praha

Saw an old couple on the train today literally holding each other and moving away from anyone that got close. There is genuine fear out there. And it's not just today. I see it every day on the train to work. People petrified and almost shaking to be near people. People need to calm the [censored] down and start living again. There ain't no COVID around.

My impression of the game: Our midfield needs serious work. We've lost our mojo. I fear that Goodwin can't project manage to a degree that consolidates both defense and midfield presence. When we dominated in the middle in the past we struggled to defend. We've slowly lost our midfield "oomph" but improved out defence coherence. Delivery forward was perhaps the best it's been since 2018. We just couldn't capitalise. We don't over use the ball as much but still get smoked in transition when we make an error. Richmond would have eaten us up today. A win is a win and I'll take it but it felt like middle of the roads teams competing today. Just not that flash nor inspiring.

A few "I'm not going until there is a vaccine" comments as well. Insanity. That said if we weren't in COVID times, you'd have had 5-6k more Freo supporters, plus more Melbourne supporters so we'd have maybe been at 30k. Lack of interstate support hurt the final figure, no doubt. We had a solid turnout today. It was easily 95% Melbourne. But yeah if we'd been playing a Melbourne team they'd have been laughing as the away team, they'd have snapped up all the GA tickets and we'd have been outnumbered at our own home game. Disappointing turnout. Next home game against Geelong in round 4 and hopefully by then we're at 100% capacity.

Love them both but Level is still too unreliable with the ball and I want to see them do it against a team with even a single solid tall forward. They should clean up next week against the Saints again too.

Not bad. My thoughts: Gawn - Couldn't impose self McDonald - Sporadic yet reliable Oliver - Quantity not quality Langdon - Had some presence May - God among boys Lever - Back to best Petracca - Wasteful beyond first Harmes - In and out Jordan - Rising star nom Brayshaw - did he play? Spargo - Demonlands most underrated Tomlinson - Club best game Salem - Too easily beaten Fritsch - Flash in pan Sparrow - Not his day Jones - Closer to milestone Neal-Bullen - just a game Pickett - Cyril Rioli like Jackson - Present yet wasteful Rivers - Has some flashes Hunt - Not quite there Jetta - Played solid role Edited 1 minute ago by Grapeviney

In other news, Ticketek finally sent me an SMS with my tickets, an hour after the game finished.

Crows will be a smokey this year. Maybe not finals but will cause a few upsets.

10th-16th

freo game to win imo

uninspiring.

MCC has very strict and firm ground management guidelines i believe. two games in one day can impact turf quality.

what do you want? a week long celebration?

was sure be predicted 40k the other week?

Wonder what sort of crowd we'll get. I'm predicting 25k.

I had a nightmare. In it I had a nap and woke up at half time. Scrambled to get to the MCG in time. Got there just as the 4th was starting. Score was weirdly specific: Freo 8.3.51 Melb 4.4.28 Horrid dream.

I can't tell if it's the system, or people just don't know what they're doing. I was in and out in 3 minutes. No problems. No booking fee. Tickets received. And this was for the AFL members when Richmond and Collingwood would have been scrambling for seats.

Load up the ticket on your phone. You don't need to print it out. Then just bring it up on phone and scan to enter.

the email contains individual links for each ticket beneath the "important ticket delivery information" section close to the bottom of the email. Click the link and it takes you to the ticket.

you can access via email. two of my three tickets came via sms about 40 mins later.

"Tell me you're a Melbourne supporter without telling me you're a Melbourne supporter":

Got my tickets!

Definitely just take a screenshot. Works 100% of the time, 100% of the time.

eh? you should get your ticket emailed to you to open in a browser. screenshot the browser window and then just open up the image when needed. Worked for me last week at Marvel. Definitely didn't need to download any further apps.

at the infection rate in Australia and yes even Victoria, old dee, your chances of catching COVID right now are actually incredibly thin. For Europe and North America, vaccines are needed to flatten the curve, get things under control, reduce the death rate. It's literally a matter of life or death. They badly need to vaccinate. Vaccines with Australia and much of Asia is mostly about establishing travel bubbles and simply enhancing protection in the region. It's less a matter of urgency and there is a reason why vaccines are so hard to come by in the southern hemisphere: we just aren't as desperate as a UK or Italy or even Israel surrounded by heavy hit Middle Eastern nations. For us it's almost a matter of convenience, to further enhance our protection and our health care workers. But for harder hit nations it's a matter of necessity. My strong advice is to start living your life because there is every chance second dose majority won't be for another 12 months in Australia. See you at the G next week.

Half the team played in 2018 finals. May Lever Jackson Pickett Tomlinson and Langdon are some of the additions. So counting them and 2/3 of the team you could argue all get a game in a finals side. Add Viney Melksham Brown and Weiderman. It's not anywhere near as bad a squad as it seems. Just a bit too much inexperience for comfort. But on paper it's still solid. Or it *should* be solid.