I didn't see an in game thread. Mods please delete if I missed it.

The hardest game for the year, facing the rampant premiership favourite at home, but we have to win to assure ourselves a spot in the finals.
Game is on Saturday at 10:25 at Gold Coast.

Gold Coast are a different proposition at home, while we lack a lot of players still. Not an easy game.

Voting is as usual: you have 15 votes to award pretty much as you will, with the following provisos:
[1] 15 votes in total, no more, no less.
[2] No more than 10 votes for any one player (even Sam Walsh or Patrick Cripps)
[3] Three players at least must get a mention.
[4] A grade for the game, A+ (what I want to see) to F-.

Ready for after the game.

Alas, I won't be at this one: I'll be in bed. Got some sort of virus. Shout loudly for me.

One of the giants of my musical experience, Robbie Robertson passed away yesterday at 80 years of age.

Robbie was lead guitarist for Bob Dylan in the 1960s and early 1970s but really came to my attention as guitarist and songwriter with the Band with classic songs like the Weight, Up on Cripple Creek, the Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Ain’t Got No Home and many others.

RIP Robbie.

I only discovered the music of Sixto Rodriguez relatively recently but what an unusual career he had; blissfully unaware of his popularity and success in southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Compared to Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens, his music seemed to strike a chord with Deadheads and fans of protest songs.  I can’t listen to a lot of Rodriguez but I don’t mind playing an album occasionally.

RIP Rodriguez.

Whilst we are battling to secure a spot in the 8, this article in the HS caught my eye just then.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/a...e4bad2abbb

AFL 2023: Which teams fit the Champion Data premiership profile

Recent premiers have all had the same hallmarks to their game, so who has the credentials to win the 2023 premiership, and who’s dropped off a cliff? See the Core Four ladder.


Beware the unbridled Blues.
Yes, it’s real.

Key statistics from the past six weeks indicate that Carlton– unlike ladder-leader and premiership favourite Collingwood, which has fallen away – is displaying the ultimate premiership profile as the finals series looms large.

Champion Data’s Core Four formula, which evaluates a team’s performance both with and without the ball, has analysed every team’s status throughout the season, with a focus on form over the past six weeks.

Over recent years, the eventual premier has ranked in the top six teams in the competition in three of four key elements in securing the flag – work with the ball, without the ball, at clearance and post-clearance.

Champion Data considers work without the ball the top priority.

And for Carlton, which sits inside the game’s top four in all core flag criteria, the past six weeks are a clear indication that things are tracking positively for Michael Voss’s Blues in a marked difference to when alarm bells were ringing at Ikon Park earlier this year.

The chain to score percentage has been boosted by an in-form Charlie Curnow and the likes of Jack Martin skirting in front of goal, while skipper Patrick Cripps’ return to clearance beast has reached a crescendo over the past month with his clearance numbers at a season-high.

After a mid-season dip in clearance numbers, Cripps’ stoppage work has delivered just under 10 clearances per game in the past four weeks.

The only other teams to currently fulfil the ideal premiership ratio of being situated inside the game’s top six teams in three of the four categories are Brisbane, Geelong and St Kilda.

In the first six rounds, the Blues were among the worst teams in the competition for points from clearance differential, sitting 15th.

They’re now first.

Across all four categories, the Blues sit atop the game in a stark warning to rivals.

“If they were fourth (on the ladder), we’d be stamping them,” Fox Footy analyst David King said on Wednesday on Pure Footy.

“They’re going to challenge and go against history.”


Is it time to get excited?

Sunday at 12:00 at Carlton.
Who knows how we'll come up after another bye? The VFL draw really needs some work.