Ted Lasso

In some ways you'd have to think Nathan would know we're here in large part because of him, and in that way it would be his premiership as well, as much as it would sting to not be out there. was a little bit emotional listening to him, a guy who kept the MFC alive through it's darkest days

If you look at the finals series the dogs footy outside of the first 1/2 against Port has been very mediocre, and required a lot of sloppy efforts by opposition to keep them in the game. there is no doubt in my mind the Lions should have beaten them in the Semi final

He's young and i reckon whoever goes to Weightman, has to be able to make him defend,

With you 100% it feels like for the Dogs to beat us, we'd need to be off and having those sort of defensive lapses, especially with no Josh Bruce in the side, the dogs capacity to kick a winning score against our defense is going to be the entire discussion both times we've played them we've absolutely pulled their pants down in the contest, and in finals that's obviously going to be much more important. I think May/Petty will be able to significantly limit any impact of Aaron Naughton, and they'll be forced to try and find 12-13 goals from other players, and it's just really hard to see where they're going to come from if we keep Weightman/Smith under control. On the flip side, it looks like keeping our forward line under control could be a really tough ask for them, especially with either Keith out, or potentially not at his absolute best.

I reckon there is a huge chance Alex Keith will miss, Dogs will keep us guessing, but i suspect in the end they won't take a risk on either Hamstring player

i'd be curious to hear what his role is within the club on grand final week? does he provide much support to the players, or leave it mostly to the coaches and FB dept? what the general feeling is within the club? confident, nervous, or it hasn't really sunk in we're 5 days out from the best chance to win a flag we've had in decades

I listed to Tim Watson and it's hard to disagree with him RE: Jack Viney being a huge Norm Smith chance, simply because he is just built for a game like this. I suspect the Dogs will try to make Lever accountable on Schache as they did Alir, i think this is a mistake because while Alir is an elite player, Levers footy smarts and game sense is next level, and i can't see him being exposed by this. I also think their tactics won't work because Bruce isn't playing, and the resting ruck will be a luxury because they'll need English/Martin to help stop our forwards with Brown/McDonald/Fritsch/ Gawn/Jackson

and the Western Bulldogs have relied on Weightman and Smith to kick a lot of their goals, they've been brave and it's been a super effort to make the Grand final, but i think we're cherry ripe and they're running on fumes now. if we're on, it's going to be extremely tough for them.

Absolutely convinced we can/will win, but incredibly nervous

He's a classy guy and it's not hard to see why Port Adelaide viewed him as captaincy material. very happy Wines got the job done, In a broader sense i couldn't help but feel almost a sense of irrelevance to the award, it seems in general there has been a shift to the Coaches association award being the big individual prize, and i also think the Norm Smith, doing it on the biggest stage are just about the two most prestigious awards these days. I'd like to see the coaches award and the brownlow in the opposite way, the brownlow votes revealed post match and a big night celebrating the coaches votes at the end of season.

I don't think we will "Slaughter" the dogs, i think it's going to be a competitive match for sure, I just think over 4 quarters we should have more run in our legs, and i actually think we look more potent offensively than they do, and our backline is much more capable of stopping their forwards than the other way around. It feels as though for the Dogs to win, they'd have to be playing at their absolute best and we'd have to be a touch off. round 19 they kicked 6 goals i believe it was from stoppages, they only scored another 7 goals in total for the game, you could bet your house we wouldn't allow that to happen again in a grand final, and even with us being that defensively off, they arguably only won due to our inaccuracy. this time around they also won't have Josh Bruce, which makes our backline an even bigger headache for them.

Spargo is just about the best kick inside 50 in the comp, his decision making is elite, he's probably up there in terms of footy IQ with Pendles and Caleb Daniel. hope he's okay! he's very important to our side.

Dogs have a really big decision to make around the ruck. English will get monstered in the middle, Martin can't go with Gawn or Jackson around the ground, are they actually going to get enough out of Martin in the side? Gawn is on a whole different planet to Lycett. i've been taking a good look at the Dogs recent form as well, and what i've noticed is in the past 6 weeks, the dogs are kicking very few, bread and butter goals. certainly not enough to score 100 points which they'll need to to win, they've scored 100 points twice, once against Port Adelaide who didn't show up, and had to just attack to try and make something out of the game. and once against a very tired Crows side. on the other hand, our scoring is comfortably the best it's been all year, and we're winning it out of the middle a lot more, so we've improved to the point a melbourne game looks a bit different but we haven't actually lost our strength

most fair result seems to be a 6 way tie between Oliver, Petracca, Bont, Wines, Steele and Gawn

Yeah, well played.

Winning would be absolutely incredible! years of being embarrassed to wear the red and blue vindicated!

and got a huge amount of assistance from the umpires, otherwise they wouldn't have even got past Brisbane, Umpires even swung the momentum in the elimination final

There is a massive difference between finals footy and home and away footy and this is the first time they'll play a top 4 standard team who plays a finals brand of footy, in a big final. it'll be interesting how they stack up. in the last 3 games we've played we've beaten Geelong twice (they couldn't beat them at full strength) and Brisbane who were in form, confident and on a streak. they beat Essendon, got helped by umpires over Brisbane, Brisbane deserved to win, and Port who didn't show up and have struggled against good teams all year. their form coming in isn't anything like what ours is, and i suspect they'll realise the contest they're in very early in the game.

Not too sure Dazzle, i reckon someone like Tohey or Duncan for their foot skills but not much else.

Not really relevant to MFC trades, but i have heard from someone i trust that Chris Scott is strongly considering walking away from coaching at the end of his current contract, I think now is a good time for the MFC to go hard at a couple of Cats vets with the lure of a flag

an equally ridiculous suggestion on their part, especially considering they aren't playing a scratch match this weekend.

I have never seen the footy media so determined to come up with some reason why Melbourne won't win, it's incredible. suggesting the Bulldogs might be more fresh than us, given we've had 1 game in 28 days and they've been to just about every state in that time.

Gawn will no doubt get back and guard the danagerous space as well, if Naughton takes a crazy pack mark you just have to cop it but we have to make that the only way he's getting a set shot on goal. English will plonk himself at the top of the goalsquare and that's easy enough to defend if we keep the pressure on and force high kicks in. Weightman is a worry but with any luck our team defense can keep him under control.

The issue with the Cat and Mouse plan is that last time Josh Bruce was playing, and kept Petty occupied, i think we'd be okay with the match up of Petty on Naughton, and keeping Lever out of it, so it may not work as effectively, we did a lot in round 19 that we simply won't allow to happen in the GF, and that should worry the dogs because it was a draw based on predicted scores.

Jesus, they're fine, they woke up a bit crook, they're not taking an chances. Chaplin said they're expected back on deck tomorrow!