Happy with the balance. Definitely needed Young in the side.
Hayward needed to be 100% fit to come in with the way we need him to play, so good call there. Also difficult finding someone to drop....Byrne would be my guess based on last week alone, but overall he's performed well and everyone is allowed 1 bad game.
Ollie hollands didn't deserve to be dropped after his last game.....nor did anyone else.
All this is just deflection from the original point. That is, the AFL stuffed up by not playing this game on a saturday as they would get more people there. No. No they did not.
MCC reserved tickets and guest passes sold out today.
No public tickets left.
You mean reserved seating and reserved seat passes.
GA unreserved seating and all standing room only go on sale tomorrow at 9am.
Cmon fonzy, ypu can do it.... Wr..wro.....wron.....
PUBLIC RESERVE: General Public tickets for the 2026 Toyota AFL Finals Series match, First Elimination Final – Geelong Cats v Carlton on Friday, 4 September at the MCG are now sold out.
No update on Newman since 4/8, but that said 6-7 weeks, so you'd think he's still 2-3 weeks away.
i love newman, but I reckon father timr might be calling. 34 in January hasn't played much footy last 2 seasons isnt a good combo.
Yep.
Newy and Saad moved on at years end. Ollie Florent takes one spot. More time for Billy and Jeff (when his knee is right)......maybe even Ollie Hollands to take the other.
....with potentially Charleson if he doesn't get delisted as well.
Anyone seen the list of restricted items and bag rules for the NRL (Gridiron) game? Very restricted, no food or drink, no solid drink bottles, must be soft plastic and empty. No ipads, binoculars (unless small). Bags of only a small size and must be clear. Etc etc Bring in rules like this to AFL games and i hand in my membership I think.
NRL is rugby.
Gridiron is the NFL.
re ipads and binoculars.....thats because they can be used to help teams on the ground. Teams have ipads, but for pictures only, no video allowed. Showing video of how a play was run, and being able to 'draw' on the screen to illustrate such things is a valuable learning tool for teams. The binoculars is probably due to 'sign stealing' and lip reading. There's a good doco on why this is a thing and how it helps teams by 'cheating' and reading opposition plays.
You'll notice coaches calling plays to the QB via a headset, when he does so, he covers his mouth with the play card so you can't read his lips.....because people are 100% trying.
As for the food, drink and bags......not sure if thats an NFL thing, or if its a terrorist thing. I didn't have those problems when i saw NFL matches in the US. Who knows.
So half (if not more) of my extended family is geelong. Some of my closest friends are also geelong.
I spoke to all of them asking if they got tickets.
Of the 5 of the most diehard geelong members, none of them got tickets. NOT because they couldnt get tickets, no, because they didnt want tickets!
"Prefer to watch this one at home." "Got a kids sport thing i should go to."
That really bothered me. This mob has been so spoiled for success that its almost beneath them to worry about turning up to such an 'unimportant' finals match. 'We'll see the next one'
I can guarantee you that like the melbourne game, there will be a hell of a lot more carlton supporters than opposition supporters and we'll be 10 times louder too.
This means a lot more to us than it does them. Hopefully the boys feed off our energy and smash the pussycats. They dont deserve it. They dont appreciate it.
The thing here for me is that having Hayward in makes a bloke like Young better because Hayward draws opponents, the ripple effect.
But think of the benefit to Cottrell, Gov, Kemp or Byrne of having Hayward in!
Agree Haywood in does make Youngs position a little easier but reality is the weakest link has to be demoted and its Young IMO
Weakest link individually, maybe.
For team balance? Not even close.
Having Young in the team improves our forwardline.....by keeping Harry there. Improves our backline by allowing to drift back and/or cover for injuries. Improves our ruck by giving Pittonet as much rest as he needs.