Vipercrunch

I heard SOS was watching a VFL practice game as part of his role at St Kilda and didn't get to the G until about when the game started.

I've been watching our round 23 game from last season. The one where we were up by 66 points at half time against the Lions and playing some great footy. If we play anywhere near that level, the Bulldogs don't stand a chance. Assuming Melksham who trained with the main squad at training today is the sub, the team changes from that night to tomorrow night are:- OUT: Hibberd, May, Hunt, Jackson, Viney, Fritsch, Jordon (came on as medi-sub for Jackson) IN: McVee, Tomlinson, Hunter, Grundy, Laurie, McDonald, Chandler I'm not going to try and mount a case either way as to which night was the better line-up because as far as I see it, it's really quite close.

The market has now had almost 24 hours to react to the May news, so I can't see it changing without other significant changes to either team. Time to get used to the MFC having the reputation of being a bloody good footy team.

Not with authority no, but from what some posters here say, I'm pretty sure whichever player has incriminating photos of Goody gets to select themselves.

It will be interesting to see the pathway back to the seniors we use for Salem and Fritta who have now missed signifcant chunks of training. Viney and hopefully May you'd think would be fine to return straight back to the seniors, but will Salem and Fritsch be better off if we can nurse them through limited gametime at Casey to prepare them for full AFL games. If we struggle to score or rebound out of D50, we may feel a lot of pressure to rush them back, but I hope that's not the case.

I think it's a case of Thommo is the natural replacement for May while Disco Turner is the natural replacement for Lever. Let's see how things go down back. The criticism of Thommo in the practice game against St Kilda has been incredibly overblown.

Hopefully tonight ends the calls by some in the media to completely scrap all practice games before the season starts.

It was like some of the highlights that come out of the European Cricket League. What a comedy of errors. A draw was fitting.

Only just started watching, but the most important thing out of this game is how the surface is holding up?

Wow, if they pay that marking interference frees to us, we’ll kick 40 goals a game!

Nice rant. This was done to death last year. If you look at attendace figures relative to teams supporter and membership bases, the MFC does outstandingly well.

Putting the completely unavoidable nature of Salem's health issue and Fritsch's accidental foot stomp aside, if we want the luxury of protecting our elite players in the final 15 minutes of this years preliminary final, we need to train in a somewhat risky manner during the preseason.

I like it but I hate it.

Based on 2022, Collingwood seems too high, so they obviously see a lot of improvement coming there. The real big surprises though are Gold Coast and Adelaide in 17th and 18th while they somehow have Hawks and North at 14th and 15th. West Coast up to 12th seems a big stretch also.

That's one way to look at it. Another way is that it's only May coming out of the team that easily accounted for Richmond last week. Without Salem, Viney and Fritsch our defensive rebound and midfield output was still very good and the team put 121 points on the board on a hot and windy day at Casey.

McVee would surprise very few, Laurie though a little bit more of a surprise. Hunter and Grundy confirmed starters also which we all knew. Good luck to them all.

Current forecast is predicting a dry southerly cool change coming through just before game time lowering the temp to mid to low 20s We'll be watching that closely to help make our cheese choices for the game.

Not great news about May. I hope we are more conservative with player management this year though so from a big picture point of view, I am ok if he misses. Not going to try and guess which way the club will go with a replacement. I'm backing BBB to have a massive first half of the year. Many of the players interviewed in the last week or so (and some Demonland trackwatchers too) referenced with awe his marking and goal-kicking form he showed in some intraclub match practice, so unless the cool change comes late on Saturday, I'm tipping him to kick 6+ goals and remind Liam Jones just how hard life can be as an AFL defender.

Important case for the code and sport in general. The AFL has talked big with protecting the head through the MRO and tribunal system, but so often have failed to deliver. No idea if those failures come into it or not. Interesting that Emma Grant and Liam Picken chose not to be part of this class action.

My oldest daughter has just recently moved out of home and up to Melbourne for uni, so I'm taking a bootload of of her stuff to her apartment late Saturday arvo. We'll then grab a feed somewhere local to her before training it in to the G where we may or may not meet up with my oldest son who is definetely going, but he's not sure if he'll be hanging with his mates or us. Like everyone here, we've been hanging for the season to start for so long now and have talked about it so much. Can't wait.

Final Interview with Jack Viney https://megaphone.link/NTETP9553886944

Dwayne Russell with Spargs - https://megaphone.link/NTETP5726788620 He interviews quite well really.

I wanted to add it to the end of last years thread but it was locked. Perhaps @Demonland can merge it with the old one.

Links to some interviews. Lyon and Watson with Gawn - https://megaphone.link/NTETP1473691397 Whateley interview with Grundy - https://megaphone.link/NTETP1527227155 Good chance there will be more later in the day.

"Sunday Crunch Time will have an all-new line up in 2023, with renowned AFL.com.au presenter Sarah Olle and former Fox Sports senior AFL and cricket journalist Tom Morris teaming up on SEN." I wonder if Bevo will be the first AFL coach they get on? https://www.sen.com.au/news/2023/03/08/sunday-crunch-time-returns-to-sen-with-new-hosts-for-the-2023-season/