Dr. Gonzo

That may be the spin but we all know it's because they knew the Coll/Melb QF would be a sellout regardless of when it is played and the Carl/Syd game had a better chance of a massive crowd if on a Friday. It's always about the numbers for the AFL, they don't give a stuff about the clubs or supporters.

I have an AFL membership and have used it to attend a few non-Melbourne finals over the years, mainly Geelong as that's my wife's team. I chucked it and joined a premium MFC membership about 15 years ago as I wanted to support the club and not the AFL. But after a few years where we didn't make finals I attended the 2013 EF with my cousin who supports the Tigers and realised how expensive finals tickets were! As an AFL member I paid $22 a ticket for next Thursday, club members are paying up to 5 times that much! A prelim ticket will set you back around $200 for the best seats but AFL members pay $22. If Melbourne makes the GF I'm guaranteed a ticket at half price, around $200. I don't like it but clubs can't compete with that, it's like the MCC. I signed my kids up to AFL membership at birth, the first 7 years are free after the joining fee and they go up the waitlist for full membership. Hopefully they'll be full members around the time they're 18, when I joined it took 4 years for full membership but the waitlist has blown out mainly following Collingwood back to back GFs in 2010/11 and many Pies supporters signing on to AFL Membership when they realised it was one of the only ways they could secure GF tickets. I did put my name down for the MFC Legends membership waitlist but it was impossible to get 2 or 3 seats together let alone the 7 or 8 seats my family needed so gave up on that. Those are the best seats in the house though, level 2 on the wing in the northern stand. I've signed my kids up for MCC as well about 3 years ago (when they were 7 and 5) and signed myself up at the time but that's likely to be a donation from me as that waitlist is ridiculous, if I'm lucky I'll get a provisional membership when I retire 😵‍💫

If you win the qualifying final you get a home prelim. The only way Port or Brisbane get a home prelim is to win the Qualifying final, the loser gets a home semifinal then away in the Prelim if they win the semi.

Does it every time we play them he is an absolute scumbag, hopefully the club has pointed this out to the AFL. Fairly certain he did it on QB 2022 which contributed to Maxys injury.

The 88 Semi was great, first final I'd been to I believe - I may have gone in 87 but too young to remember. 89 elimination final was good too but not as good as 88, the game wasn't as good, it was at Waverley instead of the G and was an EF rather than a SF. Still good to knock the Pies out of September though.

To leave Viney out shows how clueless they are. He has had a ripper year, easily one of the most consistent mids in the league. Has Josh Daicos really been that good or just caught up in his brother's hype? Serong, Merrett? Come on.

It's a Bigpond issue, we've had similar problems at work with Bigpond not receiving emails.

They'd have to rename the Dom Sheed pocket to the JVR pocket 😉

It ahould be noted that the AFL Reserve is not actually an AFL Members reserve - AFL members have access to the AFL reserve but the AFL also use it for their corporate tickets, medallion club etc which is why they expand it during finals. For example although the reserve holds around 23k only around 13k GF tickets go to AFL members.

I tried this method had two laptops going with 3 browsers on each (1 incognito) all staggered times plus my phone. I got on I think around 12:05 looking for 9 tickets but could only get Q level AFL members. Tried to split the tickets into groups of 4 and 5 but still nothing M level. Was first offered Q26 then Q18, Q23 and finally settled for Q16 cos I was worried it would time out on me and I'd be left with nothing. Spewing beacuse we generally always sit in M18/19 but obviously getting anything was pretty lucky. Lots of people seem to have missed out. There are still MFC member allocation tickets left but only top of level Q, if we play a big team in the finals again I think I'll fork out and go with the MFC members allocation. Can't wait though, absolutely pumped for this game, hopefully we give them a mauling.

Keep trying guys there are still tickets available. I noticed that you can click on "collingwood members" and you can still get tickets so hopefully Collingwood supporters aren't smart enough to choose tickets in the Melbourne allocated bays.

I'll be representing the humans in that zoo (hopefully I can get tix)

Did you use your AFL member barcode?

It is random and if you jump on before 10am you might get through a bit early and can't buy tickets but the 10 minute timer already starts counting so it reduces the amount of time you can get the tickets sorted. This happened to me for Kings birthday and it timed out and kicked me back to the "queue" and had to wait another 10-15 minutes before getting back in.

If Viney doesn't make the 22 that tells you all you need to know about these buffoons. Has had a stellar year, easily our most consistent and influential player, I'll be stunned if he doesn't take home the Bluey.

And the website let members select tickets in opposition allocated bays

We will still be without Petty and Melksham though 🤷

When we last played them they were without De Goey, Sidebottom, Elliott and McStay. We were without Oliver and they have lost Daicos but they will be a different proposition to last time we met.

Have they learnt nothing the last 60 years? They are 4-18-2 in GFs since 1937!

Is he a FA? What would we have to give up for him?

Salary cap probably covered if Grundy leaves? And a potential Hibberd/Melksham retirement? I don't think he's really what we need, I'd prefer some guys with polish/elite kicking skills but he would be an upgrade on a guy like Jordon (who couldn't really crack it in our best 22 anyway).

AFL members tix go on sale at midday and it is going to be a ****show with all games on sale at once. If the site doesn't crash it will be a miracle.

Ok now a question - what did you make of some of the structuring in the first half, particularly allowing Swans +2 and 3 at the contest while we had +2 and 3 behind the ball? Was this due as much to Sydney putting extras around the contest as us putting extras behind the ball? Was it an insight into how we will structure up in September, was it more to do with the length of the SCG or the fact we wanted to play more of a slow, keepings off style in a dead rubber rather than a physical contested game? If the latter it didn't work as it was a bruising affair but a good lead-in to finals (I think a better lead-in than the bruise free training drill the Pies had).

More a comment than a question but how much do you love this team. They never feel out of a game and brute competitors like Viney and Petracca just seem to will things back in our favour when the going gets tough. We may not be the classiest team in the league but we are certainly the toughest and that is something I thought I'd never say as a Demons supporter. I bloody love it.

Like when Collingwood played Richmond on the 2018 prelim? Or Richmond played Geelong in the 2017 QF? Or any number of other instances I'm sure you'd find if you spent more than 5 seconds thinking about it? He's a bloody dill.