Bring-Back-Powell

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.

Be interesting if they go to water like we did with May out. The 2 best key defenders in the league.

Ofcourse its beneficial for Collingwood to win. Getting a bit annoying that goal umpires are relying more and more on the video review. The goal umpire had to make the call on the Curnow miss.

No way would Andrew leave Freo given where that side is heading. Tim Gossage, 2 weeks ago, mentioned on SEN that he knows the Brayshaw’s well and Angus would be open to move to WA in order to be close to his grandparents. Also, his girlfriend is dead against a move to Perth.

If Weid has a blinder today, it might be a bad week for BBB to have back to back shockers. Infact he didn’t do much against WC either.

As much as I’d love Buddy to miss next week to increase our chances of winning, at the same time we’ll be playing all the big guns at finals time so we need to get accustomed to playing the best during the season.

Off to the Richmond bigfooty forum for a laugh and a sook.

Richmond’s defensive pressure is elite tonight.

But the fact of the matter is they've won all those games. They've done all the heavy lifting with leads ranging from 37 to 51 points. The leads have been too much for the opposition to steal the win because they've used up all their petrol tickets in the 3rd quarter and early last quarter. For example, the Dogs and Sydney dominated inside 50's in the last quarter but missed far too many shots or couldn't get their inside 50 connection going because they were too fatigued after putting on the gas after half time. Until they drop a game with a big lead, I'm not sure how you can argue that their game trend/tactic/strategy isn't working.

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.