Agree with both of you.

The Collingwood games this year did my @#$%&! head in and the second one was when the realisation hit that we weren't doing anything this year. The only time we've beaten them recently was in their dud patch of 2023.

WBD always seem to trouble us and I assume we're playing them at bloody Marvel as usual.

Do any of you really think we play scared? I can’t believe that for a minute.

Players play to wiin and play to a game plan and set planned plays. Why we lost close games, is more due to mistakes, a bit of luck, or bad luck, brilliant play or a lack of concentration.

The last minute is when players are the most fatigued. Fear is the last emotion they muster. Looking for their opponents, the positioning for a set play is what’s on their mind. A lot more important things to rationalise than fear which has no place in AFL. If players show fear…duck their heads, shirk an issue, they will be highlighted. I can’t remember any of our players showing fear. In any game against the Pies.


Not fear of failure. Regardless of what you think of their human frailty, they are professionals and you hear it more than ever ….stay in the moment.

Our team is better than you think.

Straight from Diesels mouth last week in a personal chat….injuries killed us lthis year. We were forced to play injured players because the kids weren’t ready.

We may have been impressed with The cameos of Moir Lord and Binns, but they were not Cerra Williams Harry Charlie … fk we had 20 out by the last round….and against Pies We had 7 on injured list and Pitto was one out against Cameron and Mason. Carlton gave them a run for their money.

Finally, you have to accept that as the comp gets closer, so do the results, and losing by less than a goal isn’t a reason to believe we lost it because of fear.p

It’s a close comp. You take the good with the bad. Shit happens, but to say a loss all boils down to fear, and believe it, is a bit rich, let alone casting a bad light on our players.

I will share more from Diesel,
…. it wasn’t Russell to be moved on, it was the whole support cast. There were issues and already they can see a change for the better with new S&G boss.

Last year journos said Walsh couldn’t walk and 2 weeks later was BOG. Late last year, and post season some supporters have made out Walsh has lost his pace and ability and is touch and go…Walsh and Cerra will be cherry ripe, along with Charlie and TDK and others hampered by injury. Williams was alone in the gym getting his body right . In Vossys office on the white board is every players name and what stood out was next to Williams name was preseason conditioning. He has the ability.

We have a great list and it’s improving every year. Plenty of players playing not only for a spot in our AFL team, they are playing for a spot on an AFL list. Last year before Tassie compromise the draft. After this years draft we will have 20 players under 23yo. Call it out when you actually see fear and give the example and we can discuss it.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Another thing from Diesel.SOS will be training with the defenders. He is strong as an ox and wins his one on one’s as a defender because of this. As we all know by now, Kemp and Gov aren’t types to win one on one’s against KPFs.


Sounds like SOS is recognised to have the tools to hold down this position, including speed. Otherwise it’s Haynes who is very good in one on one’s and intercept. Great footballer who may have a few years left in his body.


Kemp vs Moir for 3rd marking forward. Charlie not left alone against 2 defenders when Harry goes in the ruck


The 2 rucks debate will be an ongoing discussion and dependent on Pitto and TDKs fitness and form. Pitto played most games injured last year…surprise surprise.

TDKs signing is priority one. He will be offered a fair contract like other stars to keep group together, but won’t match the offers they expect to hear.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Players like Elijah Lord Jagga have speed of mind as a weapon. Makes them evasive and move the ball on with speed. Jagga has foot speed and mind speed.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

Jagga turns 19 in January and has VFL experience so should be ready to roll Round 1.
Moir could provide a much needed spark up forward.
Cerra was arguably our best midfielder in 2023 and could be effectively a new recruit next year if he overcomes his hamstring problems.
The Hollands brothers and Cowan should show natural improvement.
Hopefully Charlie, Walsh and TDK get a better run with injury.

Plenty to get excited about IMO.

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There is no footy god

Haynes
Lord with a preseason under his belt
Return of SOS gives us versatility back and forward and ruck

New S&G giving our boys best methods…Saady couldn’t go 100% in 2024

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

what's S&G?

spa and ground-keeper?

nice, a bit before my time going to games, remember the names on the telly though!

Wallsy came to my primary school as a grade 6 teacher the he transferred to Fitzroy and had to work in the Fitzroy catchment! gave us free tickets to Fitzroy games if we asked for them

nah, the bloke who G's them up.

Yeah, but I'm sure the S is for Spiritual, not spa.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

The team is working through its last huge session of the preseason up at Maroochydore, before the 2 week xmas break.

At this stage everyone is achieving PB's and tearing up the track, but its still interesting to note who has impressed thus far in the preseason.

I just finished viewing the Summer session with Walshy. He was asked which 3 players have impressed him thus far, excluding Cooper Lord, who has a veto on him because he's the obvious improver everyone mentions.

Walshy mentioned O'Keefe's body strength as the obvious stand out, but "particularly ground level stuff driving through tackles", Haines, "has a weapon with his offensive run", and Motlop (who Walshy trained with in Darwin recently), seems over last year's injury and "his repeat efforts will serve him right playing the HHF role".

So far, Lord, Cowan, O'Keefe, Motlop, Wilson, Haines and Cerra have been named as the big improvers. Cerra, Saady look to be over any niggles and running well. Smith and the Camporeale twins showing great signs, with Smith obvious to be selected from round 1.

Great signs for 2025: Stronger and quicker.

Give us the CUP

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

<dumble post!>

There's an article on AFL.com listing the All Australian and Top 10 Draft pick players at each club. https://www.afl.com.au/news/1258949/list-analysis-which-club-has-the-most-all-australians-top-10-picks

I've been asserting for a few years that Lions have easily the best list in the AFL, but these two indexes offer me the support of a looping hospital handball!

Brisbane ranked 13th for AA players and 14th for Top10 pick players in 2024. Blues ranked 5th for AA and 8th for Top 10 pick players in 2024.

The number of Top10 pick players at each team rankings are dominated by bottom 8 clubs, in descending order of T10 players during 2024 season, Essendon*, North Melbourne, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Fremantle, Greater Western Sydney. Not much changes for 2025 in that respect (i.e. updated for the recent draft and trade periods).

Whereas for the AA rankings in the 2024 season, the top eight are: Sydney, Port Adelaide, Collingwood, Geelong, Essendon*, Carlton, Adelaide & West Coast.
AA rankings adjusted for recent trade (& draft) period for 2025 season and 2024 AA listings top eight are: Sydney, Collingwood, Carlton, Port Adelaide, Geelong, Fremantle, Greater Western Sydney, Adelaide.

So I thought I'd compare RANKINGS for 2024 and 2025 to see who we might expect most improvements from, I also looked at adding list improvements calculations (by ranking) to 2024 list rankings (by AA and T10). First thing I did was sum the T10 and AA players, Blues were ranked 8th in 2024 but are ranked 1st in 2025 — good job Nick Austin and the rest of the recruitment team. And any newly listed AA players (i assume it’s AA squad not AA selected team but not sure) — so Weiters well done either way!

I personally rate AA as twice as valuable an index than T10 pick (no offence to Paddy Dow, Sam Petreski-Seton et al but in the AFL more generally there's a lot of T10 players will never became AA) so I also looked at T10 + 2 x AA. In terms of a sensitiviity check on that claim, when I ranked the teams for improvement in 2025 over 2024 for both of the calculations ( i.e. AA + T10 vs. 2 * AA + T10 ) the top 11 teams don't change position at all, only the bottom 7 change spots, so maybe I'm wrong on that?

Anyhow I ranked each team for 12 different data points using just these two bits of data as source data, and the nice thing was when I averaged all these indexes, Carlton came out on top with 3.50 followed by Sydney (3.56), Freo (3.75), GWS (4.5), Collingscum (4.50), Essencheats (5.50), Nth (5.56) Melculture (5.63) and so on. Brisbane rank outside top 8 in almost all these rankings with the exception for improvement in T10 picks in 2025 ranking 2nd on the list RANKING 8th using the AA + T10 and the 2 x AA + T10 calculations in 2025 over 2024. Scary that they getting an improved list c.f. other clubs, even with Danaher retiring, on account of SOAG Levi Ashcroft of course.

If anybody want to DL the data (zip file with all formats covered) and my calculations its here.
https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZwFC55ZEhkeNhgtAxfpHux6X6W7Hz2KbuSk

Apologies for any mistakes, it was a quick exercise and hasn't been checked by anybody else (yet).

Does anybody know how to load an image into a post FFS?! Geez this forum is more old school than me even…

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just shows how. icy they’ve been underperforming for a decade then doesn’t it? i wonder how common that kind of behaviour was at Lions, and how much it was/is at the Blues these last ten years. CFC seems like more of a family values club than it was in the glory days, i’ve heard shocking accounts of after the win game day behaviours on the club premises.

that’s one area we will miss kennedy, knows how to sit the ball for leading talls. can take a strong HF mark 40-60 out and put it to a dangerous spot, or when in range convert himself. but we gain Jagger Smith who is a strong ball user and wins more of it than Bam Bam ever could.

So far, 2025 really sucks.

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It's never as good as it looks and it's never as bad as it seems.

What an absolutely shit preseason

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#DonTheStash

i got a bad feeling this season is gonna be torture. hope i'm wrong.

I reckon we might be in for a long year.

The loss of our depth players, coupled with injuries, means that unless we’ve sorted development over the offseason our list looks thin.

Then there’s the game plan, or lack of.