Jaded No More

We shouldn’t risk Brown too soon and you can’t not reward a player who kicked 7 goals. We must protect Ben Brown and make sure he’s ready to go and cherry ripe heading into September. Yes I said the S word.

Hard question to answer. More so now than earlier today. Come back to you this time next week.

Can we talk about how good Langdon is?

Frost was a real dog earlier in the game. Trying to play tough. Too bad for him he’s a terrible footballer and I enjoyed immensely that he helped us get a goal. For once his turnovers helped instead of hindered us.

That was the worst game of the year and the best win. I finally believe that we are serious contenders. Not because we played particularly well, but because we found a way to win and when we got on top we really put the foot down. The mark of a good team. Finally.

Our goal kicking is putrid. Hopefully Ben Brown fixes that. How the hell did Jones miss?!

Too many passengers today. We need a big big lift from Jones, Melksham, Viney (looks hurt in that last contest), JJ, ANB and Brown. You can’t have this many players doing SFA when Hawthorn are all over us like a rash.

We are clearly struggling forward of the Centre and our backline needs to settle. If we don’t start to dominate the clearances we are done for.

No May no backline. No Fritsch no forwardline. Prove me wrong Melbourne. Please.

Nothing was more obvious than this

So Weideman is a lock for next week. Makes the possible loss of Fritsch for another week less difficult.

I’m late to the party. How’s Brown going?

I don’t think that applying defensive pressure is something you can’t control. If he doesn’t kick goals due to lack of opportunities then so be it, but he is trash at two way running and doing the defensive thing, and that to me is non negotiable. And I don’t think it’s a conspiracy theory. I watched him play every game last year, and even captain us, while doing zero defensive work. As a senior player he should be pulling his weight and contributing. Even if he doesn’t get much of the ball, there are still things you can do to influence the game. Last week he had zero influence.

I still don’t fully trust this team and today will say a lot about whether we have really taken the next step. Traditionally this is a game we would completely stuff up and lose. If we are the real deal we should absolutely destroy them, even without May and Fritsch as we are a far far better side on paper. I am concerned about where goals will come from, but hoping Melksham can repay the faith and perhaps Tmac plays closer to goal and can nail a few. Go Dees!

I worry about our fire power up forward, but I have been all year. Frustrating to lose our one reliable goal (and sometimes behind ?) kicker. Need a big big lift from Melksham. I bet they won’t drop him after 4 average games like they did with Jetta...

Even more so if we lose. It makes it less critical, as we still won’t lose touch with the top 4 Correct. Dogs are the best side in the competition currently and will be hard to beat this year. Their midfield is absolutely by far the best in the league.

As much as I despise GWS and it pains me to see them win, that Sydney loss is bloody good for us.

I believe Jetta may not be 100%. His family has been sick so he may be a little unwell. Either way, I hope to see him back in the side soon.

I’m surprised about Jetta and a little disappointed. But overall it was always going to be hard to replace our best forward and our best defender.

Just blows to have injuries before we face Richmond on the big stage. It’s a golden opportunity to get some prime time exposure but most importantly beat a contender. Gonna be tough to do without our full back and our most productive forward.

I knew things were going just a little too well... [censored] ?

Normally the process is very smooth. Today I selected 'Melbourne allocation 1', thinking well yep, I am a H&A reserved seat member that makes sense (and it is our replacement game), and then it told me I owe $207 (5 tickets). So I tried again under general admin, and all went smoothly, until it died and said 'something went wrong with your payment' (which was $0?!). It took 3 tries for it to work today, whereas normally I am in and out in 2 minutes. Anyway, my beef is that there is absolutely no reason to be allocated seats on level 4 behind the goals for a game that will barely attract 40,000 people. I don't think I'll bother going to away games this year, although I pay an arm and a leg to get free entry to them. I prefer to watch on TV than be stuck up in the heavens behind the goals.

I would swap, but there are 5 of us

A complete cockup today. You had to select general admission to get free tickets. Got some rubbish level 4 seats behind the goals. I bet the ground will be half empty. Absolute joke.

I reckon he's nailed a few goals this year that he wouldn't last year, so he has clearly worked on his kicking. But it has never been a big issue for me. He does so much work that just can't be replicated by anyone else in our side at the moment. If he's running at 100% game time and sometimes he butchers a kick inside 50, well I can live with that. He and Hunt running down a wing is such a lovely sight.