Bring-Back-Powell

I think the club should look into that and request a couple more red ball games next year to ensure the entire supporter base is catered for. Having said that, if we played North, Hawthorn, St Kilda and Richmond on the run home, then we would have had more day games.

Waterman was always returning this weekend. I wonder if May or T Mac takes him. Hopefully Yeo misses again this week.

Yeah that second last point is pretty poor form.

So this year the club's bean counters and sponsors department will be happy with relation to genuine marquee timeslots: 3 Friday night games (including Collingwood in round 24*) 4 Thursday night games 1 Anzac Eve 1 Kings B'day (*going the early crow with round 24) On the flip side, it's bit of a shame we only have 2 genuine "red ball" day games in Melbourne this year. How times have changed.

Our Friday night game against the Dogs starts at the early time of 7:15pm. Neither us or the Pies play on Sunday in round 23 which should mean we'll play them on Friday night of round 24, you would think??

Just had a sneaky peak at the age website: The Essendon, GWS and Port games are on Saturday nights. The West Coast and Freo games are Sunday games. The Lions and Dogs games are on a Friday night.

In the NFL clubs will play Sunday and then back up the following Thursday night. Clubs probably only do this once a year and probably have the bye the week after.

@FearTheBeard in round 18 there’s 3 games at the MCG? Pies/Cats or Dees/Dons for Friday night? You’d imagine Pies v Cats would get the Friday night game but apparently Essendon are getting rewarded with prime time slots, so you know??

1-3 under Narrm. The one win came against North in 2022.

Looking at the ladder, you know it's only a matter of time until the AFL adopts a wild card finals round.

Been reading the WC forum on Bigfooty and Waterman was under concussion protocols and will return this weekend. Yeo is 50/50 but leaning towards playing. That automatically makes them a better side. A 6 goal win would be probably more than satisfactory.

Anyone know if Yeo's back this week? He and Waterman (who will be back) make West Coast a lot better.

If they hold on, no doubt Fagan will come out and say it was the best win he’s ever been involved in. He’s already said it in rounds 5 and 8.

8 scoring shots in the VFL requires consideration. However, I doubt they’ll fly him to Perth.

The free kick count is the most irrelevant stat in footy. If an umpires objective was to ensure an even free kick tally, then they’d be punted to the bush and never to return. And we lost last Thursday because of our disgraceful first quarter, not because of a couple of umpiring decisions.

I get that we all hate Essendon but you have to give them a lot of credit for their win over a massive contender in GWS. And they’ve kept us the top 4 which was nice of them.

Assuming he’s available, do we put the Salem to midfield experiment back on the agenda? I think Trac needs to spend far more time up forward as he’s a natural forward who will get plenty of looks each game. But we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The final round usually gets released in late July/early August. You could probably almost bank that Melbourne v Collingwood will be Friday night.

Sydney are so impressive offensively and defensively and are clearly the number 1 seed at the moment. However, Sydney are disgraceful in grand finals under Longmire. Why would this year be any different? And what did Jordon get up to over summer? Has become an accomplished player.

How can you do that to yourself? The coaching staff will have enough trouble trying to watch it, but at least they get paid for it.

My cats are too busy sleeping 22 hours a day to come over for a cuddle post loss.

Last week I would've put Billings on the chopping block but he responded last night with 20 touches and good ball use in the last quarter. His passing and inside 50 entries were as advertised when we recruited him. No change this week. Goodwin last week said McAdam is weeks off a debut, so perhaps he debuts against St Kilda. Our forward line needs an overhaul and I can see McAdam and Melksham (provided he recovers well from his ACL) replacing Turner and someone else (maybe Petty if he persists with these sub 10 possession/2 mark/goalless games.)

I don’t have them handy but I recall Collingwood knocking off Adelaide last year and Carlton knocking off Sydney in 2022 off 5 day breaks. And obviously we won a 5 day break in Adelaide in round 4, and also won off a 5 day break last year (Richmond into North round 7). Meanwhile Adelaide just won a showdown off a 5 day break, and Brisbane put in a shocker on Anzac Day Vs GWS off a 5 day break. I honestly don’t think 5 day breaks are as bad as what people make them out to be. It’s the accumulated condensed breaks that probably trouble clubs.

Makes last week's win over Geelong so important, and a valuable bit of insurance to mitigate last night. If you told me we'd go 1-1 against Geelong and Carlton (with a 1 point loss) after our underwhelming fortnight against Brisbane and Richmond, I would've taken it. Two flip of the coins against premiership contenders is promising despite some issues we need to deal with. We'll go in favourites against West Coast and St Kilda, and if we are to win both games we'll be 8-3, a win better than at the same point of round 11 2023, and on track for a 16 or 17 win season. To win both of these shouldn't be underestimated.

Fair point about the oppo Still, 1-6 (14% success rate) in our previous 7 Thursday night games when we have an overall 60% winning ratio during that time frame is a little interesting in my book.