Next Thursday is going to very busy, so I'm getting in before the rush.
I've got a ticket, so I'll be there! Car'n the Blues!

Here we go for 2023. Cotchin gets off again, when he should be suspended. What else is new?

OK, well time to reevaluate.

We've seen most of the boys play a couple of pre-season games. Who is in your best 22 side now? Be very surprised if we end up with the same 22.

I've added Philp to the ineligible list and included Cincotta and O'Keefe as replacement players.

For the record, i'm aware there will be 23 players (22 plus a sub) but for traditions sake, we are sticking with a best 22.

It’ll be up there in Blacktown at 7.10 pm next Friday.

Probably not ideal playing Sydney as Roos never approached practice matches seriously and Horse has followed his lead. Perhaps that will be less of an issue now that the Sydney list is younger than when it relied on veterans from other clubs. Of course Buddy either won’t play or won’t play much but he’s no longer the superstar that he was.

The good news for us is that there were hardly any injury concerns arising out of the match sims. I guess we’ll see whether there are lingering concerns over Cripps. With our opening game against Richmond less than 2 weeks after this practice match, a full dress rehearsal wouldn’t be a bad idea.

The VFL boys handed out a bit of a shellacking; 16.10.106 to 5.7.37.

Did anyone see the game?

Apparently Lemmey and O'Keeffe did well for newbies, and Dow and Cahill picked up where they left off last season.

At this time of the year expectations are often high...even during our poor seasons we usually started off with hope that the coming year would be better.
This year the expectations will be pretty high. Finals is probably the 'lowest' the bar is set and maybe, just maybe we'll go all the way.

This thread is a bit of a no-judgement thread. We may have something in the back of our mind that we think is probably unlikely but "it wouldn't surprise us" if it did happen.
It can be an individual player, coach, team or club thought.
It can be as wild as you like, (funny as you like), improbable as you like, good or bad.

So to kick it off...
I didn't watch a lot of VFL last year but in the games I did see, one player struck me as having little impact, having few possessions and looking a bit out of his depth....but this guy was an 'almost' player.
That spectacular marking attempt 'almost' came off. If only he hadn't taken that extra step, if only he'd given off the ball a little earlier, if only he hadn't fumbled.
It will be interesting to see if some of these things have improved over the off-season and they do start to come off.
If they do.....

It wouldn't surprise me if Dom Akuei plays senior football this year.

11am Ikon Park. It’s actually down as an unofficial match sim (4x25min quarters). The official practice match is on the following Friday v Sydney at 7.10pm at Blacktown.

Though it’s an unofficial match sim, it will be broadcast on FoxFooty and KAYO. I’ve checked it out and it seems to be live on FoxFooty (while the North v Richmond match sim which starts before ours will be replayed after ours finishes).

Like our match sim, Sydney v Brisbane will be 4x25mins, no extra time. Every other match sim will have 6 “quarters” with Geelong v Hawthorn having 8x28 plus time on. It seems we’re not so interested in giving our seconds & VFL players a hit out (or maybe we’re going to be resting a lot of our 1st 22).

"Sexual penetration of a child under 16, related to the abuse of a 14-year-old at his then-home in Coburg in Melbourne's north, in 2005." 

Will avoid jail!!! 

Watching Super Bowl 57, it is interesting to watch a fairly physical game with bodies going everywhere yet after each encounter there is no little elbow in the guts as they pass each other, no push and shove and carry on after the contest etc. Maybe AFL guys need to get a bit more discipline into their games.

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2023/02/09/w...year-plan/

Its nothing earth-shattering or a new revelation, every club should be aiming to win a flag within a five-year time-frame. The obvious exceptions are Essendon who just want to win a final in that time & St. Kilda who just want to win something.

Thing is, Cook is a proven performer who is not prone to making rash predictions or outlandish comments so most Blues fans should have some genuine expectation & excitement after reading that.

The other benefit of the Blues becoming a real challenger is that the membership base will crash right through the 100K barrier and more than likely get up around 120-130K.