Bring-Back-Powell

I'm really reluctant to go in with the Gawn/Grundy combo after the results of last 4 games (1-3) that they've played together. However, if you cast your mind back to our pre mid season bye rounds, the combo wasn't a complete disaster in a few of the games. Round 1 V Dogs - Gawn got 5 coaches votes, Grundy had 17 touches and a goal as they easily defeated this year's All Aust ruck. The combo was at its best on opening night. Round 7 V North - Grundy had a very impressive 18 touches and 2 goals. Round 8 V GC - the combo kicked 4 between them. Gawn got 3 coaches votes. Round 11 V Freo - Gawn got 2 coaches votes. Grundy had a solid 19 possession 1 goal game. Bad loss though. Round 13 V Collingwood - Gawn got 2 coaches votes and Grundy kicked a clutch 3rd qtr goal to put us in front for good. So there has been a smattering of games where the combo has worked to an extent. However the most recent 4 games were terrible for the combo, but 3 of those games were wet weather footy which we lost. Name me a ruckman in the comp that is flawless in wet weather. The one game we won was under the roof V St Kilda, but Marshall was near BOG and the writing was on the wall for Grundy. You'd imagine Goodwin will adopt recency bias and not play Grundy

Each AFL member nominates a club of choice at the start of the year, and a few bucks goes to the club. For the GF, AFL (full gold) members of the competing clubs get priority access to reserve a seat over the other club gold members. If it's Collingwood V Carlton, only AFL members for those 2 clubs would likely be catered for. If it's a Melbourne V Brisbane GF, there will be plenty of GF tickets available for non competing full AFL members I think in the 90's it used to be walk up and first in best dressed in the AFL reserve.

The whole entire point of the AFL reserve/membership is for the neutral supporter to go and watch all AFL home and away and finals games at MCG and Marvel, not just their own. And the point of difference between AFL membership and club membership is that AFL membership enables you to attend all finals, including the grand final. Cannot agree with your point.

If Butters plays anything like he did against us round 10, then I'd have to agree with Barrett. Aside from Ablett kicking 10 against us in the mid 90's, I've never seen an opposition player have such a direct influence on a game of football than Butters did against us. he was even nailing 55 metre set shots in driving rain. Also agree with your comment about Petracca's potential to rip September apart.

That's fantastic news for Jake if he's back by July in time for hopefully another finals campaign. I wonder what differentiates a 'good' ACL injury from a 'bad' one?

Very fair comment and the exact same should be said for AFL membership (although in fairness they give priority access to club supporters of competing grand final clubs) The (harsh) counter argument is that if you want to ensure you get a ticket to see your club play a final, get a club membership rather than an AFL or MCC membership.

That's a heck of a lot of quality to come back for them...unfortunately.

For the 40+ year olds on the forum, which finals win over Collingwood did you enjoy more? The 1988 semi final at the MCG or the 1989 elimination final at Waverley?

In order: 1) the Brisbane miracle thanks mostly to Melksham. You can’t describe that feeling when you’ve resigned yourself to a certain loss, only to be singing the song 15 minutes later. 2) beating the Pies on Kings Birthday. The atmosphere was phenomenal and we needed to exact revenge after numerous kings/queens birthday losses. 3) the comprehensive master class we put on Sydney in round 3 in a statement win against a bogey side. 4) The Sydney win at the SCG. Very enjoyable last quarter to attend live after it looked like we’d packed up for the home and away season. Only reaffirmed our belief that the club means business. 5) The Dogs win in round 1. After the 2022 finals collapse, it was extremely pleasing to start 2023 with a bang and prove to the league that we were going go be a serious player again. Hopefully there will be many more special moments to come next month across three MCG finals.

Gut feel says JVR’s going take a huge mark and nail a clutch late goal at the Punt rd end to win us a final. Maybe as soon as the Pies final.

A West Coast supporter just rung up SEN with a trade suggestion: Pick 5 and JVR to West Coast for pick 1.

Most of them are supremely confident of a win on Bigfooty. The main reason being that they’ll be fielding a far stronger side than Kings B’day which isn’t inaccurate. Looks as though their supporters are bullish off a big win over Essendon because they certainly weren’t the week before.

Genuinely surprised they brought him back on given the game was an absolute dead rubber and they probably knew Melksham’s season was over.

Do Carlton ever get on the wrong side of a tribunal or MRP decision that results in a suspension?

My understanding is the highest ranked team hosts the Friday night prelim. If Collingwood beat us, they will host the Friday night prelim. If we beat Collingwood, Brisbane (or Port) host the Friday night and we get the Saturday prelim. Either we’ll be playing the Saturday prelim should we get there.

Yeah look I know I’m an extremely funny poster but what part of the post amused you?

Geez Butters and Rozee are going to be an issue for us if we play them in the finals. We’ve already lost to them this year directly because of those 2. They weren’t just key contributors, they we’re the difference in round 10.

They’d rather not play Brisbane in Brisbane. Incredibly Port have lost 4 straight up at the GABBA and 5 of their last 6 encounters against Brisbane. They don’t match up well against Brisbane. And Port are playing like a team that knows it can’t play a week 1 home final, albeit with a small lead.

So in other words, the journos such as Jon Ralph and Mark Robinson’s crew have no idea when the game will be played, and we should wait until later tonight’s announcement before we chuck a tanty. I recall Drew Jones on Fox Sports was so adamant that todays Dees V Swans game was originally going to be scheduled Saturday 7:25 that he was willing to bet his AFL media accreditation on it.

Saints supporters would be barracking for us today. If we win, they’ll get a home final in Melbourne. If we lose, not only do they have to go to Sydney in week 1 (unless GWS win by 11 goals) they’ll also have to travel to the loser of Port or Brisbane in week 2.

I loudly hope he’s kept goalless.

I’d be concerned with our high performance department if they can’t get our players at peak performance off an 11 day break for an all important final. The only concern is a potential concussion to any of our integral players. And even then there’s nothing we could do about that. It’s not as if they’d reschedule a grand final if someone gets concussed in a prelim - bad luck. If there’s 3 finals at the MCG (provided we win today) then they’ll need to have a final there on Thursday night under the current week 1 system. Clearly they’re going to fixture the game that’s going to sell out on any given night. Conversely, they’ll put a low drawing St Kilda v Sydney in a friendly time slot to maximise crowd. I don’t like it but I understand it.

I’d say it’s implied that they’ll always have a Thursday night final on week 1 given the pre finals break and the flexibility it provides for scheduling. Richmond finished 1st in 2018 and played a big Thursday night qualifying final against Hawthorn in front of 91k so there’s precedent unfortunately. On the flip side, imagine going into work on Friday and the weekend to follow with the satisfaction of beating the filth in a qualifying final (on a Thursday night)

Didn’t even think about that, and channel 7 could promote it as the biggest Saturday of football on the calendar. However there’s clearly a commitment to play a Thu night game in week 1.

That absolute stinks and is unfair. However, Port, Carlton, GWS and Sydney also play on the Sunday so one of the 5 clubs including us was always going to draw the short straw in terms of a Thursday night final. And secondly, it’s no different to someone getting concussed on prelim final weekend. The AFL aren’t going go to suddenly make any exemptions.