Lord Travis

With Oliver out and Salem back and in decent form, I hope we see Rivers given substantial midfield minutes over the next month. He’s having a breakout season and is one of the few players who has improved. He’s got the chops to have an impact in there with Oliver out.

Not sure there’s much more he can do with his limited footy iq. He’s been led to the ball and let his opponents intercept and charge out of defense this past few weeks. His lack of forward craft has been a key reason our forward line hasn’t functioned. He’s an athlete not a footballer. At 27 years old he’s yet to cement a spot at AFL level, so the writings on the wall for him. He’s been tried in basically every position on the ground at this point with no success. Definition of a list clogger unfortunately. Disappointed not to see JVR back in the team. He wasn’t setting the world on fire, but he can provide a contest and I would’ve liked to see him and BBrown work together to split defenses apart and not allow so many easy intercepts and rebounds. I guess that’s why we’ve gone smaller though; locking it in up forward.

On one hand I don’t want Brisbane gaining too much percentage and putting third position on the ladder out of our reach. On the other hand, this is definitely a death ride I can get behind. The Eagles suck and it would be great for them to go a step beyond 186 as the ****test club in the land.

On another note, is Damien Barrett the biggest turdlet on the planet? No need to answer folks, it’s a rhetorical question. I’ve got a 5 month old baby who fires off less tish than him!

Club has done well with communicating updates about the injury to a blood hungry and irrational media. Hopefully that shuts them up and stops the pointless and harmful speculation. Hopefully the midfield can get by without him and maintain our hold on a top four spot. Viney has definitely stepped up in his absence.

Fantastic news. Taj has been on the cusp of selection for a while now. Great he gets his chance after a strong line of performances in the VFL. Best of luck to the kid and hope he gives fans something to get excited about like his old man did back in the day!

Don’t love the public pile on happening with Trac. Yes he’s been inaccurate shooting at goal, but he’s still having a great year and would be leading our BnF. He’s sitting top 5 in the league for the coaches votes and Is contention to win the Brownlow. He’s a gun. Not perfect, but no player is. The public pile on is clearly effecting him too as he’s responded to Instagram posts targeting his output. Can’t be good for his confidence and mental health and turning round his accuracy woes. Watch Kane Cornes and other media hypnotics turn around now and defend him and say it’s not good the media are piling on…. after laying the boots in themselves initially.

Fritsch out injured. JVR in. Harmes or Sparrow out. Clarry in. If BBrown isn’t fit, then Petty moves forward and Tomlinson comes in to play down back. Need to maintain the three headed dragon down back. Half forward line to be rejigged. Kozzie stints further up the ground or played out of the square as a leading forward. Spargo potential in for better ball use to replace Chandler who is well out of form.

His goal kicking accuracy is the only thing stopping him winning the Brownlow this year. He’s a brilliant footballer who has struggled with accuracy this past 1-2 seasons after a great year in 2021. Even with the inaccuracy he’s a top 5 player in the game and a weapon around the ball. I’m not piling on like some here saying he cost us the game etc. if he didn’t have the game he did, then we wouldn’t have even had the shots on the first place. He’s not alone in his accuracy woes, but at least he’s contributing in other ways unlike a lot of his teammates. The club needs to help him with the mental side of it. He’s clearly capable, just needs help. Not sure if that’s a sports psych or someone else.

I don’t like watching Melbourne anymore. This past month has been excruciating.

Free kick count 14-1 in our favor. We’ve brought the paper bags this week! Expect that to get evened up in the second half and cost us the game.

On another note, Himmelberg isn’t worth 400k let alone the 800-900k being reported in the media. Absolutely bog average third tall at either end.

Since signing his contract extension he’s been poor. If it wasn’t for his potential you’d drop him.

If Trac can’t convert then he should be kept away from the forward line, not spend more time there haha

From most accurate team to least accurate team. It’s become a problem now and is costing us games. Need to bloody convert lads!

Sounds like Woe is really pushing for AFL debut. Has he been playing pure midfield today?

50/50 game today. As strange as it is, we’re not a good wet weather team. GWS have been good recently and their defensive setup has improved out of sight. Hoping for a big game from Kozzy. Would like to see Harmes played forward again. He’s a good mark for his size, applies a lot of defensive pressure and can hit the scoreboard.

You are correct. Because he was previously delisted (and re-rookied), he now qualifies as an unrestricted free agent come end of the year. Unless we match an offer and force a trade, then we get no compensation for losing him. Gut feel is he will leave for more opportunity at a middle of the road club like the Saints or Bombers and we’ll get nothing for him.

Why are people happy Essendon lost? We basically just lost our chance at a home finals you peanuts

After such a good fight back what a [censored] horrible result for us

Terrible results for us today. If we can close out the year strongly, best we can hope for is 3rd or 4th. Looks like we’re off to play either Port in SA or Pies first up. Gonna be tough!

Port firing up here. Looks like second place is gone for us if they hold on.

Starting to play like his draft position suggests and more like his underage form this past month. He’s a handy outside running type delivering inside 50. We could definitely use him between the arcs, though he’s pushing up his trade price now ☹️

Happy BBrown is back. Not happy JVR dropped. Would like to see them play together and ditch Smith.

They should forego free agency. Free agency sucks and the game is worse for it. It's essentially just widened the gaps between the strong clubs and the weak clubs. It's not worked as intended and has hindered the league. Everyone except the rich players and rich clubs would benefit from getting rid of free agency and rolling back to trade rules from the early 2000s. We've already got overly complex [censored] like point ratings of picks and trading future picks etc. It's convoluted unfair rubbish and more and more people are turning on what the "sport" is becoming. Being traded against their will would suck too. Imagine signing a contract to work for company X in Victoria, only to be told sorry pack up your life and move your family to WA to work for competing company Z. [censored] off the relationships you have with your colleagues and leaders, start over against your will and do it quickly. Players would rightly just say [censored] off and sit out instead. If clubs were able to trade players against their will and had a mid season trade period, I'd probably stop following AFL and stop supporting Melbourne after investing decades and $10,000s towards the club. Clubs would essentially just buy premierships. Imagine trading in stars like Curnow or Toby Greene from teams not in finals contention. It might be unpredictable and exciting, but it would be ****house and destroy any integrity of the competition. If a club did that and won the premiership, you'd look at that flag and put an asterisk next to it that they just bought it and it's illegitimate. If that became the status quo, then people would stop following clubs and start following players instead. Just because other sports in other countries have different trading rules, doesn't mean we should. Our game is better than theirs for a number of reasons, and the salary cap and restrictive trade rules are key positive differentiators to pathetic trash sports and leagues like the EPL.