seventyfour

Unfortunately winter is arriving in Melbourne, rain forecast every day for the next week, including Thursday. Hopefully not around that night. I'm very interested to see how Brisbane go today against a lowly slide...

Watching the goals replay... our third goal from Trac, all came from a fantastic flying smother by Sparrow. Watch every player get to Sparrow after the goal, almost to the point of ignoring Trac, the praise is all for Spaz. Great to see... absolutely some shades of 2021 in this team...

Can't defend Kozzy for this at all. Anyone making excuses has their MFC glasses on. He raised his elbow and was clearly trying to make Soligo feel it. It was a dumb choice, he will get weeks, and he deserves weeks. In his time off he need to do some work on the mental side of his game.

Some really stupid play is keeping Adelaide in this.

Windsor is so good, he improves every single game, it's crazy.

Billings was no good at St Kilda. His career survived on being a high draft pick and playing one good game every 5-6 weeks. Exact same player showing up at Melbourne. He's just warming the spot for McAdam.

19 inside 50s to 8. Midfield deserves a massive spray.

Any chance we could get some decent ball use or run and carry going forward... Give Brown and Fritsch a chance to get into the game.

THIS IS WHY YOU DONT PLAY MAY

Still salty about 2021

The issue here is that their performance is further underminining an already compromised and unfair fixture. The stronger clubs that are lucky enough to play West Coast twice are handed 8 free points and a potential percentage boost. We are very, very lucky to be one of those teams this year. For once fixturing is on our side. I don't think they deserve it, but if they get it, at the most it should be start of second round compensation and they are forced to trade it (like North last year).

I'm shocked that the Crows are 0-3. They were a bit of a weird team last year, but I thought they deserved to beat us, they almost knocked off Collingwood twice, and were robbed of a win over Sydney. Just two of those would've seen them finish 6th. I haven't watched them this year, but their supporters would know their team best, and everything they say makes it sound like they've been terrible. We just need a fast start, put the crowd to bed and we should be right.

Sub debut?

While it's only the early rounds, the season is a marathon, and we should plan accordingly. Woewodin deserves game time, and as the year goes on, it's likely that we'll need him at some point. Put him in the first 22 for Chandler.

Big few weeks coming up. Short turnaround, Adelaide in Adelaide, they're desperate for a win. Brisbane back at the MCG, bit of spice in our recent history against them, another team desperate to get their season on track. Dare to dream of being 5-1 at our bye? Then two games at the MCG against big teams with fading talent in Richmond and Geelong... sets up for a mammoth clash against Carlton. Getting ahead of myself but I'd like to feel positive for once!

Biggest positive for me was Lever. Thought he had been poor this year, but he stood up in the absence of May with was pleasant surprise. Best game I've seen him play in a long time. Other positive was that the game wasn't won by our top 10. Rivers, ANB, Brown, Chandler got it done for us. Tackle pressure needs to lift though. We lost tackle count despite having less of the ball, and got smashed in the I50 tackle count. No tackles for Pickett.

How good was Windsor's goal

McAdam, get yourself fit ASAP. Billings' spot is there for the taking.

JVR should be dropped for this

Finlayson 197cm Marshall 198cm Dixon 200cm McDonald 195cm Lever 194cm Hore 190cm Significant height issues down back if Petty is forward. Add in a sore Lever, who is better as an intercept than man defender... not hugely confidence. I don't like Tomlinson but at least you can give him a job and it gives Lever more freedom and/or allows Petty to play forward.

Why? I don't get it. Can't see other clubs coming after him so I don't see the need to give him 2 years. I know players like security but there has to be something positive about putting fringe players on shorter contracts. Gives them a sense of urgency.

2 former Dees in the top 10. Imagine if Jackson and Hogan still played for us... wah!

Howes is actually a better example of patience. He was drafted in the 2021 draft, so he waited 2 full seasons before getting a chance. If you ran a regression analysis of AFL team performance and VFL team performance I would expect some relationship but not a strong one.

What if someone gets injured in the first minute? That's a full game for Petty whether he's sub or not. I obviously don't know his fitness levels or how his injuries are tracking but this all feels rushed and sketchy to me.

I've finished watching the replay now... so we won by 45 points when: - We were only up by 17 with 12 minutes to go - Lever had the worst game I've seen him play in the red and blue - Fritsch was terrible - Sparrow and Langdon were barely noticed - JVR hardly got near it for 3/4s - Petracca was well below his best That's not great for the dogs. For us, it's good to see that we can find a way to win, but we'll need to be a lot better against the top sides.