Nasher

Premierships are hard to win.

That was like 8 minutes in to the game. If you knew at that moment you are a lot more optimistic than me!

He played 19/22 games, so it’s only a whisker over 1 vote a game on average. I agree it probably won’t pan out that way but it’s definitely plausible. It’ll be interesting to see his scoring average.

I noticed last week Geelong had a player named “men and gola” too, according to Bruce.

I consider myself both wise and passionate, just not quite optimistic enough to think a GF could be on the cards this year!

I knew he was an old fart, but not sure if that’s from some ancient memory of him revealing his age or just a hunch. Being around a long time does odd things to one’s memory.

The way I read it was the P2s would start being issued once all the P1s are exhausted, so it would depend on how many members of those P1 memberships there are. I tried to see if I could find any info on that, but couldn’t. My membership (aka annual donation to the club) affords me P3 in the ballot, so I assume I’m boned, but might as well throw my hat in the ring anyway for the sake of $5. We’ve got 40k members and there will be 20k or so seats allocated, so you never know your luck.

Like most I’ll be keeping mine, sorry, but even if I gave it to you, we’d still have about the same chance of getting a ticket as mine’s a P3.

Goodwin said “first half didn’t look like us”. The only other time I’ve heard him say that was when we were awful against Hawthorn the first time around. It’s a clear catch phrase the coach puts out there if you’re ever in doubt about how we played. We won though and won comfortably despite that. The thing about being a good side is that sometimes you’ll get away with an imperfect game and live to see another game. History says this version of the Melbourne Football Club can get its stuff together between matches. We won’t be having this discussion next week.

@george_on_the_outeris connected if I remember rightly.

How good is that photo? Looks freezing.

How about the torp from Frost? It nearly reached the circle. Didn’t know he had this in his bag of tricks. This had to have been planned - all of our “rover” group in Brayshaw, Oliver, Harmes and Gawn were in the immediate area to get the play finished. (Edit: Gawn ended up underneath it - wonder if he underestimated how far Frost could hoof it?) Great stuff. Replaying these moments are absolutely spine tingling when you’re free of the stress of the match.

I didn’t know who it was either.

I’ll follow the Casey game with interest, but I’m seriously doubtful that there will be any changes. The system we have works. I’m not in favour of any changes that involve shifting players positions (eg Fritsch), and since there are no obviously better lile for like replacements available, it points to no change.

I didn’t think he had the leg for it either, but he hit it perfectly. Great kick.

The trade included our 2018 first round pick. So as we now finish no lower than 4th, the final spot in the draft just went down one. It’s a huge stretch to say that changes the value of thr trade, but that’s the logic behind the comment.

How about Crossy in the ice bath after a gruelling game as the team runner? Professionalism is a habit for some.

Lessons have been learned on how to steady and wrestle back momentum in those games when teams come charging. This is immensely exciting. Feels different to last week though - I’m overtaken by a weird calm. Great result, but job not done yet. Still going to indulge in a few bathwaters though

I’ve got a belly full of bath water that is now repeating real bad as the butterflies try and squeeze in there as well. ? I am confident though that this team will leave absolutely nothing out there. So long as that happens I’ll live with whatever the result is. We should win though. I’m sitting in my car typing this. I park in some random suburban street and walk the rest of the way. Some bloke just pulled up behind me and got out with his Dees scarf on. Going to be a good day I think. Lucky I’ve got a day pretty much jammed with back to back things right up until the game is due to start, which will be a welcome distraction.

2 years is the standard, not sure why it’s “short”. His next one or possibly even the one after will be his biggest pay day, so absolutely zero point in locking in too long a term.

Brayshaw spent a lot of time on the pine in the first half. Only had 71% TOG for the game; only Tyson and Viney had less.

He's had the season from hell with his injuries and form, but I hope he backs himself in to stay and work his way back in to the side. He's got the attribute set to get back there. As Frost and Weideman have both alluded to in recent interviews, sometimes you just have to put head down, bum up, work hard in the VFL and wait for your time to come. As we've seen, injuries and stuff to senior players happen - if Hunt does that, he'll make it back. I'd be disappointed if he cracked the sads and asked for a trade, but I don't think he will.

I can't explain how excited I am about this. I don't think I've felt as good about our footy team as I do now. Even in 2000 - that was a great ride, but it was against the odds and we were never going to beat the unstoppable Bummers in that year. This year, we've navigated just about every hurdle we needed to (can't beat top 8 sides being the biggest), we're in form at the right time, we play a style of footy that is built for finals, and we're every bit as good as any of the teams we're going to come up against. It's the polar opposite of how I felt in the run of games prior to the West Coast game, where the leadup to every game felt like a complete grind. Just waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the team to clear that final hurdle to prove they are as capable as we all hoped. Finally they got there with the West Coast win. The game's obviously not won yet though and by Friday afternoon I won't even be able to pretend to work anymore and I'll be on the brink of a good spew - standard fare for all of us this week I suppose. I'll be bitterly disappointed if we can't get it done, but we also have to understand that by this stage of the comp, every team will be as determined as we are, and there can only be one winner in every game. I believe we will anyway, we are good enough. Go Melbourne.

@Fifty-5‘s point still stands generally, in that supporters looking two weeks ahead makes no difference to anything at all. Unless you have some (as yet unspecified) reason to believe the players are getting ahead of themselves, but that’s not what you made it sound like.

Harmes has even developed a neat little don’t argue. Could be a whole game of no. 4s not arguing.