Bring-Back-Powell

My only reservation about Collingwood beating GWS is that the away teams last year struggled with the Sydney humidity in opening round last year - particularly us against Sydney.

Hopefully GWS play in heavy rain on Sunday so they're a bit tired for our game. A fair bit or rain is forecasted for Sunday. In round 1 2021 St Kilda went up to GWS and beat them in extremely wet conditions. We were able to beat St Kilda (when Uncle Dan let us attend games that year) the following week so hoping history repeats itself with GWS.

That’s a great sign. We scored 90 points vs Freo which is going to win you a game of footy far more often than not in modern day footy, whereby scores are lower than yesteryear. For example last year, in 7 of our 12 losses the opposition didn’t kick 90 points. Sounds obvious but it’s so important that we apply scoreboard pressure. None of this scoring 50 points nonsense against Port and going down by 2 points because we let the opposition off the hook.

Without downplaying his BOG performance last week I’d suggest he may be referring to some of his defensive efforts. The Shai Bolton example when we conceded a goal with 10 seconds left before quarter time and the video showed Oliver in no man’s land. Otherwise very exciting signs ahead!

Billings has kicked 131 behinds in his career so I don’t think he’s all of a sudden going to have a 15.2 kind of season. Unfortunately what you see is what you get and in all probabilities he’s going to miss a reasonably elementary shot from 40 mtrs out. From round 20 onwards and into the two pre seasons games he’s otherwise been a good contributor and provides a good wing option, and can use the ball going inside 50. An example was this was the Port win last year where he kicked the ball from the wing area and found one of our forwards that was surrounded by 2 Port defenders. It was “thread of needle” stuff and showed what he’s capable of.

I’ll wait till the teams come out on Thursday 13 March to be absolutely certain Hogan’s missing.

GWS/Pies hard to tip considering the Giant outs. But last year taught us that the NSW teams are more favoured by the extreme humidity of early March.

Apparently Hogan jammed his finger in the toilet of the club’s bus according to GWS Bigfooty forum.

Admittedly you’re probably right. Petty’s easily one of our best contested marks and given our lack of small forward pressure and lack of quality small forward full stop, I think he could be of use up there. But yeah, he wasn’t great up forward last year.

I think Petty will start down down back but if our forward line’s a disaster early days then I see him as an option with T Mac to take his place in defence. Let’s not forget that Petty got the 3 Brownlow votes against Geelong last year as a forward taking 9 clunks, in what appeared at the time to be a statement win.

I heard Tim Membrey’s available for a packet of chicken twisties….oh wait a sec…

If Hogans out that’s massive, along with Tom Green. We objectively win that game last year (round 20) if he didn’t play.

My solution is to get the ball in the hands of Jack Billings from around the 35-40 metre mark.

I've no idea what's happened to this player since the infamous Alice Springs game but he's nowhere near an A grader at the moment. A starting sub role in round 1 may light a fire under him to kick start his season.

The comments may age terribly albeit they were made at half time in reaction to watching the boys bang on a whopping 15 points by half time in their first official match of the year while LJ was starring. I'm not as confident as others that we'll be a consistent finals team year in year out, but Jackson would be a great get.

My suggestion is AJ relieves Gawn in the ruck and JVR takes no centre rucks. When Gawn is rucking, AJ comes on when JVR or Turner needs a spell. Then at minimal times all three play in the same forward line. Then AJ gets subbed out for a Melksham like player. I get that this isn't perfect and AJ would record very little TOG minutes but I love the idea of JVR not being the second ruck. Or alternatively as others have mentioned, Turner could play himself out of form and AJ comes into the side from round 2 or 3 onwards.

Ironically 2021 was our most inaccurate home and way season in the recent 2021-2024 years. 2023 was our best.

Had no idea it was 17/30. That's a fair bit. 4 clearances is ok I suppose. Just as much as Viney had.

Windsor used the ball and his pace quite well yesterday, but we need more than 10 possessions if that's going to be his permanent position. The Langdon one doesn't bother me too much. He'd only be getting minimal CBA's, you'd think, and will likely spend his other on field minutes on the wing. Anything to keep Trac and Oliver fresh and firing for the last quarter.

A Johnson makes the team for mine. Has shown that he can take a contested mark, is a competitor, can hit the scoreboard and most importantly provide the back up ruck duties. He'll be fine in the ruck against Lachie Keefe or whoever's not Kieran Briggs. I was concerned that we may have been wasting a spot (if AJ wasn't up to it) for the sole purpose of allowing JVR to pay key forward all day, but I saw enough yesterday to suggest that Johnson will serve a purpose from round 1.

I’d feel much better if LJ came back our way in the event Kozzie was traded. Much better than 3 pick 18’s over 3 years (after academy/NGA/FS) which is the best Freo will offer.

In modern footy, how many teams lose a game despite having 35 scoring shots? All we had to was manage 15.20 (which is still fairly atrocious) instead of 11.24 and we get the win. Concerned about out our lack of defence, the inability to defend transition and goals from kick ins, and those sloppy goals we concede in our defensive 50’s due to fumbles and mis kicks. In 2024 our defence was off and this continued today.

Saves his A+ games against us.

I get that this is a practice match but Walters, who’s about 49 years old, has kicked 10 goals in the last 3 matches against us.

70% inside 50 scoring efficiency to Freo is bush league standard from a defensive point of view. I thought defence was our saving grace.