Lucifers Hero

Love it! Very apt!🤣

Binman, I marvel at your ability to reverse engineer just about every decision the club makes, to fit the 'fatigue' (aka 'loading') dogma. You are preaching to the converted! Everyone believes in loading but don't necessarily see it as the dominant or sometimes even a relevant explanation for club decisions and team performance. There are a myriad of other possibilities behind individual club decisions/team performance. Maybe its time to widen the lense of the fatigue/loading prism...

We and even Lions could end up in the bottom of the 8...

They haven't heard where the GF is played...

Interesting if Grundy can't play two back to back games on a 6 day break immediately after he has had 3 x 10 day breaks between games. Can he be that unfit... If he had an injury wouldn't we just say so rather than risk having his fitness called into question. ...tending to agree with others that we are trying a one man ruck again.

I LOL at those. They were my second favourite group of quotes. As an aside, I don't edit any posts but I try to group related ones together to tell a story.

Not a complete list. A few that are missing. round 18: Dees vs Lions round 22: Cats vs Pies etc

THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 😀 Bring a plate: Some CWA help including lamington recipie, for blokes to cook up a storm! (empty plate provided separately) Bring a decent shiraz A little gem from any vintage. A Romsey neighbour no less. Presumably it features in The Manor's well stocked cellar ensuring an ample supply to accompany the culinary storms the blokes cook up! Meanwhile, sheilas can sit back😀, relax 😀and

Fairly confident but much angst about their MCG hoodoo They will be dancing in the streets of Brizvegas tonight... again Will never win at the G again if we can't salute here. I'll be disappointed if Gunston doesn't outscore the opposition off his own boot for the second week running. Lions by 81. I've seen people say this game is crucial for our season. Crucial for Top 2 maybe, but even if we lose we are still a game clear of Melbourne in 4th. It's crucial also due the last time we'll be playing at MCG before finals. Sick and tired of the MCG bs, even if we make it so easy to write. Let's just get the win to shut the critics up. MCG is a haunted ground. It disgusts me that we are forced to play there at all. It will always be a thing until we start winning there more consistently. Or win a Grand Final. To maintain a top two chance, we just have to win this one at the MCG. Squiggle suggesting a nice relaxing game ... Melbourne 76 - 73 Brisbane Lions 81 points is our Go To margin. Don't see anything wrong with sticking to what we know I could have kicked a couple against West Coast and I’m waiting on a knee replacement on my preferred. Tickets bought, off to see another MCG masterclass by the Lions :) Quietly confident on this one, I think it will be a low scoring affair but I think our defence vs their forwards is stronger than their defence vs our forwards - we just have too many routes to goal. Lions by 18 You can't take them lightly because they have many other good players but they'll need to have a night out to beat us. This is ours to take , just need to bring our A game. If you want your eyes to glaze over check out the champion data definitions relating to pressure. Sounds like Grundy is doubtful to play, which isn’t much of a loss for them given his form. It should mean we can get away without having to worry about going in with the 2 specialist rucks ourselves How teams have performed the game after belting WCE by 60+ Melb: LOST to Ess by 27 Carl: LOST to Bris by 26 GC: LOST to Bris by 43 Haw: BEAT StK by 10 Coll: LOST to Melb by 4 Ade: LOST to Coll by 2 Syd: DREW with Geel 1 win from 7 games. Big watch on Bris against Melb this wk A huge 16 point Friday night game this week - No.3 vs No.4 ! A classic 32 point game! Cant afford to lose this 64 point game and be derided as pretenders for the nth time this year My Favourite: Some humourous banter from local fans: : Public service announcement re Friday's game: for any of my fellow Mernda or Hurstbridge line travellers, don't hang around celebrating the win for too long after the match. Bus replacement services will be running after 11pm. Yes, don't go home until the first morning train! Crown is open all night. if we win the game I think I’d happily walk home. Late Edit: Dees by 4 goals!!:

Just another record for us to break! Not suggesting we want to lose or that we will. But hey, if we have some sore players why play them in a dead rubber, if that is what it turns out to be. Nonetheless, I like the romance of an out and out champion of the game being saluted in his last run.

Hope 'Uncle Bitter' doesn't get too used to the gracious lifestyle...this board wouldn't be the same without his always entertaining and occasionally irreverent posts...☺️ And, @WalkingCivilWar may not recognise the new 'Uncle Bitter' to irreverently spar with...

Contracted to 2025

It will probably be Buddy's final game, packed house at the SCG so they will be highly motivated and go all out to give him the send off he deserves. Often forgotten in the GOAT discussions. By then I think we will be locked into 4th so the result of the last game won't matter.

The Run Home for pick #4 Richmond don't have their 1st pick so won't be looking to 'lose' games. They play the bottom 3 sides so are more likely to go up not down the ladder. GC have many winnable games, depending on which GCS turns up Dockers don't have their 1st pick and will be desperate to win games but doubt they will win many as they play the top 3 teams and last year's premiers. Swans have a softish draw so will probably go up unless they put the 'cue in the rack'... It looks like Freo will deliver pick 4 or 5 - more likely pick 4. if GCS win a few to impress a new coach. Their second pick # 23/24 which we hold, will slide due to the number of Academy players in the top 10/first round.

The vote split by coach: 5/5 May 3/4 Marshall and Petracca 2/2 Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera 1/0 Steele and Brayshaw With the exception of the '1' vote the coaches saw it almost identically.

You mean the one that was subbed out this week and is earning squillions!!

What do you think these were for us: Round 1 Bulldogs Win 115-65 Round 3 Swans Win 134-84 Round 4 Eagles Win 126-63 Round 7 Kangaroos Win 139-49 Round 9 Hawks Win 103-49 I think it doesn't matter that some of theirs were relatively recent. We took our opportunities when we had them and there is the possibility of more to come. From here all we need to do is win 4 or 5 from 7 and the winning margin isn't very relevant since there is a big % gap for other teams to make up and not many games left.

Fagan got lucky in last year's final. A third of our team was maimed. Had we kicked straight the game would have been over by half time. Lions' ladder position flatters them. Since the bye they had a significant (but not big margin loss) to Hawks, so so wins over Swans and Saints and training runs over Tigers and Eagles. I reckon we go into this game with better and more consistent performances. While we haven't kicked winning scores sometimes we have been the better team and played very good football. Anyway thier defence is average, not necessarily their back 6/7 but their overall ground defence. Even if we lose to the Lions we are effectively two games ahead of 5th. Teams below us need to win two more games than we do and given there are only 7 games left, I don't like anyone's chances of doing that.

This summarises the rest of the season: On paper we have the easiest run home and can't see us falling out of the top 4.. While any team can win on any given day if we beat the Lions and Crows we can start resting players through the last 5 rounds. It is unlikely that we go further up the top 4 and there is really no need so imv preparing the players for September is a greater priority. Geelong has a very hard draw (they play each team 1 to 7 except the dees) but they will probably stay in the top 8 for lack of competition around them. But crikey, I really hope they fall out of the 8 - they will be a real threat if they make it.

WOW! That turned nasty pretty quickly! A far cry from their self-deprecation and dark humour before the game... Maybe this was their most apt description of their fans as well as their team (from the op post): We're bipolar, it's in our nature.

Tomlinson has a year to run on his contract. He is a depth player (horrible phrase btw). He will get games again. He may be disappointed but that is a far cry from suddenly having the 'very poor attitude' claimed by the ex Dl, now bf poster. That comment has resulted in discussion of, if he has 'downed tools!! We need to stop jumping at shadows and piling on players, coaches or the club every time someone posts some random rumour.

But was Tomlinson dropped? Fair chance he would have been told before selection for round 12 he would come in for X number of games to cover X player so there would no reason to be huffy about it, if in fact he is. He went out for Petty. It is Petty's spot. The defence has been very settled since his last game in round 13. This is the time to bed down our best 22 for finals. There isn't room for Tomlinson in defence.

If Nankervis gets referred directly to the Tribunal which seems very likely for a replica of the DeGoey late bump, he will get the minimum 3 week suspension so will not be available for our game.

Never!

Since teams were announced. Yeah, but scoring is not really an essential part of our game plan. ...in our case our coaches know our mids are poor and so they have no choice but to set up to win the ball back from a losing midfield. It does really mean that we start each ball up at a disadvantage. We have little other choice though and moreso if Marshall gets beaten in the hitouts. The Tigers have three premierships from the same style so it's not a disadvantage if you can work around it. It's harder work though. Bursting out of the middle before the defences can set up would be much less effort. Geelong and Sydney both made the GF off lesser midfields who often conceded. Yeah for sure. Just saying as good as Steele and Crouch can be, delivering the ball lace out inside 50 isn't their strength. As long as King occupies him. If he also drifts off him and takes intercepts then we are stuffed. Need to make May and Lever accountable Melbourne have only 1 tall forward and Grundy/Gawn. Howard and Cordy have that covered. Wilkie has the intercepter, NWM has the rebounder. We are set. The Dees losing Fritsch helps us along with Oliver not returning but overall they still look stronger across the board, it will take a big effort to win this. I reckon Melbourne don't set up to bring sides undone and play their game. We tend to do better against those sides than ones that set up to come at us. Dees by 11ty-billion. Squeak home against the worst AFL side in decades last week, the Dee's will destroy us Last words from their resident 'philosopher': I'm glad many of you are feeling up & about for this one. I respect your unending faith in the absurd. To many minds greater than mine, it has been said to be a path to enlightenment. Kudos. I am a cynic...when the world sees rainbows I remind people that it is indeed the shade White that contains all colour within it. When people say that it is sunny, I remind them that the sun will burn us all inevitably and that all life will be extinguished by the same source that gives it. Go Saints.