bing181

Amongst the dross Tom McDonald didn't do much wrong. One of the few bright lights in a disappointing performance.

"Shane McAdam continues to work through a hamstring injury, taking positive steps forward re-joining the main group. “Shane is beginning to integrate into training with the team,” Griffith said. “He’ll continue to train with the group as we build him into being available for selection in the coming weeks.”"

"could miss approximately 12 weeks with a detached ACL along with PCL damaged" Also Jon Ralph: Fremantle says Oscar McDonald needs PCL surgery. The surgeon will also review his ACL while he is in there. Just rotten lock for the former Demon and Blue.

Given the team we have out there, newbies, crocks and kids in what is already a makeshift backline, plus an underdone Petty, (also missing Brayshaw ....), they're doing OK against a top 4 team away.

Petty gone, BBB and McDonald retired ... going to be "interesting" next year up forward.

Naming Petty says a lot about the state of BB and his knees. If BB always needs backup, I’d rather an underdone Petty than a fully fit Schache any day.

Perhaps brush up on Royal Titles - how you get them (gift from the Queen in this case) and how you lose them (you don't - requires an act of parliament for starters). As for the rest, Piers Morgan would be proud of you.

Nice win, great to see new/emerging players stepping up, but amongst it all: - Salem isn't yet entirely convincing as a mid - Sparrow? This was supposed to be the year he took the next step. To finish with a positive: great management of Max, running him in shorter bursts with frequent breaks. Smart.

Or it's an admission that some players who would have been selected weren't ready (coming back from injury), or were suspended. Add to that forced changes (Bowey) and it's easy to see how you get to 5 ins/outs.

And straight into Freo's 22 for their first game. Good luck to him.

Pin this post so whenever anyone brings up the L word it can be referred to. There is no in-season loading in team sports like AFL.

The chance of one becoming available, yet alone being able to get the deal done, are minimal at best. Or to put it another way, how many proven tall forwards have been traded in recent years? Jacob Koschitzke? Mabior Chol?

Maybe it's not Stafford. Maybe it has something to do with the players available. Just a thought ...

This is just delusional. We had one great season when everything worked, where we had basically no injuries and where McDonald and Brown were strong contributors. Since then, the list has fallen off a cliff, we have no key forwards worthy of the name for the moment - JVR can be, but he should only be taking the 2nd or 3rd defender, not coming up against the best in the league every week - beyond Lever and May we're playing kids or journeymen in the backline, Petty who held that same backline together alongside Lever/May is nowhere to be seen, we've lost Brayshaw, Langdon is a shadow of his 2021 self, Melksham is the nearest we have to a forward-line general and he's out of action ... you could go on and on. You cannot take player after player out of a team and expect there to not be consequences.

It’s not an awesome list, far from it. I just don’t understand how people can keep trotting this out when the evidence to the contrary is there before us every week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_effect

Apart from all the points mentioned here, my 2 takeaways were: - If Max goes down we are well and truly rogered - come next year’s trade period, we are going to need to sign a new full back, whatever it takes

Devastating news. For him, for his family, for the club - don't think re the latter enough are grasping the seriousness of this. Angus was one of the keys to our success (such as it was) last year, and I for one have no doubt that the outcome of that final would have been different without him having been taken out in such brutal fashion. On a footy level he'll forever be fondly remembered for his place in our golden year because I don't see us repeating it in the near future. Losing him is just a step too far, we already had a lot against us in terms of injuries etc but now this ... Devastating news.

Yes, because mature rucks never get injuries.

Upside? Having experienced, senior players around is a key part of developing for the future. We should be thankful that we still have players like Melksham and BBB around. And no doubt the club is.

Plus Billings. FD on top of what the shortcomings have been and traded in accordingly. Much as we love our mids, none of them are great disposers of the ball.

Sorry, but doesn't sound like Jack Viney - much as we love him of course.

He will already have served 3 months by the time there's a ruling. But the club still has to have its 2 cents, so internal consequences (match ban?) coming you'd think.

The fact that most of the players we’ve brought in are forwards speaks volumes as to where the FD think we are.

The fact that he has played actual games in the actual AFL would tend to contradict that I would have thought.