Lord Travis

Harmes is the go-to tagger and was amongst the best in the business a few years back when it was his dedicated role. He fills a variety of roles now, but he'd be the main choice if we need to deploy a tag. Don't discard Viney though, he played some of his best football 5-6 years ago as a tagger who would then hurt going the other way. See his jobs on Joel Selwood and Gary Ablett Jnr as an example.

****house defending tonight. We miss Lever big time. His onfield direction was a key reason to our record breaking best defense of all time last season.

Poor effort tonight. Defensive pressure and blocking access to the corridor have been atrocious. Trac and Jackson have kept us in this. If we didn’t have so many injuries already there would be some poor performing players ripe for dropping. We just need to get the four points tonight and move on without anymore injuries.

Wake up boys. This is lazy lazy football.

This crowd is mental

Superstar. Huge achievement in these times to kick 1000 goals. Well done Buddy. Wish you’d played for the team you supported as a kid 🔴🔵

I think we broke the Bulldogs and it’s delightful.

Swans are a top four team and will push for a flag in coming years. They missed top four by percentage last year, and had some close unlucky losses. They’ve got great young talent thanks to their dodgy academy players the last few years. They’ve got solid leaders too, with Parker the best of the lot. Not surprising we went hard for him a few years ago. Swans should finish top four this year and could give us trouble. We scraped by them last year at the G in one of your hardest games.

As for this match, it’s poor quality. Port remain an average team, but I’m surprised Brisbane aren’t performing better. They’re in their sweet spot to challenge and have the talent.

100% agreed. Cameron and GWS came out of that doco looking far worse than all others. It basically showed Cameron as a negative abusive coach who didn’t have buy in from his players. The way he handled Coniglio and leadership was poor. He didn’t have strong strategies in place and understanding from his players. It was shocking to see. As long as he’s coach of GWS, they’re going nowhere. He’s a poor coach and if they had someone like Goodwin or Hardwick instead they’d have won a flag already.

Watching Fox Footy feed via Kayo and Nathan Jones is on commentary. Didn’t realize Jonesy was taking up a media career. Good luck to him! Refreshing to hear him and some of his comments. Pittonet hits the post from a metre out “that won’t do ruckman any good” 😆

The Bulldogs get an insanely favourable ride from the umpires, with a lot of it being unjust. It's staggering it hasn't received a formal inquiry as it's borderline match fixing at this point. They finished last season with a +79 differential, which was 46 more than the next closest team in the league! There's nothing to say free kick counts need to be even - they obviously don't - but the free kicks the Bulldogs often receive are absurd. Off the top of my head: - Langdon deliberate out of bounds was incorrect decision and handed them a goal. - Petracca holding the ball where he was mobbed by three opponents immediately and had no prior opportunity to dispose of it. Incorrect decision and an umpire trying to flex the new holding the ball interpretation. From memory also lead to a goal a few moments later. - Tim English individually received 8 (!) free kicks, which is an AFL record for most free kicks to one individual ever in a match. 6 frees were from ruck contests where neither ruckman even knew what happened as they were both grappling with their eyes on the ball. Trash umpiring that was incorrect and slowed the game down, when the intent is to speed the game up. - Weightman free kick at quarter time for... nearly being touched? Getting scared by possible physical contact that never eventuated? One of the worst free kicks ever given and handed them a goal. After scoring four goals directly from dodgy frees against the Lions in finals, Weightman is my most hated player in the league. Petulant little spud who flops around for frees and pulls out of contests. P The Dogs start 2022 with a +13. Good thread to keep track of it OP. If it continues this season I'd love to see it get lots of media attention and force a please explain from the AFL.

Good signing, he’s one of our most promising youngsters. Sparrow has a lot of potential to be a good midfielder and can also hit the scoreboard or play forward flank if needed. Adelaide are keen on luring him back to SA, so this is a good signing to keep the group stable. Now just need Dogga to extend and our best youngsters are all locked away!

Love beating the Dogs. They're my most hated team with the weight of unfair free-kicks they get and the way they carry on as a club and supporter base. Bevo's outburst sums them up; embarrassing irrational losers. Great win last night by the Dees. Bevo and the Dogs are on the ropes :D

Lever out is big. Reckon it’ll be a super close game and not confident. Dogs will be all fired up after the humiliation of the GF. Here’s hoping our boys aren’t lacking motivation!

Supposedly number 1 player "by some way" too! He can certainly have an impact on matches, but he's nowhere near the number 1 player in the comp. He's not even top 20. Just goes to show how broken Champion Data's algorithm or rating system is. I mean not a direct correlation, but the Eagles peaked and won a flag when Nicnat was out injured and then turned to trash again when he returned :P

Clickbait rubbish spat out by an algorithm spewing out more [censored] than a baby.

Bad luck for the young man still who's still developing and finding his way, despite having a brilliant start to his career in a challenging environment. He's probably the Suns most important player. Their forward line will struggle without him and they'd have to be favourite to win the spoon now. Will he ever play for the Suns again? Will he head back home to Victoria?

Get Dogga's signature long term and lock in Clarry beyond next year and our core is sorted. We'd challenge for the next 5 years if we can keep the core of this list together. Cmon Jacko sign on. You know you want to play for the best team going around ;)

I’m obviously biased, but Travis was better than he’s been made out by many in here. While he didn’t live up to his potential, he was still one of our best players in that decade. His output could’ve been more consistent, though he was tagged every week as opposition coaches always recognized him as our most damaging player. He came equal 4th in the Brownlow in 2002 alongside Cousins and McLeod. His 2005 was brilliant. His 2006 was also good and was statistically his best season. In 2005 and 2006 he lead the league for kicks, inside 50s and score assists, a feat no other Melbourne player has ever achieved (Trac came close!). He was the most damaging outside mid in the league alongside Dal Santo through the 2000s. Travis was also a big game player, and was always amongst our best in every final we played in the 2000s. He never became the superstar he could’ve been, but the revisionist view of his career being a bust or a waste is wrong. Anyhoo back on track, it’s a good list from the OP! Looking forward to the top 20.

14 correct. To be fair I did rewatch this match about two weeks back. Still lol at Richo getting worked up on commentary “you’re trying to win the game?!”.

Surprised not to see May in the top 10 at this stage. Salem rightfully up near the top. The first half of his season was brilliant.

You’re missing a few key players from your listed teams. Brisbane had Aker, Power and Lappin. This was a great midfield with Voss, Black and asked all superstars and Brownlow winners. Eagles missing Embley. Eagles midfield had superstar power, but not great depth. Hawks had Lewis, Smith, Hill. Decent midfield but IMO a level below the others in the conversation. Cats had Bartel, Corey, Kelly, as well as Chapman and Stevie J rotating through. The Cats late 2000s midfield is the absolute benchmark for both elite talent and depth. Ablett Jnr is the GOAT, Bartel a Brownlow medalist also. Joel Corey is one of the most underrated mids of all time. Selwood a champion. Ling one of the best taggers ever. Then great depth and rotating players. We’re a fair way off that group still and need to do it for longer. We have the potential to become an all time great midfield if guys like Sparrow keep improving. Gus, Harmes, Langdon, are all good role players, but would be considered depth in some of the above mentioned star studded midfields. We’ve got the rucks covered with Gawn and Jackson. Only Cox could lay claim to being better than Gawn, with 6 All Australians he just pops Max. We’re probably one good mid short of those great teams. If the youngsters keep developing and Trac, Clarry, Gawn, Viney all stay fit for a few more years then we’ll give this conversation a fair tilt!

Trac signing Dees premiership footy this morning. Legend!

Got a Dees premiership footy signed by Trac this morning. He’s a legend on the field and off the field! Can’t post photo from my phone as apparently file size is too big :(