Chook

Gawn's ruck work tonight has been spectacular so far. He's clearly really relishing a return to being the main man.

Holy hell what are we seeing, this is like the Gabba start late last year.

Trac, echoes of Dusty/the 2021 GF first goal with that wind up from outside 50. We're looking on, and so dynamic.

Melksham starting terribly. Two costly skill errors

Mids are on top early, and Gawn is rucking well.

Oof! Now we know why the Lions odds shortened so much.

I did - Glen Waverley line as well. It didn't help. I'm thinking it's probably not a factor in team performance -same as the odds.

Not a betting man. Does the Lions being favourites hurt our chances of winning or is it totally irrelevant?

I'm excited to see Brown, JVR and Melksham together. With the exception of Fritsch (who is a great individual forward but not necessarily a "team player" in the forward line) and with the exception also of Tom McDonald (though he isn't what he was), this is out crafty-est forward mix. I think a huge amount of our problems with connection are simply that our forwards don't know how to play forward - at least with Brown, JVR, and Melksham you have three talls with the nous to display proper leading patterns, which should hopefully provide good targets to our midfield. Throw in Petracca, Kosi (hoping for him to give us something) and ANB/Spargo, I think there's something to work with. Just have to win the contested ball, so Petracca's forward/midfield mix will be interesting. Petracca's more of an outside player in our midfield though, so hoping he goes forward and Viney/Sparrow/Jordan/Brayshaw can win enough of it and lower their eyes when going forward to the Brown/JVR/Melksham trio, with Kosi and Petracca lurking.

No chance Hibberd is cooked just yet. He was flying before copping a lacerated kidney. Sure we need to manage his body but he's in out best defensive mix come finals.

I rewatched our 2018 finals performances vs Geelong and Hawthorn and I think if you throw May, Lever, Petty into that side you've got the Dees' 2023 premiership team and gameplan. Very attacking and high scoring with solid defence and contested ball winners - only one genuine ruckman required. EDIT: Having said that, the premiers for that year blew us off the park in the prelim so maybe the gameplan doesn't stack up!

It's like a throwback to the 1990s right now.

6. May 5. Petracca 4. Viney 3. Hunter 2. Sparrow 1. Salem

Not at the game. Can anyone explain why we're trying to switch the ball so much tonight?

He was overweight and slow in our premiership year, but we used him in a way that hid those issues and accentuated his good positioning and work rate.

I've just about had it with Brayshaw's awful disposal.

Too handball happy in the back half especially, and lucky the saints have missed a few easy shots - overall you can see we're trying to lower the eyes which is grea.

May is getting right back to his best, and Viney is picking up where he left off last week.

Can someone explain to me that strange strategy where Neal-Bullen kicked it in front of Brown to run onto? Is there a word for that?

The Eagles thin veneer of effort has cracked. Here's hoping the lions can run the table now and give us a 200-0 result.

That's just apples and oranges. 30 more accurate disposals in place of turnovers won't do much. 30 more goals in place of behinds will net multiple victories.

Well I mean every possession he gets now will be record breaking, so maybe he'll never shut up.

The dogs are having about a million shots from the pocket and nailing all of them, so we'd better be able to do the same on the same ground in 24 hours time.

I'm not bad, but good luck trying to lip read Clayton Oliver.