Ted Lasso

I hope the club is having a serious look/think about Ben McKay as a long term Steven May replacement, not that it has anything to do with the Doggies game

The Dogs should be far more worried about how they match up against our inside mids than we should be about their tall forwards. No Dunkley leaves a heavy load on Libba and i think we'll see a similar situation to previous carlton sides where the obvious pressure on one bloke hurts the team massively.

@Roost it far can you please keep repeating that we're going to win the next 5 flags and kozzie will sign on for 6 years?

I actually rate Norths backline. i know they're going off stats but i think it's the one area they're not so bad

Big fan of some new blood within the team, both lads provide some zip, Lauries skills and decision making are spargo esc, it's definitely clear the club are really keen to make sure the kicking inside 50 isn't an issue this season.

Haha i've got no actual information on this one beyond clubs and particularly Melbourne are really excited about Kozzies improvement and how much damage he can do spending more time in the middle. he's genuinely challenging the front liners for time in there already.

1. Brisbane (will absolutely smash lower teams and have a crazy %) 2. Melbourne 3. Geelong 4. Sydney 5. Dogs 6. Port Adelaide 7. Collingwood 8. Carlton Premiers: Melbourne Runner up: Dogs Brownlow: Christian Petracca Rising star: Cameron McKenzie Spoon: Hawks

I really feel for these young blokes, imagine being 18, 19, 20 barely able to cook your own toast in the morning, and then being asked to move to the other side of the country and having multiple major organisations offering you enormous sums of money and having to weight that up. it's admittedly a good problem to have, but geez it'd be a bit to work through For the record i reckon Kozzie will stay, my read is he and his manager are expecting Kozzie to improve quite a bit this year and as such his value may also jump, i suspect the delay is about 80% about getting the best possibly contract and 20% making sure Melbourne the city and club are the right fits for him, though i reckon just about any manager in Australia would be trying to get him to stay given we seem likely to be around the mark and possibly winning some more silverware in the next few

Pretty keen to get along to a few more games this year, the last few i haven't managed to attend as many in person as i'd like, possibly post covid anxieties.

I reckon Freo drop away and just miss the 8

I don't think the amount of talls in the opposition team really will have much of a bearing on how we play, we'll try to win it out of the middle and put them under a lot of pressure, make them kick it long and high and let our team defense do it's thing. I'd suspect Gawn will go behind the ball pretty early in the game but beyond that it'll be more about beating them on the inside where i think they're a little thin without dunkley

I don't understand the hype on the Tigers. i see no evidence at all to suggest they're a legitimate premiership threat.

On some level if feels like a game plan like we had in 2022 is more suited to a team that doesn't have the same level of talent as other teams, but is looking to close the gap. I'd say we are right up there in terms of talent so we can afford to have a more assertive gameplan based on the teams values

I must admit i didn't realize until the last couple of weeks how good a footballer Lachie Hunter actually is, getting him for a future 3rd round pick is incredible. He's a serious chance to be the best off season recruit of the year, he will not only add a huge amount to our team, but i think he'll take a lot of pressure off Langdon. teams did really hurt us by tagging Langdon at times. Lachie will make that much much harder

Seems to be quite a lot of Hype around the dogs and a lot of commentators thinking they might bounce back to their 2021 form and push for top 4. I think we will beat them up around the midfield, the two rucks will be very mean to poor Tim English and those two forwards won't get much in the way of silver service because of our pressure. On paper they're a very good team though and should be good enough to play finals, i just think we're in that next level above them with Geelong and maybe Brisbane

To me, the Tassie model always made more sense with a relocation, though I'm not surprised no team was putting their hand up for it. Hopefully, they have a really open-minded look at the format of the competition to make it work, I'm coming around to the idea of more games, but shorter, and playing potentially during the week as well, part of the issue is all of the games being bunched together always leaves the bye as an annoying challenge to deal with

Another flag. anything less is a failure and those are the lofty expectations we should all embrace. this list is primed.

I reckon it's a fatigue build up as well. a lot of the players are still so young and then to suddenly go into a full finals campaign including a grand final, and have to back that up is physically demanding. when coaches talk about players really needing 80-100 games imo what they're referring to is the need for 4-5 solid pre seasons to be able to stand up to the week in, week out nature of footy. in hindsight, as wonderful as it is, we probably did need to rest/rotate the players a little bit more.

I think regarding point C) I don't think Max is always tapping looking for a player, rather a position to support team structure, and opposing structure set ups have evolved and become significantly more difficult to break down. If you go back and watch the 2006 grand final when WCE won the flag, and compare in to 2022 it's a very different looking game in regards to clearance i think

Max gawn is likely to retire with 6-8 All Australian nods, having been All Australian captain in a premiership year, his record reflects an all time great. Cox for me really showed the value of a ruckman who can add almost that extra mid, and started the craze, this is controversial but in terms of pure rucking, i don't even think Cox was the best ruckman in the league at the time, it was the whole package he offered. big Sandi and others were at least as good. Max in my view is the best pure ruckman i've ever seen, and his mobility and impact around the ground put in right in the conversation for the best ruckman ever, full stop

The Geelong strategy isn't without risk though, i understand it worked incredibly well for a team of over 30's but potentially for a younger side it could upset the balance and team chemistry so it's a tough one to balance. i think with those things they could do the exact same thing next season with totally different results, the reality seems to be winning a premiership requires so many small things to go right for you that it's almost out of your control. i think the top few teams are so close, that it almost comes down to luck in some ways. I do agree though that Simon Goodwin at times probably could reward strong Casey performances, a good example would be that Ben Brown in hindsight could have been replaced by Jacob Van Rooyen who despite being young, was clearly in much better form.

Essendon are very seriously looking to split pick 4, i suspect we won't be in for that though, i reckon we wanted Cadman but the Giants have gotten in first

Initially i liked this idea but the more i think about it, we've had the best backline 2 years running, Petty is the natural successor to May, why break up a good thing? I'd rather back a combination of JVR, brown, Schache, McDonald and resting rucks to be able to play roles down there and hopefully we can find a developing key forward in the draft or lure Ben King in 2023

Would they do it for Freo's 2 picks, 13 this year, future first next year? i doubt it, doesn't hurt to ask though

I'm quite optimistic about this one, i've always rated his talent, a bit like Weid he's not quite been able to really lock down a spot, but i think he can really take a step at the Dees and be a best 22 player.