Ted Lasso

I think it might be time for Verrell or Fullerton to come in, i'd say Max will battle through any pain he's in, but if Goldy and Draiper both play it's a massive job to ruck one out against two very very handy and very different rucks

Windsor was amazing today! his work rate is incredible, the fact he can run like he does and still just find some juice to sprint the way he can when required is amazing! not many players have the speed/endurance combo like he does, and even less also possess incredible footy IQ and poise. Loving the Rivers move into the midfield! I don't think it's any coincidence sadly that Van Rooyen and Fritsch played their best games in some time the week Petty was out and Melksham was in, the sum of all parts was significantly better today and it really did highlight to me how big a hinderance Petty has become up forward.

6. Rivers 5. Van Rooyen 4. Windsor 3. Pickett 2. Viney 1. Melksham

It's hard to get too excited because West Coast are putrid, but it's nice to see us being a big more aggressive with the ball and giving our forwards a look, it's amazing how forward 50 connection doesn't look like such an issue when it doesn't take 3 hours to get it in there and it doesn't just get dumped to the square every time

It's pretty clear that we are lacking a lot of class in our midfield, unsure where we are going to find it at trade time but i hope Tim Lamb and the team get creative, maybe Richmond would move Taranto for another good draft pick?

This is amazing, it's so great to see so many young players being given a go, from Goodys presser it sounds like Jeffo is very close as well

It's absolutely embarrassing that Mark Robinson and others would suggest Steven May is a cheat for something that happens 100s of times every weekend, staging has been a part of the game for years, you can't pick and choose when you're outraged if you want to retain any sort of credibility. lets see if Mark Robinson would call Zach Merrett a cheat the next time he exaggerates contact to get a high free kick. Joe Daniher would have 10 oscars for the dives he's taken over the years.

Sadly i think Weid just lacks the bit of animal you need to be a successful key forward.

the Weitering/Curnow/McKay draft is pretty special, it's ultra dissapointing considering we could have drafted either of the latter two and took Sam Weideman instead. If we drafted Charlie Curnow instead, i believe we'd have 3 flags in a row right now and be going for 4.

I find it incredible that legitimate football commentators and media personalities are more upset with Steven May for pretending to be hit in the head than they are at Brayden Maynard for actually hitting a guy in the head resulting in a premature end to his career.

I am not at all defending what Steven May did because it was clearly staging, but far out, there are dozens of incidents every single game that fall into the catagory of staging ignored. blokes raising their arm to draw high contact, diving forward to draw in the back, throwing their heads back. if they're going to issue fines for staging i completely support it but it just looks ridiculous when there was probably 100 staging incidents this weekend and they've fined 1. Some blokes would probably end up in the negative by the time they paid all their fines if it was officiated consistently.

I am not sure what others thought, but i felt like you could see the stress and frustration written all over Goody last night, he looked rattled. Personally i wonder if he'd benefit from a move back to the box just to change things up and perhaps let Mark Williams a premiership coach and head of development run the bench area

I think this whole discussion ultimately depends on where the club thinks we are in our premiership pursuit, it's not clear to me if we're going to be able to just bounce back and win it all in 2025 without some pretty big changes. I'm all for loading up and going again while we have Max and May, but we will need in my opinion 3-4 best 22 recruits and one of them needs to be a key forward, if that's not going to be possible then i think we just keep adding to our young core, try to get an extra first rounder in this draft as it's midfield heavy and re-build our midfield depth. I think we'd be crazy not to try and lure McDonald and Stengle, we're going to have money to spend, picks to trade and we need a forward line that can score goals. McDonald, Van Rooyen and maybe Petty with Stengle, Kozzie and Fritsch looks dangerous on paper, if we can sprinkle in some forward craft that'd be wonderful

Trac isn't going anywhere.

I'd like the see the new game style start to take hold and by the end of the year we charge towards finals with some momentum, maybe Petty and Van Rooyen find their feet as a partnership and the forward line is functioning better I still think we can play finals in the bottom part of the 8, so i'd say a pass mark given the talent we still have even without Petracca is to make the 8, show this new game style can work and build some momentum heading into 2025, we sort of need this to be a repeat of 2020 where we found form in the back half of the year, just missed the finals but the momentum carried us to the 2021 season where the rest is history

Not sure if you've noticed, but not many aspects of our game are in great shape at the minute, we can have the greatest defense of all time and it won't matter if we can't score or win the ball in the middle.

From memory Charlie Curnow slid a few places in the draft because of a similar issue with drink driving, imagine if we took him instead of Sam Weideman! we'd have won the last 3 flags

lets get Taj, Bowey, Rivers and Windsor into the midfield rotation, if we don't have the star power we once had, perhaps the best tactic is to share the load and change the look of that area. It's pointless to front up with the same B minus midfield mix and get beaten the same way for the next 8 or 9 weeks, we've got the rest of this season to try a few things, re-establish our identity as a team, work out who is going to help us win our next flag and re-launch for 2025 we aren't going to win a flag with Petracca out and Oliver and Viney so far away from their best footy.

I think supporting the club also means admitting when we get things wrong, clearly we've made a huge mistake in the handling of this situation. I think the opportunistic media are very good at piling on with the benefit of hindsight but i also think we perhaps deserve it a little bit. Even the Collingwood players were shocked he was allowed back out on the field, but somehow our medical team cleared him? i don't get it, this mistake had the potential to be career ending or worse and i think Tracs family have every right to be as upset at the club as they are.

Can we still re-negotiate the terms of the contract i wonder? for example bring 90% of the money owed into year 1, so that the impact would be lessened given the 90% cover?

I think a lot of managers and prospective players will be watching very closely what steps we take to address any underlying cultural issues at the club like Clarry, Smith, Hunter, and so on. I think you're right on face value we will appeal, for the reasons you've mentioned. It would seem very likely we will be buyers in the market as well with what should be a significant amount of cap space opening up with retirements and departures in the next 1-3 years. If we're going to throw a godfather offer out there, Logan McDonald is one i'd absolutely go for, if we could get Stengle at his feet that transforms our forward line.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Clayton Oliver/Joel Smith situations are all playing a role as well. Clarry in particular, i think players might feel he was let back in too easily without perhaps having to earn it properly?

It isn't up to the player if they're able to return to he field, the doctors have a duty of care to make the best decision for the player even if they aren't happy with it. I do believe the club possibly if they had their time again wouldn't make the same decision and allow him back out there.

The challenge i see is that we built our list for the contest/defense/chaos game plan, and if we move away from that it's difficult to see how it can work without a re-build or re-set, we simply don't have the high quality ball users that teams like Collingwood and Sydney have. I think the decision to draft Windsor reflects a little bit of an admission of this. if we are going to move in that direction i think we have to look at potentially trading one of our gun mids to re-balance the list. but that relies on there being someone on the market that suits our needs more, and one of them that we'd be willing to part with having any significant trade value

I'd like to see Taj step into the Petracca forward/mid role.