This Saturday at 1400 the Blues play Coburg for the 2nd time in a little more than a month. This game is a Blues home game at Preston City Oval.
Scuttlebut going around at the moment is that Ciaran Byrne will play!

Time to conisder this week's game: we are 2nd bottom and GWS are on top for the first time, but we are a LONG way from being out of the contest. GWS have not been winning by much and appear ripe for a loss. We, on the other hand, are ripe for a win!

Seriously, we should be flogged. GWS have the skills we lack and deserve to be on top at the moment. But I am not sure we are going to be flogged. But we DO have to put in 4 quarters.

The AFLW trade period wrapped up last week and clubs have now made their initial cuts to the playing list for 2018.

Carlton have traded out Bella Ayre and Nat Exon to Brisbane in return for Tayla Harris. Exon and Ayre are big losses, but Harris partnering up with Vescio up forward is going to make for some exciting football next season.

We also (sadly) traded Bianca Jakobsson to Melbourne in return for pick 12, which will get us back into the earlier part of the draft after trading our first three picks for Collingwood's B+F winner, Nicola Stevens. Stevens is a massive get for us, she's still young and can either play off half back or run through the middle. Her and Davey are going to be a very versatile and formidable duo next year.

From our 2017 squad, we've delisted: Alison Brown, Hayley Trevean, Kate Darby, Tahni Neston, Jessica Kennedy, Rebecca Privatelli and Jordan Ivey.  Privatelli will likely get picked up elsewhere, my bet would be GWS. Sad to see her go. Jordan Ivey is a bit unlucky, probably would have remained on the list but did her ACL in a VFLW match, and with the smaller squads we can't afford to keep any players who won't play for the season. Keep an eye out for her in the 2018 draft though.

We've also added rookie pair Maddison Gay and Kerryn Harrington.

Summary:

In: Tayla Harris, Nicola Stevens, Maddison Gay and Kerryn Harrington
Out: Bianca Jakobsson, Bella Ayre and Nat Exon (traded); Kate Darby, Rebecca Privitelli, Tahni Nestor, Jess Kennedy, Alison Brown, Jordan Ivey and Hayley Trevean (delisted).


Now bring on 2018 

We have been playing some good football, punctuated with some of the worst clangers to be seen at AFL level. We haven't been far off it, without being able to beat too many teams. Some of our guys looked like they NEEDED the Bye to come along. Now that it is here, hopefully we can get some use from it, now it has arrived.

Last year we did not win a single game after the Bye, even though we scared a LOT of teams. We were very ordinary after the Bye the year before. However, in both of those campaigns we had SERIOUS injury issues. By the end of last year we barely had enough fit players to make up a team for the last round. This year we have a list in much better condition.

10 youngsters in a team that was 40+ points down at one stage but came back and hit the lead.

I'm sure there were plenty of green shoots in the disappointing wash-up.

Choose ONE ONLY Green Shoot you observed from the game.  Can be a player, passage of play and individual effort, any ONE Shoot that put a smile ???? on your face.

Not sure if this has been discussed previously and to be honest I don't know much about the kid,  but he was taken at number 2 behind Weiters in the 2015 draft.
If he's looking to head back to Boc should we not be making a play for a young talented key forward?

http://m.afl.com.au/news/2017-05-24/inde...-head-home

Some of you may know that we have left Box Hill for the open spaces of the Bellarine Peninsula.  We need a couple of dogs to share our property and here's the first; a 16 week old Staghound called Nix.

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Win, lose or draw, there will be lots to argue about after this game. I'll be at the game, so the arguments will be in full swing by the time I get home. Hopefully though, the arguments will be about our success.

A pity that some of these teams are finding a little form. Hawthorn winning last night put them above us for the moment. Let's see if we can alter that against another of the underachievers.

Remember:
[1] At least 3 players need to get a mention.
[2] No more than 10 votes for any one player.
[3] Give a rating of team performance. It can be anywhere from A+ to F.
[4] Votes must add up to 15.

I will be at this one. I didn't see a single minute of last week's game and that always p*sses me off.