RalphiusMaximus

Frankston's kicking skills put ours to shame.

Good mark to The Lurker. And a goal.

Umps just missed a blatant 50 to us, but we got the mark inside 50 anyway.

You would have to question the AFL credentials of the fifteen Melbourne players in this side. They're getting absolutely smashed across the park.

And Adams tries to mark from behind instead of punching. Make that seven in a row.

This is looking a little grim. Six goals in a row to Frankston.

I'm really liking the look of Rigoni Jr. She's a good size, good kick and has a serious bit of pace. She took a mark around HB/wing today and just put on the afterburners. Straight around the marker and left them in her dust. I think the biggest limiting factor on her right now is confidence. She's still hesitating to back herself, but once she feels comfortable in her role she's going to show us something.

Wrong bible story.

Don't forget Howe

Not sure about that. He seems to get out the back and ditch his defender quite often. If it's not pace then it's workrate.

The biggest learning is that the AFL don't like seeing a percentage over 500, so they try to rig games against us.

That's five frees to Collingwood within two minutes, resulting in two set shots, in an attempt to get them over the line. Fortunately they missed.

Agreed. Half of Collingwoods score has come from diabolical calls in their favour.

He looked pretty strong already. I thought that was one of his pros. Just from watching this game my impression is he's powerfully built, plays smart and is a great kick. He took contested pack marks and got out on the lead. Kicked running goals as well as set shots. My concern would be with his height. He played more like a KPF today, but he's too small for that role at AFL level. I don't see the athletic traits to play mid, although he is listed as a wing on his draft profile. All that being said, he's clearly a very smart footballer, and Jake Melksham has reminded us how much value a smart mid-sized forward can be. Maybe he builds into that role?

The sports media cycle: Football writer writes an opinion piece that club could benefit from trading player x. One journalist cites this article as "rumours that player x is on the table." TV panellist cites previous two articles as their inside mail that player x and club are unhappy and want to part ways. Half a dozen articles appear citing TV panellist that player x wants out. TV panellist doubles down, citing growing consensus among sports media as evidence. When asked where the rumour originated, they drop out "where there's smoke, there's a fire" line as proof. Thus proven, the entirety of the sports media landscape begin reporting the exit of player x as fact. From here you have two outcomes. The media create enough noise to actually cause an issue at the club and cause the player to leave. The club and player x ignore the noise and go about their business, which will be portrayed as the club being poor negotiators and failing to get a deal done.

Seven goals so far for Casey today. He looks smart and is a fantastic set shot. We could do a lot worse than him.

I thought he showed us a bit today. He wasn't amazing by any means, but he had a hard role, basically warming the bench for Max with some time spent forward here and there. He got in good positions, took a couple of good marks and had some absolutely terrible kicks flying at him when he was deep forward that killed any chance of him actually scoring. One absolute shank that should have been a goal. He wasn't outstanding, but he played his role, broke even with some really good defenders and held up in the ruck. I think he did enough to earn another week.

Just watching the replay, and I may not completely understand the rules, but I just saw an umpire tell Kossie to get back out of the 9 meters (goalsquare), then pay 50m against him for not standing still on the mark, WHILE HE WAS GETTING OUT OF THE 9 METERS. Does this confuse anyone else? Also, I would like to apologise for my comments doubting Kossie's abilities before we drafted him.

Honestly, I thought he was gone the moment he did it. I think they both slipped a little which made it worse than it should have been, but it was pretty much a textbook example of "arms pinned, head hits the ground." They've been very clear for a few seasons that this would result in a suspension. Aside from that, I was pretty damn happy with AJ's game.

According to JT, he's a ready-made replacement for ANB.

My mail says.... Hmmm, not as helpful as I'd hoped. OK, so as a pure guess, I'd like to see Jefferson finally get his chance, he's more than earned it. I also suspect that Sharp and Langford will be early call-ups.

I was going to point this out. Mid 30's isn't a great way to watch football.

An aging player in a team with questionable youth who still rely on a few older stars to carry them is saying we need shorter games. I wonder what his motivation for that could possibly be?

The Hawks are my sliders for this season. They surprised everybody this year, but now teams know what they are about and will be digging into their gameplan. They won't get the unexpected wins against teams that underestimated them again. I expect them to drop out of the 8. 2026 will tell us whether their team and gameplan are the real deal or not. Also, I can't see us missing the 8 unless we suffer more major injuries. The media pile-on fails to acknowledge that we were essentially playing without three of our best mids. Trac was gone for half the season, Oliver was a shadow of his usual self without a real pre-season, plus playing injured, and of course the loss of Gus not only cost us on-field, but was a massive psychological hit to the team. While we don't get Gus back, the other two are in full flight and training well. Having them both fit and firing, plus natural improvement from the young mids, we'll see a different team next year.

Sounds like depression to me mate. You need more sugary treats to cheer you up.