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Best sign early has been being first to the ball at contest - as we saw, it opens up opportunities for junk HTB calls from the umpires, but it's a sure sign that we're the ones making things happen. Great start - few nervy moments but it's a grand final, to be expected - let's keep it going!

Very impressive win, and confirms we're well-placed for the finals. We looked knackered at times, and with the two quick goals to Adelaide to start the fourth I was worried we might be repeating the fluster and fatigue we saw in the back half of the Geelong draw (the scoreboard was vaguely...

When Channel 7 had the rights to GAA games for a year in 2014, I got into the hurling pretty quickly - and it can't have hurt for the first game I saw to involve a tenacious underdog side wearing blue and white... I haven't kept up with it so much in recent years, but watching Waterford (at...

Good win in the end - inelegant, and not a highlight reel we'll be reaching for any time soon, but after quarter time we worked our way professionally into it and largely neutralised the advantages Richmond were finding in the first term (e.g., Conti out the back of the stoppage was damaging...

I've told it on here before, although the specific timeline is a bit hazy - parents and family all Collingwood supporters, I was 5 years old and had just started to watch some of the games when they happened to be on TV, and I distinctly remember seeing a scoreboard one afternoon showing KAN 100...

Undefeated after playing our first three against three expected contenders is pretty massive, especially given how dominant the two wins have been. I was worried early that we'd reverted to old habits, dominating general play and forward entries but wildly inefficient at converting that into...

Agreed that a draw was a lucky escape for us here. Obviously conditions played a part in making us a bit scrappy, and all our games against Geelong since Lowther came in as coach for them have been a bit that way anyway, but still it was disappointing just how far off the dominant positioning...

GC v Carlton just now effectively decided by the black box of the new ball-tracking data. Disappointing not to know how it was confirmed that the Carlton score should be a goal when the goal umpire in best position was pretty confident to call it touched on the line (and from the limited angle...

107 (2020 was 17 games not 18). 15 wins, 1 draw, 91 losses.

Regression and complacency, complacency and regression. Everyone's especially down on the club right now after a diabolical last three rounds, but really that was just an extension of the problems that were apparent throughout the entire season (yes, including the fabled period "after the bye")...

Utterly dreadful game of football - skills from both sides were deplorable, we frequently failed to defend their ball movement through the middle well at all, and far too many of our players lacked basic decision-making and game awareness at critical moments - not many you would say had...

Serious regression this week. It was rightly noted by a fair few posters on here that our improved form after the bye confirmed how much of our dismal pre-bye form was above the shoulders, and it's clear from today's game that the mental side is still a real problem for us. Decision-making was...

Lost too much poise early in the third and made it hard for ourselves to recover. As much as the trajectory of the side becoming obviously positive is really great to see, we need to jag a proper statement win rather than just taking out the annual Eagles game and a hapless-when-away Suns side...

Frustrating to lose a second close one in a row - especially when the clincher for us finally having turned the corner will be starting to string a consistent run of victories together. But I think we can at least say we're tracking okay after that. Some of the early signs were worrying -...

Laura Kane in the coming days, presumably: It was a confusing situation, and the umpire has made a mistake there in not calling for a ball-up immediately when May is first tackled. Because the correct call was not made initially, and the umpire failed to call 'play on' to communicate that he...

Said it elsewhere, but whilst everyone expected AFL spin, they couldn't have expected the sheer gibberish of Kane's explanation. People gripe about the AFL's supposed lawyer-like approach to these things, but no lawyer worth their billable hours would've drafted something so divorced from both...

Players push the limits and risk conceding 50m all the time if they think it may be to their advantage. Tom Powell tried the classic "now where has the player whose free it is got to?" stalling tactic to buy our defence some time in the third quarter and was rightly paid 50m against. Likely...

Most of us would guarantee a spurious AFL defence for any decision remotely capable of being spun. So no surprise to see Kane doing precisely that here. But the sheer absurdity of the line of defence being run is unconscionable. In no possible universe does immediately retreating behind the...

That was actually a rare case of the umpires getting it correct today:

We just have to be better than this psychologically. Same thing happened last week, you knew the comeback was on the moment we started slumping into our shells and trying only to grimly hold on to the lead. It's understandable, a young side completely not in the habit of winning starts to...

Feel so out of the habit that I'm still processing the joy of actually watching a North win. So many moments that threatened to encourage but ultimately disappoint like usual - dominating clearances from the start but the Eagles easily besting us on the spread and not even a goal in the first...

Never played: Adelaide v Hawthorn Adelaide v Sydney (never scheduled H&A but did meet in last year's SF) Essendon v GWS Hawthorn v North Melbourne Melbourne v Port Adelaide Melbourne v Sydney Not played in last three seasons (i.e., last played in 2022A): Adelaide v Carlton Fremantle v Gold...

Like 95% of you, I voted "don't change a thing". But that's not strictly true - I'd happily get rid of the blatantly obvious self-serving agenda-pushing editorialising from commentators on this topic (and every other, always for the wrong option). Draws are great (extra time wins in H&A are...

And so the spiral goes ever downward. Those who said 5 years ago that they were tired of "mid-table mediocrity" and willed that we'd "bottom out" to access some 'top-end talent' have got their wish, along with all its entirely foreseeable pitfalls - club culture is in tatters, basic honest...

This 100%. Can't build a team around selfish.

When people try to spin our all-too-common hopelessly uncompetitive games as just what happens in a rebuild, I think this is the sort of game they're actually thinking of - still barely in it once they got scoreboard separation early in the second quarter, still letting the opposition transition...

Umpires level up to basic competence in the second half challenge checklist: it isn't out on the full if it didn't come off a boot it isn't 15m if it only goes 5m, and it is 15m if it clearly goes 20m+ it isn't advantage if everybody stops and you explain the decision in full and they play on...

Not looking much like Roos at Melbourne at the moment. The year before Roos arrived, the Demons conceded 100+ points in 19/22 games (lowest score conceded all year was 90); in his first year, when they still won 'only' 4 games, they conceded 100+ points in just 6/22 games. Which of those do we...

I wondered if Stephens was trying to compensate with that 'play' - I think there were two occasions in the first half where he chose to keep the ball in play to disadvantage rather than taking the tackle or ushering the ball across the line. Whatever the intention was, it was pretty dreadful...