan Andrews said in every second presser - "this thing spreads like wild fire". I'd say we'd be naïve to think there won't be more players to test positive through to Saturday. I just hope we don't have too many players out whereby winning this week would be a bridge too far. Would hate to waste a loss on an average side such as Hawthorn considering our tough second half fixture.

Not sure you can automatically assume Lever and Viney will be back if they tested positive and were/are sick.

Dees V Hawks suspended from betting, but you can still get $26 for Jackson to kick the first goal of the game.

This post probably won't age well, but here's a crack anyway: In - Lever, Viney, T Mac Out- Jackson, Kozzie, Smith. Hopefully nobody else tests positive in the meantime.

2012 was a stinking bad year, after a somewhat promising 2010 and 2011 (prior to 186) In answer to your questions, we beat Essendon once as the only non expansion team, GWS twice and GC once. The GWS win in Canberra felt like a loss.

Will be interesting to see how much of level 4 will be open against the Hawks given the heavy rain that's forecasted. They're clearly not thinking of the supporters if they close level 4 of the southern stand in the pursuit of saving a a couple of bucks.

I understand streaming is the way of the future but it would be disappointing if Fox Footy no longer had the rights to show every single home and away game live under the next deal, and one had to pay for an additional service to watch Thursday night footy.

Rivers. He’s been our worst performed player this year.

After a shaky first 2 rounds, Hunt’s getting better by the week and should be in our side for the rest of the year. I’ve noticed his one on one defending has been excellent this year. If you’re getting the points over a tricky opponent in Bolton, you should be considered a key staple in our defence.

What ever happens, we must finish top 2 to avoid a potential Brisbane week 1 GABBA final. The club needs to aim for a 19-3 season which would guarantee a top 2 spot. No issues dropping the odd game here and there, particularly against Geelong in Geelong as we know finals won’t be played there. The idea of 22-0 is nonsense at the moment considering we haven’t played anyone of note at the moment. (I thought the dogs win in Rd 1 was a genuine scalp but not so sure at the moment)

Dunstan was concussed so will probably miss regardless. I didn’t mind his performance and he’s a very good hand baller in tight. A good insider player. They won’t drop him but ANB has played more average/poor games than good ones. How many times has he been done for holding the ball this year? Selection is easy this week: In - Lever, Viney out - Dunstan, Smith Goodwin in his presser mentioned Smith stepped up last night but I thought he was a bit of a liability and that handpass straight to Lynch was cringeworthy.

55-60K

Two random observations: 1) Dermott is the only person on the planet to call Brad Johnson “Bradley” 2) Holmes is an impressive young player. Not surprised Taylor and Co were really keen on this kid in the 2020 draft.

Looks pretty good to me. Honestly forgot about Sydney. Quietly going about their business, racking up wins and will likely finish top 4 and keep the Dogs out of that top 4.

I think the Dogs may eventually work themselves into the top 4 (see Brisbane’s slow start last year) assuming they go on a massive run over the next 7 weeks, in which their fixture is easy on paper. So I’d have the dogs in, and Freo out of the top 4 from your above scenario. Saints to finish top 4.

Everyone probably said the same thing about us this time last year when we beat mostly mediocre sides in Freo, Saints, Hawks and GWS and look how that turned out. Everyone around here will laugh St Kilda off as a chance this year but I think they’ve got the defensive traits to at least make a prelim.

St Kilda have the offensive weapons and defensive traits to win this years flag. I understand they play Sydney, Brisbane and Geelong twice this year but I’m getting the sense that they’ve got the team buy in that we had last year, and could be on the road to something special this year. And they will have chosen a good year to break their drought, post lockdowns.

What on earth has happened to Whitfield?

I love BT’s attention to detail: Mentioned this is the first AFL game in Canberra for 2 years, since before COVID. Pretty sure GWS played Dogs in Canberra on a Friday night in round 6 last year. A game which BT himself would’ve commentated, being a Friday night game. https://afltables.com/afl/stats/games/2021/072120210423.html

Dunstan debuts and T Mac axed..

Surely Viney would be the first player in the league to be sidelined twice by the heath and safety protocols. (First one was the practice match V North)

T Mac down back please.