2026 Pre-Season Thread

[briztoon]

Look for the big hat and the maroon shirt

Almost right in front of me, lol.

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

Berry and Brain also on Blue

 

[KissKiss]

Few players swapping teams for the second half -- ZZ and McKenna join the Blue team and McCarthy is on Yellow.

With Draper and maybe Smith missing ZZ might have a sneaky chance at second ruck. Really interesting how he goes

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

Two excellent Ty Gallup goals this quarter

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

Cameron and Gardiner have been relegated to running laps

 

[briztoon]

If that’s Waller playing ruck for the reserves, he looks waaaaaay better than last year. Really taking it up to Fort.

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

Curtin has been quite impressive. Big fella

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

I think that's 4 goals to OA

 

[Perrip]

Some vision and notes here from the early stages of the intra-club:

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

Big statement, but I reckon Brisbane's February football beats Carlton's July football

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

Curtin had two goals and a speccie that quarter. I like the look of him. Playing ruck/forward

 

[irel]

Curtin had two goals and a speccie that quarter. I like the look of him. Playing ruck/forward

It’s around this time three years ago that Morris really announced himself in an intra‑club hit‑out. Gallop followed a similar trajectory not long after, and now it looks like Curtin is tracking along the same pattern. There’s something about that late‑preseason window where the genuine talents start to separate themselves from the pack.

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

Well that was fun. Nice to meet you at last briztoon

 

[Perrip]

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

Impressed with: Curtin, Gallop, as mentioned. ZZ looked to have continued his improvement and Annable did some nice things.

Bit disappointed with Morris, some of his decision making seemed a bit off and his kicking was a bit wayward at times. Nice kick at the end to set up the contrived last-minute come from behind win though.

No injuries other than the one to 56 for yellow who I couldn't identify. Hope he's ok.

 

[Perrip]

No injuries other than the one to 56 for yellow who I couldn't identify. Hope he's ok.

May have been McFadyen?

 

[ems_darling]

Great, great, great post weevil . Possibly the best post I have ever read.

Do you mind if I quote it, in it's entirety, in an email to the club? And I hope you all do the same - at least force them to think a bit.

I agree completely. It's a shame because we've shot up to being a moderate following in a short period of time (success, yada yada) but we haven't capitalised on that. Our corporate sales techniques are slim at best, sponsorship on the jersey is one thing but we could have some seriously impressive stuff happening at grassroots and game-day level but it feels like we're the cousins of the clubs doing it right.

You go to AO and they have stands of sponsored vendors, same at Marvel. McDonalds, Ben and Jerry, etc. etc. We continue to have the horeshit rolled out by the Gabba's caterer. How are we not renegotiating these contracts and trying to retrofit changes into the Gabba?! We are consistently selling out games each season and corporate businesses don't want to be a part of that environment? You have 32k people stuck in a venue for three hours - hungry, thirsty, cold/hot (cricket season) and we're serving up mid beer and chips? Why wouldn't you be pitching to local and national businesses to cash in on that through multi-tiered sponsorship? You could also do the same at BHA - stop inviting the food trucks and have national sponsors with big money making it an evening out for families and reinvesting back into their pockets. Like Maccas clearly has the 70 points+ agreement, but my god I remember them sponsoring our Little As comp my hometown was 40 minutes from the nearest Maccas.

And Intraclubs have someone out there with a camera and record the dang things - the game plan is going to be out in two weeks at the preseason anyway. Get some junior journo keen to make a name for themselves in media and then during reset have them reading out ads like a radio show/mini interviews in breaks/edited prerecorded reels in the quarter breaks so that overtime people really tune into these events. I would have gone today but it was hot and I couldn't be bothered travelling over an hour for my nth intraclub. But you can bet your bottom dollar I would have tuned into a livestream of the game, and I would put money on interstate members and fans doing the same.

I am not sure who is setting this culture at the club for marketing and media but it feels like they have a critically underfunded department, when they really don't. They would spend a mil on billboards in Brisbane a year - I know Goa would probably subsidise part of it but the bloody Mt Ommaney billboard (to catch ingoing/outgoing traffic to Ipswich) is $20k per month alone. Take some of the billboard spend and channel it into social media production, media releases, and they'll see a lot more value.

Also, as an aside I wondered whether Fages' out of pocket media discussion is more of a move the light off Lachie thing? Start another story, get the fire burning about something else, call Fages senile and "too far gone" to kill the pulse of the cheating scandal?

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

It's interesting Dom found Annable eye-catching. I thought he was good but also don't think he got a huge amount of the ball. He was fine but I wouldn't put money on him winning the Rising Star or anything at this stage. The fact that he didn't look too out of place in this team is enough of a credit to him

 

[MSB ROYS]

Did we win?

 

[Grasshopper17]

Coleman and McCarthy both looking great so far

Interesting to see Coleman kicking on his right foot so much tho. In fact I reckon it was more accurate than his left! No real long penetrating kicks from him today that he's renowned for tho, more the safe hit-up-a-target 20-30 metre passes. Good to see him getting across the field well tho.

McCarthy was everywhere across half back, for both teams actually. Kicking will be the main concern for me, certainly compared to Zorko and Coleman who have set a high bar. Also his lack of height... Not quite sure if he'll have the speed off the mark which allows Zorko to compensate to an extent for his lack of height when needing to defend. But these potential drawbacks were not a factor today and he was reading the play exceptionally well. Definitely worth persisting with.

I came to the ground today with every intention of providing a comprehensive update for everyone here. Instead I ended up chewing Dom Fay's ear off for 4 quarters. Poor Dom.

But I will try and fill in blanks where I can.

"Everybody played well and had fun".

 

[Grasshopper17]

Teams are set up Blue (maroon top) mostly seniors and yellow is mostly VFL but also includes Berry.

Players sitting out include Fletcher and Doedee.

Currently Blue 6.8 v Yellow 2.3. Some scrappy play as you'd expect and the weather is blustery and warm, with the low sun an issue for some

Yellow missed a lot of gettable shots. Still they ended up with 22 goals which is a good effort.





















(They may have had 20 goals added onto their score with 5 minutes to go to make the A team chase them down. Which they did.)

 

[Grasshopper17]

With Draper and maybe Smith missing ZZ might have a sneaky chance at second ruck. Really interesting how he goes

Did bits and pieces. Cody Curtin spent (much) more time in ruck (for both teams I think?) and did OK. Couple of nice goals. Bit of a lumbering gait but he still gets around the field alright considering how ugly it looks!

 

[Grasshopper17]

If that’s Waller playing ruck for the reserves, he looks waaaaaay better than last year. Really taking it up to Fort.

Had a good chat with his old man after the game. Top fella. Also he said he reads BigFooty so everyone be nice to his son

 

[Grasshopper17]

I think that's 4 goals to OA

Dom recorded the goal kickers with laser-like focus so he will reveal all in his podcast during the week.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Big statement, but I reckon Brisbane's February football beats Carlton's July football

Skills were pretty slick weren't they. I mean the game opened up of course the longer it went, got a bit end-to-end towards the finish. Defence became more about structure than pressure. But still there was decent pressure when needed.

A couple of times a couple of the A team blokes (Cam, Kai, Wilmot notable examples) would do some lackadaisical/lairy/show-off move, mess it up, but then it was like they gave themselves a talking to immediately and they'd spend the next 10-15 seconds chasing and smothering and tackling etc like crazy, trying to make up for it.

Oh, one thing I need to point out. I don't recall there being any 50 metre penalties. AT ALL. Let alone for the stand rule which apparently has plagued match sims for other teams. Great signs if we have got this right already. Hopefully the umpires were umpiring it the same way the Vic umpires will and we don't get a huge shock in opening round.