Xecutioner

Love your work on the pod. Would like if you interrupted a bit less and I disagree with some of your opinions. But because you explain how you get there, I really appreciate your perspective as it gives me a much greater understanding of the game. I grew up watching NRL but have lived in Victoria for too long and have converted, so these discussions really help me get an understanding of what to look for when watching AFL. For all my gripes with you and the pod. You guys are a lot more pleasant and interesting than almost any other sport content and I greatly appreciate it. Hell Keep it up!

Binman said that "no NRL coach would play a player who's left". Complete garbage. And I think the attitude cost us last year NRL players have no restriction on signing contracts after the current one or time of season. Biggest examples I have: Panthers Jarome Luai has signed for a truck load of money to play for the wests tigers next year and is still playing like a star for the three peat panthers. James Fisher-harris just signed last week from the Panthers to the warriors for the start of next year and played this week for the Panthers and played well. Joseph Sualii plays for the Roosters and has signed to play rugby union next year and is still playing for the Roosters. This idea of "all in or bust" is a luxury AFL clubs have because they don't have to compete with other codes or comps. NRL players can play in the UK for decent cash or even switch codes to play in France, Japan, South Africa etc. that's why NRL players have a lot more freedom and why there is no draft in NRL or any soccer league anywhere. While I think it's admirable to only play players who are "All in". It's absolutely naive to think players can't play well if they are leaving next year. Happens all the time in NRL. Premier league soccer players are often told before they leave that they don't fit and will leave at the end of the season and are called on when needed. IMO, we cost ourselves a final last year by not playing Brodie Grundy. He still would have played well. He still will have pride in himself and the Guernsey, even if he's leaving.

I'd prefer we win all the quarters. It doesn't happen much in competitive footy these days, but it would be nice.

Carlton missed the starting pistol for the season and spent the rest of the year trying to recover. My theory is they responded to the fact they had pre season injuries by changing to a 1 pit stop strategy. Doing their preseason early to mid season to peak about 4 weeks ago in a mad dash to make finals. This will mean they won't have the gas in the 4th. Melbourne will win the fourth quarter. Just depends how far back we get ourselves.

I am of the opinion that Grundy is doing ok, but the club want to get a bit more out of him. It's his first full season in a while so they are resting him and trying to poke him a little to get aggressive again so he's full speed when back. We bought him to be a ruck. I just think we want to be efficient with interchanges. I don't think he's actually competing with petty for a spot

Personally i think it's just that we wanted more forwards for the lions game because they have good defence and a poorer ruck. We now have a period of softer games with no top 8 teams so why not use the time to rest him while he gets some more skills. I think Grundy has his spot even if he's a [censored] forward, were just using our softer run to try get a little more out of him.

As a nuffie who doesn't actually understand football, I use sportsbet to substitute for any feelings. We are still third favourite to win the flag and big favourite to win this week. While it's not looking great, there's time to cry after the season. For now we should just be excited to smash Brisbane for a third time this year. That will give the players confidence back and allow the coaches to think through the Geelong match up and come up with a strategy for it. It's not over yet, think positive until it's over.

I have a comment on last year's finals series. We played Brisbane, Geelong and Western bulldogs. All teams who couldn't apply much pressure and didn't play man on man footy. This year our hardest games have been against teams playing high pressure man on man, like Sydney, Collingwood and Carlton. my question is: can the demons find a way to play against the man on man style and kick away again? It seems to me like our model stands up against certain teams but not others.

Definitely a possibility if Freo wins. Dogs I think can't do it. I hope Freo wins.

I will post a video of myself on Twitter celebrating in my Melbourne scarf, fully dressed. Why does everyone else have to be weird?

NRL currently has 16 teams and 24 games in a season. So the issue is less pronounced just on numbers. You play half the comp twice. That changes next year with the addition of Red cliff Dolphins making it a 17 team competition and I'm not sure how many games they will play next year, especially considering one team will have to sit out all year. NRL will likely move to 18 teams before 2030 but no decision has been made about the next team. At that stage they will have this same problem.

I'd like you to redo that analysis based on last year's data, when the draw was put in place. Because that's what we want changed, boot foresight of the possible ladder.

Surely all the nonsense out of the board has to scare away a few serious candidates. If I was on my way to head coaching role I would be very scared of being a 1.5 yr coach and never get the spot again...

And the lions backline doing this:

I feel like we play pretty straight up all year so that our adjustments in finals can be simple things like that which can still throw a team off considering how metronomic we can be.