Nasher

The starting 18 = definitely in the team rule wasn’t applied two weeks ago when TMac was named on field and then dropped, so I’m officially abandoning my long held belief that that’s how it works. That said, I’m still of the belief this means they’ll play TMac and drop Weid. In any case, that’s one role in the team that is obviously far from settled in match committee’s mind. Looking forward to watching it continue to play out.

And I guess he only holds it until we finally lose one, if I’ve understood that right. Bit of a weird record that one, in that you can lose it without someone taking it from you.

This game

Harsh. Frost is a capable AFL level defender. He has obvious limitations, but I think it’s rough to pin the whole side’s performance during his time with us on him. We spent a huge amount of draft/trade capital on May and Lever; had we not been able to attract defenders of that calibre, Frost would probably still be with us.

I love that while pace and drive are key assets of his, he’s turned in to a legitimately hard nosed defender in recent years. Toughness and helping his teammates have become the cornerstone of his game, any time he gets to go for a run is just a bonus. Great stuff.

Watched the Bedford running goal a couple of times now. How good is the gather (kick from TMac was a scrubber) and handball from Melksham? Perfect. Vintage Melksham. Well done.

Exactly my take on that. Got disoriented and made the wrong split second decision. An error but not an intentionally selfish act. The noose would rightly be raised if he’d spilt the mark though!

- We won - We had a massively disrupted week - Hawthorn threw absolutely everything they had at us - We won Save the overanalysing it for the replay. This was a tough game, we still won and we’re 7-0.

I’ll give him benefit of the doubt on the mark: I thought it was just him losing track of his own location and needing to make a split second decision with the ball about to land on him. It was definitely clumsy and didn’t look good but I don’t think it was an intentional goal steal. I agree the long range shot was poor though.

In: Neal-Bullen, Pickett, Petty, Jackson, Sparrow, Goodwin Out: Melksham, Bedford, Smith, Weideman, Dunstan, Yze Edit: that said, no doubt there’ll be more COVID during the week. Happy for any of the above “outs” to go around again depending on who’s out. I thought they all contributed really well.

Thanks Hawthorn for playing such an aggressive game. Took it up to us. I was never really worried we’d lose but it’s the first time I’ve felt some legitimate tension in the last quarter all season.

I don’t know what the right word is then. Singling out one player as the reason we might lose or not want to watch the game seems terribly personal to me. Whatever the right word is, it’s a foreign concept to me and a long way from any emotion I experience or recognise.

I will never understand why some Melbourne supporters actively hate Melbourne players.

I’m mentally preparing myself for the fact that we might be flat, with all the COVID in the group. No doubt in my mind there’s at least one player playing who has it and doesn’t know it yet. The side still looks strong on paper though. I’m still pretty confident we should get the job done easily, but the sheen of invincibility I had earlier in the week has gone.

I fell asleep on the couch with West Coast down by about 70, wake up and it’s over 100. Things didn’t get any better, then.

Surely even Richmond fans would be a little circumspect about this win. West Coast are taking the wizz with their effort here. I just watched Nankervis, the slowest human on the planet, just jog to an open goal, only to give a Joe the Goose to Riewoldt. Anyone gonna defend, or…?

Occam’s Razor says they’re just this bad.

This West Coast team is outrageously feeble. Hard to believe what I’ve seen from them in the last two weeks. Just terrible.

To be fair, the effects on people widely vary. On balance of probabilities you’d think extremely fit and healthy men in their 20s are likely to recover quicker than most.

Same. It flattened me. I’m over a month out now and I’m still not fully right. ItS oNlY a CoLd tHoUgH

3 of the 4 ins were best 22 players two weeks ago. It’s a very strong side still, we’ll be fine. Fingers crossed the boys with COVID recover quickly, and no more unpleasant surprises.

And it’s another swing and a miss!

How good a player has Bayley Fritsch become? His two goals broke the game open. He had a pretty “quiet” game but could still easily have had 5 - he was rarely inaccurate (2.2) and gave one off to Petracca. I can’t think of a player who does more damage with such a low disposal count in our team.

That’s just typical over the top footy fan pessimism. Identifying every minor hurdle as a completely insurmountable task is par for the course. The weekly Demonland mass suicide was the same right up until late last year, it didn’t seem to matter how bad we ACTUALLY were. Hell, there are people on this site complaining about our form now, with 13 wins on the trot, one of which was a grand final.

That makes me feel sick. To me that’s a deeply personal moment. If it were me, I’d prefer to be filmed in the shower over that (maybe I shouldn’t give the broadcasters ideas). Scrap the cameras in the rooms immediately.