Bring-Back-Powell

Fox Footy is must viewing tonight as they shows the best of the recent number 1 picks in mini game packages: 9:30pm - West Coast v Melbourne 2024, the day Harley Reid killed us 9:50pm - Melbourne V Port 2024, the night Horne-Francis killed us. 10:30pm - Melbourne V Brisbane 2024, the night Cam Rayner killed us. 11:20pm - Bulldogs V Melbourne 2022, the night Ugle-Hagan killed us. 11:40pm- Carlton V Melbourne 2024, the night Jacob Weitering killed us. Enjoy 🥴

We got him for a 2027 future third round pick so essentially a packet chips. You pay for what you get, and we can't be angry and upset at the club and player if it doesn't work out.

I'm obviously all for the wild card round. It's clearly the best initiative the AFL have brought in, in years. The pay off will come in rounds 20 - 23 when more games become more relevant in terms of finals implications. What I won't be a fan of is Craig Hutchison's hunch that the wild card will be sold off to a particular state in the coming years. As in both games would be locked into a particular city, say Perth as a hypothetical. Not in favour of that at all and it contradicts Andrew Dillon's notion that all top 8 teams will host at least one final under the top 10 concept.

Wouldn't be surprised if they bring this back for round 1 V St Kilda considering it's close to St Pats Day. Agreed, the jig was really fun after each goal. The atmosphere was terrific that day V GWS and we did everything but win the game. I'd assume it would be a once a year thing, not an every home game thing.

A nice succinct answer. His older brothers are a bit on the ‘meh’ side.

Is Duursma projected to be generational/unicorn?

I don’t need to read any further.

MFC Byes: Opening Round, round 16 Good of the AFL to give the boys a rest when they'll be in dire need of one.

At the very least our forward line doesn't lack for players that can kick a snag and IMO King has some options to work with. We have 5 player who have kicked 30 or more goals at least once in a season (Fritta, Pickett, Melksham, JVR and Mihocek) and that doesn't include T Mac. Compare that to Gold Coast who have only had 3 players with a 30 goal+ season and one of them hasn't even played a game for them yet and is one stuff up away from footy exile. And Trac never had a 30 goal season for us. On the subject of Mihocek, I watch a Pies V Sydney game in 2023 when he snagged 5. That guy can certainly play and his snap shots in general play are a thing of beauty. I hope we can get at least one good 35 goal season out of him.

There must be a contract in play that Geelong is required to play a bottom 4 side in the final round of most seasons. 2026 - Richmond (likely bottom 2) 2025 - Richmond (17th) 2024 - West Coast (16th) 2022 - West Coast (17th) 2020 - Sydney (16th) 2019 - Carlton (16th) 2018 - Gold Coast (17th)

I see we have Collingwood on a Monday and then Essendon on the following Saturday. Did anyone else have an instant flash back to 1993 when we beat Collingwood by 51 points on the Monday holiday and then Essendon by 34 points the following Saturday? And Jakovich kicked a lazy 17 goals in that calendar week.

Having our bye at round 16 is brutal. We'll be running on fumes against Adelaide in round 15 over there.

AFL 2026 FIXTURE DIFFICULTY Based on the 2025 percentage of the teams they play twice in 2026 (Hardest) 1. Geelong 2. Gold Coast Suns 3. Collingwood 4. Fremantle 5. Hawthorn 6. Western Bulldogs 7. Adelaide Crows 8. Brisbane Lions 9. Carlton 10. Melbourne 11. Sydney Swans 12. Essendon 13. St Kilda 14. West Coast Eagles 15. GWS Giants 16. Richmond 17. Port Adelaide (Easiest) 18. North Melbourne

St Kilda play their last 10 games in VIC and travel two less times than us. I guess that's what happens when you don't resort to selling a game, and you're able to move one of your Marvel games to the MCG in front of 85,000 people.

Someone posted on Bigfooty that we have the 10th hardest fixture with respect to the quality of double up opponent. Geelong have the hardest. St Kilda 13th. Port 17th.

We were fixtured 10 MCG home games between 2021 and 2024. Not sure why all of a sudden we have to play a home game at Marvel, while Richmond get 10 themselves at the G. Maybe if we got rid of the Alice springs game we’d get 10 games at the G.

The double ups look tough on paper but it's a futile exercise judging now as some of those good teams from 2025 could flop next year. For once our interstate trips are spread quite evenly throughout the year (round 2, 5, 8, 12, 15, 17, 20, 23)

Interesting that round 1 hasn't been revealed before the full fixture release. We usually have an idea of our first opponent. I'm tipping Port, West Coast or St Kilda at the MCG for round 1.

We had 10 MCG home and away games in 2000 excluding finals which might be our record low. It will be a minimum of 11 MCG games. 9 home and 2 away with Collingwood and Richmond. 11 would be our lowest since 2018. (We also played 11 in 2021 but the 12th game got moved to the SCG V Pies)

In last year’s fixture release the round 17 dates and times were a TBC.

We’ll get Anzac eve which lands on a Friday night but no others in the first confirmed 15 rounds you wouldn’t imagine.

Sounds like we’re going to make our Launceston debut against Hawthorn in about round 17, according to someone on bigfooty. Apparently there is some absurd stat that since 1897 there’s only been 4 seasons that we haven’t played Collingwood as the home team. The most recent being 1999. On that basis I expect us to play Collingwood twice (again) next year as we’re the away team on Kings B’day.

Don't know what's more surprising: 1) The AFL keep cutting and pasting the same Gather Rd fixtures (it's not just Dees V Dons) or 2) We keep getting invited back to Adelaide Oval. Was 100% certain we'd be catching the bus to the Barossa for this one.

Hopefully that should and will mean a home MCG game in round 1 given we're in Perth in round 2.

Wouldn't mind a signature walk off song after a home MCG win, and after they've played the theme song twice. At the moment they just play random songs as background noise. For example, after a win Carlton play Oasis - "Don't look back in anger"