Harry McKay undergoes surgery on his troublesome knee, adding to a hellishly interrupted season, while Oscar Allen might have played his last game at West Coast.
The road ahead for Saint Kilda.
Can the draft, talent and trade targets lift the Saints from the mid table nightmare and.
The raigning Brownlow and Coleman medallists Together On Players Night, Patrick Cripps and Jesse Hogan join us.
We've talked about his step into it, embrace all of it, hit in the room and eat it.
It's unedifying for a senior coach to do that.
They're on the side of Courtia with the brain cape the man on They played the best footy I've ever seen at the start of the season.
And Andrew said President left the cup over said, of course they do.
It is the stuff that legends are made of. What is holding the ball?
I don't think I could answer it clearly right now that I can do something.
Wrong, you know, and I need to get on the board.
Sex meet the fans, lover and with no fans, no through sixty year old.
The Angels are a bit nasty this Tuesday night. We'll get to those shortly gas. But could you see Patrick Cripps put in the brown low metal around the neck of Bailey Smith.
Yes, I could, Jared.
I think I was going to say reluctantly, but if he's in front at the end, you'd be worthy winner. But I've just done a little bit of homeworking here. Max Holmes is coming with a rush, so all of a sudden you've got competition. So you go back to two thousand and five Cousins twenty he won it with twenty. Those are on twenty halfway through the seventh round and Daniel Kerr was nineteen. I mean Akka won with twenty three and Michael Boss nineteen, so it can still be done.
Max Holmes is coming. He's an eyecatcher, Jared.
He is an eye catcher.
Ow good to have. Jesseygany be awesome.
Looking forward to it a lot.
Actually, there's a lot of key forward activity for you to Patrick Cripps and Jesse Hogan together. Ray Chamberlain's taken a special assignment about Sam Darcy and the challenges of an umpireing a forward, so all bit of real overreaction with As and Kilda Bentz. Then midweek tackle Lauren Woods will lead the lads through the latest footy news that's kicking around tonight Tomorrow night. Patrick Dangerfield is our headline
guests ahead of Game three hundred and fifty. Our coaches will turn their eye to all matters footy and Brendan Favola.
Is going to stop by Ray Chamberlain with samda on Sam Darci must must watch because this is going to becoming during conversation through the rest of the years, this huge man starts to dominate the competition.
All right, we start Tuesdays with a favorite. This was an easy choice tonight. It is thirty years ago to the day, June seventeen that one of the most famous State of Origin games was staged at the MCG. You were telling me about this a week ago. It is thirty years ago today that EJ. Lapp was the starting point of it. Wow, and the raw emotion that so many felt that day, father and son together you put us in the rooms for that. What a backdrop that
was for ninety what's thirty years ago today? He had magnanimously handed the captain.
One word, Jared, Yes, look you want to have a look at those highlights. This is so good and if you don't get excited about stage footy.
On the back of this. This is Plugger.
I was playing half forward in a forward line that had Stuart Lowe at Cinna Ford, Plugger and Gary Abbott coming out of the goal square od Jes. It was hard to get a kick there, and I'll tell you right now, and those two men were on fire.
But you did manage to get a kick.
Guys.
Now, I'm going, where's the fifty or whatever?
The fifteen or whatever it was?
The fifty, Sure it was a fifty, but no it.
Was Look it's that baby going.
There's an awesome day. And those two blokes. Just have a look at them, Mark Bay. Look at all these players under Andrew Jarmon played well that they pulcouts lit the joint up.
Basi is playing at center back.
That's his only kick on his right foot in his career, and he hits Tony like a lace out and.
Then Plugger goes back and drills it.
And then in the end the two of them, Plugger and Gazza just started together.
Yeah, it had a bit of.
Fun for young ru here.
Yeah, Rue was there. He played a good game. From memory, I have to go back and watch this guy.
Yeah, so Ablet's fed Plugger. Plugger returned the favor.
There's two are waxing.
So they're taking the mick at this stage because we gave him a fair old belting from memory. And that's why I magnanimously just deferred to the great man and let him come out and cap them.
Seven for Plugger, four for Ablett and Couchy kick three.
It's outstanding. God is a good player.
Paul couch put a hockey was playing that day, living all those names in there. So David Young, David Neats, Jimmy Stein's, Steve O. Schwader, this was the day's as sauce in the back line. Nathan Burke was playing. So this is why I stayed foot. He works, Jared is.
When they all stick their mids up, it's nothing better.
Sixty three point victors.
Now it's a special night because these have been freshly minted for the occasion. And this is for you, replica, full replica the right badges and the collar.
Is this for miss the collar on sale?
They really gone on sale today wow AFL stores to mark the thirtieth anniversary one of the most famous origin games.
Go ahead and get one, just wear somewhere and just be proud one too, Jared, No, and you like the Farno woll the mist Gids and we're at home, all right.
So that's a Tuesday favorite, if ever there was one.
I love it. Roth to Flyer.
All right, let's get into the agenda. It is dominated by injury news, and the injury news is bad at Carlton. Harry McKay has undergone arthroscopic surgery on his knee, so it wouldn't respond last week to the increased load. Michael Voss just planted the seed of trepidation in his postgame press conference and that has come to pass. He's had a hellishly interrupted season games. He's played seven out of
the thirteen games. So he was there for the Richmond game, then he took his mental health break.
He came back.
God can Cuss had the facial fractures, plays five in a row, including stirring turns against Geelong as the scene here, and the silar against sin Kilda, and now it's knee surgery that is going to keep him out until the right at.
The back end of the season.
Yeah, the most important thing was he got back and played a couple of outstanding games Jared, because I would hate to have seen him go off, you know, potentially for the rest of the season without reminding himself and the rest of the foot he will just how good a player he can be.
And I know that.
Yeah, there's lots of conversations I had around the Carton Fords and I've heard his name mentioned in dispatches. From a trade point of view, I don't think that's what Carlton will be looking.
At right now.
And you know, when you get back to it to have Kerno and I don't think they might take them made the most of it of Charlie and Harry, but I'm glad he came back and dominated against the Geelong Football Club, who we wrote so very highly because that just reminded everyone that and he's best.
He's an elite operator.
So no luck and potentially this weekend, I'm not sure where it sits with Charlie, but Sam Walt's definitely out.
Yeah, so no calf damage.
So six to eight turnarounds, has to get through training on Thursday to prove himself. This is significant against North He's kicked eighteen goals in the past four against the Kangers, so he's had away with them, they.
Will be sitting in a game resting.
Don't take a risk with him, and it would be I'd imagine if he well I don't actually know, but he came off the ground, didn't he?
With that?
This calf injury against the West Coast Eagles in a game that they pretty.
Much had in hand after court a time.
So they may have been ultra conservative Jared and they So from that point of view, there'd be a chance. But if it's a general tightness of a soft tissue like a calf, you wouldn't play off six days.
But they may have been ultraconservative.
So how worrying that the Blues are tenth.
They're six and seven, they've won their two off the buy, they've played stirring first terms and we'll talk to Patrick Crips around the rest of it. They came undone through injury in part late last season and they are dealing with that again right now.
Yeah.
Well, obviously it's a massive challenge. It's not who, it's not how many injuries you get necessarily, it's who you get them to. But they've also demned straight to capacity to rise without some of these place through that time. So yeah, I mean, it's pretty desperate now though, and we'll talk to Patrick when he comes in here. He would be aware of that, but no Sam Walsh in the middle of the ground, he would be shouldering a
pretty big burden in the coming weeks. And so from a Kangaroos point of view is that they're sitting there now going right. This is not that they don't get themselves up for a game, but when you get opportunity presented to you, potentially know how potentially no Charlie, potentially Sam Walsh.
Well, they're coming at you big time thinking that they can win.
And so maybe the biggest four weeks for Patrick while he covers for a couple of.
His motes Oscar Allen, the injured news came back. It wasn't the plantarist that West Coast we're hoping for, which would have been short term. It is instead calf and achilles damage. No surgery required on the achilles, but it's a medium term injury. So you can sort of start you counted about five weeks here. The long term asset is not damaged, but the medium term is going to be compromised. There's only nine games left in the Eagles season.
Yeah, Now, Oscar has had one little misstep depending on who you talk to this year. Already, from a captain's in leadership point of view, the path forward is clear for him. He leads from the sidelines as hard as he ever has, as hard as he captain this side. If he's out for four weeks or six weeks, he's doing everything in his power here and he's not talking about whether he's going to be there at the end
of this year. He fronts his group and says, listen, I'll be here every single morning, So anyone wants to do extra gym session, I'm there for you. Anyone wants to do some more ballwork while I'll be there, and just go over and above in the next six weeks while he's out with injury, and be the captain of the football club that you're elected to be. That is the only choice for us, Grewllan. None of this bulldusks about oh will he boo there? Do they put him away?
And will he go to Brisbane? You're the captain of this football club, captain, whilst you're injured on the boundary, they need you more than they ever have your leadership and support.
Andrew mcqualto who's going through a really difficult time.
As a young coach, and be he's sidekick and get these boys up for the next six weeks. That's your job as captain of the footy club. Not worrying about you know, we're they're going to be there next year. Do what you're there to do this year. I like that simple. Yeah, everyone else is going to want to fold the tent here.
Don't fold the tent. Go and get out and work harder than you ever have as a leader of this football club.
All right.
So that's the injury news as it's landed on a Brisbane Lions front.
They're going to come to Victoria tomorrow.
So the extended lead up to a Friday night that has added magnitude is time to rise to the occasion. For the Lions. It's a bit don't invent a crisis. They've lost two or they've won two of their past six, which we spoke about at length last night. Their games in some sort of order, but this is a long drought that they have experienced at Scadenia Park at GMHBA Stadium. It's quite the losing streak to overcome. Ryan Lester gave any insight into the thinking for the Brisbane I.
Think it's more what's the best prep for us to give ourselves the best chance.
To get the resultant.
I think between the leaders and Fags and d D sort of decided that Wednesday because obviously you fly to Melbourn and then drive to Geelong, so that gives us a full day Thursday to then you get some quality out of our captain's run and then leave into Friday. So yeah, whilst we haven't done it before, we did something similar for the Grand Final, so yeah, it's our best preparation to give us sales the best chance.
Then why not it adds.
To the magnitude of the build up down the highway on Friday night when the Cats and the Lions meet.
I reckon total sense.
Then it makes total sense.
I mean, don't shy away from the fact you've lost. You've only one two of your last sex you haven one down there since two thousand and three, that's thirtey in a row.
Make it a bit special, build it up.
They't be scared to build it up and invest heavily in it and then go what if we don't win? No, No invest in this like it is the biggest game of the year and see what happens.
They've put well, they've played against teams who have put everything on the line. I reckon the Giants played as if their season was at stake. Melbourne certainly did when they went up there. So to flip that around a little bit, is they should feel it?
Yeah, one hundred percent they should.
And as we said last night, the man in charge of this group knows all about this. There's nothing that he hasn't seen in footy and understanding emotions and what sort of leavers to pull.
And I like the.
Fact they're going to get down there a little bit early and do something a little bit different. And you know, there is a bit of backs to the wall about it. Two wins and six and all of a sudden you lose Jack Payne. So there is a bit of galvanizing income together, so that man Darcy Ford's going to be important, Darcy Garden is going to be important.
So that the track watchers clearly identified that Darcy Gardener is going to be the replacement for Jack Payne.
Just in the way the session.
Fly, it appeared the obvious, doesn't it really When he spent a hell of a little time back there. They've been pinch hitting with him forward a bit, but he's the obvious one.
When fague started, he had all of those things the Lions hadn't done for such a long period of time. I presume they've all been ticked off barra Win down to Geelong.
There's a long time two thousand and three, Jared, So this would be the time for them to get up and about.
I can't wait.
I think it's going to be to be fantastic, and just because they are a team who were always seemed to be sell and control themselves the Brisbane line, so there could be a bit of well you think a bit of emotion injected into this to get themselves up all right.
The other side of a Patrick Daniefield joins us tomorrow. Nice the furnace, So the furnace softeners the hottest topic of the week. Ross lyin here last night was captivated on a few fronts as he laid out the challenge befoce and killed us. So with a bit of unrests in the background, we've all tossed it in. It's red, white and black in the furnace.
It's easy to have fun when you're winning, right Like winning's fun. Someone said, I gave him as break all the time. Can't be more positive. Forget the scoreboard. We're doing everything right. Clearance is territory, but we're turning over not trusting the contests. And that was written to angry Ross. So I actually texted the jurne I said, I'm really disappointed. So it tells me the narrative. People are trying to
paint around losses, which I do enjoy. But that's the environment and the landscape.
Well, I think there's plenty.
I hope we were in the top quarter, in the top four for age experience as a club full cap max and winning ten games an eleven games. With that profile, you need to play finals. We weren't and we've shifted.
They they're just too good.
Do you need the club, the team to look enticing by the end of the year that the players that you're trying to attract can see the success.
Well, it doesn't hurt.
We have been trying to run a duel mayor it even not just throw it all out, and we've been trying to win as well as play.
A lot of kids, which we have.
We have some older players that are informed and we need to play them and give them opportunity, and if critician comes with that, well that's okay.
Joggers to the right.
The best place to be is on top, and there's an argument that the next best place to be is right down to bottom.
And stuck in the middle as the hardest place to be. And they run into comin with the form team of the competition next. They've got a hard stretch ahead. Slightly bigger picture than that though for our real overreactions Gas the Saints are on the right path.
I say real because there's no other path for them to go.
They've got to hold a team together, as Ross said, with their senior players, but at the same time keep throwing younger talent through. And I guess that's what we want to see from now to the end of the year is continue to fold them through and hold up with your senior players, with your Marshalls and your Wilkies and those sorts of bokes through The last four Premiers have in the last ten years finished near the last or second last in that time, which.
Takes you back. And this is their point a bit now.
The lowest I've been is sixteenth, but they've just been around ten tenth, three times eleventh and twelfth, so they're stuck in the middle. Is beautiful that stuff there, and that's what Chris was alluding to as well, look at this and they're a bit the same. They did have an eighteenth finish eight years ago, but you know it's always eight, eleventh, thirteen, and eleventh, so you never bought
him out there, so they've got no choice. But what is real, what is even more real, is that they have to be really smart at the draft table, and they have to really smart at the trade table.
And that's in the hands of two really experienced men, and it's easy to said than done. But they're out there.
There are players out there that can help you in the process without costing your fortune. And then if you're going to go big, make sure you go get the right way out and get them and get them. Yeah, for you, Jared the sayings for an enticing proposition, No.
That's an overreaction at the moment because it's really hard to see. All you can do is embark down this path. But I was thinking through the Zach Merritt proposition. If you've sat down and did the prospecting, did the forecasting on securita. It's impossible to say how and when they might be contending for a top.
Four with what they have. But we're about to get.
A referendum on it, aren't we On two fronts. Nasaiawang and Miller is inside the environment.
He knows it intimately. He knows what the ambition and the dream is. Is he going to stay?
And then Tom deconin on the outside and there's a bit of trepidation.
Around this now.
Clearly he's taking meetings around what it might look like to stay at Carlton, where for weeks it had been assumed that he was going to take the money. So you have to be able to see more than money. Where I do sympathize with them is you can't toss all of these players out. We've seen what that looks like and it's ghastly. They don't have the luxury of going zero and ten through the back end of the season, getting beaten by sixty and seventy points. And I like
what Ross said about the integrity of selection. If these players form demands to play them, they must play so that they can integrate the young players.
They have played them and they will play them.
And this is where you trust Ross's judgment when is the right time to play them, that it won't stifle them, that it will educate them and they come into a system that has some semblance of order about it rather than just being tossed into play games. We've seen what that looks like. We've seen it at Melbourne. It set them back drastically. We saw it with the expansion team. Don't be too young and ruin what you're doing.
Now.
They've got to come up with some sort of identifiable brand, I think over the back end of the season so that prospects look can go. Yeah, I can see myself in it, and I can see where it will end up once the A grade talent is added.
And once you met it.
I hope by the end of the year we're seeing Trevalier and Teru and Philippo and Wilson and Boxel all playing footy.
That would be a good result if we can get there by the end of the year.
The faithful have lost the faith.
I say this is an over reaction because I've got faith in the faithful, if you know what I mean, which is not to say they won't be picking and choosing every now and then it's folly to suggest that there's a hardcore that will go anywhere and follow your footy team, and there are others that will prevaricate based on a whole host of circumstances, not just the form of the Saints. So I've got too much respect and i don't want to get hounded on Sekulta fans and
they're they're a hardcore, hardy bunch. You're going through hell and only had one premiership. So anyone that continues to roll up for the Saints, I'm not going to say that they've lost faith, but there will be the odd choice to be made, and I suspect Thursday night at Marvel Stadium might have been one of those, one of those times Ross is being misrepresented real.
I'll say this is real only in so far as so he told us what happened at Court of Time. I'll take him to his word on that. But it's not really about Thursday Night. This is a bigger picture. So he's been criticized for being too cuddly.
That won't work.
Too fierce, that's not for this generation anymore. So anytime he is expressive or demonstrative, he is drawing criticism to his.
This is caught of time here.
He needs to do what is right for him and for his group, and the second guessing he's got to get results from it. We can't curtail his coaching. He's been brought in to do this job. He has changed, He's told us his evolution from the first time he was there until now. But you can't give up all of what You can't plicate people on the outside, just coach the ears off them and get results when results can't.
The thing about coaching is you just you've got to be your authentic self to that's the bottom line. So I've got no doubt that ross Lin will be his authentic self and didn't.
Look that didn't look like a bake to me.
I've seen Ross lyinas that looked like enthusiastic encouragement.
Max King is in limbo.
This is I do really feel for him, and because the hardest thing to talk about for us externally and even the medicos which we heard from Ross yesterday, is to try and ascertain what is going wrong, how much pain is involved in these things, and how much pain you can carry. They are the two of the great unknown questions in footy, and no one will ever be able to decipher who that is. That's an individual thing.
Who says that your ability to carry pain or play with pain is better than mine based on something It's intangible.
You can't measure it.
So and in the meantime, all he wants to do is come out and repay the faith at a time when they desperately, deferately need him. And the harder he tries, the further away he gets from playing footy. So for him, that's an horrendous position to be in. As a footballer. You just want to get out and play, and every time you tea to step forward, there's two steps back. So I feel for him. I don't question him in
any way, shape or form. I just hope, you know, as Ross told us, they've got to go back and test him, under load and to be something that they haven't beene able to get a handle.
Hopefully.
These are the years that Charlie Curno went through when it looked like he wouldn't get back, but he did, yes, and we have seen.
The mist of him. So fingers crossed for him.
Jesse Hogan and Patrick Cripps, two of the most decorated players in the game. The running Coleman medallists are two time Brown Bow medallists.
The Crips of the Desk Jesse from Sydney,