Bring-Back-Powell

Not even going to waste second of energy and emotion in this one. Sick of getting my hopes with anything to do with this club (the only nice surprise associated with this club in the last 2 years was Kozzie re-signing) Watching the game live in the pocket where it happened I knew he was cooked. Apparently the AFL are asking for 3 weeks, so that's what I'm expecting.

I expect this game to be similar to our 2019 encounter at Marvel. The lead ebbs and flows for three quarters, we kick the first couple of the last quarter to hold a 2 goal lead but then lay down and surrender as St Kilda kick the last 5 of the game. I actually want to persist with Jeffo but do want Kolt dropped. The latter just plays a nothing role as a low possession, low impact half forward. The former has potential to influence a game. I reckon we missed Sparrow’s contested marking in his high half forward role that creates an outlet coming out of defence.

From what I’ve seen of St Kilda today, they’ll absolutely [censored] us.

Yes I am fair dinkum. When an opposition is chronically depleted such as Carlton today and has the equal amount of wins as you, you simply win that game of football assuming you’re mentally switched on. If you lose, you blame your playing group first, and then you blame the ancillary factors such as the umpires and weather secondary.

The apologists will blame the umpires but we just lost to a side missing 10 players that could easily play in their best 22.

We are by a country mile.

I know you can’t trust the forecast but the wind is supposed to dip down to 13 k/ph at 7:15, which is surely more calm than last week’s game. Hopefully you’ll get the all clear.

Carlton have 10 players out, and a lot of them are best 22. McKay and Walsh are game changers on their day. Silvagni, McGovern, Cottrell and Kemp are solid role players and Fantasia had recently regained form. Admittedly people like Newman and Jagga Smith haven't played all year. We really should be winning this game, and it would be a step back if we don't. I expect the St Kilda game to be a tougher proposition than this one, but who knows with us??

GWS left a ton of percentage on the table tonight considering they played a VFL team tonight. Might come back to bite them?

Interesting that Petty's confirmed VFL this week because he hasn't played for 4 weeks. They've brought back senior players straight back into the side off way longer lay offs. A soft drop?

Oh for goodness sake...surely they're not even remotely considering dropping our best defender from last week.

They're $10 because they literally have half of their best 22 out. They schooled us in round 5 when they were close to full strength.

They might trade him for a 2026 or 2027 future pick if either of those drafts are less diluted and more talented than this 2025 one. You also need to factor in that the club may want him out but the player wants to stay, which it sounds like he does want to stay if you've read snippets around here. I agree that Fritta's body of work over 8 years rather than the last 12 months makes it more appealing to keep him rather than trade him for a draft pick. And even factoring in his last 12 months, not that long he did kick 4 goals against Sydney in round 0 2024 and 5 against Hawthorn in round 2 2024 and that freak goal on the boundary that sealed the Geelong win last year. Plus he's kicked 11 goals in his last 5 games which is 50 goal pace per 23 games to suggest that his form is trending upwards. It's a keep for me but I'm open minded about the offers for him.

Yep. Curnow to break his 4 week goal drought at the 48 second mark of the first quarter and Francis Evans to kick 5.

Is contracted for next year, so we would need some decent compensation - a top 25 draft pick or a solid established B grader that addresses a need. That is unless the relationship between player and club is untenable and the club is happy to see the back of him....not saying that's in anyway a fact.

McKay’s apparently due back next week rather than this week. When he’s up and about, Carlton are up and about, per their win over Geelong.

A young man that speaks very highly of his club. There was a video over the pre season where he stated that he'd like to be a leader of the club down the track, and is already trying to act like a leader, so if his football continues to develop could he be a left field contender to be skipper post Gawn??

No doubt we really let ourselves down between rounds 2 and 5 (in fairness the Geelong game wasn't a disaster) and more specifically the St Kilda game in Alice Springs. That was objectively our worst loss of the year given we were almost back in the hunt at 5-6 and the amount of missed shots that day. We blew our season in one afternoon of footy and I bet your bottom dollar that we win that game if it were at the G. Aside from that, we've been ok this year overall. Just a couple of points: 1) We've seriously done some heavy lifting with our fixture between rounds 8 and 17, with 6 interstate trips. More specifically, name me a club that would go better than 1-2 that's copped Port, GC and Adelaide 3 weeks in a row on the road. While 0-3 is not good, GC and Adelaide away are turning into the hardest assignments in footy, and we took it up to Adelaide. 2) Since the inspiring and 'feel good' Freo game in round 6, we've gone 4-2 at the MCG which is perfectly acceptable. But if you dig deeper, one of the losses was against Collingwood which IMO was our third or fourth best performance of the season. We were pretty damn good that day and better than in our wins against WC and Richmond and arguably North. We only let ourselves down against Hawthorn in that horrible last quarter. Therefore, it's only the entire GC game in round 3 and the Hawks last quarter that we've been poor at the G. 3) Our inaccuracy was hitting record books low before the bye. However, it's definitely stabilised and trending upwards since the bye with a much tidier 41.35 in our 3 most recent games. Law of averages suggests we'll have more accurate than inaccurate games on the run home and will win games accordingly.

The karma bus has hit us with the Blues winning the next 3 by under a goal.

He must be pretty prolific on the lip as he’s involved in a weekly scrap with the oppo, particularly today. I think he struggles with the intensity of AFL that a Langford clearly doesn’t. Simply isn’t clean in a pressurised environment.

I’d love to beat Hawthorn in round 23 to snuff out their top 4 dreams, and Melksham was sorely missing in our first battle with them. Therefore I’d be very keep for him to play that game, and as many games as possible on the run home.

Xerri shouldn’t have even played today and the Sparrow incident would’ve been avoided. Last week against the Dogs in the last quarter, he looked like a punch drunk boxer as he stumbled on his feet after a head contact incident. Basically every player who’s been unsteady on their feet after a head knock over the last couple of years has entered concussion protocols- no ifs, buts or maybes. Disappointing IMO.

The people riot if he drops T Mac. The people riot even harder if Carlton beat us by under a goal yet again.

I would’ve had Kolt as sub but I can see Windsor as an effective sub with his run and dash in the last quarter.

I’m absolutely scratching my head that they’re only one win behind us. Admittedly, Essendon have such a lengthy injury list that it’s now an automatic 4 points when you play Essendon till the end of the season.