Bring-Back-Powell

Not the grand final but it's amazing that between 2007 and 2020 we beat Geelong twice. In 2021 we beat Geelong 3 times.

I’m all about being the side that has the best depth in the league as this years injury run was pretty much unprecedented and won’t be repeated. Dunstan addresses this criteria. Happy to have him onboard if it eventuates.

Played an excellent game against Richmond in the first practice match this year kicking 3 goals. He was that impressive that when he copped an injury scare, I recall posters being worried about his availability for round 1. Not sure if that game was an outlier or if there’s genuinely something to work with. He was poor in his only start this year against Carlton.

The fact that the only time Collingwood won a final(s) between 1985 and 2001 was in 1990 would support your theory that the Pies were an ordinary premiership side. They had some stinking bad losses to West Coast and Hawthorn and lost to Essendon and Hawthorn twice that year. However history proves that they got it together from the West Coast qualifying final replay and never looked back.

I think that West Coast 1990 semi was at Waverley rather than Perth. We beat them in Perth in the 3rd last round. I could be wrong but I think we went in as favourites in the semi Vs WC but were never in it and may have had a couple of key injuries.

I really hope not. We'll all be 90% fully vaxed next year and many will probably have had a booster. I'll be really disappointed if we have to move our games interstate again in either the home and away season or finals.

The Geelong V West Coast game in round 22 was a sliding doors moment and may have changed the course of history. Geelong were all over them all day until the late in the game where the Eagles snuck over the line to finish 3rd and banish us to 4th and an elimination final against Hawthorn. Had WC lost and we finished 3rd we would've played Collingwood, a side that we had a fantastic recent finals record against. Collingwood were pretty ordinary in their week 1 final draw against West Coast, so I would've backed us to beat Collingwood and then face an Essendon who we had the wood over in 1990. Lots of woulda coulda shouldas, but we had to go the long route if we were to win the 1990GF, and it cost us in the first semi against West Coast.

Pert’s requested Dees V Dogs round 1 at the G. Presume that would be the opening Friday night of the year if the request gets over the line. Hope we can avoid Perth next year, or at worst play there once. Sick of playing West Coast at Optus and Subiaco year in year out while the last time we played WC at the G was in 2014.

Further improve our depth over the trade and drafting period. We'll never have a charmed injury run like 2021 as evidenced by the fact that Tomlinson and Hunt were our only best 22 players to miss substantial games. Whilst they were seamlessly replaced, we need to plan around the fact that we'll be having more best 22 players miss weeks next year. Cerra would've been a great get to fatten up our midfield stocks. Hopefully Laurie will be a great addition in the second half of next year like Bowey was this year. I hope Melksham stays. We've had a bit of depth leave already - Jones, Jetta, VDB etc...

Anyone slightly concerned about our MCG form since the middle of the year. 1) an ordinary scrappy win over Essendon 2) a really poor first 3 quarters in a close loss to GWS 3) an inexplicable draw to a 4-11 Hawthorn at the time. 4) A loss to the Dogs in which we trailed all night. 5) an ordinary to poor win over Adelaide in which we conceded a run of about 5 goals to an injury riddled bottom 4 side. Hoping those game were more indicative of our mid- late season flat spot rather than an actual issue we have with the venue.

Against Collingwood we kicked 9.9 but the Pies managed 11.14 so we couldn’t blame inaccuracy on that loss. It was just a poor day at the office.

For anyone with Fox Footy today: 2pm - Brisbane qual final 4:30pm - Geelong prelim 7pm - Dogs Gf

Anyone quietly happy that the celebrations were forced to finish just half a week in as most of the club headed back to VIC? Now the boys can already focus on 2022. I’ll never forget Jared Roughead commenting that after their 2008 flag, Hawthorn returned to pre season with an extra player in terms of added skin-fold and proceeded to have a complacent 2009 and somehow missed the finals after their breakthrough flag. No club that has broken their major drought (Sydney, Hawthorn 2008 Geelong, Dogs and Richmond) has gone back to back.

I hope we get a home round 1 fixture on a beautiful Saturday afternoon so we can get 50,000 MFC fans watch the flag unfurl and hopefully get a win. What a day that would be! Richmond and Carlton have a mortgage on the the round one Thursday night and Pies and Dogs appear to have secured the Friday night slot, or at least that's what they want. As for double ups, we'll be a certainty to play the Dogs twice and one of either Port or Geelong twice. Get ready for a few Friday nights next year unless the floating fixture returns and we fall off the rails.

I'm craving for one more premiership, at the G. Hopefully the club has a special motivator in winning one in front of the fans. And the motivation is real. Richmond said they would dedicate 2021 to winning one in front of the faithful who missed out on 2020. But their fans had already seen two, so I guess those were words rather than actions.

The Richmond Anzac eve game will be an away game for sure. We had an opportunity to get 75K there but it was the supporters faults for not turning up. The Collingwood QB game could go either way. Yes we missed out on the MCG crowd but were still able to get a small crowd in Sydney.

The teams we played twice this year in the regular season were Dogs (2), Geelong (4), GWS (6), Haw (14) and Adelaide (15). For reference, in 2021 Richmond played (from 2020) three top six teams twice, one 7-12th side once and bottom 6 side once. So realistically, is our draw next year really going to be that much harder than in 2021 in terms of double up games?

Bevo should've stuck with that random late 1960's boxing match which inspired them to beat us last year at Metricon.

That's a mighty quick dash if you made it there and back in 30 odd seconds. The constant adds were another reason why I was snaky not being able to attend the game live. Some of us pay a fair whack of money for Fox Footy, Foxtel, Kayo etc. Disappointing that we were forced to tune into channel 7's coverage.

I ran out of tears after watching the live stream of our practice match win over Richmond at Casey back on some random Friday morning in Feb.

I was reminded once a week by my Collingwood supporting colleague that this man would be an absolute disaster for the club as he left the pies in disgrace. Has to take a massive amount of credit for our 2021 premiership and his key role now is to make us a financially powerful club that has its future in the league well and truly secured for decades, much like Richmond has over the last 5 years. If ever there are talks of a VIC club re-locating again, I want us to be so far down the pecking order we're not even remotely considered.

I'm sure it will be but VIC's have been burnt so badly at every turn of COVID since the early months of 2020, that consumer confidence would be at an all time low. People that can't afford donations like 2020/2021 need certainty that they will be able to attend games rather than watching the most critical games of their MFC supporting lives in their PJ's and slippers. I think this will affect numbers a little.

I'll never get sick of replaying that goal he kicked off 1 step from 52 in the granny.

Agree with ANB. The most improved on the list from a not so obvious point of view. You now know what you're getting from him from week to week, and it's pretty damn good. However, Fritta took his game to the stratosphere for much of this year and has to win the award. T Mac showed dramatic improvement in the first half of the year but the inclusion of BBB made him less of a focal point and thus less influence on games. Spargo made a significant leap from a poor 2019 to the latter games in 2020 and then another leap into 2021. Harmes improved in 2021 after losing his spot in 2020, but I'm unsure whether he's absolute best 22 going forward. Sparrow certainly had a better year in 2021 but that's because he was injured for most of 2020. He could be my candidate for most improved for 2022 as he'll vie for more midfield minutes. I can't really think if any other dramatic improvements, aside from Rivers, Kozzie and Jackson having ripper second years after promising debuts. Improvement implies a player had an ordinary prior year, but these fellas were good in year 1 when they played.