Tough draw for us. How many hammies will go twang with these short breaks?

[Vicky Park]

Not ideal, but at least its against teams on the lower end of the scale.

We'll def get to see players we haven't seen. We'll end up debuting all last years draftees. Bianco. Rantall. Ruscoe.
Sier will also get a shot. We'll likely see Keane. Langdon? Never know. Maybe even Lynch. Murphy. Dunn may finally get to play. Greenwood is only 1-2 weeks away. Heck, Reid likely to get a shot too. Could end up playing all our available players. Broomy, Appleby, Wilson.

This. Expect to see debutant after debutant after debutant. A feast of debutants. Will happen with all clubs, and there will be good and bad surprises. A whole month of ‘depth testing’!

 

[Vicky Park]

Rehab will be critical, right? So those clubs who have the benefit of staying at home in the hub will have access to all their normal rehab facilities - plunge pools, saunas, bloody altitude rooms (do they still exist?)

Whereas the ‘foreign’ clubs will have what - a couple of rickety massage tables in the hotel gym and an overworked masseur?

 

[unplugged]

Rehab will be critical, right? So those clubs who have the benefit of staying at home in the hub will have access to all their normal rehab facilities - plunge pools, saunas, bloody altitude rooms (do they still exist?)

Whereas the ‘foreign’ clubs will have what - a couple of rickety massage tables in the hotel gym and an overworked masseur?

Hopefully the AFL continue to fixture Gold Coast at the Gabba and Brisbane at Metricon, as much as they can. It's not much, but it's something.

Reckon we'll see a few weeks where we hardly train whatsoever.

 

[mapguy]

Man, you lot should see average NHL schedules.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Meh. We start from Perth after a three week visit so that doesn’t really count. Then we are based in Queensland with one travelling game to Adelaide who are a weak side so we can afford to rest players.

All teams have tight schedules and I don’t see that a bit of extra travel makes ours any worse.

It’s a block against weak opposition all round so plenty of opportunities to rotate depth.

In the off chance we return to Melbourne we will still have Gold Coast and Port Adelaide to play at home in the run home.

 

[Anzacday]

On here we sound like Adam Simpson and the Eagles when they went into hub life.
I’m sure, (hope) Bucks will approaching it much more differently.
We need a united positive front at Club level.
I sincerely hope no-one from our Club gets baited into commenting on the tough draw.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Five teams left to play after this next block:

Port Adelaide
Carlton
Brisbane
Gold Coast
North Melbourne

Doubt we will get sent back to Adelaide to play the Power but two away games against Brisbane and GC looking likely unless Melbourne miraculusly opens up for us.

 

[Albert Parker]

On here we sound like Adam Simpson and the Eagles when they went into hub life.
I’m sure, (hope) Bucks will approaching it much more differently.
We need a united positive front at Club level.
I sincerely hope no-one from our Club gets baited into commenting on the tough draw.

Yep, Bucks will have to take an upbeat/matter of fact approach. No one is advocating we take the Adam Simpson approach publicly.

Playing Atu and IQ, as an example, has not hurt our team rhythms this far. We do have good squad depth, albeit KPP depth is a little lacking.

Thankfully we have built up percentage, which may prove vital vs Richmond, and chalked up enough wins to put us in a position to protect our players a little and manage through.

But the competition is more even and the margin for error against weaker clubs is less than in the past.
This block of Rds 9-12 will be a huge test. We commence it with a couple of stars already on the sidelines injured for a large chunk of time.
We can ill afford to lose too many more for an extended period without severely disadvantaging our prospects for winning this season.

 

[AndrewShawble]

We will get to get a look at different players;

- Sier will play
- Keane will play
- Appleby up forward, looks decent in praccy games, lets see at AFL level
- Be great to see Wilson

This new format has a big silver lining longer term.

 

[nahnah]

If we win the flag this year I never want to hear about pies not travelling again or just general vic bias complaints, I will forever reference this season in my response

 

[sr36]

Heaps of Pies games in a short time frame. I'm excited by that and think we're in a position depth wise to manage this better than other teams. Win the next two and then we can manage our players through the tight block.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

At least Sidebottom will be fresh . He won’t be rested... no rest for the wicked!!!!!

 

[nahnah]

If you don’t include the old Subiaco trip which was just a ridiculously oversized ground I feel the pies have had a better record on the road than in Melbourne since 2008ish... no idea if that’s true or not and it probably isn’t but it does feel that way. We use to win in Sydney every year no matter how good the swans were. Can’t remember the last time we lost to the lions at the Gabba despite losing to them at the mcg A few years ago. We lost to freo at the mcg but beat them at the new Perth stadium. We have a good record in Adelaide etc

 

[Horaceg]

The draw is the price to pay if we want to have a season. Meh, it is what it is.

Yes, much bigger things going on in the world and so grateful we get to watch any sort of football.

This really is a glass half full moment, we can only beat what's in front of us each week.

 

[barrackers]

Even if it was in that order, we'd still be flying out to QLD straight after the Fremantle game. Would probably rather Brisbane, Brisbane and then Adelaide.

Assume your scenario is accurate due to pressure for facilities in Perth that stop us staying there longer?

 

[unplugged]

Assume your scenario is accurate due to pressure for facilities in Perth that stop us staying there longer?

I think we need to get out of WA ASAP so that Carlton can jump straight into the Joondalup Resort which has been set up specifically with a "yellow zone" exclusion zone as a matter of quarantine.

And the likes of Pendlebury and Treloar's partners and kids (and probably many more) are already in QLD essentially waiting for them, hence I don't think we'd be too keen on going Perth - > Adelaide - > QLD

 

[left at home]

According to the journos it is a long trip because they're bused to Brisbane which takes a few hours, then fly to Adelaide. Of course there would be waiting around in airports. Not great for the bigger fellas either.

It’s an hour to Brisbane airport from Maroochydore, not hours unless something gone wrong
Would have thought they would use the local airport as it can international flights

 

[AmericanMustard]

Reality is just need to rest players, I got faith that they’ll get it right. We’ve been dealt a pretty good card with games against Sydney and Adelaide those sides are seriously bad.

Down side is we won’t be playing our best side against Melbourne which could be problematic.
As a starter I wouldn’t even think about playing Moore and Treloar more than once a week, they’re too important to us come finals and history tells us they struggle with that.

On the flip side I’d have complete faith with Pendlebury playing all games if he wanted too. Club will get it right knowing what’s at stake, I’d rather lose a game against Fremantle/Melbourne now than have a key player making a dash to finals off an injury.
We’ve been there too many times before and we always lose that fight.

 

[Pragmatic Shill]

Play tohill....fk it

Would say he is the last player on the list that would be in line for selection (not including Beams).

 

[AndrewShawble]

Would say he is the last player on the list that would be in line for selection (not including Beams).

Be great to see Beamer pull the boots on in current condition, don't reckon he could get out of a jog! It would be like watching one of those blokes from the EJ Whitten legends game have a run

 

[unplugged]

Did I just hear none of our games are on FTA

I have Foxtel but whaaaat.

 

[Babylove]

Did I just hear none of our games are on FTA

I have Foxtel but whaaaat.

That's probably just the timeslots that we have been allocated if true. I haven't heard the outcome, but Foxtel wanted some of the weekday slots particularly to be exclusively theirs which I understand was going to suit 7 given they prefer the footy just on the weekends. From memory after we play Freo we're exclusively mid-week for the rest of the block aren't we?

 

[unplugged]

That's probably just the timeslots that we have been allocated if true. I haven't heard the outcome, but Foxtel wanted some of the weekday slots particularly to be exclusively theirs which I understand was going to suit 7 given they prefer the footy just on the weekends. From memory after we play Freo we're exclusively mid-week for the rest of the block aren't we?

Thursday, Tuesday and then late Saturday afternoon against Melbourne. Not too bad.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

it would have made more sense for Collingwood to go to Adelaide after their Perth trip before flying to Brisbane

but tough for the AFL to schedule this on the fly.

 

[Linda Lovelace]

There's glass-half-full and then there's being a deluded fool. There's no point pretending we haven't been completely shafted by the AFL.

St Kilda and Essendon both play 4 consecutive games in Queensland over 16 days and some of you are going to pretend that Perth-Brisbane-Adelaide-Brisbane over 14 days isn't a complete disaster?

The thing many of you are aren't getting is that playing the bad teams makes the fixture even worse, not better. If we lose to both cellar dwellers Sydney and Adelaide - now very realistic considering the travel/breaks dynamic - we can kiss any hopes of a flag goodbye. We will almost certainly drop at least one of those two games.

If we were playing Brisbane or Port in the same tranche of games, we could take the strategic decision to rest players, take the loss and move on knowing we might have lost anyway. Having to do that with two teams where 8 points should have been almost guaranteed is potentially season-ruining.