praha

We have weathered every Brisbane tsunami thus far. Have we seen the best of Brisbane? I'm not sure. But we are playing a very good defensive game. That said we haven't had our 2019 Melbourne quarter yet. Here's hoping we skip it this week.

Having ANB and Hannan in the same forward line essentially has us one down. ANB is absolutely hopeless.

what the actual [censored] is Viney supposed to do there?

Liking Baker as a link across half flank. Watch him closely. He runs so hard. Bad luck not to be rewarded.

Matthew already in fine form. Brisbane player takes two players on, tackled, holding the ball. Matthews: "Oh that's harsh." Shut up you potato.

Gilbert [censored] Mcadam.

Astonishing that if we win today we are somehow only 2 games out of the top 8, with a much easier draw compared to other teams to come. If we had gotten the job done against WC and Adelaide we would actually be locked on points with the 8th team.

North has now won 3 of 4 since Shaw took over. We have 4 wins for the season. North looked absolutely the worst team in the comp 10 weeks ago. If they finish above us this year it'll only add to the embarrassment.

Yze was predominantly a backman from about 2002 onwards.

It didn't say his averageness wasn't justified. I just said he'd been average since 2017. His versatility is obviously important but how long do we carry players who need 1+ months to find form after injuries? At least AVB has immediate impact.

Hannan has been average since 2017. Let's be honest. He had a good finals series and like a few others appears to be running on fumes this year.

I agree but I'm really just setting expectations for fellow supporters. finals aspirations should be over. The club should be looking to use the next 10 weeks as the start of an extended pre-season. Pivital we win at least 6 of our remaining 9 games.

Nah it's over. Not only are we looking at having to win 10 straight to end the year, we need 6-7 upsets, including 2-3 HUGE ones, to go our way at the right time. PLUS %. The best we can do now is finish as strong as possible and get some momentum going. Big scalps wouldn't hurt either. All of Eagles, Pies and Tigers would be great.

round 1 tends to draw big crowds regardless. i remember we got 30k round 1 vs GC in 2015. After ending 2014 with 10 straight losses and equal last.

Honestly I thought we had evolved past golf clapping "trying". At least I thought we left that in 2014. Like, no one would have said anything about his game had people not actually started overrating it. Our season is so far down the gurgler that we've actually started applauding simple "effort" and "trying hard". fmd. Okay, he brought the ball down, and got to the contest. Hooray for the professional tall forward who can get to marking contests! Seriously, we're cuddling this kid now ever since his choke against Adelaide. I'm sure he'll be a decent player but he's entering year 4 and is still distinctively average. We only do well as a club when the player is a ready-made, bonafide star. Schwartz, Lyon, Jakovich, Neitz, Hogan, Oliver. If it's simply "talent" that needs nursing and development, they either take 3-4 years longer than other clubs (Gawn, Jetta), or we screw them up so much that we're guilted into keeping them past their used by date (Watts). We still can't develop raw talent for [censored].

Hinkley is still coach on the back of getting them to finals when everyone expected them to finish last or thereabours in 2013. Then in 2014 they made the Prelim. Since then they have been middle of the road at best. Yet consistent. They've had a stack of talent over the years, Port. He's either grossly underachieved, or broke even, depending on how you rate their players over the years. But he seems to be running on the fumes of 2014.

Last year we played GWS at the MCG in front of 40k. This year we barely scrapped 20k. This is what bad football does. It is to branding and growth as cancer is to the human body. For the sake of this club I hope 2019 is the outlier in a new era. If 2018 were the outliner in a common trend, then we're in trouble. Lots of pressure now on the football department and players to deliver. We can't afford another Bailey-Neeld era. It would absolutely devastate the club.

Location of your base has an influence. Good luck attracting free agents who will be forced to live out Casey way. What presence if at all will branding in Casey have on the growth of the club? We've been there for a decade and battle to see minuscule incremental growth. Centralise the base. It's not even so much about the logistical challenges. Casey is almost a "out of sight out of mind" location. Can we really afford to fall off the radar and base ourselves that far away from the city? Think of the bigger picture. Casey is a cesspool.

I wouldn't drop Baker. ANB, Hannan, Petty, are all way ahead. Even Jones.

Casey is rubbish. Long term goal should be inner city. If Casey is even an option then we should look to stay where we are.

Just watched the replay. ANB, Wagner, Jones and Mcdonald fumble the ball so much, often leading to turnover. Mcdonald got better as the day went on. But ANB is a serial fumbler. He really needs to iron that [censored] out of his game.

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Mathematically.

I still have concerns. Our lack of pace was on display, and Freo still scored mostly from turnovers across our half forward and easy transition. Would we have won had Freo not been two down? Maybe not but Hill and co. played out the game and had the pace and fitness to make up that lack of rotations. One thing I really liked was Frost and Hore reading off one another. Frost can be a massive liability but he plays with confidence. Hore is Febey 2.0. Salem is all class. I thought our defensive 50 did very well today. Overall it was a solid albeit frustrating performance. We can match it with top teams no doubt but we still have a lot of bad habits and structural issues that need ironing out.

We just don't seem likely to win. At all. They've been down 2 all game and we still can't get a break.