Pates

I wasn't cheering, but I wasn't unhappy either. In fact I think I was laughing at the fact the players were working off a different script to the rest of us. We've come a long way, interestingly though Carlton are still a rabble. ?

Whatever you think of Hawthorn no one wants to see the best players sidelined no matter who they play for, particularly such a serious injury. Really sad for the bloke.

Weid and Petracca could well hold a big part of our hopes next year, we are still yet to see Trac reach his potential and if he does it means the same difference as to what Martin did for Richmond. While Weid is going to have quite a bit more pressure on him next year to back up his last couple of H&A games plus his BOG performance vs Geelong. If he does though it gives us another marking presence to take the pressure off TMac. The big thing that impressed me about his return to the team was his 2nd and 3rd efforts, I think it was in the Geelong game that he made a mistake but absolutely smashed the Geelong player with a crunching tackle afterwards. As for the media pumping us up, I must admit I don't like it. But it's time to accept where we are, we are a contender and that comes with added pressure.

It’s a pretty shocking thing to happen, there’s a lot more openness about mental health issues amongst players but here still must be so many that suffer in silence. The public and the media have to be very careful at times, there have been occasions where someone has come out saying they have mental health issues and commentators have said stuff like “it’s a get out of jail free card”. Unless you know the person, you don’t know [censored]. I hope Majak gets the help he needs and is able to recover from this, sadly it has come just as his footy career was really starting to take off. Perhaps the pressure of having to back up a promising year contributed.

This is the first I’ve visited D-Land for a while and it’s fascinating to see that there’s still so much interest in Jesse. I had a couple of days feeling a bit unsure of whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, good trade vs bad trade, but now he’s just another opposition player now.

Totally agree, I would’ve like to have seen the club try to address that with the draft but perhaps they have someone earmarked for that role within the club. Garlett had a horrifically bad season but the magic is still in there and hopefully a new season will give him a chance to exorcise his demons. I’m liking the look of the team, we’ve taken a gamble that Weids will build on his late form of 2018 but the addition of May will hopefully go a long way to fixing our issues in defence. Round 1 can’t come sooner!

What a ridiculous and torturous idea to put it over two nights, idiotic idea just get the thing done.

I understand the arguments for it, particularly from the point of view if interstate sides, but it just feels wrong. It all builds to one single day at the MCG, it’s not a hidden fact it happens every year, you bring it that day (as West Coast did this year) or you don’t (Adelaide last year). Putting it over three weeks begs certain questions for me: - is it Home leg, Away leg, Neutral leg over the three matches? - if a team has already won by the second game is the third match called off? - not suggesting this happens but a tactic could be game one the away team decides to target critical players for game one to make them unavailable for the other 2 games? I would also argue that if the two teams playing were Victorian it immediately makes the whole thing pointless. I also feel it loses the title “Grand Final”.

Jeez what a talent Jurrah was. ? EDIT Although watching the first half he wasn’t on this game!

I think that sums it up, our success towards the end of year means we have a tougher draw, it means we are now judged against the best. Making the G a fortress is critical, we have to make teams fear playing us at home, we also can't allow anymore slip ups against lower teams. Target top 4 to get the double chance and go from there.

Would be the strangest thing for him to leave next season, he helped build where we are now and he's been given the daunting task of completing the job. Wouldn't make any sense for him to leave.

I always found it ironic that when Yze wore the long sleeve he'd roll the sleeves up. I'd like to see a revival of the long sleeve though, even potentially for pre-season a rugby style top.

I think we've finally actually got the colour mixture right for our home jumper, the navy blue is so dark it's nearing black but still clearly blue and the red is a proper blood red to contrast with it. Keep the redback for the away/alternate strip.

I enjoyed going to that game as well, gutted we didn't win (and we were royally screwed by the umps that day) but it was a cracker or a game. I would go back there again and encourage others to make the trip south.

The thing I don't like about selling the game is that it's two games we've lost home ground advantage. Particularly against someone like the Eagles we've given up a significant advantage.

We’re not being forced to play in the NT, they’re a major partner of ours that contributes a lot into our coffers. That said I also wish we could move on from it, or reduce it to 1 match a year alternating between Darwin and Alice.

Two schools of thought on the round one fixture vs Port. Positive side: - home game to start the year (always what you want) - against an interstate team provides greater opportunity for a win - potentially fly under the radar a little bit which can be good early in the year Negative side: - shafted commercially to start to year makes us less attractive to sponsors, 1pm timeslot is a dead timeslot on pay TV - though an interstate team against us at the G provides a great opportunity for a win, I would prefer kicking the year off against a tough Melbourne team to get us in the big game frame of mind. A loss could also get us front and centre for a bollocking from the media - AFL (and us) have missed a really good opportunity to build on what a great round one we had last year. Great crowd, two Vic teams, traditional rivals, we played two ripper games and a final with 90k+. I would’ve thought Cats v Dees Saturday arvo/night would be a great thing to build on

I’ll admit I was initially a little underwhelmed by his acquisition essentially for Jesse but the more I hear from him and see him in action I realise we are probably better off. We’re a high scoring but have shown a vulnerability to the larger forwards of the comp. Really looking forward to seeing him in Red and Blue next year.

If we can get Hunt to increase his work rate then I think a forward/winger role is something I’d love to see him in. He had X-factor in 2017 and kicked some great goals, I think he even had one game (from memory against Adelaide) where he played the second half as a forward and really showed something. I just can’t see a role for him down back now, unless Lewis goes down but even then I wouldn’t think he’d be the best choice to replace him. Mahoney stated early in the trade period the Hunt was not someone they were looking to move on so clearly the club still sees a future for him.

I found the Barrett's "sliding doors" description of our trade period very interesting. Obviously he is a fan of how we handled ourselves and in particular Mahoney. While Damo is hardly the top dog when it comes to opinions (particularly around these parts) it's an interesting point of view. I felt that declaring essentially Hogan for May was tipping his hand too early but one thing it did do was that it made other clubs plan for us getting May and left things as a simple equation for GC. "Mahoney controlled the trade period" is a big statement to make, I certainly wouldn't have said it but it flies in the face of many opinions on here that he caved to Freo. If he hasn't already I think he's tipping us for the flag next year. EDIT: Just noticed it had already been posted! ?

I hope so, maybe he had personal issues we knew nothing about this year. His drop in form was sudden and horrific. A new pre-season and new year to impress, one thing is for sure we don’t have crummers that create like what WC have with Rioli and Ryan. We have Spargo who goes pretty well for a young small bloke, Hannan who’s form fluctuates a lot, the likes of Nibber who works hard enough, but no one with any magic. Garlett has had that in the past, love to see it again.

A big round 1 match vs either the Pies or Geelong is definitely something the AFL needs to make happen. We’ve shown we can get the supporters through the gates and I’m predicting given we were the highest scoring team for the year channel seven will want more games fo us for the pure fact it gets the adverts out there. Speaking extremely selfishly I really want lots of night games purely because it’s so much better for me to watch overseas!

In: Gus, Harmes, TMac Out: Hoges, Hunt, Daisy I’d day add Goody I’m there as well but I don’t know if there’s much of an iconic look he has that could be turned into a caricature. I reckon Gawny gets a shift closer to the middle as well! ?

One thing I’ve wanted for a while but never seems to happen. Home game at the G vs Essendon, the ALWAYS seem to get the home game vs us. It’s actually getting ridiculous now.

I know the selection committee seem to rate Oscar over Frost but I think those two fighting for the second KP defender is going to be interesting to view. Frost definitely adds something with his pace, and his disposal improved a lot last year as well so I can see him getting quite a few games in 2019. Preuss will be very interesting to watch how they use, lots of commentators were shocked that he chose to come to Melbourne when he’s going to be behind Max. Personally I think the club has a very clear idea about how they will use him next year and I won’t be surprised to see us play two rucks with either one of them spending time forward. Max is happy and that makes me happy!