Ted Lasso

It's absolutely amazing that the injury prone kid caught smoking on the way to training has developed not only into a wonderful young man, but a premiership captain, possibly the best ruckman in the history of the game and arguably the best captain and player the MFC has ever produced.

I would say with Turner and Van Rooyen out it would likely be McAdams and BBB into the team, unless Salem is fit and ready to go

The one that gets me is when Curnow comes flying through, collects Rivers high and he has to go off with the blood rule bleeding from the head and it's no free kick to Rivers. The AFL are supposed to be protecting the head, not their favourite players.

I suspect McQualter would know a fair bit about him

This is an underrated call, i am a Knicks fan in the NBA and that's been bad enough with every single playoff being a nail biter, but it's hard to imagine the margin tonight is more than 10 points either way.

If their previous form is anything to go by, Kozzie, Fritsch and Chandler will be massive threats. I'm not sure they have a really good match up for any of them.

Fair bit riding on this one with some recent shaky form for the Blues, i reckon they'll come out breathing fire and throw everything at us. they'll have a HUGE, feral following as well Dees by 187

Thank you for your contribution WCW and i am glad that you kept Fritta on his toes, i am expecting at least 3 better goals this weekend.

Wow. zero need for that picket, and Dazzle clapping you. Not cool gentleman

I'd say it's Laurie out, Taj Sub and Bowey into the team. I think Billings has a role that he's playing pretty well, when he's subbed it seems more tactical than anything else to add a bit of run

Wow i feel old on Demonland, come onto the training thread and suddenly there are all these nicnames for players! @WalkingCivilWar i assume this is your influence? haha

I'm very surprised any real AFL fan would have found that hard to watch, it was like being treated to a nail biting prelim in May. I honestly think the only people who wouldn't have enjoyed it were Chris Scott and Geelong who probably didn't think anyone was a serious threat to them this season and just got a very rude shock.

Interesting game because they're so different to Geelong yet their weapons are similar, two big powerful forwards who could rip the game away from us in a 5 minute patch if we lapse defensively, strong intercepting defenders down back, so the forwards need to compete hard, and incredibly dangerous off turnover. the difference is probably Geelong are a lot more polished and refined where as Carlton are much stronger and more brutal in the contest and more likely to match us in there. We will need Gawn to dominate, our mids to play very well and May and McDonald with Lever to limit the damage from Curnow and McKay. in terms of changes i really like what Billings is doing so i'd keep him in, probably drop Taj for Bowey and keep Taj as the sub. With Bowey back in the team it does give us another really sharp ball user from the back half which we've been missing.

I honestly think a lot of posters are misreading Chris Scotts presser, i probably took it as him playing mind games a little bit. I think he saw Melbourne take away and shut down a lot of what they wanted to do and render their star forwards ineffectual, so his response was to play it down as them having a bad day in the hope that teams don't study it too closely and work it out, but also to keep the belief in his playing group that they're the best team, and they weren't outplayed.

What a game of footy! well done lads!

The other side of this is that top tier players very rarely get suspended even if they deserve to because the AFL doesn't like disqualifying brownlow contenders

I actually semi like what Kozzie does, not the always missing games because of suspension but not much gets in your head in a sport more than playing against a guy that you know is a real chance to go outside the rules of the game with the intention of hurting you.

I reckon Kozzie is a HUGE chance to line him up if he gets the chance. Max will also be battling his emotions through the game. Gus is a pretty loved guy to the team and i don't think they're pretend nothing happened.

I am really curious to see how Kings Birthday plays out, i do hope Maynard gets some sort of attention for no other reason than to see the paper tough guy go to water infront of the footy world

I'd genuinely rather them just throw Matt Jefferson into the side before he's ready than see Lobb even drive past the MFC

Just send them down to Tassie, they've already had 500 first round picks so no need to compromise the draft and they've got Clarko in charge.

I've had similar debates with people Red, i asked a mate to find me another instance where a guy has sprinted from 50 meters way, left the ground and knocked someone out in an attempt to "spoil" the ball. Naturally he couldn't outside of some very ordinary looking incidents from decades ago. I do believe Maynard wasn't intending to knock Gus out, rather to make a physical statement early in a big final, but he made the decision and it's had massive consequences for Gus and he should have been suspended.

Can't see us getting anywhere near the Cats to be honest. we're making too many mistakes and they're going to absolutely kill us for every single one of them.

His best is incredibly good, but he's clearly not happy and it's impacting his performance, if he goes to a strong club with a good culture that regularly wins and plays regular finals i reckon he'll find himself a consistent brownlow contender pretty quickly I think the Cats are going to be in a really good position to get him if he decides to leave