Game Day 2025 Round 23; Essendon Bombers v St Kilda Saints, Marvel Stadium, Docklands, Friday 15th August 7:20pm AEST

[StFly]

AFL - News, Fixtures, Scores & Results - AFL.com.au

Australian Football League. All the latest AFL news, video, results and information

www.afl.com.au

That's right ladies, gents, amoebas in between, it's the penultimate round 23 of 24 as for the first time this season, we face the druggos as for the previous Docklands tenants 15th meets 11th as the Druggos waltz in to say "oi, I'm, relevant again, please like me, I've a Scott now, you have to!" and we're generally thankful we've been eliminated from finals so that we might peruse some draft potential and maybe see some light at the end of the tunnel.

AFL says...​

Outside of the betting agencies absolutely nothing, stone cold silence as bookies have us a a 4 to 1 favourite to win this match. We say, good, about time the AFL media STFU.

So instead we'll say congrats to the

for the rising star nomination, Hugo has you covered but at least now he has a friend.

What a wild ride...
Essendons puff piece this week is how they have injured people and Shiel got cited and how the Dons might have 17 players unavailable as woe is them apparently. Who knew only they had things going on, certainly not anyone that cared, especially about this right alignment cause we don't care and need to pad this shit.
​

Expectation bias​

Imagine a world where you only have two rounds left and it's decided that your second last match will be against a team you haven't faced yet, which means as 18 teams total, and you're one of them, you played several others twice before even bothering to consider the Bombers exist. What a world, what a nice thing to occur, if only it could have been all the time instead of trying to shoehorn it before the GWS last game that actually has ramifications to finals contention. Such a world could have been a thing if the AFL had balls and considered fair play, as it is, they didn't so gaslighting won the day yet again and no one can have nice things. Whodathunk it.

Actual expectation...
We've kind of generally struggled against them, with most games being close as we struggle to kick scores and they get cheapies by catching us on a hop. As they generally run with, it'll be yet another attrition match and we'll have to hope 2M Peter poleaxes himself.
Last year we split the difference, Dons won first as they kicked straighter by a goal, we won later by telling them to sit down and STFU by 11 goals. And before that we have to go to 2023 as we play in Adelaide more than we play the Dons.

Saints by 37

As not our home game, who is going to turn up?
Who will watch this free to air?
Who will watch this on the Murdoch emporium?
Who will just listen on the radio?
Who won't care at all and chat about Nas and Windy and all the others out of contract instead?
Stay tuned sports fans, 4 days till Friday Fight Night, where kids get to say no to drugs and hear air sirens.

 

[Tasmanian saint]

Put Windy on a hard tag on Durham and then they basically have no midfield.

It's a shame we have virtually no decent avenues to goal and are generally terrible otherwise this would shape up to to be a 10 - 15 goal belting.

Edit: Cripes, by my count (assuming Shiel's suspension holds) they're missing 13 - 14 best 22 players.

Play nas up forward try and get him a bag

 

[The Punter]

If Collard is the sub, it'll be the third time. He's yet to get a disposal as sub. I'd rather someone else.

Nice to see Trav back and Dodson in, but it's late in the season and the cupboard is a little bare. I wouldn't be making too much of selections.

 

[Saintbloke]

If Collard is the sub, it'll be the third time. He's yet to get a disposal as sub. I'd rather someone else.

Nice to see Trav back and Dodson in, but it's late in the season and the cupboard is a little bare. I wouldn't be making too much of selections.

Surprised that Hastie is not even on the emergencies, unless injured, he should be in the seniors for the last two games.

 

[mufti15]

Like to see Dodson do the bulk ruck work and Marshall forward, see what ot looks like before taking comes

 

[saintbill]

Are you referring to WC that lost to the top of the ladder team last week by 9 points, or did you have another rabble in mind?

They have won 6 games in 3 years of football and only 1 this season.

Not sure any team has put together a worse stretch of football in the history of the AFL.

I would say that definitely qualifies as a rabble.

Crows obviously didn't take them remotely seriously. Could be in a heavy training block, could have been at the strippers to 5am, who knows, but West Coast are cooked.

EDIT: Just looked it up. Fitzroy won 8 games their last 3 years versus Eagles 6. Absolutely atrocious stuff by the Eagles. Wouldn't be surprised if they get a priority pick at all.

 

[BrutThough]

Tonight's a good chance to make a statement after all the media gossip this week. Put in a strong perforce and show we have a united playing group.

Saints by 20.

 

[Pardon me]

Can absolutely see us bottling this…

 

[StFly]

Can absolutely see us bottling this…

It's Friday night lights with all eyes on, these are the games where we get overawed and shit ourselves in a panic response.

But then we recognise it's Essendon so should still win it as they KO themselves and cheat to win instead of through merit.

 

[MordySaint]

Statement game, we can't move up the ladder too much. I'd also like to see us finish above Port.

 

[dudeintheswamp]

Would love to see a total four quarter domination, something we don't often get to see

 

[BigPowerForward]

They have won 6 games in 3 years of football and only 1 this season.

Not sure any team has put together a worse stretch of football in the history of the AFL.

I would say that definitely qualifies as a rabble.

Crows obviously didn't take them remotely seriously. Could be in a heavy training block, could have been at the strippers to 5am, who knows, but West Coast are cooked.

EDIT: Just looked it up. Fitzroy won 8 games their last 3 years versus Eagles 6. Absolutely atrocious stuff by the Eagles. Wouldn't be surprised if they get a priority pick at all.

Did you watch the game. I watched the whole game. WC put in 4 extremely competive quarters of football and this was reflected in the result.
I don't buy into the "obviously didn't take them remotely seriously" stuff.
Should we have beaten WC? Yes, but they were emotionally charged for that game and we didn't deal with the pressure. It happens to top teams also.

BTW
WC won 3 games in 2023 and 5 games in 2024.
This year they have been inconsistent and only have 1 win, and some blowouts.... but they have also had 4 games decided by less than 2 goals (includes the Adelaide game) and a 19 point loss to Brisbane and a 29 point loss to Collingwood. Hardly a rabble, as you describe them.

 

[Klaatu]

We also should of won these games Carl, WC, Freo over there, Syd on top of our 8 wins already, just on WC 1 priority pick will do nothing in the scheme of things if the AFL want to fix them up they would get a raft of picks in the 1st round & exclude top 8 sides from the first round.

We win tonight by 35+

 

[Remboy]

Can absolutely see us bottling this…

Me too. Hopefully we'll do enough to get home in the last and fall over the line by 287 points.

 

[Ekomaira]

Me too. Hopefully we'll do enough to get home in the last and fall over the line by 287 points.

I can't take another nail-biter. Gonna need to see 500+

 

[AFaiL]

There are absolutely zero excuses for anything under an 8-10 goal win here.

See my post in the list mgmt thread, as s supporter base (and club) mediocrity is too easily accepted. The bombers are down and out, missing their legit only A grade player. This needs to be a feast from the get go.

Will say a hell of a lot about the mentality of the team as to who shows up tonight.

 

[Saintos The ITK]

Should be a bloodbath. Bombers by 42.

 

[Munga]

It's raining and the roof is open, is that correct??

 

[Moquo]

It's raining and the roof is open, is that correct??

Has definitely been raining. Not sure if they have shut it yet.
I don't think Ross is "happy"

 

[Diehard Saint]

They have won 6 games in 3 years of football and only 1 this season.

Not sure any team has put together a worse stretch of football in the history of the AFL.

I would say that definitely qualifies as a rabble.

Crows obviously didn't take them remotely seriously. Could be in a heavy training block, could have been at the strippers to 5am, who knows, but West Coast are cooked.

EDIT: Just looked it up. Fitzroy won 8 games their last 3 years versus Eagles 6. Absolutely atrocious stuff by the Eagles. Wouldn't be surprised if they get a priority pick at all.

After winning the flag 7 years ago?
Forget that.

 

[aussierulesrules]

Looks like plenty of people setting themselves up for potential disappointment here.

Essendon might be crap, but we’ve gone mega-young.

Swapping out 3 guys who were 22yo or older, for an 18yo, a just-turned 19yo debutant ruckman, and a 20yo.

So much so that we have more blokes who are 20yo or younger than they do.

Both teams have two 18yo’s and 3 19yo’s (which is an awful lot of teenagers), while we have two 20yo’s in their second season, to their 1.

So we have 7 kids playing (almost a third of our team) who were drafted in the last two national drafts.

You don’t get much more “playing the kids mode” than that.

And kids make a lot of mistakes.

So maybe just sit back and enjoy the ride, rather than expecting world domination.

This is one of the weakest teams we’ve fielded in years.

Essendon have also been very decently competitive against good teams, away (Geelong and SCG) the last two weeks, which I imagine is largely due to them having so many “non-regulars” busting a gut to impress.

 

[Saintscomemarchingin]

Our Saints academy player- Kai Fincher in the Sandy Team this Sunday, for anyone who likes to follow.

 

[jwikked]

The boss has spoken. First post since 2022 (David Mundy

16

David Mundy

Age

40

Ht

192cm

Wt

92kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

23.1

5star

K

11.2

4star

HB

11.8

5star

M

3.6

4star

T

4.3

5star

CL

5.1

5star

D

15.7

4star

K

6.7

3star

HB

9.0

4star

M

2.3

2star

T

2.7

4star

CL

3.7

5star

D

27.8

5star

K

15.4

5star

HB

12.4

5star

M

5.8

5star

T

6.2

5star

CL

7.2

5star

's retirement).

 

[StFly]

Marvel Stadium;
Marvel as the roof that can close allows all the elements in cause we cbf using a control panel cause AFL owned now.

 

[jwikked]

Marvel Stadium;
Marvel as the roof that can close allows all the elements in cause we cbf using a control panel cause AFL owned now.

I'd kill to go to a night game with the roof open. I would love that so much.