PaulRB

The Footy Gods were never going to let us have an easy comfortable finals, but I'm hoping the team have been hardened and motivated by the horror of the last week and are on for the first, of three, steps to redemption and the holy land. I'm visualising a energised and prolific Demons coming out tonight and putting a collective shiver up the spines of both the Lions and the Pies, while putting the Blues to the sword. Go Demons

A related aspect to Maynards cowardly assault on Gus is the impact it had on us winning that final, and the impact it may have on us in this finals series. Both detrimental. So if the AFL is serious about stamping this out, they should be considering a "sin-bin" rule where if a player is concussed in a manner that is reportable then the reported player is removed from the playing field (subbed out) for as long as the injured player is... After that hit, Maynard should not have been able to continue to play in that game. The fact he did, while Gus didn't, was impactful on the team (Melbourne) that didn't break the rules (and spirit) of the game. Still fuming. Go Dees

Give them another 25 years in the wilderness, and lets see how those figures hold up...?

I'm confused as only 36 players are in their list of 44 in the squad...?

Would North have any interest in Grundy? Goldy, is 35 and slow. Could we offer Pick 5, 16 + Grundy for Harley Reid..?

Clarko said they’d (Norf) be up for a trade to build their list. In delightful Clarko speak, he pondered “how many no#1 draft pick have won a flag? …. Three”. So everything is on the table.

This is a team designed not for this week, but the QF most likely vs Pies. I like it. Go Demons..!

Epic game! Well done Aussie ladies!!! 👊💥👊

The pie are strutting off… [censored]-a-hoop! Firmly in the “if it’s not Melbourne, then anyone but Collingwood.” Camp. the 2018 GF almost wiped the pain of the prior eeek/week.

Are the cats cactus yet?

Love that we have an AA quality mid in Clarry, and AA quality ruck in Grundy coming into a midfield/clearance group that is already humming. We should be able to maintain the momentum for longer, and simply grind teams down with high quality intense contested footy for all four quarters. Feels like we’re very well positioned as the season turns toward the final straight. Clarry to have a monster game…

Kayo sux

Dons gone…

I have a theory about our team, that we need a genuine challenge in order to become fully engaged in the game, and if/when fully engaged for 4 quarters we are hard to beat. In our losses this season we’ve either dropped intensity due to an incident during game (I.e Max’s injury) or just not been fully aroused (I.e vs Port). fingers crossed the element align this arvo, and we play to our full potential for 4 quarters and if the Pies do likewise, we see an epic game of footy… ❤️🏆💙

I don’t understand why, the point, of comparing Watts and Jefferson… And how one can compare a full AFL career (Watts) with a kid yet to play a single game… in a differed era… with a different development program… into a different team. But, despite all that, I’ll play along, and say Jefferson will be a better key position forward than Jack was.

Salem, if fully fit and ready to play, should come in for Turner vs Hawks. In form he's a top 10 player for us, would we bring Viney or Fritta back via the Magoos?

It feels like we are much more comfortable having the opposition win stoppages, as long as they are under intense pressure when they dispose, as we trust our ability to create a turnover / transition / score from it. While every team is seeking "clean" stoppage clearance, it may be that a "dirty" stoppage clearance is very similar to a "dirty" stoppage opposition clearance, given our ability to win back the ball from an opposition"dirty" clearance, and transition it to our advantage.

With 10 min to go in the last, we were surging, playing hard intense football, repeat forward entries, had them on the ropes, and were looking at a 3-5 goal win. But then the GC player was injured, we lost a bit of interest, cooled down, and they came back into the game. Was similar last week when we came out in the first absolutely flying, a North player was injured (badly) and we dropped our intensity a notch. We're a team whose emotional intensity can be impacted positively (think Max or Kozzie lifting our intensity) or negatively (think Max going down, and these injury breaks in play). That said, went we're on, we'll beat most teams in the competition, and despite losing our focus in the last we still held on to win. Lessons to be learnt which will help us in the push to claim another flag.

Assuming BBB is OK, I'd suggest one of McVee or Piggy would make way for Kozzie. With Harrison Petty likely to return down back as well.

Hey Lucifer, appreciate your opinion, and you may well be correct. But I was more curious as to what the data would say, rather than everyones opinion or their personal interpretation of it... personal bias and all that. If we combined the "loading theories and practices" being discussed throughout the last 2 seasons, with a breakdown of the draw fixture using statistical methods (rather than simply scanning for data points that confirm our established beliefs) i think we may find there are some insights that would be interesting. I.e. does our fixture support an optimal loading program? which team has best fixture when loading is factored in? etc...

Any data scientists out there? I'd be curious to know the correlation (or not) between ease of the draw and end of season ladder position and flags won. It would appear that a critical element in terms of generating a favourable September, is the draw, with both which teams you play, and when you play them potentially decisive in determining the likely results at the end of the year. If there is a correlation, and the analysis of draw difficulty from Champion data (above) is accurate, then we are in for a good year in 2023..! Especially noting that those we'd likely meet in finals are in the top 5 (with the exception of Geelong).

Watched those 7 goals that turned the game from mid 3rd quarter to end of 3rd q and Jackson would be 5th most important, and several of the centre goals Luke was ineffective, but our mids still got it back... I recommend watching it again. Just for pure enjoyment of it.