Jaded No More

FMD the Dogs. What a joke.

Trac has every right to be selfish. He’s a superstar and a game changer. He turned a grand final off his own boot basically. But he is also very team focused and absolutely gets other teammates involved. Tmac even said post game on Fox that he hasn’t been playing great and wanted to kick a few goals regarding the Harmes goal that he marked. Yes he was making a joke but I am sure there is a lot of truth to it. I felt his desperation to impress, but sadly that did result in selfish behavior which is a big no no at Melbourne.

Viney didn’t train this week and he played. ANB has elite fitness and is extremely important to us. If he is feeling ok I reckon he plays. Of all the players who missed this week, he and Petty are the least replaceable. It would also be good to have Jackson come in as Ryder is in good form and our two ruck combo gives us the edge over them. I would also dearly love Sparrow back. He covers so much ground and is streets ahead of Dunstan.

Same. We left that game and I remember saying “well at least if the grand final isn’t in Melbourne due to Covid we won’t miss out on seeing our team win”.

I don’t get the love for the Dogs. They hate pressure. They beat up on nothing sides and haven’t improved a single issue they’ve had last year, primarily their defense which is god awful. Brisbane will absolutely challenge us. They have the only forwardline that will really push our defense. A strong midfield and a good defense. Freo are another one I reckon could really challenge us. St Kilda don’t have enough talent IMO but we will know more next week.

Brisbane look ominous

If he can fill the hole left by Jetta as someone capable of playing on those super damaging small forwards, that would make him undroppable. Has had two very good games.

Not only is Gawny a phenomenal player and the best ruckman in the league by some length, it has to be recognized that he is probably also the best captain. He is an unbelievable captain and I think has set a precedence in AFL for what modern day leadership should be. He is so relatable. He doesn’t ask for perfection, just buy in. Guys love playing for him and with him because he lets them be who they are and accepts them flaws and all, which is incredibly important in modern society. We are incredibly lucky to have him.

Cairns is putrid for humidity. Never been to Alice but no place on earth can possibly be as 'wet' as Cairns.

The second the siren goes he's with shoes off. Clearly his foot is not 100% and he is labouring. We looked absolutely flat and physically tired yesterday, which all makes sense. Mentally it would have been really exhausting to go through the week with so many unknowns and Lever and Viney both back from Covid meant they were never going to be at their best. Viney looked exhausted when he was coming to the bench, which is unusual for him as he's extremely fit. But when we needed to, we put the foot down and ended the game. This is just what we do. Saints will be buggered after their game this week, whereas we conserved energy in the last quarter. Smart move.

Had his back to the goals. Don’t think he knew that it was going over and had a split second to mark it for fear it won’t go in. He did play selfish footy but that wasn’t one of the instances.

Cairns is a terrible terrible place to play football.

Correct. Nobody who came into the side apart from Bedford made even half the impact the 5 Covid infected players make on a weekly basis. Weideman was not bad in the ruck but Jackson makes a far bigger impact in marking contests. Melksham is nowhere near ANB for pressure and you can’t compare what Sparrow and Petty bring to what we got out of Dunstan and Smith. So essentially we were missing 5 really key players (6 with Salem) and most teams would really struggle if that happened to them.

You can say that again. Two years ago you would murder for this type of position. Now we are whinging because we didn’t smash a competitive side after a week full of disruptions. No doubt whatsoever Lever and Viney were underdone after Covid and we were missing key players AND we lost Smith which threw the defense into chaos with Tmac going down. We keep being thrown challenges and we keep finding ways to win. We saw what we can do when we put the foot down for 15 minutes in the third term. We conserved energy and defended hard in the last because that’s how we like to play. It is great practice for our defensive set ups and it greatly reduces the amount of energy spent and risk of injury. We don’t need to win by 10 goals every week. People forget that we didn’t have big wins this time last year either. Why give up your winning hand this early in the year? Very proud of us for making it work in a week that threw us massive curveballs literally on the daily.

Well we will have one forced change at least with Smith. Let’s hope Petty is right to go. In: Petty, ANB, Jackson, Sparrow Out: Smith, Dunstan, Tmac, Melksham Really torn on Bedford. He played so well. Hard to drop him for Kosi but hard to leave Kosi out.

Everyone is better when Petty is playing. He is criminally underrated because he does as much interceptions as Lever and you can’t stop both. Of course our pressure was off when we missed ANB and Pickett. We had Melksham and Dunstan playing the ANB role but sadly neither are half as good as him defensively. Bedford was very good and definitely made up for the loss of Pickett. I hate playing 3 talls up forward but I thought Weid rucked well. To have such a disruptive week and still win against a team that has pushed a lot of sides is a really good result. If anyone told you we would be 5 players down with Covid and without our senior coach you’d put that down as a loss. Bowey is amazing. Had a lot of clearances at half back and I still think he ends up as a winger.

Bowey. That’s it. That’s the post.

Joel [censored] Smith I cannot

Oliver also very good and May. Let’s not forget Gawn has no opponent.

We don’t look great let’s be honest. But the third quarter is coming.

Hawks moving it fast and it’s hurting us.

Recovered well but we need to stop the 2 players who constantly destroy us, Bruest and Gunston. They will haunt me in my grave.

Embarrassing.

Nothing better has ever happened in Geelong.

Punching the ball into the stands. 50 meter penalty. Minor premiership.