Bring-Back-Powell

Results to favour the Dees: Essendon to beat Collingwood North to beat GC Dogs to beat Port Hawthorn to beat Geelong Carlton to beat GWS Richmond to beat Freo Adelaide to beat Brisbane Wrap that into a multi and it's paying $2,149 - $1 Didn't include St Kilda and Sydney as that game has absolutely no affect on us.

It will be interesting to see how our forward line operates with Melksham and Fritsch together as there is potential headaches for the opposition. The good news is that either player can play that defensive role on a Harris Andrews/Jacob Weitering star defender. Perhaps one of them takes McGovern on Sunday. They only played together about 6 times last year, and in their last 2 games together Fritta went off injured in Alice and then Melk went off injured at the SCG, but they combined for 7 goals that day.

I could be wrong but I’m sure I’ve seen other clubs name a player in the starting 18 on Thursday but then relegate him to sub on game day. Hence I’m tipping Woewodin to start as sub. I was surprised he was listed in the 18 to start off with.

I’d say the other 2 on the bench will be Salem and Bowey which means Tomlinson and Tholstrupp will be dropped. Alternatively Bowey plays a not altogether undeserving game at Casey. and Kolt keeps his spot. Woewodin will be the obvious sub.

So when JVR is either rucking or on the bench we have Turner as our sole fall forward. Seems logical. Maybe Fullarton gets considered but I can’t see it.

Hopefully Petty gets up, even though we were all screaming for him to be dropped a couple of week back. When JVR is in the ruck or on the bench we'll only have Turner as a tall forward which will mean McGovern and Barrass will mark everything. Actually, if Petty is out, do they look at T Mac up forward and Tomlinson retained down back?

A poster on the West Coast bigfooty saw Waterman at a clinic and was limping around with a bandage to his knee.

As I said in a previous post, we need to get our percentage to about 105 this weekend in order to stay viable with other teams. Collingwood, GC, GWS and Geelong are all around the 105-108 mark. That's a 100-40 kind of win which is probably a 0% chance of happening given we can't score. But at the end of the day, I'll be appreciative of a win full stop given what happened the last time we met.

Gerard's Whateley's doomsday prediction on AFL 360 is Melbourne losing to West Coast. "They surely couldn't, could they?" - Whateley

Pretty healthy injury list assume Petty, Salem and Bowey are available.

Highly recommend attending the event if you enjoy watching neutral games as I do. Although to be fair, beating Adelaide to open up Gather Round really added to the weekend, as opposed to getting done by the $4.50 outsiders in Essendon the year before. Managed to get return flights and 3 nights accomm for $900. Not great but not a financial disaster and would probably cost the same as a 2 night trip to travel up to a game in QLD.

Can't disagree that he's had a poor 5 weeks by his standards, but law of averages suggests that there's a 5, 6 or 7 goal game around the corner.

My understanding is that we're playing in Alice in the 2025 and 2026 seasons.

Interesting (in a bad way) that May, Lever and Gawn took 4 marks between them for the whole game. That's a recipe for success for the opposition. All those guys should be getting 5+ marks a game. I still need to watch the game in full but it sounds like Gawn had one of his poorer games for the year, at least from a statistical point of view.

Whilst the ladder says we're in the hunt for finals right now, If we drop this game, it will be absolutely season over and players that need any surgeries should be operated on now in order to for this club to have its best pre season in its history, to make up for one of its worst just gone. And West Coast will unfortunately come in with natural response after one of its regulation stinkers that they so often dish up. However, if we bring in Goody's favourite two words - contest and defence, have a healthy quarter time lead and go at least 50% accuracy then we should win this game with no issues.

Hopefully this is the catalyst for the club to say goodbye to Alice Springs once the contract is up, and play that 11th home game at Marvel. Yes, you read that correctly. I'd rather play a home game at Marvel than Alice. Yeah that's a fair point. We were at out lowest ebb and the AFL did all they could to get us to a minimum standard AFL professional organisation.

Form your observations is Petty any chance of getting up this weekend? As maligned as he's been this year, he's turned a bit of a corner the last 2 weeks.

The fact that we've been outscored a combined 54-5 in our last 2 final quarters (V North and Lions) played would probably indicate that our fitness isn't "state of the art" at the moment. And whilst our supporters are citing that we have a lot of young players in the team as an excuse, why is it that Hawthorn, who the media keep telling us are a young/rebuilding team, are running games out beautifully - whether it be putting bottom teams to the sword in the second half, or holding on in the last quarter against contending sides.

That's great news. Perhaps a return to Casey this week for limited minutes, full VFL game the weekend after and then a return for the Freo game??

As much as it hurts to be as low as 12th, we could be back in the 8 in 2 weeks if we can knock off WC (likely) and then Essendon (possibly). Destiny still very much in our hands and we play the likes of Essendon, Bulldogs, GWS, Port and GC who are all fighting for that 7th-8th spot. Going to (hopefully??) be some very uplifting and exciting wins for the MFC on the run home.

Used to think the former for years. Now I’m leaning towards the latter. That said, I think he was missed on Friday night, and as recently as the North game he took a couple of courageous marks and provided an important defensive one on one win at the punt road end.

If we’re any solid chance of finals we’re going to realistically need to win by 10 goals and get our percentage to 105. Our percentage isn’t viable at the moment. Whether we can put the foot on the throat for 4 quarters is questionable.

Back in round 2, if someone said to you outside the MCG after the game that Hawthorn would be equal on wins with Melbourne at round 16, you would’ve called the police on them.

Port supporters are genuinely heart broken they won. Put in an awful performance, but at the same time affording Hinkley a stay of execution.

Aside from GWS, this weekend has been a genuinely awful weekend in terms of results not going our way. Hopefully St Kilda eek out a win here and West Coast handle Hawthorn.