praha

Anyone else see Lever limp off in the third quarter? He landed awkwardly after a contest and then immediately raised his hand to the bench. Everyone around me noticed it as well. He came off for maybe 10 minutes then returned. Anyway point of my story is that I'm glad it's unchanged because I anticipated potentially a rest for him. Anyway I don't have a newsletter you can subscribe to but if you want more my hot takes I'm pretty active throughout the season.

If he leaves, it ain't to North. They're going to be overpaying players of the Chris Dawes ilk like we did for a while whilst they build their list. It took us years before we landed a big fish and that was only once we became decent. Money alone won't get people to North. It would be a very poor career choice for a player like Oliver to even contemplate North as they are today.

Negotiation in any job is all business. You find your allies, you explore the market, and you make sure you're never the first to offer a figure. It actually takes a lot for someone to change jobs/teams. Players that switch tend to do so for a combination of exposure, success, culture and pay. Tick enough of those boxes and it's hard to leave. As someone in the midst of a pay review now, and knowing I can earn more elsewhere, I have a lot of friends, in a great culture and I have great influence on the workplace. A figure close enough but not necessarily more than what I can get on the market will be enough for me to stay. But it's a waiting game. The media and fans hyperventilate when someone doesn't sign right away but anyone would be crazy not to do their due diligence. If Oliver leaves then it will be about more than money. It will be about his actual place in the team, how he's valued both financially and as a person and player. I'm confident he'll stay. If he doesn't then the questions will be more around what Melbourne couldn't offer beyond money.

You're in the lion's den, my friend.

He has the crew around him. Lever May and Tomlinson all been good.

How good are Jordan and Rivers?

Bound to happen at some point. Munted body with a few knee recons, carrying the team for so long. Frail body, great tap ruckman and we need to start adjusting to that. Jackson good in ruck as a harder body. Best we start bullding some flexibility and diversity in ruck role.

We actually look quite polished with the ball. Saints butcher it quite a bit but their pace and pressure hurts us behind the ball. Ratten is coaching very well atm with a squad missing a lot of best 22 players.

Ratten giving Goodwin a coaching lesson.

Dominated stats whilst looking like we barely had it. We have to beat the crowd tonight. Saints fans are LOUD.

Saints supporters are a weird bunch. They look like the types to either be doing lines of cocaine off a toilet at Revolver at 3am on a Wednesday, or to own a Cash Converters along the Nepean Highway.

well we might have had a competent HQ

Brett Moloney led the league in metres gained at one point. I get that it's a stat that can be highly influential and impactful but all stats can be manipulated for or against a specific agenda. I just did it with Boomer above. If his DE is high wouldn't that mean his first touch is leading to a chain and thus more likelihood of controlling the play as a team?

Lots of pressure on club this year. Pressure on Goodwin. Pressure on Pert, Bartlett and co to justify decisions and mitigate potential disaster. If they don't sign Clayton we'll be losing our best midfielder since our last flag winning team. Anyway even remotely suggesting he is.not a huge loss is absolutely kidding themselves. Losing Oliver will set us back years. Richmond, Hawthorn, Geelong never let young guns in their prime walk. They kept the core in tact. Oliver would be leaving before his prime and he's already amazing. Needs to be signed up asap.

He was okay. Bordering on good. Hard for any one player to have much influence today. There were a few games last year that showcased what he is capable of more than today.

was maybe 500 Freo supporters. AFL Members had decent crowd. MCC was noticeably patchy in my view from southern stand. even when we were terrible in 2013-2014 it had more people. Patron caps impact us greatly because we have such a large core group of supporters in MCC which has its own caps. Whereas clubs like Richmond and Collingwood are less impacted as AFL Members has a larger spread. We along with Essendon and perhaps Hawthorn desperately need an increase in capacity to ensure there is greater allowance for MCC. I say this as an AFL Member who probable wont have issues getting tickets.

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