Lucifers Hero

Hugh shout out to Paddy McCartin. After all he has been through to be playing a big role for Sydney and now getting the praise he deserves. Fantastic to see Paddy able to start fulfilling his significant potential. In a way he lived in Petracca's shadow. Kudos to Sydney for taking the risk and giving Paddy another chance and to make a name for himself in his own right.

Correct. He has a bunch of dees: TLA’s stable of Dees included Angus Brayshaw, Ben Brown, Bayley Fritsch, Luke Jackson, Trent Rivers, Charlie Spargo, Tom Sparrow, Jack Viney, James Jordon, coach Simon Goodwin and assistant coach Adem Yze.

I'm not familiar with the Freo players but would be very happy to get a forward and a ruckman who is ready to play AFL So Cox or Treacy would fit the fwd bill, not sure if tall enough for the ruckman or as a possible Max replacement. As a second ruck/fwd we have Weideman and TMc in the short therm. Most clubs have at least 3 true ruckman so we would need to get at least one from the upcoming trade/draft. Bulldogs have now stated their interest in Lobb. Logue has also been linked to the Bulldogs. If both go to the Bulldogs, I can see their first round pick currently #9 in play. I wouldn't mind a top 10 pick as part of a deal as we don't have one atm. I think if Freo (or WCE) want Jackson they will find a way to do a fair deal (despite misgivings about Peter Bell's 'tactics'). Haven't given up on Jackson.

Sound logic. Hope it isn't so. On that logic Gus is also gone. 😭

You can bet his manger has! And Freo sound a bit loose-lipped.

The thumb is critical for a player like Oliver as he handballs so much and for 'touch' for his many possessions. But then, an 80% Oliver is far better than not having him play at all. He is tough and he won't even flinch as long as opp players don't target his hand. He will just have to kick more than handball.

Lions might lose to Ess tomorrow as they are decimated by injuries and covid protocols. I prefer they win and make top 4 as I think they won't get their act together in time to succeed in finals this year and will keep some of the other threatening teams out of the top 4 eg Sydney and potentially Carlton, Collingwood and Tigers. Let those 4 finish 5th to 8th and 2 get eliminated in first week of finals. Dangerous threats reduced. Freo are winning but also losing their mojo. Hope they keep winning to help keep above teams out of top 4 and imv are also not ready to succeed in finals. The exception to wanting them to win is when they play us in the last month.

Or do it with short kicks and some run down the boundary. 3-4 kick/handballs and it is in the hands of Fritsch 40m out!

Or occasionally switch to JJ's side of the ground which Geelong wouldn't have expected then caught on the 'wrong' side, limiting their defensive set ups on the JJ side..

LOL. If we hadn't taken him he would be at the Suns! He would be going back to WA on a not much better than average contract, having achieved nothing. A general comment: I'll save my angst until we know 1) he is going and 2) where he is going 3) what the deal is.

The problem with that last night was Geelong had a player in front of the contest facing the marking players and one roughly behind/side of the contest. Time and time again their tall would knock the ball down to the player in front, he got it to the player behind/side, who then turned inward and they were off, usually down the middle and our players had not time to set up the defence and they were often still over near the boundary line where the contest had been. What surprised me is that our coaching box didn't adjust for this tactic, or much else that wasn't working from what I saw.

They pressured us into 'old Melbourne' bad habits: Not lowering the eyes anywhere on the ground. Little composure Picked out opp players, Didn't do the 'good teammate' things. Poor on field leadership Harmes resurrected his fend-off and HTB Viney resurrected his take on the tackler and HTB Overhandballed. Didn't take the first option. We succumbed the same way to Sydney. When they brought the pressure we reverted to the above. Both games at the G. I guess that is our archilles heal: unrelenting opp pressure. We have work to do and banish the 'old Melbourne' bad habits permanently or at least be able to stop them in game when they creep in.

Merge with the Postgame thread, please?

No words. Just beautiful!

Lions will probably get Ashcroft as F/S, touted to go pick 1-5 so will want to ditch their first round pick as Bulldogs and Pies did last year for Darcy and Daicos.

No, no no no!! Whatever I come with will just result in you or others picking holes in it and then we joust for a while and go on a merry-go-round again. I shall decline the invitation, thank you.

1) No one knows what currency will be required. 2) That is not what I said. I said there are various combos of 2022 and 2023 picks with other clubs that could form part of a WCE split of 2022 first round pick.

Some things to watch from Geelong: They used O'Connor to tag Oliver in April list year but it didn't work. Oliver had a good game and Petracca was BOG. Can't keep a good player down for long. Cameron is playing up around the midfield a fair bit then races back i50 trying to catch his opp out. Stengle is a wild card re their forward line. They have changed their game plan to be more direct and 'play on'. They have Shannon Byrnes who may give them good intel on our key players strengths/weaknesses They have set themselves all year for this game by resting players, experimenting with players with different positions, different ball movement etc. Scott very often pulls last minute changes an hour before the game or even during the warm up. Scott could manufacture a minor injury to bring the fresh sub in the last quarter They want revenge Other than Richmond a few weeks ago they haven't played a good defensive side nor a high pressure side since Freo in late April. We are back to our best in both defence and pressure. Despite all their actions above they won't deal with our pressure and defence for 120 minutes. When they lapse that will be our time to score. Hopefully, we kick straight early and take the crowd out of reckoning.

But we would have to trade out something/someone of equivalent first round value to get that whereas our 'natural first round pick, which we don't have is 'free'.

Talk about a click bait heading ie the first line which sounds categoric!! Then the contradiction ie the second line ....... At least someone else finally gets that splitting their first round pick is an option so hopefully I don't have to keep repeating it in this thread...

Probably better than most weeks. Meredith and Findlay very experienced. Power is a rookie. Justin Power (4), Simon Meredith (21), Robert Findlay (23)

We made it!! dees-reach-milestone-surpassing-65k-members Melbourne’s membership tally currently sits at 65,472. And membership numbers do not close off until the end of this month. More growth to go!

NIal says: "Whichever of these three paths Jackson takes, neither of Melbourne nor (especially) Fremantle should be offering the kind of massive contract that has been mooted – not accurately, this column has gleaned from well-placed sources – to the 20-year-old West Aussie". Ie the rumoured offers are overstated.

It is about roles. Gus performs that part of Rivers' role. So when Salem returned Rivers was the one to miss out.

Bowey grabbed his spot last year alongside Rivers. I don't think Bowey cost Rivers his spot. Bowey's kicking supports the view that Rivers went back to Casey to improve his.