deejammin'

#spoonmatle I believe! (How on Earth did we lose to them?! As Gawny says we really need a mulligan for that game)

The umpires are so one-sided towards Brisbane in this game it’s shameful!

If it hadn’t got so close late I wanted to start a mighty ducks style “quack quack quack” chant in Ed’s honour, sadly Max and Maysie dropped those marks and they kicked goals so I was too nervous to try it.

Or Salem who last played in last year’s finals campaign before coming back in on great form in recent weeks. If Petty is fit he plays seniors, don’t know where or for who though…

Agree with you 100% except we got within 4 points of Port in Adelaide. Sorry, I’m a pedant!

If GWS and WB can win the next two I think we’re home. Freo would struggle to rebound from that and a top 7 pick could be back on the cards. Particularly if Sydney and the Blues get a run on at some point. Go Giants!!! (Eewww I feel dirty saying it). If only we’d rocked up and besten Freo! Argh! They’d be 12th-14th and we’d be on for pick 4,5 or 6. Dammit!!!

Yes it’s rubbish we play Geelong at Geelong every year, yes it’s rubbish no where near the number of fans that would’ve attended will be there (I’d suggest this game gets 50k at the G next week), but let’s just win! Should Geelong lose to Port and then us then their game against Sydney in Sydney becomes a de facto elimination final with Geelong as many as three games out of the eight! It would be simply beautiful to put them out of contention. I think this was part of the reason for our angst after the Freo game, we had the chance to put them down where they belonged, we’ll still make top 4 but Freo outside the 8 when we have their picks would’ve been simply stunning. Let’s do it to Geelong! I’m waiting for the injury report before even trying for selection. Atm Spargo out Oliver in looks likely, Bowey, Petty, let’s see if there’s a mystery injury of the week, hopefully not but it would make selection easier…

That’s a narrative they create purely because they don’t like us. We are on track for record average attendees (43210, 1100+ per game on our previous best, even in spite of playing Essendon in Adelaide) and home attendance (52367). We are 6th in the league for average attendance and 3rd for home attendance (although a few teams are a game behind). Our membership is closest to 9th in the league so in terms of our fans turning up we punch well above our weight, but according to the football media and some on here we “never rock up”. Never let the truth get in the way of a good beat up!

I’d have Hogan, Bedford and Jackson back. Hogan and JVR would be a formidable setup. Both great marks and mobile.

Couldn’t this be manipulated though? If the red card is reliant on the player being out for the game medical teams might keep a player off if they know it would take an opposition star out of the game? If Hewitt had been fine but the WC medical staff knew DeGoey comes out of the game if they err on the side of caution wouldn’t this be a worry? DeGoey shouldn’t have done it to begin with but the AFL is already so bad at the MRO with the benefit of time and multiple angles, I shudder to think what mistakes could be made in the moment, especially if results are reliant on team’s own parochial medical staff being impartial.

He was listed as two to three weeks last Monday, 29/5. That makes King’s birthday Monday 12/6 exactly two weeks. Now it’s a long shot, there’s no mention of him returning in Goody’s presser for example. But if 2-3 was indeed true then there’s a chance he’s available this week. Otherwise we’ll have him cherry ripe after the bye. It’s probably wishful thinking to have him back for KB but it’s not insane, it’s within the stated timeline.

In that case I think just the two changes but I’m holding out fools hope.

In: Oliver, Petty, Hibberd Out: Bowey (concussion), Harmes (Susp), Tomlinson Chandler to sub.

Pies have had five ugly games. Should’ve lost to Adelaide and Essendon, pulled it out of the fire with some skill, but also some luck. They weren’t good today, WC are as putrid as it gets and they were clearly the better team for the better part of half the game. Pies were also far from convincing against North, particularly in the last quarter. Brisbane also smashed them, the only thing keeping them in that game at all was BT’s bleating commentary. They’re the best team in the league, but they’re not perfect. Pies are 1-1 (one at home, one away) against fellow top four teams. We’re 0-2(both away). Beat them and our records are the same where it matters. Bring it on.

Wins a win. Realistically if we’d kicked straight against Freo or Fritta had kicked his usual around the corner goal against Port we’d be in a great position. As it stands we’re a game plus percentage inside the four with a real chance to test ourselves next week. We haven’t hit our best form at all this season yet, but we’ve also not had our best team on the park yet. Oliver, Hibberd are MASSIVE ins, if we get Petty back then that’s our best 22 (minus Bowey). I liked the look of the JVR, Smith, Fritsch, Resting Ruck forwardline. Especially as it lets Petty come into the backline for Tomlinson when he’s fit. Let’s give it a few weeks. Salem is getting back to his best, McVee is a gun, Lever was back to his best, Maysie looking better. Gus playing better. Hunter and Ed looked good. Gawny finally found form in the last and Trac and Viney are huge. I get the frustration, that should’ve been a ten goal win, Fritsch, Chandler, Gawn and Rivers missing multiple easy shots killed us. But we won and when we finally click it’s going to be scary. Bring on the pies.

The good news is if that’s a week DeGoey is a month!!! Bad luck for Harmesy but I think given Oliver’s impending return and JJ and Woey showing a bit in the VFL he was going to have this week off anyway.

Hey now, hey now, the dreeeam is over!

Jefferson regularly plays 2nd key forward, with BBB number one and Smith and Melksham working up the ground. He’s developing nicely but it lets us protect his body which is not JVR’s and needs to build to be capable of footy with men. Woewodin and Laurie play plenty of midfield time and Howes is being trained as a HBF, a role he shows a lot of promise in because of his marking. They’re all developing nicely, if anything we need Munro back in the middle to add another rotation, not less mids.

No

I like the sound of Woey debuting if true. He’s looked good at VFL level. I think he’ll rotate the mid/wing Hunter role with Jordon. Woey’s been very good at VFL level since his return, good in and under, makes good space on the outside, uses the ball pretty well and takes a nice overhead mark and plays a little taller than he looks which would be a different look for us on a wing.

Freo Look the better team atm

Powell, first contest on the wing hits Jermaine Jones in the head trying to spoil then hits him in the head with his knee. Both incidental, no injury. I assume he’ll offer to sit out two weeks, it’s what he deserves.

Tigers best is very good. They’ve just only brought it for a half against Carlton, against us and now for one quarter against Geelong so far this season. If they keep this going Geelong will be in for a big fight.

If they want to change the rules that’s fine. But ideally they shouldn’t do it in season, they should do it pre-season so every club can respond and train and figure out the new way. They have to do it BEFORE they charge someone with it though. As this was [censored] backwards, you can’t institute a new expectation on marking contests retrospectively as they tried to, the players need to know and understand what is expected. They’d have to word it very carefully though, to avoid defenders being complete bystanders and to preserve the pack mark and speccy. There is so much incidental contact in fair marking contests that any change to this rule is an absolute minefield for the game. I’m also genuinely shocked that this was the case they chose to try to push a rule change through on, if anything it was the Fogarty case the week before. JVR’s was pretty clearly a fair straight arm spoil and there was no injury. The Forgarty one had far more of the round arm strike action it seems they want to get rid of and it broke someone’s nose. Very proud of the club today. Glad we stuck it up them and that common sense prevailed. Also very happy to see Green, Goodwin and Trac show some mongrel about it. No more nice guys.

Max isn’t doing the goal kicking? 😳😳 How’s Salem going? In all the drills? Do you have any clues as to why Fritta has been doing his own program? Seems like it’s been going on for weeks now. Any standouts this week? Are Kye Turner and Verall there doing rehab? Thanks so much for your reports Kev! Love em!