Bring-Back-Powell

For the here and now it’s better if Freo win today. The way we’ve been playing since round 10 we need all the breathing space we can get in respect of top 4 and sides 5th-8th. I don’t understand the obsession with draft picks at round 16.

Anyone barracking for the Dogs to beat Freo doesn’t want us to make top 4.

Melksham could still be sub.

Happy BBB is in. The resting forward-ruck in Gawn/Grundy (which quite frankly isn't working) or Joel Smith has cost JVR a spot in the side. Why isn't Tomlinson in the side to take one of Riccardi or Hogan while May takes the other, and allowing Lever to do his thing on a lesser opponent? Where will Petty be playing?

This is definitely a channel 7 game for Victorian viewers: Hawthorn V Carlton - Foxtel, 1:10pm Melbourne V GWS - Ch 7, 3:20pm West Coast V St Kilda - Foxtel, 4:40pm I suspect Kelli Underwood, Dermie and Co will be hosting on Fox Footy in a studio reviewing the afternoon's games during each break. Hopefully that clarifies.

Valid question about Port and if you can largely stop Butters, Rozee and JHF, then you're surely going to beat them in a final. For example, in their loss to Collingwood in round 2 they had a combined 53 touches and 1 goal between them which was such a low output. Compare that to their win over Melbourne where they had a combined 95 touches and 4 goals. Butters and Rozee have only one year's less experience (5 years) than Oliver and Petracca had in 2021 (6 years), and it's fair to say that our duo dominated the 2021 finals series. Port's fortunes will heavily depend on Butters and Rozee but history suggests that may well have the maturity and experience to carry Port to the promise land.

6 out of 9 with 15 wins should get us top 4, but 15 wins has failed to get clubs into the top 4 in the past. And with the extra game, we may very well need 16 wins (7 out of 9 wins) if clubs just below us win almost every week, which hopefully they won't.

Collingwood appear to be in a flat spot and I reckon they'll be aiming to play better football and peak by August/September. Brisbane are starting to build after a scratchy 3 weeks prior to their win last week Vs St Kilda. Not sure they've peaked yet on a consistent basis. Port are a big question mark. They have been brilliant for 12 weeks but it's going to be something else for them to maintain their spot in the top 2 without having a flat spot and dropping a couple of games before finals. I hope we've far from peaked but we can't seem to find that consistency over the last 6 weeks and rattle off 4-5 wins in a row which we'll need to do if we want to be a serious player later in the year.

Did anyone hear Chris Fagan this morning on radio in his debrief of last night's game? My ears pricked up when he mentioned that his side was banged up in last year's finals series, particularly his defence, in addition to Daniher, the big O and others missing. I thought we were the only team banged up.

Disappointing but if Collingwood are able to finish first then I'd rather finish 4th than 3rd and play week 1 on our home ground. Happy for Brisbane to travel to Adelaide to play Port in week 1.

Wouldn't it be better if the Dogs lose given they're only a game (and admittedly percentage) behind us? The aim of the game over the next few weeks is to create a nice gap between us and 5th place.

Would help if Sparrow became a 20 possession / 1 goal a game midfielder. I get that he has lower TOG than other, but in the absence of Oliver he should be increasing his output. However he's failed to crack the 20 mark since Clarry has been injured. Infact he's only cracked 20 possessions in 10 of his 70 odd games.

As disappointing as the Geelong loss was, would there be any team in the league that would actually beat Collingwood at the G and then Geelong at GHMBA in consecutive starts - two pronounced home ground advantages. The only team that would give it a shake would be Port. They'd start slight underdog in both games and would probably be 4-1 odds to win them both. In other words a chance but unlikely. My point is, had we been able to hold onto our 7 point lead and beaten Geelong, then we'd be in discussion as being the number 1 seed in the comp, from both the media, our supporters and the general public's perception. We need to get back on track and win 7 out of our last 9 games to secure our spot in the top 4. At worst 7 losses gets you a place in the top 4 going by prior years.

Based on the bye theory, I reckon some upsets are coming: Hawthorn to beat Carlton Essendon to beat Port Freo to beat Dogs (hope so anyway)

Please bring this man back into the side. Our forward line is mess at the moment for a side that is supposedly contending for the flag. Bring in someone with proven forward craft that will nail the shots that a forward is supposed to get.

Winning a final this year, preferably at the G in front of the faithful for the first time since 2018, will be a success in my book. Finals are awfully hard to win as we experienced last year, and at this point in time we don't have the consistency of Port and Collingwood to be considered a genuine flag chance - an outside chance at best. Given we haven't won a final in consecutive years since 1990-1991, I'll take any finals win we can get.

And they opened at $4.75.

Trade radio on SEN won't be the same now.

West Coast will still win a flag before the likes of St Kilda, Fremantle and GWS.

The weather at this stage is trending nicely for Sunday with a morning shower and an ideal temperature of 12 degrees compared to the usual mid 20s. Bring in Ben Brown. Our forward line is just getting plain silly now and we need a professional forward that can be trusted with the set shot. Trac has fallen off the accuracy wagon when he makes an appearance down there. JVR puts in nice cameos but should not be our number 1 key fwd. Gawn doesn't have an ounce of forward craft in him despite his height. Smith is not the answer as the number 2 KF, although 2 goals in the wet was commendable last week before Stewart got on top of him. Unless he's genuinely not fit enough for AFL footy, BBB should be a fixture in the side for the remainder of the year.

Gary Lyon was campaigning for Gawn to play the majority of minutes in the ruck, last night on "The Couch" He obviously didn't say this but I got the impression from Lyon that if Grundy's forward craft didn't improve then Casey could be an option for Grundy.

In 2017 Geelong played a few early season home games at Marvel. We were lucky enough to be one of those away teams that avoided the Cattery. In the original 2020 fixture we were scheduled a late season Saturday twilight game down there. In the revised COVID fixture it got transferred to the MCG as a home game for us. In 2021 we were fixtured at GMHBA before the season started and ended up playing there.

I would much rather play a home game at Marvel V's GWS (than Alice) in front of our crowd, where the majority of the supporter base can attend after being essentially locked out of GMHBA if you didn't book a ticket quick enough. So that's 2 weeks in a row where the the MFC faithful won't be attending, in addition to the round 4/5 fortnight earlier in the year. I can bet your bottom dollar the players would much rather play this Sunday's game at Marvel rather than hopping on yet another flight where out interstate record is below average this year (we even treated last week's Geelong game as interstate game and look how that turned ou) From a recovery perspective the players would also rather play in VIC as they'll need to back up a 6 day break against St Kilda on a fast track. We lost to the Dogs last year (at Marvel) off a 6 day break from Alice. Let's punt the Alice game and move our 11th home game to Marvel when ever this current contract expires.

Crows have brought the margin back from 36 to 3.

Agree 1000% with this. It’s a better result to have teams just below us losing and creating a gap for our top 4 hopes. We might end up finishing 4th and play Collingwood (1st) which would totally offset the home ground advantage of finishing top 2.