Bring-Back-Powell

Have these problems arisen since Pert took over, or did the problems exist under Jackson?

Agreed. Needs to consistently nail the regulation 40 metre out shots directly in front of goals, particularly at the Punt Rd end. However, I was flabbergasted to discover he kicked a pretty decent 22.14 last year. A dramatic improvement on the 19.23 of 2018. He also runs at a career average conversion of 60% which is good.

Yep looking forward to the Adelaide hit out at Casey. I would imagine the following players would miss week 1 (touch wood no further injuries) due to still being in rehab: KK, Hannan, Spargo, Tomlinson and Baker. Gawn may also miss this game as he's representing VIC in the all star game.

Hawthorn suppoters reckon Clarko can make him a hybrid of Matthew Scarlett, Steve Silvagni, Alex Rance and David Dench all rolled into one. Good to see they haven't loss their arrogance despite not winning a final in 5 years.

Haven’t beaten this mob in an away game since before the iPhone was invented. (excluding the 2018 final)

I would've been prior to last year due to his versatility. His 2017 prelim performance against Richmond was simply excellent as he played the wing role perfectly with 26 possession and 7 marks. I thought he was very ordinary in 2019. All eyes were on him in the finals and he quite frankly did next to bugger all in the 3 finals he played. 9 possession and 5 marks a games at the business end of the year is no where near what you need from someone brought over on a 4 year contract. And those stats were inflated by a 17 touch grand final shellacking. Hopefully he fulfills his role as a versatile player that can play wing or plug holes at either end. As for KK, the only thing I'm expecting from him is a retirement in the coming months, sadly.

That's very disappointing for all concerned if he's done his calf again. It's obviously way too much to expect the MFC to be involved in a fairy tale comeback story.

It’s a contract year for Trac. He’d be looking for a very good 2 year contract to take him to free agency at end of 2022. Therefore I’m expecting huge things from him this year.

In 2018, we went 8-2 between rounds 16 and the semi final and O Mac played in all those games and played his role quite well. He'll play round 1 along with May and Lever in trying to stop JK, Darling and Oscar Allen. I don't mind Joel Smith but I don't see him as a key defender able to take a Darling or Kennedy. Perhaps he and Hore will be fighting one another for a spot in defence, independent of O Mac.

If supporters turned up to the closed session at Casey today would they be asked to leave?

Finishing 16th or higher. I think we have the list capable of achieving above KPI.

Agreed. He's very good at those sort of opportunist goals. Has been in rehab all summer so unless he graduates to fill training by early Feb, I doubt he'll be in the round 1 frame.

Good point. How we forgot he kicked 2 goals in a winning final against Hawthorn. However, he hasn't exactly set himself up for a big season due to his prolonged ankle injury.

T Mac given he's the one most likely to kick the most goals. I voted Mitch Brown out of that group. Kicked his 2 goals a game last year and has more runs on the board then Weideman. I'd have more confidence in Brown contributing towards a round 1 win V' West Coast. However, I hope Weed has a great year and makes Brown purely a back up depth option. Let's hope we don't have a repeat of Oscar McDonald being our number 2 key forward because we ran out of players.

Agreed, it's definitely our area of weakness. We should've retained Garlett unless he wanted his career to be over. It pains me to say it but I'd say Corey Wagner looks the most ready for round 1, but hoping Pickett can show signs in the Marsh series as he clearly has the biggest upside of the group. Hopefully ANB can have a bounce back year as a small forward and kick his 25 like he did in 2018.

The only parallel i see between Hawthorn's 2009 and Melbourne's 2019 was that both sides missed the finals after making it the year before, and had off season surgeries. Hawthorn were in the hunt for finals all year in 2009 but lost to Essendon in the last round to just miss. Our season was over by round 3.

People forget that in 2018 we went an impressive 8-2 between rounds 16 - semi final (our best 2 months of footy in 12 years) and O Mac played in all those games without the services of Lever and May. He must have done something right in 2018.

A defense led by Oscar McDonald and Harry Petty looks tantalising on paper.

Apparently not training today according to the training thread, for the second consecutive session. Panic stations?

IN I agree with this comment (in bold) and I would take 11 wins, purely because it's a 6 win improvement on last year. That's how bad we were. Off season surgeries and injures explain a drop off, but they can't alone explain a 5-17 drop off. We are supporters can't excuse that. I think some posters are putting in amazingly high and lofty expectations on this side (eg - top 4) and have forgotten that we're the reigning second worst club in the AFL. Just making the 8 isn't a successful season in a broader sense, but us making the 8 off a 5 win season would be a very good achievement IMO.

We have to win 8 more games than we did last year just to clear that minor hurdle you refer to as finals footy. I genuinely don’t know if we have it in us.

Yeah agreed!

Kent’s 12 goals in 13 games probably would’ve won him a Bluey the way most of our player went about it last year. If Kent played a full season he would’ve kicked 25 odd goals which would’ve been enough to win the leading goal kicking award. So yes, he would’ve provide a valuable goal source if you think about it.

I’ll call making the finals this year a raging success. We were so very bad this year that you can’t just write it 100% down to injuries and surgeries. Not a lot of sides makes the finals off a 5 win season, so it would be a quite an achievement IMO if we make it.

Given it was a light session hopefully it was just a bit of maintenance for him. But yeah, panic stations if he’s not out there on Monday.