Pates

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.

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.