BLWNBA

Sparrow kicks truly. ‘A’ side comfortably in control.

Bowey, Petty, McDonald, Lever are the starting backs with Salem, and Riv off the back flanks for the ‘A’ team. Howes also lining up on AJ.

Bit hard to see where I am and I have one eye on my little fella; but I’ll do my best. Sharp is playing forward the ‘A’ team; as is McAdam. Turner, Fritsch and McAdam are all playing in the ‘ones’ (so to speak). Lindsay is out there too (not necessarily these players are the traditional ‘fringe’, with the exception of McAdam). Langford seems to get bigger every time I see him in real life. Fritsch could’ve finished with four in the first but is on 2.1.

AJ playing forward for the whites. His strength and marking ability are really something. He has ‘presence’. McAdam will play R1 barring injuries IMO. In everything, and has pace. Snapped and makes amends for his earlier miss. He’s moving very freely.

McAdam takes a two-touch overhead mark out of the square. Misses from a slight angle, 25m out.

Hore could easily be in contention for a spot down back. Although playing on the ‘white’ team, he doesn’t miss a beat. Very capable.

Yep. Fritsch marks a bullet from Salem. Attempts to pass off to Max in the pocket from 35 and turns over. Fritsch gets the ball back from a white team turnover and snaps truly. His second in the first quarter.

Big tackle form Viney on Oliver on the wing results in an incorrect disposal and turnover. Fritsch marks strongly and converts. Lever in it already with a massive spoil.

There’s been some really ‘odd’ decisions this preseason across the AFL clubs and their choice of family days. At least this isn’t as bad as Essendon who did theirs on a Tuesday night during Week One of the new school term.

Practice matches are official games which form part of the AFL fixture. Match simulations are organised at inter-club level, albeit, with the use of AFL umpires.

I was lucky that I received an offer for $10 per month for 12 months, so I took that up immediately. But I must say when I saw the price increased that were coming in I thought it was insane, especially given how poor Kayo as a product is overall and I would argue that the majority of content is not even offered in 4k. I looked at the figures and it's actually approaching a point where it's cheaper to obtain a Foxtel subscription, depending on the amount of subscriptions you're running.

Ain't that the truth!

Grundy? Granted, that didn't work out for the player, nor club and I agree with your POV. Though I'd give some credit that we were able to attract a 'name' player.

Previously they were priced separately, from memory last season GWS’ was comfortably the cheapest. My understanding for this season is that they’re all the same pricing across all 18 clubs; admittedly, I’ve not researched this though.

Is the OOC status correct? Not challenging you directly, but some reporting over the past 12 months states he's OOC at the end of 2026, whilst other reporting states it's this year.

Practice matches (i.e., distinct from match simulation / red team on blue team) enables sports specific knowledge and wisdom to be built, outside of a 'simulated environment'. By practicing against an external source (e.g., North Melbourne) an additional layer of complexity and unpredictability is added which is extremely hard to replicate. As a result, MFC listed players are tasked with combating and overcoming genuine elements of anticipation, awareness and collaboration which for the most part, aren't present in internal simulations. There's also strong data to indicate that when athletes are competing against a known quantity, such as a teammate, individual pieces of information are able to be retained more easily, as there is an awareness of the relationship between players and tactics which enables a level of 'prediction'. Of course, as an elite athlete you will study the opposition in order to be able to predict what's coming and react accordingly, but doing this in an authentic and genuine manner which has a meaningful return can be very difficult to replicate in a training scenario - not to mention the diminishing returns.

AJ and Langford will be the 'new editions' to the forward line, IMO. I fully expect both to play Round 1, as it stands.

Melk may be in a spot of bother for R1, given he's going to miss 3 - 4 weeks with a hamstring.

He's definitely still a plug and play defender, but May has really seemed to have lost a step over the past two seasons. His closing speed is has diminished, as has his ability to gather a ground ball with that one-touch finesse he's previously had which meant he was uncharacteristically caught out a few times (last season, especially).

While I agree with you on a base level and in this case think your comments are fair, I'd say the commentary has centered more around the disambiguation between being ethnically Chinese, and Chinese by nationality - as both groups form part of the Chinese diaspora. The identity issue pertaining to being 'Chinese' ('Sino'), is more complicated than it is with many other nationalities and ethnicities.

There was a very good conversation on SEN yesterday about this - essentially, have they simply over performed with the list they have, and have they done enough to bring in early elite talent?

I thought school holidays ended?

Cornes has consistently stated that we have the ability to perform at the top and that we've underperformed. During the first half of last year when our form was looking reasonable, he stated that he thought we'd be contending for the flag, which many on this site continue to believe to be true. Cornes also said that throughout our drop-off in 2023 and thought we could still finish in a meaningful position in the Top 4. He's criticised our game plan (which is hard to argue with), and the length of contract that Oliver received (that's not a unique criticism of the MFC). Being an advocate of a club doesn't require your adoration to lack analytical value or warranted criticism.

Cornes and King were two of our biggest advocates over the past four to five seasons.

Return of the Prodigal Son, LJ - then yes.