Predict 1 player, who is currently not considered to be in our top 12-14 players and just seems to be making up the numbers, who will be a lock in pick by about Round 12.
I’ll throw one in Matt Cottrell. Is having a full preseason, feedback on him the training has been excellent so far this year, but where he plays and who he displaces.... I have no idea.
If you haven’t seen it, as Molly would say ‘Do yourself a favour.....’
Draft Night with Kevin Costner is just a great insight into how the Americans deal with the draft, clubs, supporters, players, managers, families etc. it a good watch (available on Stan).
At this time of the year, every club is selling hope (and memberships). Forget the spin, share 2 good reasons why you believe the team will improve this year.
1. Better game plan on moving the ball forward, will give our emerging forward line far more opportunities. 2. Sam Docherty to add stability and leadership in the back line.
Very entertaining and just shows what can happen to the standard of a sport with 10 years+ of development behind it. That’s why patience is required with the AFLW.
This morning Watson and Lyon were rabbiting on about the fixture, marquee games and Carlton being undeserving.
Since we started opening the season vs Richmond, here are our attendances and match margins: 2015. 83493. 27 pts 2016. 75706. 9 pts 2017. 73137. 43 pts 2018. 90151. 26 pts
Ave attendance 80600. Ave margin. 26pts
They were putting Geelong vs Hawthorn ( Easter Monday) as a ‘cracker’ and example. 2015. 73584. 63pts 2016. 74218. 30 pts 2017. 62360. 86 pts 2018. 73189. 1 pt
Ave attendance. 70800. Ave margin 45pts
As well they highlighted Queen’s Birthday C’wood vs Melb 2015. 66120. 25 pts 2016. 60158. 46 pts 2017. 70926. 6 pts 2018. 83518. 42 pts
It seems that many of the threads end up being rants about our reset, so I thought I’d start one exclusively for the rant!
Here’s my take, for what it’s worth. In the years to come, when we do return to significant competitiveness, have again awoken the sleeping masses who ‘barrack for’ Carlton plus picked up all the newbies, have a cup or two more in the cupboard (thus stretching us away from Essendon who are on the proverbial Road to Nowhere), when Cripps has notched up his 250 in the competition and we are discussing Deisel or Cripps in the center of our all time greatest team, when we are debating which was better Kouta’s last quarter in 99 against Essendon or Charlie when he single handedly torn Adelaide apart in that semi, when we refer to our 200 game superstars (Dow, O’Brien and De Koning) as the Class of 2018.....when I say all that to my grand kids or whoever is listening, I will also be saying that it wasn’t always like this
I will say that I stuck fat when the club took the bold / courageous move of 4 years of pain and sacrifice to ensure that we set ourselves on a course whereby we’ll NEVER have to reset again but simply top up and recruit wisely to stay as a contender.
There were passages on Friday night that frustrated me to the max (mainly from players who will not be part of the major resurgence) but I also saw enough isolated incidents to say ‘Yeh, this could be exciting!’