old55

I thought Jones was OK against North. Used it well and a couple of goal assists.

I expect us to win and will be disappointed if we don't. Surprising that the bookies have the Pies as clear favourites. Gawn is a very big out and add to that Jackson, but we've got solid depth with Preuss and TMac. Apart from that we're best 22. Collingwood have some very good ins but they overall have bigger outs IMO - Howe, Treloar and JDG are guns, and Stephenson, Roughead, Mayne and Sier are decent outs too, even if some are dropped, they can play in good form. Off 4 days break too. Collingwood play a strong system similar to ours and the bigger Gabba ground suits us less. Nevertheless, I think we win.

It's Lulie Street - know the enemy and get it right.

Great to see the AFL has scheduled the QBW match up at 5:10pm on Saturday while the blockbuster Freo vs Carlton game follows in prime time of 8:10!

I hope they schedule the GF in Perth and WC don't make it. If MFC happen to somehow win the flag and we can't go, I hope it's in Perth so their supporters bear witness. Did I mention I hate West Coast?

Advice to Pendles: run out for this important match, blow up in the first contest, spend the match on the bench, out for 6 weeks.

Preuss - good decision, if Grundy plays as expected, they have 2 proper ruckman with Cameron.

Clarko surely?

He was quite good rucking solo against Carlton last year. I agree that he's pretty useless in tandem with Max, but that's not the mission here.

I blame Misson for this again!

EFA according to Roy and HG

I think the West Coast sooks are not a lock. They'll come away from Perth and start stinking it up again. Would not be surprised to see them end up on 10 wins and their percentage to take a hit. Quite frankly it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.

Surely Preuss plays?

From AFL fantasy .... https://www.afl.com.au/news/484984/fantasy-secrets-to-success-every-club-s-cbas-for-r11 Centre Bounce Appearances vs North - Angus and Luke Jackson most prevalent (sorry about the formatting of the cut & paste): Player Fantasy TOG CBA Angus Brayshaw 103 80% 19 Clayton Oliver 106 85% 15 Christian Petracca 109 83% 13 Luke Jackson 44 69% 13 Tom Sparrow 74 67% 8 Tom McDonald 82 84% 6 Nathan Jones 35 73% 3 Jake Melksham 45 85% 2 Sam Weideman 58 92% 1

internal monologue as stream of conscious post No one I think is in my tree I mean it must be high or low That is you can't, you know, tune in But it's all right That is, I think, it's not too bad

AFL Fantasy podcast said all teams will be announced the night before the match at 6:20pm for the rest of the season.

They absolutely can be in the same side and having all 4 is probably our greatest asset. But with this year's shorter matches they can't all do full match minutes in the midfield because there's not enough minutes to go around. So the best possible solution needs to be found and I firmly believe that involves playing Jack forward for significant periods.

Rankine only human after al ...

And I'm his mum.

Hope the Zamboni doesn't break down.

Cairns Cazaly vs Sydney and Freo https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/geelongs-gmhba-stadium-playing-surface-to-shrink-as-boundaries-brought-in-for-player-safety/news-story/03d334db55d584cd66e545a4bd7beff4 Boundary dimensions: Cazaly’s Stadium - 165m - 135m

And here I thought we have been "historically guilty of gifting young players games when they don't deserve them" - it's very hard to keep up with all the things we're doing wrong.

Convincing convenient argument right here ...

OK party time is over! We've played the 2 worst sides at a ground that suits our game style - our zone was clearly working very well against Adelaide and North, you could see their frustration with the ball in their back half. AO is narrow at 123m and relatively easy to zone. We played some of our other good football against the Suns and Hawthorn at The Giants' Spotless Stadium which is similarly narrow at 127.5. This is not a new trend - we've been clearly better at Etihad in recent times at 128.8 and relative to other teams have been generally competitive at Geelong's Simmonds at 115m. Now we're playing teams in our quality range at wider grounds Gabba 138m, Metricon 134 and TIO Traeger at 132. So the challenge is right there in front of us. It's not all wine and roses for me with our game style - one of my biggest concerns is that it's not well adapted to the MCG our home ground and where the GF is usually played. And this year's finals are likely to be at Queensland's wider grounds so we better get used to. Quite frankly I'd prefer to see us play Port at AO than the Gabba. It's going to be very interesting to see if we can take a step forward on the bigger dimension grounds.

The knocks on his kicking action here ahead of the draft last year were way off line. He's a very nice kick for a man his size.