John Crow Batty

Strong chrysanthemum tea for me to ensure I stay chilled throughout the game or else the tension will be unbearable. I have a special bottle to crack open if we win the GF. A bottle of 1900 vintage Madeira wine. Made the year we won our first flag. Owned it for 4 decades and now worth about 3 grand. But what the heck, I cant think of a better time to drink it.

Tick, tick, tick, tick………..

He’s been VFL standard all season as well as the last.

Playing Jones as Sub will be a massive gamble. Will be a huge liability if needed early and doubtful he could play out the game. Not versatile enough to fill any hole and slowness will kill us. Jordan or Melksham offer far more.

0 to 1ml is by bugger all. Not enough to worry a pommy’s towel. If it rains in Perth it will be localised showers. Its a 5% chance any rain will hit Optus during the game. Conversely I believe ideal conditions suit us more. The Cats always have done exceptionally well in inclement weather at home

According to The Age 12,000 tickets will be available to each clubs members.

The Age are saying we are making a old play for Cerra. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/demons-make-a-bold-play-for-young-freo-star-cerra-20210908-p58pyd.html

If someone not connected to the club or players hears whispers then it’s OK to post this kind of escaped intelligence but if someone has access to privileged information because of some relationship to the club or players then best to shut up and avoid hinting. It’s like a breach of trust.

OK, what if Gawn or Oliver get injured and we do get tho win the GF? No reward for all their efforts to get us there over the season?

People forget that Hibberd kept Buddy to nil scores earlier this season. Only the 5th time it’s happened to Buddy in over 300 games. He is a dependable defender against potent forwards.

Ratugolea won’t do much damage other than get the ball to ground. It’s a responsibility for small defenders to clean up at ground level.

He did the same a few games earlier and still played on with no ill effect.

Lockdowns will be a thing of the past once 80-85% vaccination rate is achieved by the end of the year.

The next 2 years at Freo rather than the remaining 2 at Brisbane are likely worth at least a half million dollars extra for Neale.

Certainly Neale going back to Freo will make a Cerra move more easily done but I would be extremely disappointed if I were a Brisbane fan. Am I being a bit cynical? Highly rated player goes to struggling unfashionable club on huge 5 year front loaded contact but wants to go back home after 3 years. Like he’s already eaten the caviar, steak and gravy for 3 seasons but now has to eat hamburger mince and beans for the next 2. Family reasons are stated with emphasis on wife pregnancy and lockdowns. Soon we will have 80% vaccine rates and lockdowns will almost certainly be a thing of the past and moot. If he reneges on final 2 years it is most likely he would earn more than a half million extra for those 2 years at another club. Reminds me of the Ablett Jnr saga.

Theirs is Rapunzal, ours is Cinderella.

They shut down our key forwards and we shut theirs down then we are likely to outscore them easily through other channels.

Just watched the replay of the last quarter of last nights game. It was like “wow”. Brought back bad memories of our Adelaide game. I’m now convinced the umpiring fraternity is throughly corrupt. Dodgy decisions for the dogs, non decisions for the lions aplenty make a inequitable 10-2 free count at the death. The worst and most blatant decisions at critical moments. I’m starting to fear the umpires as our biggest challenge going ahead.

It’s a great record but corrupted by the insane home ground advantage afforded them by only playing weak and interstate sides over there and the outlier non standard ground shape which makes it very difficult for visiting sides to adjust to especially when bad weather is present. No other side has those advantages. Virtually guarantees them a finals spot every season. It was surprising they were not required to make the ground more standard size during redevelopment.

Wasn’t even mentioned in the commentary. Three wise monkey approach.

We should get a full house next week. Optus is a fantastic stadium and a pleasure to attend games there. Still no MCG but light years ahead of Docklands for spectator ambience.

Geelong stepping training this morning to play us.

The barometer may be real. The Lions have an 8-0 record this season with him starting and not the sub.

Imperative we dominate centre clearances. At our last meeting when Geelong had centre clearance control they were able to service their potent forwards due to 6-6-6. They only hurt us when they had a 20 minutes purple patch in the middle. If we check that it will be hard for them to score consistently with their static forward movement from defence with our structure. Parfitt out is a bonus.

Looking forward to see a lot of hammies and suspensions for the winner of this game.