deejammin'

Agree to disagree I guess. I see them finishing 10-12 this year and staying outside the 8 next year. What do you reckon?

I’m not so convinced, sure the Hawks appear better than last year (although they won most of their last 5 games with Clarko) but in terms of long term success Mitchell is still relying heavily on an older core of players that are on the way down, the following are carrying them atm and will not be part of their next flag imo: McEvoy(32), Breust (32), Gunston (30), Shiel (32), T Mitchell (29), J O’Meara (28), Impey (28), Wingard (28), Frost (27). These players (with the exception of an injured McEvoy) are all playing close to the Hawks best players to carry the Hawks back to competitive footy. They are not the Hawks future, to the extent Mitchell tried to trade a few of them last trade period and I predict their form will slump this year or injuries will get them, hurtling the Hawks back down for more pain, with less quality draft picks due to the improved performance from this older brigade. It might be wishful thinking but I think Mitchell and the Hawks are in for more pain, the great pretenders!

Love the rebrand! Jumpers nice, not my favourite but good, prefer the short sleeves.

Sure, I guess I don’t see the current top 8 as my end of season top 8. I think the Dogs, Tigers, Giants and even the Power will push to get back in. Pies and Carlton are vulnerable to missing. St Kilda and Geelong will have down periods where they drop away from top 4. Geelong in particular look vulnerable to quick teams, they play GWS, Saints, WB, Port and Adelaide in the next five. We’ll learn a lot about them after that month, despite only 1 opponent in the top 8. I suspect they lose 3, possibly 4, though maybe it’s wishful thinking. I haven’t seen enough Freo to know, but it’s worth remembering they were 6th at this time last year, only to drop 5 spots by years end. Brisbane and Sydney are the real deal, home final will be huge. We need to lock away top 2. I’m hoping we make it to 10-0 with a huge percentage before a very nasty run of games. You may be right, but we’ll see. I see a very close year ahead.

Yep, wins will be like gold this year, the reality is with the exceptions of WC and North every other team is capable on their day. Dogs, GWS, Port, Pies, Hawks, GC, even Essendon, on their day they will win games. We’ve banked 7, keep going and lock away finals ASAP. Then sit back and watch all the other teams tear each other apart. Freo, St Kilda, Carlton are all capable of good footy, but they are also young and will have lapses this year, all teams will, the further in front we get on the ladder the more chance we have to rest players, up training loads for finals and weather covid storms like this week. The AFL media love the week to week stories but the truth is, we are probably 3 wins from locking away finals, 5-6 from locking away top 4 and 8 away from locking away top 2. We’re in the box seat and just need to keep winning.

Undefeated! Nice! Need some mids back for Casey. Hopefully Taj is better, two of Dunstan, Melksham, Bedford, Sparrow and Jordan to join Casey next week health allowing.

Great work from AMW to Baker, nice pass to Chandler, goal. Huge quarter from Chandler!

That was a HUGE push in the back from Baker there. Unpaid, mark to Chandler, hawks dissent, 50, goal. Brilliant!!!

Great mark Tommo!

Super pressure from White. Good goal!

I agree. But he has been the chief opponent for Max during his career, Nic Nat is 3x all Australian, I had forgotten the Eagles won their premiership without him, I thought he was a premiership player. Dean Cox is Max’s chief competition for greatest of the modern era, but I think Max has him covered, particularly if he keeps going and is AA captain again this year.

I’d argue if Jimmy had won a premiership he’d be in the discussion for greatest with Max. Ask the players which they prefer, Brownlow or Premiership captain… Max is clearly the greatest ruckman of the modern AFL era, his competition is Dean Cox, Simon Madden and Nic Nat. The only one troubling him there is Cox imo. And he’ll go past him this year if we keep going. For those complaining about crowd numbers 40000 is not bad at all, pretty good actually, from where I was sitting the gaps were in the Hawthorn cheer squad. 4.35 is a terrible time slot! Finishes late enough to miss dinner and be going home in the dark, for someone who works nights I had to leave at 3 quarter time. But doesn’t gain any advantage by starting so late. 3-6 is a much better time slot.

Was Taj concussed in that clash? It looked a nasty knock and his face was already swollen coming off the ground. I hope he bounces back quickly and doesn’t lose any confidence as he was looking the goods before then.

Very happy with the win. The good: We are now two games + percentage inside the top three, this is really all that matters. Beat the Saints next week with Eagles and North to follow, we could have finals locked away and be as much as 4 games + percentage inside the top 4. We have still never been truly challenged, “scrape home” AFL.com? We were never behind in the last quarter, we were never one goal away from being behind, we were only 2 goals away with 1.30 left in the game, that’s not a scrape, Port vs St Kilda is a scrape. We had 6 of our starting 18 out and we still won, nuff said. Port went 0-5 when confronted with similar outs. The frustrating: I get it but I don’t like the rope-a-dope last quarters. It would’ve been far more fun if we simply kicked straight, (particularly Bailey and Jake), we need to ice games, not try to smash teams and leave ourselves vulnerable, but just kick a sealer. A single goal would’ve completely broken the Hawks, see Sydney last week. We let them keep hope, understandable but frustrating. Our forward line needs to get back to separating and leading, the number of times Brown, Gawn, McDonald and Weideman all jumped into each other, or at least two did was very frustrating. Stop bombing to packs, lead! Ultimately, a wins a win and the Hawks are pretenders. Mark my words, they will fail this year and then get worse next year, Mitchell, O’Meara, Wingard, Gunston, Shiel and Breust are still their best, they’re all on the way out. Enjoy the pain Hawks, there’s plenty to come! 😈😈😈

Yeah, but they only played three quarters against Sydney 😈😈😈

Grainger-Barrass was marked as “managed” in their outs while others were marked omitted, I’d assume that means they think he is best 22 but he is a bit sore or lacking fitness. As you say, Hawks are up and down, their up has been good, I hope we get their down, last quarter against Sydney ideally, for a whole game, I’d love to pay them back for all those thrashings!

It’s easy to forget we were without Lever, Petty, Rivers and Salem(for 3.5 quarters) round 1. Lever, Petty, Salem round 2 and 3. That’s 3-4 players in the same part of the ground. In some ways that should be more difficult to cover than one back, one mid, one forward/ruck and one small forward, as important as they are. We’ve covered incredibly well this year, I’d say the only team truly close to our best 22 was round 5 against GWS, and we all saw how that went. Hopefully we just get the W this week, go 2 games clear plus percentage in the top two and get our best 22 back for St Kilda.

Shiel’s is a good in. Otherwise it’s not the same side that looked so good against the cats. CJ, Mitchell Lewis, Ward, Phillips, Reeves, Grainger-Barass all out of that team. Outs not as talented as our ours, but significant nonetheless.

Petty didn’t train Wednesday so it’s not surprising he also has it. I hope Joel has a cracker. Still a very good side. Hopefully no more illness and a big win. 🤞🤞🤞

The rain may make this more interesting than it would otherwise be. I think there’s two likely scenarios: Standard structure: out: Jackson, Kozzie, Sparrow, Smith in: TMac, Bedford, Viney, Lever, Melksham(sub) Going ‘small’ for the wet: Out: Jackson, Kozzie, Sparrow, Smith In: Melksham, Bedford, Viney, Lever, TMac(sub) In scenario two Gawn and Weideman would ruck with Gawn playing far more ruck than usual, Melksham and Petracca to play the third forward role, Bedford the small forward role. Still have TMac in case a big man goes down. This might be a better option if we get the 35mm some are predicting although if I was betting I’d say we go with our standard structure.

I think I’ve solved the mystery, last week there was a poster of Jack Viney and Shai Bolton to promote the game. Jack out with COVID. This week it’s Kozzie and Sicily…. Need to stop putting blokes on these COVID ridden posters!!

I spy with my little eye: Dunstan, Gawn, Oliver, Smith, May, Baker, Fritsch, Langdon, Melksham, Hunt, Van Rooyen, Harmes, Chandler, Lever, Turner, McVee, Weideman, Hibberd, Rivers, Daw, M Brown, TMac, ANB And interestingly Bedford (picture 19 of 22). Yze said Viney returns tomorrow. Of our best 22 candidates I can’t see Trac (please god no!), B Brown (unlikely, just had it), Jackson, Bowey (Demonland I can’t see him which photo?), Petty, JJ, Sparrow, Kozzie, Spargo, Brayshaw, Tomlinson. I hope it’s our VFL boys (no offence guys), worrying if Bedford has it as it looks like he was there… EDIT: while I was writing Jackson was confirmed.

Good luck to Adem, he inspires great confidence, hope none of our players have got COVID from Goodwin and we go in with a near full team (only Salem out of best 22 atm with Viney and Lever back in). How does not one reporter ask the sentimental question about how it feels to senior coach the club you played for, I think it’s pretty special, hasn’t happened many times for the MFC, last one was Barassi? No instead 15 questions about what Goodwin will do at home 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ Go Oooooze smash those Hawks!!

It’s also important to note the ladder can be quite distorted after 6 weeks depending on who’s played whom, injuries etc. Even last year, a year where the ladder stayed relatively stable, Brisbane were 8th in round 6 having just made their way back into the 8 after early season losses, Freo were 6th, Richmond were 7th, Essendon 12th, GWS 13th, Bulldogs first. In fact no team actually sat where they finished the season inside the eight. The four changed by one team, the eight by two. I would argue this year is even tighter than last, there’s about 6 teams outside the eight that with luck with injuries and hitting their best form could make it. There’s also a number of teams who are vulnerable, Carlton, Hawthorn, Collingwood etc. Also, Melbourne has literally beaten every team in the league except Collingwood over the last year, touching up GWS means the only teams we aren’t currently reigning victors against in the last game are Hawthorn (draw) and Collingwood (please, please beat them this year!). Our early season run is like gold, it’s possible every other place within the eight could change again, with the possible exception of us and the Roos every team looks like they could be upset or upset any other any given week. If we can lock away a 3-game break inside the four over the next three weeks we can just sit back and watch the dogfight, it’s going to be epic!

And he played the first 6 games of 2021 in the twos working on his game and then took his chance when Tomlinson (who was in career best form and had cemented his place in the side) went down with his ACL. Joel is a handy player with many great attributes, but right now he gives away more easy goals and makes more suspect decisions than our best 3 KPD. It’s nothing personal, it’s not whipping boy stuff, but the mistakes he made this weekend made it easy to replace him with Lever, if he wanted to put genuine pressure on Petty/Lever/May/Rivers/Hunt then he needed not to Handball the ball straight to the opposition full forward 30 metres out for no apparent reason…