Vipercrunch

The only thing I want to see this game is a massive reduction in the fumbling and horrible skills that have made watching our team so painful the last two weeks. Get between the ears fixed, get the confidence back, excecute our skills at an AFL level and lets see what we can actually do rather than another train wreck.

I'm on the Petty is a forward bandwagon with you and I'm staying there. He is the best contested mark out of all the players we've tried up forward in the past few seasons, and that makes him a big point of difference. TMac had a great season last year, and I think the backline of May, Lever and TMac should be continued this season. JVR, Petty and one of Jeffo or Turner, along with Fritsch (staying much closer to goal than he did yesterday) and the smalls rotating through is our best look I think.

Always disappointing to lose like that but I kind of felt it was a bit of a free kick of a game prior to the first bounce. They had the advantage of playing last week and are one of the most highly fancied teams while we were playing with 5 AFL debutants. As long as we weren’t smashed it seems an acceptable result. Slight worry for me was our scoring profile. Goals from centre clearance are wonderful to watch but they aren’t reliable. Need to keep working hard on scoring from turnovers and from the back half. Still much to like but we got so so close and gave up the lead in the last minute.

We’re trying to be too cute for these conditions. Most of our goals have come from loose ball deep in the forward 50 but instead of getting the ball in there, we’re trying to hit the perfect pass. Just get the ball in there, get it to ground and see what happens.

A bit rusty but not terrible. Take away their goal from Langdons 30m kick backwards that missed the target, we would be in front.

TURN THE SOUND DOWN MCG

I wonder if Jackson is on St Kildas radar. They seem desperate to land a big fish and from the dollars they have reportedly thrown around, we won't be abe to compete against them. You'd think any fair trade for Jackson back to Victoria definetaly opens up the door for us to get a good trade for Kozzy, however, will Freos trade targets need to change if they lose Jackson?

The round 4 game is on April 4th, which is almost 5 weeks after this Sunday's game. There will be virtually zero residual fitness benefit for playing Pickett on Sunday. All his match fitness and loads will have to be managed in training sessions in the couple of weeks prior to that game. Still very hard to stomach that he got suspended for that incident.... stupid AFL 🤬🤬🤬

Curious with what we do with Pickett. If this a full dress rehersal for Rd 1, do we leave him out? For me, it really depends on how big the benches are (ie how many players the coaches can give a run to see how they fit), but given Pickett has already played 2 preseason games, I actually think he will be left out (which will surprise some).

Given we are more than likely going to be adding Windsor, Salem and May to our backiline for the next praccy against Freo, a more relavant question is which other 2 backline players as well as the unlucky AMW will miss out.

I actually think the practice matches provide the build up and without them, crowd numbers and engagement would be lower in the first few rounds. For every one footy tragic who has eagerly been devouring training reports all off-season, there are 5 or 10 far less engaged supporters who need the mainstream reporting of the prctice games to create their expecations and get the anticipation up for Round 1. And like most, I agree that Round Zero is a train wreck that needs to be scrapped straight away.

I think history shows we perform better when outside expecations are low, so personally, I am rapt to be flying under the radar of the footy world.

The amount of opinion stated as fact in this thread is ridiculous, even for Demonland standards. This story has been swirling around since he joined the club and he hasn't gone anywhere. And as yet, there has never been a credible source given for the remours. Given he spent the Christmas break in NZ, not in WA or SA, he doesn't seem desperately homesick to me.

I hope he bought his mouthguard.

I'm not sure if Adelaide being 8 points up at 3Q time against a putrid Saints side is that good a form line. And I want Essendon to make the finals so they can lose another final. So I'm hoping for an Essendon win.

The first post is the very definition of fickle.

There were several posters who wanted him dropped in the lead up to the Geelong game. Some like yourself have owned it, others haven't.

I love those multi calls, but seriously, the first call went with "fortuidous touch" to describe Petty's desperate spoil. Huge facepalm fella.

I wonder if any posters will learn from this and not be so trigger happy to write players off.... ... ... Bhahahahahahaha

https://www.afl.com.au/video/991955/petty-party-as-six-goal-show-uncovers-new-weapon?videoId=991955&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1690704583001&references=AFL_MATCH:4953 I'm backing Petty to turn it around as a forward. He pretty much missed the entire preseason, so he has some catching up to do. Definetely worth persevering.

It was nice lead up play but he had an open player on at the 50 which might have been the go rather than the BBB 50:50.

Reserves as the curtain raiser to the seniors worked for a very long time, and is fondly remembered. It still works for nearly every non-AFL competetion in the nation.

Him (or maybe even better a player like him but not actually him) would have been far more useful than the Grundy experiment, but hindisght is 20:20. Not worth the risk at his age now though.

This is why we need an eye-roll reaction.

Much better Rivers. Nice start to the quarter.