Bring-Back-Powell

Yes. Took clunks and doesn't seem to be infected with the set shot disease that most of his teammates are infected with. Should be in the team for the rest of the year and shouldn't have been dropped after the Port game.

I fell off my chair when I saw those odds. North have been given a 27 point head start. Sure we may very well win as we'll enjoy being back at the G, but surely North should be no more than $2.20. They're only half a game behind us.

No dig at us mate. Just completing a side that was injury depleted, took it up to a finals contender, showed their supporters that they have some exciting key forwards for the future and ultimately ran out of gas against a high quality. Merely making commentary on a NON MFC game given I was in attendance at the game.

GC with a score line of 14.4 Makes you envious.

We sure dodged a bullet overlooking Caddy. And credit to Essendon for being mentally switched on against Gold Coast in the first quarter despite coming off a break and being injury depleted.

In fairness to Carlton, they had about 6 of their best 22 players out last night against the benchmark? What’s our excuse/reason for our horrid form of late?

That is an extraordinarily high salary for the product we see week in week out. But then I realise Clarry is being paid in that neighbourhood as well (maybe a bit less)....so...

Funny how quickly the game evolves. At the start of the year, every man and his dog would be backing a Trac/Oliver/Viney starting midfield over a Dawson/Peatling/Berry starting midfield.

Don't blame him. It's absolutely horrendous fixturing by the AFL and I have 0% doubt that we're the first Victorian club ever to play 3 consecutive interstate games. Most VIC clubs would go 1 win out of 3 at best against a Port/GC/Adelaide set that we've copped. All 3 are hard assignments. Also, travelling to Perth, Brisbane, Alice Springs, Adelaide, Gold Coast and Adelaide in a 10 week patch was always going to take its toll for a Victorian team that isn't used to regular travel. With that being said, It was on the onus of the club to bank a number of wins in the first 5 rounds when we played some poor teams (North and Essendon) and hosted interstate teams at the MCG (GWS and GC) which are non negotiables in my book. We only travelled once in the first 7 rounds (with that one trip being a neutral Gather Rd game) and should have utilised that advantage to cushion the inevitable mid season blow that the fixture provided. The club will surely enjoy some routine in the final 7 weeks as we don't leave the MCG or Marvel and I'm expecting some wins in the North/Carlton/St Kilda/West Coast block of games.

In the end he was cleared of concussion, so he’ll presumably play against us next week. Hopefully Max will bounce back from his round 2 defeat to Xerri.

I don't think we'll get within a bulls roar of finishing 10th irrespective of a wild card. We are worse than mediocre this year.

I think a wild card weekend would add some more excitement to the season. We’ll clearly agree to disagree on this subject.

I think there's more fundamental things that could change the fabric of the game, to warrant more of an outcry than the wild card weekend: Shorter quarters down to 16 minutes per COVID 2020. Less games during the year. Last touch out of bounds (although in fairness this change probably wouldn't be a disaster) I just don't understand why people are getting upset over an additional 2 football game weekend in late August instead of just a slate of AFLW games, and the fact that finishing 7th or 8th would become a vulnerable position. Would it really make much of a difference in the scheme of things? And I also think that the fact that dead rubbers will be way more prominent in this year's run home, the AFL will be triggered into bringing this in next year.

I reckon I'm on my own on this forum, in terms of wanting the wildcard weekend introduced on a weekend (last weekend of August) that's currently an absolute dead zone on the football calendar. 1) It's an absolute shambles that teams 10-18 are already out of the finals hunt meaning the amount of relevant remaining games will decrease dramatically. Didn't happen last year, might not happen next year, but this year is going to be a mediocre last 8 weeks. 2) The wildcard weekend places a premium on finishing 6th or higher. 7th or 8th turns into an 'also-ran' position, so we're rewarding excellence. 3) Imagine if we got on some sort of roll and won 6 of our last 8 games to finish 10th and faced the Dogs on our turf on a Saturday night at the MCG, on wild card weekend. Would the wild card naysayers give the game a miss? 4) As a heavy consumer of AFL games (not just MFC games) I think it would be an exciting addition to the football calendar, having 2 stand alone games with a heap at stake.

I'm amazed he was our fifth highest rated player V GC with 10 possessions, 4 score involvements and 1 mark.

Anyone else laugh when they saw Carlton at the top of the ladder? No shock that in 4 of our 5 wins we've been in front at quarter time. The quarter time score essentially tells us if we're going to win or lose a game of footy this year. The outliers being that in the North game we were in front at quarter time. Conversely in the Brisbane game we were behind by 3 goals. Quite a shocking (in a positive way) result that we beat Brisbane.

Well they've been pretty tolerant towards the garbage we've mostly dished up since the West Coast Harley Reid game of round 10 last year so I don't see them going all judgmental all of a sudden if we go 0-3 against teams fighting for top 4 in the final weeks of the season.

I've heard it varies over the life of the contract but I'd imagine $1 million is the average per year at the very least. He was genuinely a liability at times on Saturday, particularly early in the game, for such a highly paid player.

A big 5 weeks for Simon. We have the fourth easiest fixture between rounds 17 and rounds 20 and that includes the highly losable Adelaide game which inflates the difficulty. Then in round 21 we have West Coast which is a non negotiable, albeit at Marvel. What happens if we go 0-5 or 1-4? The final 3 weeks are Dogs, Hawthorn and Pies, so it's hard to judge him purely on W/L during that final period.

Watching the game on Saturday was the first time I've been open to the idea of Oliver playing for another club. The product he's putting on the field is so far off a $1 million per season commodity it's not funny. And I'm also understanding that we're not going to get a first rounder for him if a club is willing to pay the majority of his contract. Trac on the other hand - you'd really wanting to get something good in return.

Interesting comparison, although Tapscott looked a lot more comfortable at AFL level in his first 2 years.

Kozzie's very lucky he can keep escaping suspensions with these low level strikes. May did not and should not have copped a suspension. Not sure it warranted the melee. And I especially loved that we were at out toughest during this useless melee which resulted in Ainsworth running 40 metred unattended into the easiest goal of his life. (Pathetic)

A concerning high end pick considering we went to a lot of trouble to trade up for the pick. That bit of play where he took a nice contested mark and then centred it straight to the oppo was infuriating. However, you can't really fully judge a player until they reach 50-60 games AFL games so we'll reserve judgment until then, assuming he makes it to 50 games.

A few little positives: Melksham’s 11 scoring shots would have to be one of the better individual forward performances of the year. Yes he missed a few elementary shots, but 3 of his 5 goals were class. Petracca had a belter of a game today. Kozzie’s kicked 14 goals in his last 5 games which is unquestionably All Australian stuff. 3 goals and 25 touches today has to be considered elite stats. And our ball movement and punish off turnover was excellent in the last quarter.

The riskier decision is to retain Goodwin IMO. Membership numbers have absolutely gone down the toilet since the end of 2023 (70,000 down to 55,000) our win/loss record is going to the dogs by the week and the overall respect garnered within the AFL community and our own supporter base is rock bottom. I would keen to hear a counter argument as to why Goodwin should be retained for next year. If the answer is he’s a premiership coach, then look at Hawthorn/Clarkson/Kennett/Michell as an example as to why hard calls are needed.