Jaded No More

I am so sorry to hear that. Sounds awful. I think the 'mild' connotation of Omicron is that much like a flu or a bad cold, most people will feel nasty for a couple of days and then make a full recovery. Long Covid is less likely and if you are vaccinated, the chances of you ending up in ED or dying are very very low. That makes it 'mild', even if people who get it do feel absolutely woeful. The rate of short term recovery is what makes it mild in medical terms. With Delta we were seeing heaps more complications and long Covid, but with Delta we also had a far lower rate of vaccinations, so perhaps Delta isn't more deadly, it's just that our population was less protected from it.

I am triple vaccinated and have N95 mask at the ready to wear on the train and in the toilets. I don't plan on going to any bars or getting any food. I also sit in the open air, not undercover. Going tonight is a risk. So is driving a car, eating cheese and drinking alcohol. But life is for living and I am willing to take calculated risks in order to do the things that bring me joy. Totally understand if some people feel differently, especially older people or those with comorbidities. Unfortunately though it doesn't appear as if Covid is ever going away. Nope. Half my friends work in healthcare, and none of them have encountered reinfections either.

From what I understand triple jab + having had Covid provides decent long term immunity. I might be wrong tho. The variants move and mutate so quickly these days. I am still waiting to get Covid. Fairly shocked it hasn't happened yet.

Wrong priorities. School is not as important as football.

Yep. I just hope most of our guys have already had Covid, thereby reducing their risk of reinfection. Winter is going to be bad again unfortunately.

I want to feel sorry for Bulldogs supporters, but I sat through 2 seasons of Mark Neeld. It was a MUCH worse nightmare.

I agree. Gawn for me plays down back to help out when their ruck is resting forward. Without wanting to jinx us, neither English nor Martin are big goal kickers. The issue for us will continue to be ground level ball. They killed us at ground level entries in the second and third quarter of the GF. This could also be why we've gone with a more agile option in Smith over Tommo. We know they will work hard on getting the ball to ground in their forwardline, because they probably won't get a heap of it in the air, unless Naughton has a massive game. That is why I worry less about not playing Tommo and more about not having sufficient coverage for Rivers and Hibbo at ground level. Hunt and Smith are very athletic, but they are hit and miss both with game sense and ball use. But of course it all starts in the middle. If our mids are loose and let the Dogs sneak forward and kick multiple goals, we will be in trouble either way.

It would have just been a long minute of bleeping

It’s come around so quickly. Feels like only yesterday I was ugly crying into my champagne watching us lift that premiership cup. Dees by 10.

I don’t actually think Tommo has a match up here. Who would he even play on? The Dogs are going in with one genuine tall in Naughton who is a terrible matchup for Tommo. Way too athletic. That leaves him playing on a resting ruck, which to me is a waste of defensive position when the Dogs are much more likely to get goals from their medium and small forwards and when we know Gawn can sit in the hole anyway. We also know that they can and have killed us at ground level, so going smaller and more athletic makes sense. Smith is a good match up for Sache. Far better than Tommo. My bigger worry is that Hunt and Smith are a bit of a “hit and miss” when it comes to ball use so it’s a lot of hands in mouth stuff watching them together. We win this game in the middle. It’s how we beat them in the Grand Final. Take care of the midfield and we win. Simple. They can’t handle our forwards and if we get on top thru the clearances our backline can cover their forwards.

Gus plays defensive wing and often pushes back so that could be why. They maybe were going thru a set play where Gus pushes back if the Dogs are attacking the Langdon wing and looking to switch. I wouldn’t read heaps into it. I still don’t think we mess with the wings. It’s more likely JJ plays the seventh defensive role or perhaps we have decided to change it up this year and push harder with the mids. Maybe we want to always have more defensive mids to help take the heat off Trac and Clarry and rely less on the back 6. I don’t think we will do the exact same things we did last year. It’ll be too predictable.

Flags are not won in March. I know that now because I saw us win one in September. So it’s true. We need to get more flexible on the wings and half back. So having a few injuries will help with that in a way. I’m interested to see how we play Harmes, JJ and Hunt to be honest. All 3 sort of don’t have what I would call a locked in role.

This was so great. I love how Goodwin never stopped encouraging the players. Telling them to smile. To enjoy it. Even when we were down by 19 he said we will get our chance. Internally I’m sure he was worried but he never projected that to the players. Absolutely fantastic vision. I also loved Tmac’s little fist pump on the siren. Still have no idea how he composed himself enough to kick it. I would have thrown it in the air and run.

I too am not thrilled with that backline but you need to work with what you have. I don’t think Harmes being named half back means anything. Hunt is named on the bench and he will simply play at half back while Harmes plays half forward and mid. Gus will stay on the wing hopefully. He only goes back in case of emergency like when we had no Salem either. I don’t mind us naming an extra mid. We know this is the strength of the Dogs and we might have specific roles for JJ or Harmes anyway. Who do we think will be the sub?

They did not treat his brother very well from what I understand. Makes more sense for him to go play with Andrew at Freo.

Good I’m glad they said no. We don’t need that sort of thing tainting our club or our win. Winning fairly is much better. We beat the Dogs because we played better for longer and had the internal fortitude to fight back when we were down. We didn’t need to hurt anyone to get the job done. We were good enough.

Kelly is also out for round 1 because he’s tested positive for Covid. West Coast are cooked. Couldn’t happen to a club I hate more, unless it happened to Geelong.

Hello to all the Dogs fans. Welcome. Please don’t feel special we make these threads for every game. Enjoy your stay. Petracca says hi

Still think Brisbane are the ones to beat alongside us, but I don’t disagree. Dogs will be in it up to their necks and they’ll have a point to prove. It’s why I think it’s super important to get as many of our supporters to the game on Wednesday. The club has spoken repeatedly about how excited they are to perform in front of a home crowd again, so let’s make it feel like a hostile territory for the Dogs because it could make all the difference. We have a tough draw coming up. We finished minor premiers last year with one kick after the siren. I don’t think this year will be any easier.

Dogs will be hungry and they will be angry. I expect a very tough game. Hopefully a strong home crowd will get us home, but honestly wouldn’t be surprise to see us lose this. Dees by 10.

Gawn is basically about to hit the twilight of his career and with Jackson being as good as he is, it’s possible he will spend less time rucking and more time forward. They would want to conserve him for finals. Still madness not to include him tho. He’s the best ruck in the competition and by a fair margin too.

I can’t wait to be back at the G and cheering on the boys again. If you can make it, be there. Never take for granted being able to watch the boys live. It can be taken away quickly and we just don’t know what Covid sh!tfight awaits us next.

If we start the season off well I can see us easily cracking 65,000. People won’t want to miss out on finals guarantees and so forth.

You gotta laugh that May and Viney were not letting themselves enjoy a premiership win until the final siren, when it was damn obvious we had won with about half a quarter left. I also liked Gawn's comment that at half time May came in ready to punch someone.

You’re only an anti vaxxer until millions of dollars are at stake. Cool.