Lord Travis

I'm at least in acceptance of my denial!

Nearly 40 years watching multiple games every weekend and I've hit breaking point thanks to umpiring. The rules keep changing and the umpires can't officiate a fair game at this point. It's not just Melbourne games - every game feels confusing and like a narrative is being crafted. I miss actual football.

Floating mark over unsuspecting pack. Nothing tough about it as spectacular as it was.

Holding the ball only applies to one team apparently?? Get stuffed umpires. SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT.

He's the only reason to watch this team. He's absolutely unreal!

It was a routine win against a 17th placed team that's been bottom four for over half a decade... It was in no way impressive.

And we let them go coast to coast for another shot. Weak and lazy. This team is cooked

TDK is possibly the softest big man I've ever seen. He gets out marked by blokes 20cms shorter and 20kgs lighter than him. Constantly [censored] his dacks. If he's worth over a million to a team, then actual footballers like Kozzie must be worth 10 million a year.

Watching footy is excruciating these days. We've entered the realm of sports entertainment where everyone is waiting to see how umpires interpret rules and it feels like outcomes are fixed. I'm not even complaining about Melbourne games - all AFL games feel wrong these days. Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical, but I've watched 1000s of games and the game has never been worse.

Goalless quarter against a dog**** team. I expected a bit more fire for Clarrys 200th. What a disappointment that half was. Cmon Dees wake up for [censored] sake!!

Regardless of his recent form and issues, he's still a champion of this club. He's one of the best midfielders we've had in my lifetime, and I'd say he's possibly the best inside midfielder to ever pull on the red and blue. Peak Clarry was unstoppable around the contest and a key reason we won a premiership. He deserves a ton of respect and admirations from fans and the general football public. Two time AFLCA MVP - the only other player to do that is Gary Ablett Jnr, who's a potential GOAT. Even now while he's not at his dominant peak, his stats still stack up well against the comp and he's well above average for an inside mid, just not elite. Will always love Clarry!

That was from the match on the weekend. He was our hardest working defensive runner. He was second the week before too. It's a strength of his that the coaches love, similar to Nibbler over the past few years and Gus Brayshaw when he played as a defensive winger in our flag year. Just because you don't see it on TV doesn't mean it's not happening. If he continues to build his fitness and body so he can consistently get involved in more offensive chains and contests then we're onto a winner.

Thanks for hijacking the thread with emotional drool. You sound like the orange man in your avatar... and that's not a compliment. Back on topic, it will be interesting to see how Kolt progresses next season. I love that he goes straight for the corridor when he gets the ball out wide. His vision and boldness to be attacking stand out amongst his peers, and you see it at training too where he's often the one to execute the angle kick to corridor or into 50. It feels like his fitness is holding him back getting to the contests from the wing back to half forward when we have ball in transition. The lack of preseason and injuries are likely attributing to that. He always works hard with his defensive running, not dissimilar to ANB in years passed.

Ceiling: Toby Greene as a forward or Jai Newcombe as a midfielder. As a medium sized forward, he's powerful, loves a contest, can clunk a mark, is technically a great kick and can get under opponents skin. As a midfielder, has the attributes to be a well rounded mid like Newcombe who can win lots of ball inside but also get it on the outside and hurt. I love that when Kolt gets the ball be looks to kick into the corridor. He's more brave than most of his teammates, and they let him down at times. Floor: Tom Sparrow. Mid/defensive mid or forward role player who doesn't have big impact but plays an important role in a successful team. Either way, I expect him to make a decent AFL career. He just needs time to get fit. Coming into this season he was a 19 year old who's played about 10 games and had limited preseason coming off a 12 week foot injury. Foot injuries can be career enders, so it'll take him time to properly get fit and confident again. There are some posters on here showing how poor their footy knowledge is by writing him off this quickly. I assume they wrote Petracca off after his injury riddled and poor first few seasons?

Trading our Hogan and Watts won us a flag and were 100% correct list calls. We got May and Fritsch as a direct result of those trades. Without either of them, we don't win that 21 flag. Fritsch alone has kicked more goals than Hogan since that trade. Hogan wanted to go home and took 6 seasons to return to being a good player. He's a gun again now, but he's a 30 year old who's battled physical and mental issues for the majority of his career. He's basically at the end of his career. Watts is long retired. Yes we need a quality key forward now, but we made the right call trading those players out at the time. There's a seven year gap, and where we are now is not related to what happened back then.