Lord Travis

He wouldn't be playing with that injury. That report must be incorrect. If he had either a bulging or slipped disk then he wouldn't be standing and able to move properly. I know Watts is possibly the most mentally resilient player at the club, but no one can physically play with an injury like that.

So officially 4 changes again this week. We have made a lot of changes each week over the past month. This is now a very unsettled team that is lacking in class. Hopefully we come out breathing fire and dominate the contested ball otherwise it might get ugly.

Shame to see Watts dropped. He's obviously struggled for form since coming back from injury, but to lose a key scoring option is bad no matter how you look at it. To lose our two best ball users in Watts and Salem in a team struggling with its ball use is frustrating and dumb. It's going to be a struggle to win this game. It's sucks to be in such a poor position with our season on the line. Petracca will need a massive game up forward if we are to be any chance. He's the only one left who has great vision and kicking skills going into the 50. He's one of the few scoring options we have left too. Jeez it's gonna be a tense game!

Because his phone was literally focused on a band on a stage for 5+ minutes just now with 2 blokes sitting with beers off to the right hand side. Hope Jack is playing this weekend. If he's dropped then I give us little chance of winning. With Frost dropped, Tmac heads down back which means it's Jack and Weid up forward. If Jack is out then our finals hopes are dependent on Weid as our sole tall forward. Poor selection and coaching that's the case.

He's best 22 on talent, so if he is fit and performing in the VFL then back into our best 22 he comes. Best of luck to him and hopefully the concussions are behind him and he can start to develop into the gun we all saw emerging in his first season!

No he didn't. He posted video from a band playing a concert in a pub like venue. He's not partying or anything, just watching a band play. This is the reason he gets slammed by everyone for his commitment or lack there of. Misinformation. If Jack is dropped then we've obviously given up and don't want to play finals. We haven't kicked a decent score in nearly 2 months, and we'd be dropping our second highest scorer of the past two years.

I think they're just regurgitating rumors off the radio as fact. Official team released this evening has him listed in the side while others were omitted. He's officially in the team. Hopefully he has a good game as we need him to stand up with Hogan out.

I believe after what Jesse has been through this year, and the club supporting him with family, time off and medical support, he is pretty much tied to the MFC for his career now. He will want to repay the faith and support the club has given him and it will be a mental thing for him to try and achieve success for the MFC. I doubt he will want to leave a club that has been good to him and his family. Obviously the club will want him to stay too as he is a freakish talent and someone we can build a forward line around. I have no inside knowledge and do not know Jesse, but that's my opinion.

We need a quality tall defender and a quality midfielder who is more outside. We have needed an elite midfielder for my entire lifetime. Oliver might get there, but he is as inside as they come. We need an elite outside mid for balance. We need the key defender because Frost and Oscar aren't good enough to be relied upon in the one on ones. Stats show once the ball makes it into our defensive 50 we lose more one on ones than any team over the pst two months. They aren't doing their job. Oscar is improving and performing ok, Frost is battling and is getting destroyed by opposition tall forwards. Get a quality tall defender like Lever in to help support and organise the backline. I don't think forwards are a big problem at the moment. When we are playing well we have a good spread of goal kickers. The forwards aren't scoring recently because the entry into forward 50 is atrocious from the midfield. That's the main thing we need to fix, and the best way to do that is to get good outside midfielders who can be the kick inside 50. It's simple; which is more like to have a better outcome? A forward marking uncontested on a lead from a good quick low kick, or a forward trying to mark a ball slowly coming in on his head with 1-2 defenders having time to wrestle and/or fly in to spoil? We need someone like Josh Kelly or Scully or Coniglio to set us up on the outside. We need pace and kicking skill.

Just because a team improves, doesn't make the season a success. We now have 3 home games against bottom 8 teams. If we can't win those and make finals then the season is a failure. Anyone who says otherwise is an apologist who lives in lala land!

You'd hope so but our name hasn't been linked to him at all really. That's either good (we don't have any leaks at the club) or bad (we aren't a chance to get him). He'd be perfect as our most pressing needs are a quality outside midfielder and a quality key defender.

If we don't make finals then this season a failure. This is unarguable. In 2016 we finished on the cusp of the 8 and Roos handed Goodwin a top 8 quality list with good support around him. Anything other than making the 8 and playing finals means we have stagnated or gone backwards. We all know it's been 11 years without finals at this stage, which is pathetic. No other club has been this poor for decades. Even teams like Carlton, Richmond, Saints etc. have all made finals a few times in the past decade. The only other team not to have a finals appearance in the past 11 years is Gold Coast, and they've only existed 5-6 years and are deemed a failure at the point. Jesus since we last played finals over half my family has died, I've completed a University degree, I've lived overseas for two years, I've bought my first property, sold my first property, bought my second property, had 3 long term girlfriends, got engaged, got married, have a kid on the way etc. The fact I've been able to tick off so many of the key events in an adult life since we last played finals is [censored]. It makes me furious at the club and the AFL. Disregarding the 11 years missing, our current "rebuild" started with Roos, so we are now in year 4 of a rebuild. To not be able to turn it around in this time is a failure. If we don't make it this year, and somehow don't next year too, then that's 5 years of rebuild with no success, despite landing Paul Roos and him cleaning the place out to start us fresh. That is Terry Wallace Richmond level failure. Thank god we are now sound off-field! We now sit at the exact same spot we were last year. 10 wins, and a few weeks to go to win the final matches and earn a finals place. Last year we folded like an accordion and lost to bottom 4 placed Carlton and then got done by 100+ by Geelong. This year, we are in the same place but with an easier run, playing 3 bottom 8 teams. If we stuff up again, we have not improved on last year, despite having an easier draw. If anything, that means we have gone backwards due to the same result from an easier draw. Reality is we probably should have done better this year at this stage. Our second half of the season has been poor. We have won two matches by more than 8 points, and the rest we either scraped over the line or lost. While it was nice to win some of those close ones, it goes to show we weren't in control and it could have just as easily gone the other way. This past 6 weeks our contested ball, clearances, and scoring have all dropped off massively. Statistically we are a bottom 4 team over the past 6 weeks. When we were in a position to challenge for a top 4 place, we crumbed. Yes, we have had injuries, but the team we fielded on the weekend was probably our strongest for the year and yet it did not give a yelp and had 10 goals in a row kicked against us. Unacceptable. Until we can instil some mental toughness and some leadership into this team, we will continue to fail. I appreciate we have shown improvement at times this year, but fact is we are in the exact same spot as last year and the exact same questions regarding lack of leadership and lack of mental toughness are being asked. To me that says we have not really improved. Don't get me wrong, I'll be stoked if we scrape into finals, purely because I have invested countless hours and hard earned dollars into this club over decades of my life, and its been so long since I've seen us play finals that even a token appearance will appease me. Says a lot about how poor this club has been, and how starved for any semblance of success us supporters really are. I hope like hell we can manage to win the last 3 and play finals. Us members and supporters deserve to see that after all this time. It's time the players and club stood up instead of falling over again.

If we win all 3 games we will likely finish 7th. If we win 2 we will likely finish 9th due to percentage. Every game from here onwards is now an elimination final. Do the players have the mental toughness to stand up and at least make finals? Or is this another year of failure? To go from top 4 striking distance (sitting outside on percentage) to missing finals altogether would be disaster. Anything less than finals in 2017 is a failure for the club.

No, as Jones kicks the ball a fair bit. He's usually good for a goal or two as well. He's also versatile and can play outside or on a back flank if needed. Different skill sets despite both being predominantly inside mids.

Struggled with the pace of the game early and copped a hard tackle which dazed him. Kept working hard and got better and better as the game wore on. Was a decent debut in the end. Something to work with there for the future and should go around again next week. Well done Corey. Keep working hard and try to make your team mates follow!

"Angus Brayshaw was brilliant for the Demons, showing the flare which fans have come to expect from the young star. He tackled with strength and hunted the ball for 34 disposals, standing up when required at the death." Great to hear Brayshaw had a strong game and stood up when needed at the end. Not great to hear Joel Smith has likely done his ACL.

He was having another really good season before he got injured. Obviously he's struggled since coming back from that injury. He seems to be lost with his position out there at the moment. He's not committing to pushing all the way up to the wings and half back as the link man, but is also not playing deep so is kind of caught in between with long bombs going over his head. It's hard for any forward we have at the moment to get a clean run at it as our inside 50s are pathetic long bombs to outnumbered teammates. He showed some fight and a few flashes in the second half today and second half against Port. I wouldn't drop him, as there isn't much else down in the VFL to replace him with, and like it or not we need his good kicking skills either going into the 50 or taking shots. We don't have many other proven goal kickers so he stays in the team to work back into form.

That's a fair observation. I stormed off to get booze during the half time break, but this doesn't surprise me. There is still a clear lack of leadership and comradery for the most part. Even with Hawthorn down now you still see Hodge patrolling the rooms and boundary line clapping his teammates and barking orders. We still miss that an it doesn't look like changing any time soon.

Kick the bloody ball! He's my favourite player and is blossoming into a star at a rapid rate, but [censored] me dead he needs to learn to take ownership and kick the ball sometimes. On one occasion today the ball came out of a stoppage and he wound up with it on the outside of the pack heading into our 50. He could've either run with it all the way inside 50 and had a shot at goal, or kick the ball into the paddock infant of Jeffy. He instead turned around, handball the ball 5 metres backwards to Viney who literally had an opponent hanging off him and was getting up off the ground from stoppage. Obviously it got turned over and they went straight down the other end to score. It was one of the worst decisions I've ever seen a footy player make. His immediate instinct when he gets it is to handball to someone else, which is fine when you're in a pack and looking to clear it etc. But he still needs to learn he is allowed to kick it when he has 50 metres of free space with a forward leading at him! He'll get there with time... just frustrating to watch at times as he's actually a really good kick and needs to have more confidence in his own abilities. Today was a train wreck. The fact we only lost by 35 is a miracle. After the first 10 minutes we were absolutely belted and deserved to lose by 70-80 points. We've now got 3 weeks to get our mojo back and start being competitive around the ball and on the scoreboard. We've been mostly poor for nearly two months now, and other than the Port Adelaide win we have limped over the line or lost.

Aaaaand we're out of the 8 now due to inferior percentage. It was fun while it lasted!

That would require the umpire making a correct umpiring decision though, which seems beyond all of them this year. The umpiring as a whole this year has been f*cking abysmal. If I made that many mistakes at my job, not only would I have been fired very quickly, I probably would be sitting in jail too. These clowns are corrupt!

Looked like Sale broke his leg. He's had a horrible run with injuries and illness. Hope he is ok. The intensity and effort today has been rubbish again after the first 10 minutes. Our decision making is just so poor. We run in a wave of 3 players, and instead of running it the whole way and using handballs, someone just bombs it long and we turn it over. Happens over and over and the coaches don't seem to be able to get them to do anything else the past 2 months.

Clarry needs to kick more. Multiple times today he has got the ball on the outside then hesitated and hand balled it back to a teammate who already had a man on him. He could've run all the way inside 50 and had a shot at goal just then but instead turned around and hand balled it to Viney who literally had an opposition player hanging off him. Hes a gun in the making Clarry, but he needs to kick more and work on his decision making.

I'm all for getting Lever just so I don't have to see Frost playing anymore. He's been shitful the past few weeks and loses so many aerial contests, even when the ball is to his advantage. He just can't read the ball or play it seems. While O Mac lacks intensity, he at least can read the ball and spoil it most of the time. Get Lever in to sure up our backline!

Our percentage taking a hammering against GWS is going to make it a tough ask to fight our way into finals now