Lucifers Hero

This isn't a court of law - it is a football Tribunal concerned about optics and spin rather than proof...enough spin to make a case on 'the balance of probabilities' Who needs proof... Kangaroo Court would be the most apt!!

I can't remember specifically remember the cases but Christian has let a few people off 'high contact' incidents on the basis of it "...was reasonable in the circumstances..." It is my guess that this would have been his line before Laura Kane mercifully became involved.

.

PART TWO THE GAME If JSOS is fit bring him in and have him play a negative role on Lever, don’t let him near it and let Charlie go one on one with May. I rate the chances of us going up against big Max with only one ruck as slightly less than 0%. With H out (very likely) and dees having two very good tall defenders, going to be critical that tdk take a few grabs and at the very least split their defence and make Charlie’s life a bit easier. The pressure Martin applies in the forward half is insane. We expect him to play on the edge, he plays on the edge...will be missed if suspended. Melbourne are a bit soft, I don’t think playing Hollands is as big a concern as v swans and I reckon we could do with some more run. Probably the last word I'd use to describe the Dees. They play a pretty hard style of footy similar to us. That last game against them was as tough and uncompromising a game as it gets for modern footy. Pitto doesn't need to out mark Gawn. Just hammer him black & blue Last time we played Melbourne Charlie wasn't really double teamed that much, he was just played really close by May and probably beaten on the night. You cannot underestimate the quality defender that May is, very strong very capable. Charlie just needs to try and get separation more often because body on body he's got not much hope. I hope the Dees overcompensate for their lack of viable tall forwards and pick Grundy. His selection is probably the best way to counter Gawn’s influence. As much as I want it to happen, I don't think they will bring Grundy or Schache back in - they are liabilities - and Goodwin seems determined to play Gawn only as a ruck, despite him being their most dangerous marking forward. Given their forward line issues, I fully expect Melbourne will line up with Petracca at full forward. Would love for them to throw Petracca up forward, would be a massive win for us. Would be the easiest possible way for us to nullify his influence- starve the forward line by repeat centre clearance wins. Defeated Melbourne by 4 points last time with our VFL midfield in. Can’t wait for them to see Walsh and Cerra together! Charlie will [censored] may it's actually the team defence that we need to combat We will need,to be at our best to beat Melbourne, cannot possibly be thinking about Brisbane. Not that this is a free hit for us by any stretch, but there’s a hell of a lot more pressure on Melbourne. Going to be another slog. Both teams going to need to find better forward system and efficiency. Two things in our way to make a prelim: Petracca, Gawn. Melbourne should have beaten Collingwood. We will need the 22 at its best and focused. This will be the biggest challenge this year. Regardless of who wins this we'll all be cheering on Brisbane on GF day. Similar to the Swans, we have some finals payback to dish out to this mob after losing our last three (1988, 1994, 2000) FAVOURITE? Not much humour or wit but this gave me a chuckle: Let's face it. McKay needs to see a hypnotist. All time low tonight. I usually give a prediction but this is too hard to call. Just 🙏we win. Otherwise a miserable end to the year that just a week ago was so promising...😢

A lot to unpack in their 31 pages so this week I've split it into two posts. THE HUBRIS get on board, we will spank em …we can confidently claim the 17th cup already :D We’ve already beaten our next three opponents - Dees, Port and Pies - easy run We got 'em without McKay/Cerra/Walsh/McGovern/JSOS last time, so this time around I think their outs are more significant compared to ours. "High impact" for Martin and two weeks. Wtf... that's bizarre. Bring out the fixer - to the tribunal and the high court if needed. We are Carlton, * the rest. i think we’ll be benching Charlie, Weiters, Crippa and Walsh late in this one, what do you guys think? If we make the GF, you could put out the AFL Team of the 20th century against us and we wouldn’t lose. We can’t do much about Gawn - TDK just needs to compete. But, shutdown Oliver, Trac & maybe Pickett - and we’ve got the game won. Bring on the Dees, chalk up the win and make our way to the 17th cup :D If we'd played the Dees last Thursday, we would have belted them frankly. Not to say they're to be taken lightly, but we know what they'll bring... Underdogs on paper only. Having ground one out earlier against Dees, I think we will ride the wave in this one. THEIR INJURIES Cripps can’t move, he can sacrifice himself and tag May and Dow can take his spot. Was it heeney who shouldered him across the rib cage?? Yes. The little [censored]. The way he reacted to a bump from Heeney don't think his ribs will be right till next year Im sure Viney will be giving Crippa's ribs a tickle or two this week aswell Acres looks extremely sore at the end and was carrying his arm, would have to be in some doubt. H, Martin and Acres out would be catastrophic for our chances. What's the news on Acres? I thought he look really ginger the last few minutes. Will he play? Vossy in his presser said that he'd pulled up o.k. and should be fie. He also confirmed that Harry had entered concussion protocols. Is JSOS fit? Did he play the practice game? Would be huge if he is. Pittonet is barely halving any contests outside the ruck tap, and I don't see that changing for the better on a dodgy knee with back to back finals. OUR INJURIES Sounds like Gawn is hurt so odds shortening that Grundy will play if that's accurate. Clayton Oliver didn’t train today and is accordingly in doubt for Friday night. Limping will stop him playing on Friday? Reckon you're having a laugh. What's the actual injury? Guarantee Oliver will play unless he’s dead or broken his leg in half (even then maybe) imo he’ll play. Tough as they come How about Petracca. That incident with his ankle getting caught looked like it would have hurt. He probably won't be running two-ways, they just might plonk him up forward. Reckon they’ll jab him and Trac will do what he does. Absolute animal 2 Dees, Gawn and Fritsch under a cloud I hear. Even if they make it, nothing wrong with some of our guys trying to find out if their feet actually hurt. Heeney had no issue asking Crippa about his ribs Before panic sets in that could be guess work from McGuire if he read the DL training thread.

I agree. But this is Collingwood!! I'd put nothing past them to cast doubt. And I'm not sure that anything is graded equally across the competition

I wouldn't be surprised to see them stoop so low as to claim the 'severity' is due to Gus' prior concussions rather than the bump.

How can they do that when we are still waiting in the 'queue'!!!

There isn't really a queue - its random selection.

Cheer up layzie. Backs to the wall but we are still in this!!

Still hopeful it is us. If not anyone but Collingwood; even GWS!!

Ticketek give an option on which club the membership is for so not sure which option should be chosen. My guess is either will work but don't hold me to that. If you buy the tickets together in the same transaction it should work. You will need both barcodes. (Each barcode should be on a separate line with no commas).

Thanks. Crazy system that locks barcodes on a device level rather than the customer level...

Any idea how many 'changes' you can make before Ticketek 'lock' the barcodes?

Don't know about the server situation but from their 'Home' page all events seem to one great big mess mass. It won't be double the volume as AO is half the capacity of the G but it will still slow the system down. So easy to avoid the ticketing chaos and what is more the fan frustration; the fans ie members that keep clubs going.

In their lack of wisdom tickets for both finals are being sold simultaneously by Ticketek at 10.00am tomorrow. Cannot understand why they don't stagger the release like they did last week. Prepare for a slow, frustrating process to get tickets.

Enjoy! Should we end up playing at the Gabba those barcodes will be available. However, will confirm when results are known.

Would have loved to have seen Smith or McDonald lay a few heavy (legal) tackles on Maynard...can't believe no one tested him for the whole game. For that matter a few heavy tackles on Cox wouldn't have gone astray. We let Coll get the mental ascendancy early and never tried very much to get it back.

Now that I am over my anguish at losing and at the lack of physicality in such a critical game... ...I'm cutting our fwd line a bit of slack: McDonald, Jvr, Smith and Fritsch have never played together, probably never even trained together. Was sitting about 12 rows back almost behind the city end goals and that was quite obvious. Their cohesion was virtually non-existant with almost no teamwork. The congestion inside 20m from goal was very frustrating to watch. I put it down to lack of understanding of each others role and maybe a tad of wanting to be the hero. It wasn't helped by Moore holding JvR down by the hips stopping him from jumping/marking. JvR isn't yet strong enough to break that hold and the holding down is not visible to umpires so he received no frees. It was very visible to us and would have been to behind the goal cameras if ch7 bothered to show it. But of course they didn't. Where I cut less slack is the players (Gawn, Smith, Fritsch) who had shots for goal from outside the 50m arc. It was not the night to take such low % shots and all should know better. I don't recall a shot for goal from around the 50m mark by the Pies and they reaped the reward of centering the ball around the 20-35m arc. To state the obvious, our fwd roles and positioning needs a bit of work this week. I'm still optimistic that this is our 🏆 year!

No Curnow, no Carlton!! When they last played he kicked 1.3 and McKay kicked 0.3. Longmire will have a plan to stop them again. Their rnd 24 game vs GWS was appalling to be taken at all seriously as a finals team. Sydney didn't beat us because we are a great team and played to win even tho it was a dead rubber for us. Carlton played a dead rubber and celebrated making finals. Even if we lose to the Pies I still see us playing in the GF. Lions won't stop us even at the Gabba.

To get the player we want we need to get ahead of Hawthorn who nominally hold ND3. We have a better chance of doing that if North get ND 3 as FA comp for McKay and Hawthorn slides to ND4. If North get ND3, I have a hunch they will trade it. Either because the AFL will make that condition as it did last year. Or they will want two more first round picks (in addition to ND2 they have). But Hawthorn will also try and trade up for the player they want. Makes for an interesting cat and mouse game for the top draft picks!!

Re who will have more supporters at the game. It will likely be Coll. Even tho the allocation general allocation is 50/50 they will dominate the AFL stand and will have almost as many as us in the MCC. We will just make more noise!! I just hope all the talk of rain doesn't keep dee fans away.

Damned if I know...!

It seems the only game we differ on is Carlton vs Sydney winning. Either way love the way it plays out!!

Making these changes to the Semi-finals: Semi -Finals. Week 2: Port Adelaide vs GWS: GWS capable of upset. A 50/50 game Tipping Port, just! Collingwood vs Sydney: Another 50/50 game. And wouldn’t it be sweet if Syndey won!!! But alas Pies will probably get it done. Thanks to @JTR for highlighting I had these finals a-about. My subsequent predictions don't change