Ben

My brother used it to see me at Cats Pies. @Clayton spirit didn’t mention it was guarded. He was in M30 and I was at M55 standing room.

My brother tried to enter gate 3 on Saturday when he had a gate 1 ticket. Turnstile said ‘wrong gate’ and didn’t let him in. I presume the same will happen if you tried. There is a way to get to M9, albeit convoluted. Enter gate 1, go up to top level Q. It’s hard to spot but there’s a stairway entrance to a walkway which connects Ponsford with Olympic, bypassing MCC members. From Olympic go down to M then walk around to GSS/Shane Warne M9. edit - saw you got an M9 ticket so all good.

Spargo’s disposal count is low every game because he gets burnt by his team mates often. The guy is one of the smartest in the team, usually a great ball user and he gets himself into useful positions. Seriously under-utilised in the team. Sydney looked younger and cleaner. Wow their ball movement is beautiful. They own us on our home ground. Hopefully we get the opportunity for a rematch on the 24th to bury the bloods.

JVR having a kick at half time of the W game. Do emergencies usually have a wander out pre-game? 🤔

Yep second last row.

I'm in the same boat. Too scared to ditch the browser though. Might be condemning myself to an even longer wait.

Got in the queue at 9:45, still in it. Good luck everyone!

Jordan unlucky, I know he was carrying a niggle but it’ll be hard to get back into the team now. I wonder if Gus will go back to the wing or we try Sparrow or Spargo goes there full time.

Just so proud of the boys. The Carlton fans dominated in M2 adjacent to our Demon Army and to silence them was so sweet. We won scrappy and ugly. Great that we can win a game like this. It doesn’t have to be a defensive masterpiece game of chess. We can hang in the contest and get over the top of a team desperate to cement a finals appearance. Carn the Dees!

You could also buy a general membership with the GFG added on as many do. On the issue of reserved seat holders not turning up, why isn't there a system where the seat holder can sell it to the ticket provider or a third party who can then on sell the ticket? I know this happens with sports in Europe and North America.

I know. I stupidly assumed that winning a premiership and not being able to be there to experience it last year would've been motivation enough to turn up and support the boys in voice all season. On a lovely mild March evening only 58,002 bothered to come to watch us unveil our flag (and 15-20,000 would've been Dishlicker fans). That set the tone this season with our mild and meek supporter base not turning up, and not being loud enough. If there was ever a time for us to turn up in numbers and voice it was last night, to counter the mighty supporter base of the Pies. I want that 2018 elimination final atmosphere to come back.

The crowd felt like an extra man at times, much like on QB. We don’t have the voice or numbers of their army.

Right on the money. As a bit of an MCG seating nerd myself, thanks for your expertise!

I listened to a Cameron Mooney interview and a part caught my attention where he was asked about Geelong dropping a few games during the 2009 season, where they finished 18-4 and won the premiership. This was his rough quote - 'We started doing a little bit of a rotation through our training, we started doing a really big training block at the end of the season as well, so we had a group of guys who trained really hard, a group of guys who trained medium and another group who trained really lightly. We rotated these groups through a four or five week period. We dropped a couple of games on the back of that, but we knew we were in a really good position. If we dropped a couple of games it didn't really matter, we had our eyes on the prize at the end. Internally we were feeling great, whereas externally the talk was that we had run out of legs and had got to the end of our era.' It sounds quite a bit like the loading that is discussed here in our era, and I wonder whether we do a similar thing by having different groups of players training heavily at different times, rather than the whole team at the same time. Here's the link if you want to hear. The relevant part is at 7:15, and it's the podcast 'Cameron Mooney: Geelong vs St Kilda - two out of three ain't bad!'.

There should be a bit of GA available for walk up, but it will only be on the top level (Q). The GA allocation isn't revealed until the day before the game, since they're trying to sell as many seats as reserved at the higher margin. So you can take the punt on Friday with walk up GA seats, though I would get there an hour before to make sure you weren't at the back row. Alternatively, check if your membership barcode allows you to reserve a seat for $10, otherwise you'll have to reserve a seat for the higher price.

Beautiful stadium. I presume you did the tour? I wasn't organised enough to do that in May when I was there for the Eagles game. Must do it next time. Bring the four points back east home with you. COYBIRB!

I suppose take it with a grain of salt, but Salem named on the half forward flank is interesting. A good team selected for a day of 10-20mm rain earlier in the day. You'd think Chandler would get the sub.

I listened to the podcast earlier and don't think his criticism was warranted. He didn't provide any examples of the attitude being off and sounded like he was riding off the tail end of the Fritsch-is-selfish critique.

It might work. Hibberd made one play where he sprinted 60 metres to be a link in the chain further up the field which I was very impressed with. His head seems to be in the game more than Salem at the moment.

Thanks for the warning. If I watch the replay it’ll be muted.

I saw Hamilton last night and pleaded with Kozzie not to throw away his shot in the last. Apologies to all here if I jinxed him.

They just wanted it more. Smashed us in ground balls. Always got first use. As an aside, dump kicks into the corridor from D50 need to be banned. If you can’t dump kick boundary side, handball into space and try to affect a stoppage.

Lucky we've got the Pies twice this year to dispose of that streak quickly.

I agree and think this will also set Salem free. Salem might have come back into the team a bit confused since Brayshaw has remained at half back, despite only being put there to cover Salem.

We didn't have to have the bye this round, we could've had it in round 12. No other team has a 10 day break over the bye, only one other team (Port Adelaide) has an 11 day break. Average break over the bye for all clubs is 13.3 days. Terrible fixturing.