Pates

One thing I learned watching our dismal round one performance is that I have a new found respect the the Lions, Hawks, Cats, and Swans teams that were so dominant for so long. It’s a credit to their list, and fitness staff that they were able to hit the ground running every year. Now that I’ve swallowed that little bit of vomit that came up from praising the Hawks here’s my two cents. We are clearly suffering from having one of the most interrupted preseasons of any of the so called contenders. We looked off our feet walking into the rooms at half time and while we had that burst in the 3rd quarter it didn’t last very long. Ultimately it showed that most key players were underdone, particularly our captains who were terrible. Jones’s drop at the start of the third quarter was the game, it was inexcusable and the team looked shot from there. Salem is the only player who can hold his head up that he gave a complete performance. The good news, it’s only round one and there’s next week for redemption with May coming in.

May comes in for Frost and I hope that’s the last we see of him getting a game for the seniors. Lewis for Hore I think Pruest might get a game on the back of Gawn getting roughed up, it won’t surprise me if that becomes a theme for poor Maxy this year. Maybe Sparrow for Pruest? Salem is the only one I could honestly say played a complete game, his class was a cut above. Everyone else should be given a swift kick up the bum starting with Petracca, it’s time he delivered.

What was de goey thinking!?

He’s a fantastic player but the way the he plays for free kicks is disgusting. The only thing that makes it worse is the umpires pay them. That was a good tackle from Varcoe.

It was a strange cheap shot from Niall, given the club has been nothing but supportive over his time at Melbourne and there have been few incidents that have been picked up by the media to the negative of him as a Demon you would very easily argue that we had in fact been the ones helping him keep some of his demons at bay. Poor editorial comment and based on nothing.

I'm picturing this being a scrappy game that should we win (and I'm confident of that) it won't be the prettiest win. A good start in front of the game crowd will do us a world of good, hopefully they can get that form we had vs GWS in the final H&A match last year. I don't think I've seen us that clinical against a top 8 team for a long time.

I think you might be misunderstanding what some of the posters on here are saying, the mental health side of him would've been well known to them and it must have been a factor in making the decision to move him on/let him go. They may have weighed up the facts that the increasing scrutiny around him factored with his mental health would contribute to negative or distracting media attention that could bring additional issues on the club. They would also have weighed up the belief that getting him back to Perth would be the best thing for him and allow us to facilitate a trade. To think that we would dismiss it entirely is ridiculous. For Jesse I hope he's able to work through his issues, it's hard to think of another young player that's gone through so much emotional upheaval at such a young age, and at some stage that rollercoaster was always going to take its toll.

Silly act for JLT but soft decision when you look at others. That has to hold up for the rest of the year now as the standard. Is what it is.

My interest level for AFLX is extremely low BUT if the AFL were interested in it having interest the best way I could see it happening is to have it as a State of origin deal and it moves location every year so each state gets to host it. Would at least get some more interest from the random South Australian that hates Victoria. These teams names and they way they're marketing it is so incredibly cringe worthy. It's like a parent trying to hard to connect with their kids.

The zones at restarts I think could see a return of more resting ruckman, with tall timbre forward and no extra man you would think the ability for there to be direct scores from the restart will increase. I didn't know about the prior opportunity change from the ruck for me that's a huge error, what's to stop a player just grabbing it immediately to be tackled just to eat away the clock. Also feel like the nomination part should've been removed. If you have one from each team then why do they need to nominate?

I admit I was unsure about him prior to his return. A lot of people had him in their best 22 and I couldn't see why as I thought we had enough of his body type. I was definitely wrong, he's got a competitiveness that is immeasurable and was a huge part of our late surge. Given what he was able to achieve without much preparation and so much time out of the game last year, he could make a big difference to our team with a good pre-season.

He's one I'm really looking forward to watch progress, if he can get around the 30 goal mark and become a valuable link man whilst continuing the type of second efforts we saw in the Cats game he will be a great asset to the team. More than anything it sounds like he's got the confidence to step out and take this opportunity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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! ?

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! ?