Dr. Gonzo

And the supporters od. Let's rip that monkey off the back this year.

Commentators didn't even pick it up. Apparently was "fantastic use of the body" by Martin. Well, I guess the hands are part of the body 🤷🏽

Seems like really poor/desperate decision making to me. You just can't take in half a dozen underdone/injured players into a final. One or two you might be lucky and get away with it but 5 or 6? Nah Doesn't really make sense long term either - so Maxy plays the SF and we scrape home, what are the chances he gets up for the Prelim? We torched Brisbane during H&A without Gawn with Jackson playing one of his best games for the club. Hindsight and all that but hopefully the coaches and match committee have learnt from their mistakes.

Death, taxes and Cotchin getting off at the tribunal

In a practice game 🤦

Didn't Viney get suspended for that a year or two back?

He helps get us another flag and thats how you'd treat him!

Exactly I think we should follow the NFL model. 4 year rookie contracts with 5th year options and ability to franchise tag players. Clubs have the option to cut rookies after 2 or 3 years without any penalty. The trade off is once their rookie contracts/5th year options are up they become FA's for life, not just at the end of that contract (assuming they are not franchise tagged).

McVee for Chandler

We look like a finely tuned outfit ready for round 1. Players fit as fiddles and running in top of the ground. Let's hope we still look like that in 6 months, we will be very hard to knock off. Can't wait for the season to start.

We had Petracca, Oliver, Viney in our midfield unit when we bottomed out in 2019 after making a prelim. Freo lost a few but players last offseason that could see them struggle and some of their key players have had trouble staying on the park in recent years. I think they'll regret seeing Mundy off. Could they finish top 4? I think they could but I could also see a situation where they bottom out completely before rebounding to challenge for a flag. They'll have to be pretty bad to out-suck North, Hawthorn, Saints, Essendon etc but stranger things have happened.

I dunno, covid lockdowns may have had some impact on players views of living in Melbourne. What do you reckon?

Is there anyone in the industry besides Pickett who is out of contract at the end of 2023?

I never saw the great man but always envisioned Michael Voss as a modern day (well, back when he was a player) RDB. Hopefully Voss doesn't find the same success at Carlton that the great man did.

From a Melbourne perspective the Ponsford thing doesn't bother me. We wouldn't fill it anyway so it doesn't really impact us. If we get to the stage where we can pull big home crowds then it will be an issue (as it is and should be for Richmond) but until then let them have it. What annoys me though is they get the home change rooms regardless of whether it's a home game or not. Might seem like a small/insignificant thing but if it is then why do they request it? It's a mindset that they are the home club regardless of fixture so in effect they are getting 14 home games a year with the Ponsford seating/change room deal. Good on them for being able to wrangle that but surely it's time the MCC put a stop to it. Oh and by the way Eddie Collingwood members did not build the southern stand, AFL members were the ones contributing funds to help build it.

To be fair this is balanced out by playing at home most years in round 1. I think we've only ever played interstate twice in round 1.

What about Russian Mafia??

Hopefully we tell them to get stuffed. Disgraceful organisation.

I think Petracca's problem is he tries to be too methodical. He slows it up and that means it's harder to guide the ball down to his foot as he is moving too slowly. His natural kicking action is ok and his field kicking is often sublime so he just needs to translate that to his goal kicking.

Max, Gus, Trac, Viney etc were all there at different autograph stations. The queues were long but what can you do? Meant it was hard to get to more than one table (unless you had people lining up in a few queues). My kids got Trac, TMac and Charlotte Wilson's sigs and they were pretty stoked with that. Wanted to get to Kozzy, Max & Viney too but didn't have time, it took us almost the whole hour lining up for Petracca and TMac.

Well I take every opportunity to correct them, always happy to help lift the nation's education standards 🤣

If their employer let's them.

Yes I think Essendon left Windy Hill in 1992 and played at the G until moving to Docklands in 2000.

Yep I was talking about Richmond - sorry for the confusion. On another note I had to educate a Richmond supporter at work a year or so back when she was going on about the MCG and didn't even realise that we had been there well before Richmond! She wasn't a young lass either, I mean Punt Rd is right there, did she think it was just a training venue??