Lord Travis

Losing to North again. Hogan having another interrupted year. Oliver or Petracca suffering a serious injury. And the obvious; missing finals. If we miss finals this year it will be the worst failure of the club in my lifetime and serious challenge my level of future support and investment in the club.

Bombers deserved that win. They just ran harder both ways. 6 out of the top 7 players for distance covered were Bombers players. Bombers also laid 20 more tackles, had more running bounces, more disposals, more tackles inside 50 etc Shows how much harder they worked. Crows were lucky to be so close to be honest, they had a poor game. Hoping our midfield do the same to Cats tomorrow and don’t run out of steam like the game last year.

Bombers deserved that win. They ran harder and the Crows mids were wearing concrete boots in that last quarter.

This was T Mac. He raised it with Jones and the club and was quietly dumped from the leadership group following the debacle.

Tyson is a jet in the wet. If it rains Sunday he has to be a late inclusion.

Being discussed in team selection thread. Wagner ahead of them is a mistake. Multiple time top 5 bnf midfielder is clearly a better selection than a rookie listed half back flank battler who should be delisted come years end. So frustrating!

They’ll all be proven right come this weekend. It appears the selection panel haven’t learnt from their repeated proven mistakes made last year. Frustrating to not put our best team out on the park and give ourselves the best chance of winning.

Another match lost at selection. Wagner ahead of Tyson or Brayshaw is mind numbingly stupid stuff. Did the selection panel not learn anything from repeated mistakes last year?

Great news. Now we’ve had Oliver, Petracca, Viney, Gawn and Lever all sign on for at least another 3 years. Massive for this clubs future development.

I agree. If Hogan struggles or gets double teamed, Petracca is the other strong body who can clunk a mark up forward. We have enough midfield depth to cover his temporary loss there.

B: Hibberd, O McDonald, Jetta HB: Vince, Lever, Hunt C: Salem, Jones, Neal-Bullen HF: Melksham, Hogan, Petracca F: Hannan, Pedersen, Garlett R: Gawn, Oliver, Tyson I: Harmes, Lewis, Brayshaw, Fritsch Viney and T McDonald to return in early rounds of season to replace whoever is not producing.

On Garlett, he was 2nd in the league for tackles inside forward 50 in 2017. He is also our highest goal scorer since joining Melbourne FC 3 seasons ago. So, he's our highest goal scorer AND our best defensive forward. Leaving him out of the team is f*cking laughable. I know some of us are excited at what Frisch MIGHT become, but let's not overlook what Garlett IS, and that's the best forward on our list.

Not sure about Joe Daniher winning the Brownlow.... but yes, it's all mental for our side. If we don't make the 8 this year, it's purely due to lack of commitment and effort.

That’s a decent article, but probably a few months late. The only new interesting piece of information I took from it was the fact that T Mac was the players rep who had to raise the issue with the club and call Nathan Jones etc. T Mac was then dumped from the leadership group... Possibly just coincidence but that jumped out at me.

We should have made finals in 2017. We have to make finals in 2018. Finals is the minimum pass mark. If we don't make finals I expect the club to refund all members.There are no excuses. The off-field is finally in good shape. The playing list is top 5 in quality league-wide now. It now comes down to how well Goodwin and co can motivate the players consistently. It's as simple as that.

We should have made finals in 2017. We have to make finals in 2018. Finals is the minimum pass mark. If we don't make finals I expect the club to refund all members and publically execute Goodwin. There are no excuses. The off-field is finally in good shape. The playing list is top 5 in quality league-wide now. It now comes down to how well Goodwin and co can motivate the players consistently. It's as simple as that.

It's a bit out of sight out of mind with Ablett. People forget how good he is/was. He hasn't played much due to injury the past 3 years, and people don't bother watching Gold Coast games. He has actually become more of an inside player at Gold Coast, purely out of necessity. His contested possession rate in 2017 was roughly 44%, which is high. He averaged 7.6 clearances a match, which made him the number 1 clearance player in the entire league on average. He also averaged career high tackles, at just a touch under 6 per game. Statistically he was the best player of the 3 in 2017 in pretty much every possible stat, though Dangerfield scored more goals. He's a mile ahead over the course of their careers, and no-one who has played in the past few decades come close to him. If his body holds up, he can still be damaging on the inside, outside, and up forward. If his body holds up. I suspect it won't, which is good for our chances of winning. Even if he is cooked and sat in the forward pocket he'd still probably kick 3-4 goals and cause us some issues. Don't underestimate one of the all time greats! If there is no Dangerfield and no Ablett come round 1, then we must win. There will be no excuses.

I wish Jack all the best at Port. He was always a good player for us, and a loyal clubman too. The club treated him appalling at times and mismanaged him his whole career. From the get go he was thrown to the wolves, and never in AFL history has a player had so much unwarranted external pressure placed on them throughout their career. He was loyal to the end and we cast him out. Anyone who holds a grudge against him or wishes him ill is a f*cking fool. I don't think it was a bad trade to move him out, as it definitely shows where the club is heading and has now symbolically moved on all players born from that dark period in the clubs history. However, there should be no ill will against a guy who was loyal and was instead pushed out the door. Best of luck with the rest of your career Jack. Do us a favour though and fluff a few of your usually perfect kicks when you play against us though please!

Mods change thread name to rules out of round 1 please!

Official AFL site report has O-Mac listed as injured (back tightness). Hopefully just precautionary, as back issues can be a tough thing to shake.

Location would play a part in this. But also it might be related to our poor performances and standing as a club for the past decade. We've no doubt lost a chunk of potential supporters from that generation.

Barring a bad run with injuries or a considerable drop off in form, we should be 8-3 heading into the bye. Last season we had a dream run handed to us to start the season, didn't have to leave the state for months, and we somehow managed to fluff easy games against bottom 4 teams at the MCG. Win those games against bottom 4 teams and we automatically jump into top 4. It should be a given, though you can't trust this team yet. Our fixture is similar to last year, the first half is an easy run that we should capitalise on. I'll take 7-4 as the pass mark at the bye. Anything less and we'll be up against it, as the second half of our fixture is a lot tougher. The last month and a half has us playing Geelong in Geelong, Swans at MCG, Adelaide in Adelaide, Eagles in Perth and GWS at MCG. With that run home, we'll be testing ourselves against the best and gearing up to finals if the wheels don't fall off again.

I believe we drew with them in near the beginning of a season around 2011? Perhaps that’s why?

I see our range as anywhere from 2-10. I personally have us finishing 5th, and making prelims. If we somehow miss the 8 again I'll probably burn this state to the ground and make it my lifes work to ensure AFL ceases to exist.

This already happens and the umpires ignore it. There was one match last year where he gave a hard fend off to an opponents throat and that player couldn't breath and was helped from the field by medicos. No commentators or media said a word about it, wouldn't want to derail the hype train! Dusty gives away 3-4 free kicks a game from illegal fend offs that aren't called by umpires. If he shoves their chest, fine play on. But if he shoves their throat or face, which he does weekly, he should be penalised a free kick against. It's rubbish it's not called. Yet other players get penalised for legitimate tackles etc. Bloody rules and umpires have gone mad!