Dee Zephyr

6. Jetta 5. Hogan 4. Oliver 3. Brayshaw 2. T Mac 1. Gawn

15 goals to 4 since the Dogs kicked the opening 3.

Dad things here too, taking my son’s tutor to the game with us. ? How about a raise your plastic cup, bottle, cheese platter at the 2 minute mark of quarter 2 for Jonesy?

Thanks Wadda. Haven’t looked at scratchings yet. Time to take the green vest off. Mooney Valley Race 2 No.1 William Thomas TAB Odds: $2.40

If Carlton win the second quarter tonight, Then that would make it 5 consecutive winning second quarters against NSW teams. Impressive!

Apologies If it’s been asked already dc but where can one find these figures?

It’s not too much to ask to see Barrett’s “ Sliding Doors” comment come to fruition is it? If you've kicked 69 goals in your past three matches ... then we've got you down for 30 at Etihad Stadium on Saturday. Bulldogs kicked two goals total in round nine, and none after half-time last week.

A bit of an update from Richard Bensley this morning on Sky. The two comments I found most interesting are below. • Enticing Star. Race 6 No.8 Odds $1.20. The gun Perth mare is unbeaten after her five career starts and is a must watch tomorrow. Connections did consider taking the horse to either Sydney or Melbourne for the spring but those plans are on hold at this stage. Horse is more likely to feature in Perth’s summer carnival contesting mares races. • Osborne Bulls. Currently sitting 19th in the official order of entry for the Stradbroke to be run next week. The field runs at 16 with Cummings hoping a few horses drop out for the horse to gain a start. If it doesn’t run they will take it to the paddock. Currently $11 for the Stradbroke.

I’ve jumped over a couple of fences, had a look at the Pies board and hardly any mention of their game against Freo on there. They are more worried if they can get Howe back in time for the game they label as “ Melbourne’s Grand Final”.

Interesting comments 13. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think Tim Smith would make it in the AFL although I never expressed my views. More than happy to be proven wrong if it means the club succeeds. Simply a hypothetical, assuming T Mac and Jesse play another 5-6 years minimum at our club and Smith maintains his good form and manages to get close to the 100 game mark with a solid 3-4 years of football, my question is, where does Weideman fit into the equation?

There’s no doubt the Doggies will be breathing fire and wanting to ruin Chunk’s 250th like we did for Enright’s 300th down the road a few years ago. Another test for the maturity of this group, teams will try to unsettle us in any way possible from here on but our play the ball attitude has been first rate the last few weeks. I see a tight first half unfolding with us eventually grounding them down in the second. Hopefully Razor Ray is as sharp as ever and doesn’t fall for the tricks of Knee Wobbles McLean.

Best Bet: Rosehill Gardens R7 No.6 Seaway TAB Odds: $ 3.20 Romped it in at Canterbury two starts ago over the 1550m and was a beaten favourite last start when coming back to the 1400m where the colt settled last and produced a barnstorming finish down the outside to miss by 0.5 of a length. The winner on that occasion got all the luck on the inside which proved the difference in the end. The horse will appreciate racing at the 1500m and should enjoy the perfect run after drawing barrier 5. I expect this colt to be too strong for these over the final stages. Obvious danger is I Am Serious (2) but it has to contend with barrier 12.

Nice, tips are in nice and early. I have my backup in case of scratchings in the morning. Actually @Macca what time do the Perth scratchings come through on Saturdays? I’ll make sure the phone is fully charged at the footy anyway.

Battle Hero (4) for me fellas.

G’day Macca. Like the Village People and Pet Shop Boys..... ” Go West” for me.

Less than 12 hours until team selection at least with no extended bench, yay!! Thought we’d get this thread up the top again, was struggling to find it with all these new threads.

Ben Newton from Port a few years back. Thought he was going to turn out as a good player.

Does anyone remember the day he wanted to smash Robbo into the next millennium? We were trying to get our season back on track playing against Freo from memory, Neitz was being man handled all day, couldn’t buy a free kick and Robbo decides to squirt Neita with water at three quarter time to cool him down. I remember that death stare to this day.

Excellent comments by Daisy during the Crows game. It’s been mentioned a lot on here about our taxing contested game early in the season where we were doing a lot things right but our inability to make opposition defenders defend was hurting us. She feels the improvement is on the back of our ability to play the 2 tempos of footy much better and capitalise greatly when we have the momentum.

Some fantastic analysis on this thread, I’m not as great as some in analysing the game but I can only add what I see. The Hawthorn game was worrying in regards to body language, a few players were simply not interested in listening to instruction from the leaders as I witnessed in the last quarter. I might have mentioned it in the post match of that game. In the Richmond game there was a lot of finger pointing throughout, more than I have probably seen before. It seemed players were uncertain about particular set-ups around the stoppages. Up to that stage of the season we were doing a lot of things right in terms of the stats that are meant to have you heading in the right direction but the reward wasn’t forthcoming. As noted, our defensive press isn’t as high up the ground currently. I’m in awe of our current spread from stoppages around the ground, player A wins the clearance, takes two steps and passes off to player B knowing they will be positioned where they are meant to and off we go. It’s second nature at the moment. The belief in one another is clearly evident. Team first mentality. A healthy list certainly helps and that’s all we want as supporters. To have close to your best 22 each week and see if you’re good enough, if not, so be it but we can honestly say this group is special. Gus revealed on the AFL exchange podcast Jones initiated a meeting between himself, Jones and Goody as to how Gus can break into the team after being left out early. What a leader Jones is. "We just spoke about a few things and how to turn it all around, in terms of the way I was responding. "Goody's been great, because he was honest about why I wasn't playing … and also, which I really appreciated, (he told me) 'Here's the road map to get yourself back to playing'. "They were huge in getting me through all that and I think now I've come out a better player."

According to Luff the Stats Guru our contested possession of +46 against the Crows was the second highest differential ever recorded.

Jacobs tags Fyfe and tried to apply the clamps but Fyfe was still BOG. Both make the team?

I wasn’t aware and it might have been posted already but we are actually undefeated in 19 consecutive quarters. We drew the quarter prior to commencing the run of 18 winning ones.

Love it! All we can come up with are words like “Managed” and “Rested” when looking for reasons to make a change. May it continue!

Over the last 5 weeks we are number 1 in 16 categories. The statistics Melbourne ranks No.1 in from rounds six to 10 STATISTIC MELBOURNE NEXT-BEST Kicking efficiency 69.8% Brisbane 67.8% Kicking efficiency differential +6.5% Brisbane +3.8% Disposal efficiency 74.8% Collingwood 74.7% Marks inside 50 18.8 Richmond 13.6 Marks inside 50 differential +10.4 Port Adelaide +4.2 Contested possession differential +21.6 West Coast +13.4 Clearance differential +9 Fremantle +6 Inside 50s 65.2 Richmond 61.2 Scores per inside 50 49.1% West Coast 48.2% Goals per inside 50 31% West Coast 28.5% Points for 133 Richmond 98.6 Intercept points 84 Richmond 68.8 Clearance points 44.6 West Coast 32.6 Defensive half to score 19% Richmond 14.7% Consecutive quarters won 18 West Coast 15 Offensive one-on-one win 39% GWS 35.7%