Lord Travis

All flying for the ball, no one staying down. Midfield not working hard both ways. Gonna be a long day.

Obviously a must win game today. This is one of the four games we can’t afford to lose (Saints, Freo, Dogs, Suns). It would be good to get another percentage boost, but at this stage I’ll just take the four points. Reckon Brayshaw will have a good game today, seems to play well against the Saints from memory.

Pies will likely jump to 2nd spot on the ladder tonight. How sickening!

37 disposals, 7 score involvements, 7 tackles, 1 goal. Probably BOG again. On 2018 form he'd be our best midfielder at present. If we can afford him, we'd be mental not to go hard for him. Exactly what we need!

Huge win by the Dogs and great for us! I've talked him up on here earlier in the year, but Ed Richards looks like a star in the making. He's just got footy smarts, pace, skill, intensity and is a joy to watch play. Great get by the Dogs pulling the trigger on him slightly earlier than expected last draft.

2004 Elimination final against Essendon. Whelan lays out Hird with a bump, dishes the ball off to big game player Travis Johnstone, who nails the goal from 50 out on the boundary. Shame we lost the match, but that few seconds was possibly my favourite few seconds of footy ever.

Would be worth less at the trade table than he is worth to our team. Until this year, he was the highest goal scorer at the club since coming across from the Blues. 40+ goals a year every year. Considering our recent scoring problems, lack of speed and lack of crumbers, it'd be stupid to trade him. If anything it's stupid he's not in the team at the moment. The coaches obviously don't like something about his game at the moment and want it to change, but I doubt he'll ever tear up a game at VFL level, so he's just rotting away there. We need his speed and goal scoring power. People saying Spargo has taken his spot aren't quite correct. Spargo, while small, has played more as a high flankers pushing up into the midfield and has yet to show he can play as a small combing forward. Not dissing the kid as I love him, but he doesn't play as a small crumbing forward. Jeffy is competing with Hannan for that spot and IMO should be in the team.

Great game tonight. Tigers deserved the win as they held their structures better than the Swans. Typical Rance game. Flopped around like a fish and lost every contest he went near. As usual the commentators didn't say a negative word about him though other than his losses and mistakes were "uncharacteristic". He's an overrated soft [censored]. Cotchin on the other hand has developed into a brilliant player. He was always more outside ball user, but the past 2 years he's really lifted his intensity and physicality and he just always leads his players from the front and sets the standard. Great to watch.

Best of luck to him, he’s a ripping positive person. He’s had a horrible run of luck with his footy career, and it’s admirable the resilience and hard work he’s shown the whole way through. Am surprised and glad he’s got the chance at AFL level again. Good luck Trenners!

The ladder predictor snow up on afl.com.au again. I just ran through and came up with the following at the end of round 23 (attached image). Had us finishing on 14 wins, which lands us 8th. This obviously won't be accurate, but the numbers at the half way point of the season don't lie. Teams are going to have to win more games than usual to make the 8 this year.

Still injured. Posted on his instagram today that he's out of the moon boot.

It really depends how much he'd cost. We could use his leadership and foot skills, he'd be a definite improvement on 6-7 players currently in our 22 for the next two years. If he came on a lower pay contract, then I'm all for it. If he's wanting coin, than it's a pass as he won't be around long and his body is struggling as it is. This is subject to medical checks obviously, as a player who can't get on the park is useless.

Oops, missed that one. Adelaide in Adelaide may be our best bet to lock away the win needed to make the 8.

6 Viney 5 Jetta 4 Brayshaw 3 Oliver 2 TMac 1 Lewis Hogan, ANB and Petracca for worst on ground honours.

I thought it best to start a central thread to discuss finals 2018, as a lot of this discussion is being lost in weekly game day/post match threads. The last two matches have put a significant dent in our campaign for finals. The Collingwood game was a write-off, but the Port game last night was a definite opportunity missed. We absolutely dominated that game and Port stole an undeserved victory. I'm absolutely f*cking fuming we lost, but what's done is done and we now have to look forward. We currently sit 5th on the ladder with a ledger of 8-5. We're lumped in with a number of teams fighting for a spot. Usually 12-13 wins is all that's required to make finals. This year however a higher number of teams have racked up wins than usual, and 14 wins will be required to guarantee a finals place. Barring an insane run of form, top 4 is now gone. What we do have in our favour at present is our percentage relative to competing teams around the mark. Our run home presents some challenges now. We play Saints, Freo, Dogs and Suns. That's 4 wins we should bank. That takes us to 12 wins, meaning to hold a spot in the 8 and play finals we'll need to win 2 more matches. The other matches are: Geelong in Geelong Adelaide in Adelaide Sydney at the MCG Eagles in Perth GWS at the MCG So the question is, which of these 2 matches are we going to win? Personally I think we'll account for GWS at the MCG, but I struggle to see us winning any of the others based on form. The Crows in Adelaide looks to be our best chance, but who knows if their form will turn around before then as they get some key players back. Obviously a lot can change over this time, but what are everyones thoughts? Will we still make finals? How much have we improved? Have we actually improved? How do you you our season playing out? Note: This thread is not intended to be a b*tch session, it's to have genuine discussion on the remainder of our season as we strive to play finals for the first time in over a decade.

Anything less than finals is an abject failure. Stop accepting mediocrity.

Doesn’t deserve to be in the team on form, but he’ll keep his place purely for what he could potentially produce. Very frustrating player and it doesn’t look like he’ll become the player we thought he could be. He’s definitely not capable of becoming a full time midfielder, and now he’s not scoring or getting involved as a forward either. He just lacks clean hands collecting ball quickly and has lost his vision to hit up short kicks for goal assist that he was so good with up forward last year. Maybe try him off half back to spark him?

Hunt is out injured for 4-6 weeks. Agree Garlett needs to come in. Our forward line is a shambles and needs a spark. He can provide that spark and is a genuine goal scoring option.

Was poor last week and poor again this week. If he lifts and gets on his bike this second half we’ll win.

We’re 6 - 0 away from the MCG this year. We’re 3 - 0 at the new Adelaide Oval. We accounted for Port twice last season from memory. We’re 2 - 4 at the MCG this season. On those facts, I’ll back us in to win tonight. Ironically if it was at the G you’d tip Port. We need to learn to play our home ground or we’re ever going to get anywhere come finals time! Dees by 11 points.

He's had more disposals and laid more tackles than anyone on his team thus far tonight. He's no longer a purely outside player, and is winning his own ball in a team getting smashed. Not having a great game by any stretch, but he works so hard and would give us something we sorely lack through our midfield.

We're definitely too small and too slow down back. Lewis and Vince in the same backline is getting exposed for pace. No talls other than O-Mac could be exposed by a tall trio of Dixon, Westhoff and Ryder. Hopefully our midfield is on top and restricts the supply getting down there. If their mids get on top, it will get ugly. Dees by 11 points.

If they’re willing to offer that, he’s staying an Eagle. It basically means they will match our deal and we’ll have to trade for him. We have nothing of value in terms of picks we can trade, and I doubt we’d be willing to trade any of our guns to acquire him, so game over.

Think you’ve got it the wrong way around. We’re 2 from 6 at the MCG. But we’re 6 from 6 away from the G. Not sure it’s a good thing, but makes tipping easier!

Don’t have time to wrong a long post at present, but the single biggest issue we have with playing the MCG is our defensive press. It pushes far far too high up the ground. There are stages when OMac was is the deepest player, standing forward of the centre circle and less than a kick ahead of the play. Time and time again the ball slingshots out into half a ground of space for opposition to work with. It’s embarrassing and obvious to all. Pull the defensive press back like it is on smaller ground where deepest defender is back near the goal square and we’d be a 5 goal better team at the G without any other change.