Pates

That's true but given the nature of the rolling fixture you can make requests for the next run to be kinder based off the way we have been pretty screwed over.

I'd be very happy for us to play two Alice Springs home games back to back. We're no longer giving up any home ground/crowd advantage and Alice is a place we'd be more familiar with than most so I would be strongly advocating it on our end. Very few teams have anything that they can call a home now, maybe we can take advantage of us actually having played there many times.

Haha I want them to suffer as well, but we know the AFL won't be doing that to them so we need to make it at least somewhat appealing to all parties.

It's a damn good question, maybe by being arrogant cheats? But on the subject of them, I think we should apply to the AFL to play Essendon in Alice Springs as THEIR home game and then have our home game vs Freo in Alice afterwards and there are a couple of reasons why this would actually work and make logical sense. There is word that they want to do their fabled "Dreamtime Match" in Darwin. So how about this: * Richmond vs Essendon - Darwin Dreamtime match (Try to arrange a decent break for both teams, not that the AFL ever did that for us!) * Essendon vs Melbourne - Alice Springs, do the make up match in a way that Essendon don't have to do a huge amount of travel onto their next game. They can do clinics to build back their shattered reputation, I'm sure they could find somewhere to base themselves. * Melbourne vs (Unknown) - I say Freo because that's been a common opponent but it could be anybody, we don't have to travel for a week and we get a good chance to stay up there

We can't really say the fixture has been particularly kind to us this year, I feel like we've been a bit more mucked around than most (with the Essendon debacle). But it actually does appear that most clubs fixtures are a mess. I knew we were going to be sent to Tassie against North, just a feeling in my gut. Of course they would never send Richmond, Geelong, Collingwood, or Essendon. On a positive side it actually appears that the GABBA has almost become our defacto "home" which is good for a couple of reasons. Firstly it's close to our base in Maroochydore so we aren't going to be traveling a couple of hours to GC on a bus. Secondly if (as it appears) the finals could be based up in QLD then this is giving us experience on the home ground of potentially one of the main finals contenders. Round 10 and 11 are simply must wins. Work your magic Darren!

“Kangaroos vs Crows Friday Night Footy!?” *Scrunches paper throwing it at him* “You stupid monkey!”

It’s an interesting decision (I assume the club had some kind of say in it) to choose Maroochydore, I guess a familiarity to the location could be a plus rather than having to settle somewhere unknown. Maybe a little isolation factor as well, not being around other Melbourne clubs would eliminate a bit of temptation. 2hr drive to our “home” ground isn’t ideal though.

My main frustration about Oliver is he seems to be working his brain too fast at times and he gets this rush to just handball it off without seeing if the play is in a better position. He burned Smith with it against Richmond when the momentum was swinging our way and cost a goal, he did it to Viney against GC and he was forced into an error, and did it to Max this week with him not even slightly expecting it. He’s still quite young so I’m hoping this will improve, but I’d just like him to take ownership of the ball at times rather than play hot potato.

Things change, 2 weeks ago we were clearly (rated as) one of the worst teams. Not saying it’s completely flipped but teams rise and fall through the year. Still getting the likes of Richmond, WC, Geelong, and Brisbane away early could open up our draw. Even more so if we somehow get the W against the Lions.

There’s two clubs that I’d like to see have an extended time towards the bottom or even just 9th-12th, Hawks and Cats. Purely for the fans, both fans have such an entitlement about them, they have known nothing but finals for so long that “that’s just where they belong”. I’d be wary of writing Clarko off yet but everything comes to an end at some point, I wonder if Clarko will have the stamina to go through a proper rebuild.

Melksham, Hannan, and AvB aren’t getting huge numbers but I feel like most of the time those touches turn into something. The forward line has been working better than we’ve seen since 2018, I’m hesitant to be changing much about it but I can also see them trying to squeeze TMac into the team. I think AvB may be being used as a defensive forward to bring heavy pressure, that sort of this was well and truly on display vs Hawthorn. I can’t see how Tom gets in while LJ plays the game he did on the weekend.

Seeing down the bottom the phone number for Beyond Blue you have to think he took his own life. So sad, only a few years older than me and with so much of life still ahead of him. ?

I only saw the second half so I might well have miss some things: 6 Petracca 5 Gawn 4 Viney 3 Oliver 2 Weid 1 Langdon

I’m not someone who rates Frost as high as any others here but I actually thought he had a decent game today. Seems like he’s chasing lower clubs though! ?

Wouldn’t be against this, if we are to try the 3 tall forward line then one of Fritta, Melksham, or Hannan has to go and on output you’d probably say Melksham. I’m still leaning towards no change though.

I stand corrected!

Gawn was dominant but surely Trac has to get the 3 votes this week. Traditionally I don’t think Max polls massively in the Brownlow.

Scratch matches against other clubs (although I’m not entirely sure one was played this week). Other than that he’ll have to put in some dominant days on the track.

Like others I’d really like to see Tom fight his way back in. LJ played well and looks like he could pull out a cracker of a game at some stage (couple of his marks still aren’t quite sticking), Tom wasn’t in good form prior to his eye injury so I’d like to see them make him play at least one strong game in a scratch match to force his way. No change for me.

This was the point I made earlier, the trade for the pick wasn’t a trade disaster because we gambled on us having a good year. It’s up to the team to make the trade get it’s best return. Kozzie hasn’t been prolific but he’s doing plenty of important things and is clearly getting more confidence in himself.

It must be hurting Saints fans seeing how well he’s playing. We’ve had a few early draft burns but Trac looks to be what we’ve been crying out for.

I liked seeing it from him, we were 48 points up and cruising but he didn’t like seeing that passage of play and that says he’s not interested in seeing the team coast. He wants them playing right the entire game.

He’s improving and now starting to have more confidence in his kicking, but still gives off these dinky little handballs that do nothing. He sold Max into trouble with one in the last quarter and the look on his face was priceless. Didn’t even consider he would go to Max when Clarry had the momentum out of the backline. Thankfully Gawn is a quality player and made it work (to a point).

I only managed to see the second half, but what really pleased me was in the third quarter Hawthorn were getting momentum and confidence but we responded and hit them harder. Viney and Gawn were huge in that 5min patch where the game could go either way. But Petracca, wow. He has to be considered one of the form players of the competition right now. Even when we weren’t getting the wins he was still playing well. He keeps going to another level, this week importantly his kicking was a lot better. Absolutely stoked for Weids, 3 goals, could’ve had 4 but for his wobbly last shot. I said leading into the match I’d love to see him kick 3+ goals and have a good outing. Maybe some day we’ll find out why it took so long for Goodwin to play him, but I’m just really enjoying seeing him taking his chance. It was also interesting that the commentators were discussing how Gawn came to be the player he is with a breakout game vs Geelong while Sam was on screen. They ended up talking about Petracca but I was thinking as a big man it was more relevant to Sam. Max worked hard and took his chance when it came, perhaps we’ll be saying the same about Sam in a few years time. Great win, great for our percentage. I can’t imagine we’ve been above 100 since 2018. Hopefully this is the start of something.

Tigers are missing a few players as well, North should surely be under the spotlight this week. More I look at the ladder the more I think this week could make/break our year. I know we have a game in hand vs Essendon but there’s still the psychological aspect of being planted down the bottom which hurts.