old55

No, less kid, more napping these days.

I was particularly alarmed at their demand: "On Friday, please visit the Ticketek windows at Gate 3B box office (to the left of Gate 3) with children present to unblock the barcodes or to have your tickets upgraded to a Concession or Adult ticket if a Child ticket has been purchased incorrectly. This box office will be open from 11:30am." Was wondering why I needed to go on Friday and where I could get the children from.

I booked a ticket for KB through Ticketek. I received the following email from Ticketek today. Note that I have never "purchased multiple Children Under 5 tickets". Maybe some others are having the same experience, the solution appears below ... "Dear Ticket Holder, We look forward to welcoming you to the MCG for the Toyota AFL Premiership Season match between Melbourne and Collingwood on Monday 9 June 2025. Your account has been flagged as having purchased multiple Children Under 5 tickets without an accompanying Adult ticket. The MCC, as ground manager of the MCG, is strongly committed to the safety and wellbeing of all children and young people within the stadium. As a result, your ticket barcodes have been blocked for this match. On Friday, please visit the Ticketek windows at Gate 3B box office (to the left of Gate 3) with children present to unblock the barcodes or to have your tickets upgraded to a Concession or Adult ticket if a Child ticket has been purchased incorrectly. This box office will be open from 11:30am. Please note as we are expecting a large crowd for this match, please arrive early and leave plenty of time for the entry process. Regards, Ticketek Team" Ticketek are difficult to contact. I called their help number but the recorded message said "operators are busy, thanks for your patience" and hung up on me. So I filled in their online form and surprisingly they responded promptly via email: "Hi The MCG and AFL have advised that this email was sent out to all customers in error instead of only those who are impacted An updated email will be sent confirming this information in the coming hours You will not need to visit the box office on the day and can scan in your tickets as they are. We apologize for any inconvenience Regards, Customer Solutions"

Our attact has been defiantly preforming better

Petty, JVR and Fritsch is a decent tall forward combination and I think Jefferson could play a role with Petty and JVR as partners taking the key backs. We need to be continuing to pursue Wade Derksen at GWS who looks like he's having a good VFL year and is held out of the seniors by Taylor and Buckley. Lever, Turner, Derksen and Adams is a possible KB solution set. Jackson is the only one I'm interested in, he solves the Max succession nicely and can function well in the transition. I can't see how we can get him without losing some other high value players. Kossie for Jackson doesn't improve us overall. I'd rather have Kossie and a workmanlike ruck.

The other thing to add about Spargo's game is that he regularly blocked Kossie’s opponent at forward 50 stoppages which was influential.

I think Langdon is playing the Nibbler role and Spargo is playing the Spargo role. I watched Spargo closely yesterday, he's a very disciplined defensive runner and he offered some aggressive medium range corridor attacking options on turnover which were universally ignored in favour of shorter diagonal passes - probably because of a combination of our players lacking the confidence to make the difficult kick and Spargo's aerial limitations. He's a nice creative kick when he gets it, but he doesn't get it much. Other alternatives could win more ball but they'd turn it over more.

And ruck whom?

Rankine and Hill don't play the same role as Spargo. Miers is the only accurate comparison and he's an amazing player, much better than Spargo. His ability to find the ball and hit a difficult target is great, if we had him we'd be a much better team.

He was right but for Maynard on Brayshaw.

Hopefully we've kept up the dialog with his management. He's OOC this year so it should be easier.

For those who went or watched a significant amount online - how did our Wade Derksen go as a key back for GWS?

Wade Derksen key back for GWS is of interest too.

FTR, the sooner we move on Goodwin, the better. Chaplin takes over in the meantime. I've been a Goodwin fan and the trendline before the 21 flag was clearly up, but now it's obviously down and you've got to read it. I was optimistic we could turn things around this year and the FD had credits in the bank but they’re all spent now. We probably can't pull the trigger until the new CEO is in place, hopefully it's someone with sufficient veritas and gumption. IMV there's plenty to gain by acting quickly, we can get in early with the selection process and beat other teams to the drop of the ball e.g. the Dogs. If we go for an assistant coach without senior experience (my preference) then we have time to line up a mentor to replace Richardson e.g. Ken Hinkley or Luke Beveridge - these things take runway to get lift off (it always makes me laugh when there's a hue and cry about players discussing trades during the season, whentf are they supposed to do it - during trade period?). Even if an assistant can't be released to join us because his team is playing finals e.g. Scott Burns at Adelaide, at least he can be in communication, including with players, about list changes for this season which, to say the least, are critical given the Oliver, Petracca, Pickett, Fritsch situations. I don’t think for a moment that all the problems are coaching problems but we need to continue the changes we're making there next.

We've named 6 talls in addition to Max - May, Petty, Lever, JVR, AJ and TMac. That’s a pretty standard set-up. 7 talls and 15 smalls - one of the talls is on the bench at most times so we've usually got 6 and 12 on the field - that's pretty standard. Petty and TMac can play at either end which gives flexibility and the sub will come from Melksham, Langford, Chandler and Billings so that gives the flexibility to sub a tall out. I think it's a good balance.