I'm backing Tooradin.

We've won our games this year largely due to midfield/clearance dominance. We are missing Pitto, but our midfield remains intact (assuming Kennedy) gets up. We should smash them there as we've smashed most other teams. Gives us more than enough opportunity to kick a winning score and deny them enough of it to expose our backline.
Agree it wont be a walk in the park. They'll see us as vulnerable and will set themselves for this one, but we should still win.

I’m a nervous nellie about this week, but I’m perhaps knowingly guilty of focusing too much on who is NOT playing rather than who IS playing.

I think we've all got some emotional scars over the past 20 years and may take some time for them all to heal.

There’s a pretty decent gap between AFL & VFL… SANFL & WAFL are even further behind.

Young, Plowman & Kemp would have to be injured or consistently horrible for Durdin to play before Weitering comes back.

The filth took 18 marks inside 50 last week.

Sidebottom 4
Henry 4… all uncontested
Mihocek 2
Elliot 2
Ginnivan 2
Cox 1
Noble 1
Pendlebury 1
Lipinski 1

What was Weitering going to do to alter that? Magically teleport from spot to spot to defend the uncontested chains off half back?

Point being, you couldn’t tip Young or Plowman out because they couldn’t defend against our midfield turnovers or pressure less forward half defence.

Marchbank hasn’t got through a full game at the lower level yet. Kemp is next man up & he’s got a six month head start on Durdin.

We all shat ourselves and thought oh no we're gonna lose vs giants because of Leon Cameron's farewell and we won that relatively comfortably.

We, as a collective (players, fans, everyone involved with the club) need to stop focusing on reasons we might lose and stop this defeatist bs.

It comes as McKay pushes to come back potentially as early as Friday night’s clash with Essendon* at the MCG.

McKay would need to get through the Blues’ main training session to prove his fitness this week. But the club will give him every chance to make a shock return to tackle the Bombers.

If he falls short, he is almost certain to return against Richmond on Thursday week. McKay hasn’t played since suffering a lateral meniscus tear in his knee in the Round 8 win over Adelaide.

He was expected to miss at least six weeks of football when he suffered the injury, but looks set to return before that time frame.

He started running again during the bye round last week and stepped up his work rate this week.

His imminent return would be a huge boost for the Blues after a challenging past few weeks with injury.

McKay (20) and Curnow (37) have combined for 57 goals so far this season, with the Blues’ double-pronged key position attack testing the defence of rival clubs.

McKay was one of the first to congratulate Caleb Marchbank, who will play his first AFL match in more than 1000 days on Friday night.

The weather doesn’t make a big difference for me re McKay. Unless it is bucketing down, the conditions end up being pretty good at the G.
More importantly, McKay sitting in the goalsquare still commands their best or second best tall defender. This grants us all sorts of other opportunities in the air, on the lead or on the ground that are much less without McKay.
I would not risk prolonging his injury but if his knee is genuinely good, then I’d be tempted to bring him in even if his match fitness is not quite there yet.


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Harry is ready.

Not sure if Durdin will be selected this week. He has a lot of learning to do about our game plan, but he isn't wasting time asking questions to fast track his selection. Just doesn't sound like he's IP fit with the game plan.

Durdin has found the competing against Charlie at training very challenging to say the least. Ditto against Harry. The two KPF's are ready.

Friday night will be slippery but it might not be wet. Marking should still feature.

I think we've all got some emotional scars over the past 20 years and may take some time for them all to heal.

I agree. Our midfield needs to dominate. Those games we lost our midfield was patchy. As long as TDK breaks even with Draper we need to smash them in the middle.

Phillips is more of a concern. He's in better form than Draper at the moment.

I think we've all got some emotional scars over the past 20 years and may take some time for them all to heal.