Bring-Back-Powell

Not ideal that us and Essendon are the only genuine away teams in Gather Round. However Carlton and Dogs drew the short straw last year and another two clubs will draw the short straw in 2025. And it’s not as if playing a neutral game against Essendon last year did us any favours as we put in our softest performance of the year that day. We might come in with a different mindset knowing the challenge ahead of playing Adelaide at AO.

Based on Cal’s rankings, Curtin or Sanders sounds feasible with our first pick.

Stevic, Rosebery and Meredith are the most reliable of the current crew.

As herculean as he was against Collingwood, he was one of the key culprits in our loss to Carlton. It's not that hard to kick a goal from as far out as the point post.

Geelong have a 9/2 split of GMHBA to MCG games. I reckon a Carlton, Richmond, Essendon or Hawthorn may draw the short straw next year to the 40,000 seat stadium given Collingwood simply won’t he fixtured there. Next year Hawthorn are hosting Geelong at the G on Easter Monday. There is no rule that states that Geelong can’t host Hawthorn at GMHBA in the return game should they meet twice.

We lost the Freo game fair and square. We were playing catch up footy the entire second half and they kept responding to our challenges in the last quarter. The Collingwood final I'll cop as a loss. They came out harder and more ferocious than us (aside from the Maynard garbage) and kicked their goals in bursts as they did the entire season. They looked more prepared for a final that we were. We left our run too late.

1000% credit for Collingwood on excelling in close games. That's the sole reason why they won the flag this year. It's no secret that they have been doing scenario based training ever since McRae took over. They copped their harsh lessons in last year's finals, but it paid dividends this year. Their leaders and big name players such as Sidebottom, Crisp and De Goey stepped up in the big moments when their team needed it. Our leaders and big names such as Gawn, Trac, Kozzie and Viney let us down in the critical dying minutes of the Pies and Carlton finals. Other than than, our 2023 finals series was much improved from 2022.

It's almost getting to the point where I wonder if it's us as a club that requests to play in Hobart rather than the AFL forcing us to go down there. Presumably to play in front of our Tassie faithful. 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 (pre COVID fixture), 2021 and 2023 seems more than just a coincidence. We've either lost close games in Hobart or had almighty scares while North were worse than bad. GABBA - 5 of last 6 years if you include the pre covid 2020 fixture which ended up being in Metricon.

I wonder if the 2024 fixture will have a new flavour about it? For example: 1) Playing West Coast at the MCG for the first time since 2014. 2) Not playing Geelong as the away team for the first time since 2014. (2020 doesn’t count as we were originally scheduled to play them in the pre COVID fixture) 3) Playing Essendon twice in a year for the first time since 2005. 4) Playing GWS at Giants stadium for the first time since 2014.

Round Zero is a code/acronym that clubs are using to refer to the four northern state games to open the year, prior to the actual 9 games of proper round 1 on March 14-17. Obviously we’ll be one of the teams involved in round Zero (against Sydney) and we will get a bye before or after Anzac round to even the ledger.

Brodie absolutely reeks of class and I’ll be seriously impressed if he’s consistent in his interviews next year as he’ll be asked 52 times next year on whether he bears any iLL will towards the club. As for the semi final, hindsight’s a wonderful thing and his two most recent performances as forward-ruck were average to poor, but we genuinely ran out of options and you can’t help but think that a 4 mark/1 goal performance (over T Mac’s 1 mark) and the ability to give Max more of a rest may have gotten us over the line. I’ve mentioned this before but the Gawn/Grundy actually worked in certain dry weather games through to Kings Bday. The wet weather games in Geelong and in round 22 v Carlton spooked the club I reckon.

Firstly, VIC based supporters can’t complain about a round “zero’ road trip given we’ve opened the season in Victoria 34 out of 38 years (including 2024) since the comp became national in 1987. And in one of those road trips there wasn’t even a crowd in attendance which nullified the home ground advantage. Secondly, Sydney ain’t exactly in the middle of nowhere. A 10 hr road trip or a $250 return flight makes it pretty achievable if you want to see the game live.

I think it would be fitting that the Dees rather than St Kilda should be the team to welcome the new grandstand at GHMBA considering we’ve played the most games there since 1990 (out of all non Geelong sides) AFL missed a trick in scheduling us in Sydney at the SCG then Geelong at GHMBA to open the season.

The AFL actually applied some common sense in 2021 when they scheduled us to play Essendon on the Saturday week after Kings Birthday and therefore giving us a proper mid season bye.

Well done. Good thinking. Although Essendon are not part of the rumoured teams going up for round 0 - it's Pies, Blues, Dees, Tigers. Makes complete sense why we'd have a bye around Anzac Day to prevent us from having a 4 or 5 day break as a result of a mid week anzac eve game..

Fixture due out Thu Nov 16 at this stage. We're still expected to play Sydney in Sydney for round "zero".

Can't the 12 teams below us have a shot at Melksham in the rookie draft before us?

BBB might get a look in, in the early rounds due to Smith's expected suspension (league or club imposed). That's if you consider Smith a locked in best 23 when available. BBB actually played well in the opening 2 rounds of 2022 and 2023, and that's when he might be at his peak fitness, unfortunately. T Mac looks finished at AFL level. If he appears in more than 5 games next year, he's either had the most unlikeliest career renaissance or our injury list is a shambles

Agree with Lever. Would actually be a shock if he isn't our next captain He's the media's go to man and represents our club in impressive fashion on and off field.

1) Goal kicking accuracy in the crunch games. It's all well and good to kick 22.7 against North or 19.12 against West Coast in low pressure early season games, but when the heat's on we were found wanting in this area. Badly. The only finalists that got away with inaccuracy were GWS in the semi and Collingwood in the GF but they had midfielders and forwards that kicked the clutch goals that we could not in our finals. 2) Midfield accountability. Two games we lost directly because the oppo's star midfielder took direct control of a game of footy. One of them was the 3 point Port loss in round 10 where Butters had 41 touches and 2 goals in driving wet. The other was the Carlton 2 point semi loss where Walsh had 34 touches and 2 goals (insane stats for a high stakes final) including allowing him to kick a goal within the first minute of the last quarter which erased out third quarter ascendancy. If neither of these events occur, we win these games due to the close nature of them Beat Port and we finish second. Or failing that, beat Carlton and we're off to Brisbane. So very costly. I'm sure there is a shopping list of other items we need for next year, but these two stick out for me.

I’m tipping we’ll get Sanders or O’Sullivan as our first pick.

Happy for the ladies to take the majority of the $250K, if not all, available to all players. They’ve represented our club with absolute aplomb.

Good summary to read. Does the weakest premier equate to a team that are the masters in winning the close ones? Since round 1 2022, they're 13-3 in games decided by 6 points or less, while we're 5-4 in the same period. That close winning habit paid massive dividends for them this September. Until they lose that ability, they'll likely win next year's flag too, unless their group of 30+ year olds fall off the cliff. They also have blokes like Sidebottom, De Goey and Crisp that nail 55 metre goals from the set shot and on the run in high pressure moments, while our leaders such as Trac and Gawn spray them all over the place. I don't buy into the notion that we're better than Collingwood until we start beating them on a consistent basis.

Gone are the days are all of Trac, Oliver and Gawn having a mortgage of the top 10/15 of everyone's list but well done to Viney for cracking #7. Never thought I'd see him that high! The umpires loved his season too.

Pass mark is to win a final. We might benefit to finish 5th or 6th rather than 3rd or 4th to get some of that straight set exit pressure off our shoulders and then make the GF the long way. I don’t think any MFC supporter could handle another two MCG finals losses without a September win. It’s humiliating.