chookrat

I'd put Tomlinson on Cameron. He is excellent one on one, has a big tank and will allow May ti play deeper on Hawkins while freeing up Lever to intercept. Hibbo would make sense v Rohan while Lever, Riv and Salo will be able to run off the tip rats.

Rather than spending hundreds of millions of $'s to develop GMHBA stadium for one team the AFL and State Government should have built a new stadium with capacity for at least 70k supporters in the inner West. This would mean Geelong would play its home games there and with an extra game most weeks, compared to Marvel, the NCG tenants would not have to play home games at Marvel. It would also solve the issue of us playing vs Geelong at GMHBA every year not to mention allowing Marvel to be demolished and replaced with a stadium that faces the right way.

I can accept the Mansell suspension noting that in this instance Mansell had no time to do anything other than turn his body away from Aish and the AFL is creating an environment where its more likely for two players to collide head first with each other. Re the Sicily suspension it is the most ridiculous suspension I have ever seen. The fact that Sicily tackled around the waist, that his teammate made heavy contact through the action which impacted how fast McCluggage hit the ground, and that Sicily was upside down during the tackle and so had no ability to slow the force that McCluggage hit the ground should have been enough to avoid suspension. Have a look at Sicily's teammates body contact move McCluggage's torso in one direction while the momentum from the tackle is moving him on the other. Also re Butler I think a 1 week suspension would have been reasonable. Before Blakey was taken to ground it was already holding the ball and Butler didn't need to drive him forward all the way into the ground. In my uneducated view Butler had alot more control in the tackle to bring Blakey down safely than what Sicily did.

I reckon while our approach serves as a template for beating the Pies most teams will struggle to execute this for an entire game. Aside from a couple of costly turnovers early and inaccuracy in front of goal our pressure and ball movement was outstanding across 4 quarters. Most teams might be able to do this for 2 quarters.

Its good to see Jack Viney in the top right quadrant ahead of Petracca and Oliver. Jack's decision making and kicking in our forward half has been outstanding for the past 12 or so months. Would be interesting to see where Fritsch fits in this too as he generally uses the ball really well.

De Goey to go, McStay to stay in the VFL

By blister is it a sun blister or one from a splinter. I'm hoping Maxy hasn't had Clarry in the shop making furniture to keep him busy while he rehabs his hamstring. What a disaster if true.

I cannot see us losing another game this season. Will beat Pies on Monday in a game for the ages and not look back.

There is zero chance De Goey gets less than 3 weeks.

The 13 - 12 in 25 games is a bit sensationalist. We lost 8 of the last 12 games last year including straight set finals.

I reckon the mindset of a clubs supporters have a bearing on the clubs success. Geelong have an advantage here where their supporters are very parochial and don't compare themselves to the other Victorian teams. Richmond and Collingwood have had good success in the past 10 - 20 years and their supporters know that if they make noise it helps lift the team. Both teams are helped by big crowds and that provide energy. Carlton and Essendon have alot of supporters from the 80's and 90's that joined in the good times, and are jealous of Richmond and Collingwood. They take out their insecurities on the players every week and the media lap this up to put pressure on the coaches and players. Their boards are compromised by wealth members who no nothing about footy but like to interfere. Doggies have an us vs them mentality which their coach epitomises in his media appearances. This has served them well and taps into their working class supporter base. Melbourne supporters have suffered from the veil of negatively which was lifted in 2018 when we beat Hawthorn and Geeling in finals. Our supporters are generally positive, although can be a bit reserved, and our footy department like to play a straight bat and avoid controversy, instead focussing on what is needed to contend and win premierships. The expansion teams don't really have supporter bases to worry about. I'd list the other clubs but don't really have the time.

I reckon Cerra will be successful in his appeal. It wasn't a sling tackle and Hickey hit the ground the way he did because of the way he fell with Cerra underneath him.

Based on this list we lose to anyone likely to place in the top 8, which would mean we expect to be bundled out of finals in the first round. Collingwood, Brisbane and Adelaide look to be the matches that will shape our fortunes. I also don't think we can take any wins for granted, Carlton will start to find some for and press for finals, Geelong are crafty, GWS are no easy beats, Richmond have had some good games, North compete hard and Sydney have alot of key players out and will improve as they get them back. I'm backing us to finish top 4 and work into some really solid form in the next month.

I'm surprised about the negativity here. We lost to Port by 4 points on their home deck despite being beaten around the ball for 3 quarters in what was an excellent game. Compare the quality of Sydney v Carlton last night to Port and us last week and we are close to the mark and tidy up a few areas and beat Collingwood and suddenly we will be talked up as the team to beat.

I'd expect Caulfield or the MCG Precinct. I would be very surprised if there wasn't an announcement within the next 6 - 12 months for one of these locations. While our club is subject to the State Government led process, it is well recognised that we have the worst facilities in the league and have received the least amount of Government funding in the league over the past 20+ years, and we are participating in the process in good faith that there will be an outcome at either location.

Spot on JD, as supporters we tend to underrate the competition and then are disappointed if we don't win every game. We look at teams that are performing better and ask why that's not use given the talent we have, despite not considering the opposition talent and that every team is working on its system and exploiting ither teams systems and vulnerabilities. Personally I'm pretty comfortable with where we sit given the improvements we have made in how we convert in our F50 while our defence remains solid. I'm also comfortable that we are being beaten in clearance and contested ball as these are areas we can tidy up. Overall I think we're in a good position to challenge again this year.

With Hawthorn receiving $20m in federal, $15m in state and $5m in local government funding I'm assuming we could expect similar, at least state and federal level, potentially minus what we received for Casey redevlopment and the Gotch's paddock resurfacing. Hopefully an announcement not too far away, which I figure will be in the MCG precinct given there is nothing in the Caulfield Racecourse development. With the Commonwealth Games coming up in 2026 is there potential to tie in any redevelopment with the Games. I read somewhere that they are using regional facilities but not clear if there are plans to use the MCG precinct.

What BS, back in the Neeld era you could rock up on the day and be guaranteed entry.

This ones fine, Duncan's eyes are closed which is the AFL's preferred method of contesting the ball.

Chook I agree that the jobs that you have listed can be quite stressful as they involve working with trauma and social disadvantage, however, I don't think they would normally have the same level of stress as a senior AFL coach for the reasons I outlined earlier.

Agree, also as Melbourne FC our supporter base should have better lawyers than our competitors providing a comparative advantage.

The flipside is that if we believe we can successfully appeal then it will send the Tribunal a clear message to uphold future suspensions at its peril.

Binman, while I'm sure being a MICA paramedic is stressful in that they are dealing with life and death situations on a regular basis I think being a senior coach would be a more stressful job overall. While being a paramedic would deal with more stressful situations and real risk of issues such as PTSD, they have a high degree of job security and their work is done when their shift ends. Senior coaches have the constant stress of managing more than 50 people to deliver success in a high performance industry (noting emergency is high performance as well) and have little to no job security. Both roles are difficult and subject to burnout but there is no financial or other support available for senior coaches once they finish.

Not sure about this Chook. I reckon coaching is up there in terms of stressful jobs. Its a very public, heavily scrutinised position on insecure employment terms, you are responsible for more than 50 people many of who are young kids in their early 20's who regularly get themselves into trouble and look up to you, and every year around 20% of the workforce is turned over. There aren't too many jobs out there that combine public scrutiny, outcome based performance, managing upwards of 50 people, and job insecurity. Would be good for you to list some more stressful jobs for reference.

My experience is that I have recovered from a tendon strain and am familiar with the rehab protocol. What made me think tendon is that Clarry is already doing some running less than 48 hours after the injury and if a muscle tear I would have thought they'd have him off legs to let the muscle heal. Rehabbing a tendon involves loading it up to what you can tolerate and building on this. This said I'm not a sports physio and have no idea how the AFL medico's grade and rehab different hamstring injuries.