Lord Travis

Fritsch has been disappointing so far this season too. I was expecting him to take another step forward this year and become a quality player, but he’s struggling. Oliver really digging in and trying to carry the team. He’s a star.

Petracca stuffed it again. How can anyone be satisfied with what he’s producing?

Then we drop him. He’s in the team on potential, not output. Either he gets involved and has an impact, or we drop him.

What’s happened to May? This season is falling apart for us!

Petracca can [censored] off. Drops chest marks and slips basic tackles. He is playing [censored] football when he get sick near it, which isn’t often. Serious waste of talent. So disappointing.

We’ve gone backwards 3 years. This team looks like it’s trying but doesn’t have the skill or gameplan/game sense to be anything other than “competitive”. Our main strength is contested ball and we’ve completely lost it. Teams have worked out how to position themselves to counter our kids at stoppages. Our season isn’t looking good.

Petracca seriously struggling for form. He’s looking like a bust at pick 2. Imagine if we had De Goey up forward!

We are getting destroyed in contested ball. Cats nearly twice as many contested possessions. Wtf has happened to our hard midfield?!

Getting beaten inside and outside. It’s going to be a long night and unless we find form soon it’s going to be a wasted season.

Getting done on the outside again. This is going to be a long night.

What the [censored] is going on with our backline! They were just outnumbered 5 vs 2! How does that happen?!

Kolodjashnij has started well. He’s working the far wing beautifully, positioning perfect. He’s gone in hard a few times too already. We might have found our missing wingman finally!

Great goal Lockhart!

Duursma, Butters and Roze all look like great draft choices. That's a great group to build around going forward for the Power.

We have to use our first round pick at draft, so no trading this year. It's free agency or trading low picks and average players. The club should throw the world at Coniglio. Land him as a free agent. Coniglio's a perfectly rounded midfielder. Has pace, agility, tackles like mad, can win ball inside, can do damage on the outside, and can kick multiple goals attacking through the flanks. He's still underrated and IMO is in the top 5-10 midfielders in the game at present. I'd trade anyone on our list for him bar Oliver. Unfortunately he'll likely stay at GWS or head home to WA. If we did acquire extra currency to trade, then Ed Langdon fits the bill for midfield pace. We've been into him for year, so perhaps this is the year we land him. McStay from the Lions would be good. Can play key forward or back, and would add to our tall forward depth.

Charlie Curnow down into the rooms with a knee injury. He was running straight like chasing to tackle and just suddenly went down. Barely change of direction or anything. Very strange knee injury. Let's hope it's not serious, as knee injuries are striking hard across the league thus far this season.

Think the Cats will win comfortably tonight. We look a month off playing quality footy again due to lack of fitness and form. Very frustrating that we're into the season now and still not prepared. Hopefully it doesn't take us too long to get going or we'll be too far behind the 8-ball to come back. Anything less than top 4 this year can only be classified as a failed season.

Tigers are done. The new 6-6-6 rules have curbed their gameplan. They were 17th ranked centre clearance team last year, and it’s showing as they can’t swarm contests as well now and teams can win the ball first and then just hold onto it. Pies very slick. They’ll be right up there again this year.

Official changes In: May, Kolodjashnij, Lockhart Out: Spargo, Hore, Wagner

Was steak knives in the Hogan/May trade, but if he stays fit I think he’ll prove to be a really valuable player for us. We are crying out for highly skilled running types like him, so hopefully he can realize his potential and become the player he promised to be early in his career. Second in the BnF ahead of May, Lynch, Dixon, Martin etc shows the talent and output was there. I’d love him to settle on a wing, but think he may replace Lewis at halfback.

67% game time is not enough for a midfielder, or any player for that matter. If a player is selected then they are deemed fit. You can’t conpromise a whole team to carry someone not able to pull their weight. Either Jack is fit and he’s not performing (unlikely) or Jack is unfit and should not be selected. I fear it’s going to be the case for the remainder of his career. He’s now spent close to half his career with injury, and there’s no end in sight as his body does not seem to be capable of holding up to play at the highest level.

Sparrow looked good. He’s got decent pace and mongrel, and used the ball better than expected for w debutant. Definitely something to work with as he transitions into a permanent midfield role. Spargo was horrendous on the weekend. He didn’t lay a single tackle. His primary role is to apply defensive pressure, and he failed to do this on a monumental level. He’s lucky there’s no crumbers in the VFL to replace him, as his form does not warrant an AFL game at present.

Forgot him. That makes it even more embarrassing and pathetic!

Just to reiterate how poor yesterday was: 1. We lost to Port at home, who were missing their main forward target and goal kicker in Dixon. They also had underdone stars such as Ryder. They were also minus Polec and Wingard from last year. They are a weaker side this year. 2. They played four debutants. No team has won a match when playing four debutants this decade... until yesterday. This was an embarrassing loss. No excuses about underprepared, new rules etc. They simply ran harder and wanted it more. That’s an indictment on everyone at the club. We need to turn it around quickly or suddenly we’ll be off the pace from the leaders of the competition. We’re lucky that most of the other supposedly strong teams also lost!

This round so far is proof that preseason and JLT form matter. The result doesn’t matter, but the form does. Our game yesterday - and all favorite teams this round for that matter - was a mirror of our JLT form. The season has started. There are no excuses for not being ready or adjusting to rules. They’ve had nearly half a year to get ready and adapt to the new rules. There was a serious lack of effort and mongrel yesterday. Win or lose at the Cattery next week, I want to see the return of that hard working hard team that was running around in red and blue late last year.