Jaded No More

McCrae is a ball magnet. He just doesn’t have the acceleration of Clarry which is why he isn’t as good. Oliver can gain 5m on his opponent in a flash, which is why he is so damaging and so hard to stop. McCrae is a very very good player and I would love him in our side. But Oliver is a once in a generation freak of nature.

The Dogs list is deep with talent but it’s not balanced. They have a lot of very good ball winners in the middle but they have a poor backline, no good ruck and their forwardline is suspect without Bruce taking away a tall. The issue with the Dogs midfield is they are us in 2018. Bees to the honeypot. Too many players doing the same thing. It’s why we were able to get so many center clearance goals in the granny. Nobody defended. They all tried winning the stoppage.

Go find a Victoria club that would agree to play us up there with no cash reward. For an interstate club it’s neither here nor there and means they don’t have to play us at home. We sell this game for money not because it’s any sort of help when it comes to winning games.

They drink pickle juice on the bench... helps with cramping apparently.

I think it's safe to say that leading into finals next year, all teams in contention will be advised to go into some form of self isolation. You'd hate to miss a final because you went to buy pickles and got Covid.

To have not only a successful club on field, but a financially, culturally and structurally stable one off the field, is something I don't think any of us could have dreamt of less than a decade ago. What a time to be alive!

On the other hand we played much better against top teams last year than against the bottom teams.

And we play very very well at Marvel. It holds no fears.

The thing that annoys me most about playing Geelong down in that shizen hole, is that attending the game is basically as impossible as attending an interstate game. Tickets are so limited and to get down there is not fun, particularly if it's a Friday night game. Good luck getting there on time if you're coming from Melbourne.

It definitely doesn't feel like we are the premiers when you look at some of the timeslots and locations we've been given. I don't think the AFL will ever see us as a big club no matter what we do.

Who do you have to [censored] to get a home game against West Coast and to stop getting games in Geelong? Unbelievable

Have always wanted to go to NT and combine the trip with this game. The cost of going up there tho is just mind blowing. Can’t be justified after two hard years of lockdowns.

The Twitter nuffies having a field day with Lever collapsing due to the Covid vaccine. My god we live amongst some truly stupid people.

Also a much much harder sport to succeed in at the highest level. It's a risky move to pick basketball over AFL in Australia unless you are an absolute A+ talent with a future in the NBA.

The money must also help... how many players retire and go straight into another job paying 6 figures? There must be a level of motivation associated with going around again if you know you're going to be bringing in a healthy salary for your family for another year. Of course you must be a damn good player to begin with and as you say a lot of luck with physical conditioning is required.

Yep if they had more premiership merch on sale, they would have sold out 3 times over. The shop was packed and empty. I was impulse buying stuff I absolutely do not need.

I would have thought we'd play Carlton in Round 2, as they'd be coming off the Thursday game, and we can't play Richmond as it doesn't give us enough of a break for the Anzac eve clash.

Really great day. Wonderfully organized by the club. I thought the presentation was wonderful. Great to have Jones and Jetta farewelled properly. Amazing to see Daniher so emotional. Fantastic for the players to have their kids and partners there too. Well done to the club. This will never replace the joy of seeing this happen live, and hopefully we can experience that in 2020, but it was a wonderful experience nonetheless.

I don’t like it but I’ll be there with bells on.

Neither do I. It’s a hard sell for me. I hate it. It’s completely going to alienate fans who live far away or have small kids or work late. It’s a ludicrous choice. Friday or Saturday night would have been much better. Also from a selfish perspective we were going to head away that week and be back for the weekend. I planned my wedding date specifically to be the week before the footy season started each year. Now they go and put us on Wednesday I can’t even have an anniversary holiday. My husband is thrilled I’m ditching him for footy again.

I’ll be there either way but really Wednesday night is so hard!

I reckon they'll sign up a heap of members this Sunday.

Ground balls in our backline was definitely our biggest issue. We got most our scores against in this fashion, because getting a mark inside our defensive 50 is very very hard as we are so dominant in the air. So teams had to force a spillage or kick goals from midfield. There is no doubt that we need to develop a new small defender who can go after those ground ball gets. Hibbo is on his last legs, and we've lost Jetta. It will be fascinating to see how we manage the defence next year with Tomlinson back.

Weather so far is looking very good. Sunny top of 21.

Wednesday is a trash idea!