The heart beats true

Are you coming out of the closest as a massive Mark Holden fan @WalkingCivilWar?

Some of the finest lyrics ever penned by an Australian… ‘Absolutely everybody In the whole wide world Everybody breathes And everybody needs’ You can just picture her tirelessly working in the studio thinking ‘what rhymes with breathes, oh yeah… needs’.

This is some of your best work @layzie

Some of the choices clubs make for ‘fan engagement’ are questionable. Adelaide playing ‘Let’s get Loud’ by Jennifer Lopez after a goal? I mean I’m all for classic J-Lo, but that’s a very camp decision.

Then played really well last week. It was the best I’d seen them play for 12 months. I don’t think they got enough credit around here for how well they played against us. It took everything they had (and a bit of luck) to beat us.

Watching Geelong play at this ground is so infuriating. They just know what space to mark because they practice it every week with traffic cones. They did exactly the same thing against us. Meanwhile every Bulldog player who played out of their skins last week look completely ineffectual when not on the carpet like surface of Marvel.

The Channel 7 graphics department must have borrowed some 3’s from the other channels to be able to show the age of so many of these Geelong players. My word they are old. It’s insane.

It’s a horrible experience for any supporter from another team. For a stadium that’s 60-90 minutes drive for 5 million people I have no idea why the AFL continues to allow them to cater purely for their members. Look at the experience of Optus, The Gabba, The Adelaide Oval, or the SCG. Why is the closest out of Melbourne experience so absolutely dreadful?

Have the boundary umpires been told to interpret the ‘vibe’ the last few weeks? Balls that are a metre out not getting called.

Right? Paddy did that right in front of the umpire too.

Classy move at Geelong the way they put all the opposition supporters in the only open air part of the ground, with the worst visibility at any AFL ground. Why are we all subsidising that ground again?

Imagine if James Brayshaw said ‘Bang, Bang, Bung, Banged’ Not quite the same ring to it.

People are quick to forget that Grundy’s best put him in the top 3 ruckman in the game. He got a terrific financial deal, but that doesn’t mean we have to take that on. If he came to us i’d feel pretty good about it. We forget as a footy club that 50% of the clubs don’t have one decent ruckman because ours is the leagues best. Long down the line to Grundy, then long down the line to Gawn as 2 get out of jail cards gets you a long way to the goals.

How good was it seeing Melksham pull that jumper down last night? Arrogant supporters acting like it’s a done deal. If he has to go I hope he goes to the Eagles now, and plays a blinder in every Derby.

I think our training loads and length of loading is clearly built from the idea of being 10-0. It allows us to do it harder for longer - and then see a more pronounced effect. No one else had that luxury/took that gamble.

You gotta love these boys. When they are up for the fight the fight is ferocious. I know a lot won’t agree but I thought we were really good for 85% of the game the week before. We are building nicely.

The prosecution rests.

This has been a great effort so far.

Sorry, I forget where I was for a second. I’ll get in on with the negativity… Whose directing this broadcast? It’s a shambles.

Really? Jack Viney has delivered one of the great halves of footy you’ll ever see, the effort across the team has been selfless and intense in hostile territory, and all anyone wants to do is pot Weed? This place is better than that isn’t it?

Our effort and intensity has been great. I love these boys when they play like that. It’s such a good style of footy to support. It’s hard and tough, and it’s so exciting.

I love Jack Viney. He’s everything tonight.

Our forwards will have to be murdered before they get a free tonight.

Umpires keen to get them going. Meanwhile holding the ball doesn’t exist anymore.

I alway remember last year after the Tigers win TMac was in the rooms talking to Channel 7 about the demands of the modern game, and changing his running regime, diet and weights work to better reflect his role. The commentary team went to enormous lengths to move the topic away from what he was actually discussing back to dumb, football cliches. It was painfully obvious they don’t want to talk about analysis and insight, they want to talk about ‘going harder’ and ‘taking speccys’ and ‘copping one for your troubles’. King’s bosses would love him. He talks in ‘hardness’ and uses dumb stats to make points about effort (the amount of time he says a side is the number 1 team in something over the last 4 rounds is laughable. He never tells you who they played, or where). It’s all about keeping those looking for blood coming back for it. Look at Demonland after a loss. I’d bet the engagement is up. Negativity is a cycling emotion. It wants to be fed. That’s what all media does well - the AFL is no exception.