Adam The God

I'm not convinced. Tyson may get caught with the ball, but at least that gives us time to set up. JKH coughs the ball up or doesn't get it all. Like Smith, JKH would immediately be a weak link and in our bottom 2 or 3 players on the ground. Why change the winning formula with Tyson?

I don't care what you think either, Biffen.

I prefer midfield depth, to shaky defenders, yeah. The midfield is our advantage and where the game will be won and where the game has always been won. Why would you weaken our one major advantage?

Smith is an ordinary kicker and his decision making is questionable in the regular season. No way we play him in a final. Fritsch's fumbling is enough of a liability back there, we don't need to add another weak link.

I think we'll try Hannan on him again. As they said on the commentary the last time around, McGovern doesn't like being turned back, nor does any defender. But you get can him with pace out the back. Hannan is a great decoy too, because he's not as important to our connection as Melksham, but we may need to use Jake on occasion too. Likewise, if the Eagles try to get the McGovern/Weideman match up, then Weideman needs to drag him up the ground to leave space in behind. If Tommy can get Barrass and beat him, I reckon we're a shot.

Knew we should have waited. Tiger and Jetstar have put on more flights for Saturday.

Fritsch was ordinary under pressure again the other night. He's a real worry for me. If I was West Coast, he's the one I'd look to exploit at the back.

So we bought our tickets to the game as soon as we could, determined to buy flights only 8f they put on cheaper flights. But, as is always the way when it comes to the MFC, my old man, my sister and I, bit the bullet and splashed close to $800+ each. We will be there and I hope my loudness can compete with the 50,000-odd feral out of work miners.

We just bought tickets but won't be going unless cheaper flights are put on.

We just got tickets but won't be going unless flights become cheaper. The AFL need to step in and do something if they want a full stadium. Not a good look for them.

I'm sorry. The cringiest piece of commentary for the weekend goes to Luke Darcy when De Goey took a mark. He sounded like a constipated nuffy. "De Gooooooooeeeeeeeeeeyyy!!!!!" I'm cringing just thinking about it. Darcy makes BT sound like a half decent caller. I actually didn't mind the Viney call. I'd argue it's spine tingling. Darcy just sounds like a try hard though when he did it.

I'm surprised it's that high but he certainly didn't click IMO until round 6 or 7. No way he gets that many votes IMO.

Laughable. Gus missed too much of the regular season to be that high in the votes.

I've said it before but I'm conservative when it comes to AFL. Do not touch the [censored] rules. 6-6-6 is ridiculous. Unlike the economy, the game will right itself. My only hope is that the devil's number somehow means my Demons win more flags.

And there's some similarities between both sets of forwards. Each have crumbled in big finals before...

You're becoming one of my favourite posters mate. Love your passion and vulnerability. Totally get you on this too, although if it's any consolation, I had a dream after the last West Coast game that we would play Geelong in the Elimination Final and lose to Hawthorn the following week. Fortunately, only the first bit came to fruition. Let's hope only the first bit of your dream comes true and it's a Collingwood v Melbourne GF and we're the winners by 8 points. ?

My old man says a lot of the Hawthorn supporters he knows were Melbourne when he was growing up (1950s and 60s). This also explains why there are a lot of toffee Hawthorn supporters and a lot of Hawthorn MCC members (nowhere near as many as us, but a few). As soon as Hawthorn supporters get a whiff that they will be up against it, they go missing. They have a great many of soft supporters. However, on one level I admire what they've been able to do since 1996 with their membership base, but on another level, given all their success in the 70s, 80s and 90s, they should never have been in that position by 1996. Likewise, it's a lot easier to build a membership base as they have, given the sustained onfield success they've had. If they were to fall for a generation, I reckon you'd find we have far more rusted on supporters than they do. And here goes my usual rant. In many ways, we're the most resilient supporter base in the league. Yes, we've got a few coming on board now, but we had 45,000 before the other 25-30,000 jumped on in the last month and a bit. We've endured at least 2 or 3 generations of lost supporters (1970s and early 1980s, as well as 2008-2015), yet through all this managed membership base in excess of 40,000. No other supporter base could claim this, except maybe Richmond, although even their successes weren't that long ago (1980). It's a bit of a rambly point here, but if we have some sustained success and win some flags, we will start to re convert a lot of those lost supporters. In many ways, I love the aspiration of getting Gary Pert in at this stage, because the platform for sustained success has been laid. He can now build on it like he did at Collingwood and all being well, we'll be out of the wilderness of AFL irrelevance and within a decade, could be in the same position Hawthorn find themselves in right now. 70,000+ members, multiple premierships and a powerhouse once again. As Jake Niall's article in The Age suggests, we're better placed than anyone else in the league to achieve sustained success, and in a time when the sporting landscape is more competitive than ever.

Kennedy is the one though. He's their Tom McDonald. Completely straightens them up. He barely played in any of those matches. We're a chance, but I can't see our game holding up enough to restrict their forwardline. We'd have to play better than we have all year. Pressure like we did against Geelong and GWS and convert in front like we did against Hawthorn. All this is possible, but Kennedy, Darling and their smalls are dangerous. More dangerous than our forwards IMO. My only hope is Kennedy and Darling crumble on the big stage again. I'd back us if it was at the G, but not next week.

It's worth noting that if Richmond win it this year, they're level on 12 flags with us. If Collingwood win it, they will equal Carlton's 16 flags. I'd rather Richmond win it, than Collingwood. Or ideally, we win our elusive 13th flag and pull one closer to Collingwood and two away from Richmond and equal Hawthorn's 13.

Go hard for Whitfield now. Another failed year for them. We're hopefully on the up and challenging for the next few years now. We play our home games at the MCG and have the only list that rivals GWS', and Whitfield is exactly the sort of player we lack. When Lewis goes at the end of 2019, Whitfield will be a great replacement off half back. We could play Whitfield on a wing or off half back, releasing Salem and/or Fritsch. I think Lever will allow Fritsch to play further up the ground anyway, but Whitfield's ball use and transition running would be the perfect addition to our cake.

The fireworks were arrogant and embarrassing. They stopped them in the second half didn't they?

And no desire to get an AFLW team in the formative competition.

Can't do that against the Eagles though. Must lower the eyes again next week. Keep the ball away from McGovern and Barass.

Viney's last ten minutes of the third won us the game IMO. He's such a superior leader to anyone else we've had in a long time. And Harmes actually went to Smith in the fourth after he kicked that goal on the run. Nice move from the coaching box. Smith didn't get much of it after that.

What I found so impressive and a first for us, was our growing pressure into the game. Usually, when we start slightly off, you know that's it for the day and that's the intensity you're going to get for the duration. We started a little poorly and were outplayed in the second quarter, but in the second half, our forward pressure went through the roof and we looked like we did last week. This is a really good sign of maturity. Let's hope it continues.