And unflustered Sam Mitchell says it's all under control. As the Hawks ready themselves for the next test of their metal, It's the Magpies on Friday nights.
The Lines set themselves off a five day break as the Bombers dig deep into their ranks to field a team in Brisbane tomorrow night and on the cusps for winter.
And with the first slider set to be announced, we begin the countdown to Big Freeze eleven with the Dannaher's.
We talked about his step into it in brace Allan.
In the room and rent it.
It's unedifying for a senior coach to do that.
They're on the side of Courtia with the brain, take the man on.
They played the best footy I've ever seen at the start of the season.
And in the president left the couple order said he of course they do. This 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 go and the board sex.
The fans lover and with no fans no through sixty year old.
The angles of Round twelve loom before us, but origin occupies many of mine to night Gas, Do you have a favorite origin memory.
Of us playing? I over got that many of the new South Wales queens and writing eighty nine VIC South Australia as the state of origin concept was on its knees, brought it back to the MCG, which historically hadn't been. We went into a meeting at AFL House which is in Jollymont, not sure if anyone had come. We came out. There's ninety one thousand people crammed into the MCG. We gave the South Australians a belting. We had great Victorians like Jason Dunstall playing in full ford for us alongside
Tony Likett. It was unbelievable. So that's one of my favorites.
Where did you line up in the center half back?
I couldn't fit into a forward line of I don't care, but played It was Lockett and Dunstall and probably Low and Durmott.
It was great, great stuff.
All right, here's all we've got lined up for tonight. Our coaches are on Judy, Adam Simpson and John Longmire. With the modern day demands that have been faced by those in the chair right now, to her is here and at the end of the show we'll be joined by the mid season draft pick number one, who's about to learn his fate. In the minutes aheads and then First Crack preview what to look for in Round twelve.
Jerry and Kinny have been delving deep into the numbers and working in the lab D Day to get a started for Ossie Broadbound, who was a D Day four.
Now I'm going to Swans.
This is time.
They've been a little bit of nothing. They've had wins against eighth, ninth, twelfth and seven, eighth. I've lost against first, second and third. That's not the end of the world. They've lost against tenth, eleventh and fifteenth as well, So this is it. They need a statement. They were so disappointing against Melbourne. They need a response and in the season is slowly slipping away. Jared at four and seven.
So Adelais Crows come to town. Good side top four, grab your scalp right now, Swans and keep the pulse just beating ever so slightly. I'm not sure if they can do it, but I reckon this is a time for them to turn around to Dean Cox and say, hey, we've got your back here.
You'll be there for it. We'll be up there.
Yeah, absolutely can't wait. We be very just beat Giants last time out of the SCC. It's the best win. They need a big statement win. As I said, you can lose the first, second and third, that's not the end of the world. But right now, when you're four and seven, make your statement in front of your home crowd and get some momentum going in the back half of the year.
So that's me.
Where have you got?
Well, I'm on the team that beat the Melbourne because opportunity just gapes here. You would never have believed that the des could get themselves square with a Ledger before they hit the buy given them the start that they had, and in these wins we well know they kick sixteen goals, sixteen girls fillowing goals, nine and goals. They look like a team transformed. Now do that against St Kilda, who will bring this stingy plan to try to bring all of that done and take it to a town like Alice.
So they have a losing record there, they're four and six across the journey. They've lost their last two and the most recent was just a horror show against freemance when they got beaten by ninety plus points. To make these outposts work, it's a whole of club endeavor. It requires enthusiasm, not resentment, and it requires winning because nothing builds that like a in culture. So you don't want to go there and lose momentum, lose a third and
the trot there and get resentful towards the trip. This is the chance. Get away, plant a flag square the Ledger, come back to Big Freeze, have a dash at Collingwood, and then go right.
We're right back in us.
So they've had the grand finalist Scalps in the last two weeks. So you just got to find a way to win this game.
You're right, Yeah, done by Ross and his Saints. Top of the agenda. Yesterday we learned that the Magpies have their battalion returning for Friday nights. And today Sam Mitchell was batting away questions that loom over the Hawks as they head to the next high end assignments.
And Sam Mitchell's come back from Darwin.
He's got a nice little tan, he looks like he's fitting ready to go.
Where'd you go there?
We lost?
So not that great.
Nice to Sam Mitchell just about lost the plot.
Sound like his old coach.
He was there, had your hand go sign it was it was quite soft behind it. Tekfully h frustrate.
He was it wee again.
It's about as frustrating as that, to be honest.
What's your biggest concern or frustrated at the moment with how you guys are playing.
I think you're all much more frustrated as a media group than we are. When you guys say, oh, they're flying their faun's in, they're Premiership firs. I was saying sort of okay, we're not going quite as well as that. We're making progress and we're going okay, but we've got some work to do. And now we've lost two games in a row and it's like.
Oh, they've lost the plot. They're not going to win over again and they.
Can't win with it will Day and the story is said, my job is to is to have the reality of the narrative, and the reality is always somewhere in between.
The Sisly performance was I don't know what's going on with him, whether he's injured or not.
He was all at sea and he was a big problem.
Just assistant the groins. Something going to happen. These groins are fine, He's going to fine. This is fine. He's playing every week.
There's no reason that he's kicking has anything.
To do with this crowins.
These goings are fine, and he kicked the ball reasonably well last week. I thought they'll watch all of his kicks and tell me which ones you thought he could do better.
Bring me back, show me some vision. That is a storm in a tea cut.
We don't feel like we're yeah, you know, quite as bad as perhaps what it looks like.
There's good questions about them, and I might get answered Friday nine.
There's a fisty demeter about the coach and well they might be right now. He says, it's always in between. The question is are they in between? Are they a top four contender or are they in between? And to some extent we're about to get our answer to that.
Yeah, I loved it.
There's a little bit of edge there, which I think. I think it's timely that they come. That's really interesting this time last year, Jared, they're four wins and seven losses. They've got a percentage of eighty two and no one that's really having a great, big look at them. They went on a ten and two tear, finished one hundred and eighty percent and won their first final. There's seven and four with one hundred and sevent eighty percent. Are they in the same build phase as they were this
time last year. It's an interesting point. They're beautifully positioned seven and four. You take that. I reckon at the start of the year they won the first four games of the year with will Day in that side. They're three and four without will Day. I think it's instructional. I think he's so important their clearance numbers, which isn't is a problem. It can be sheeted back to his absence a fair bit. But look, there's not a disaster hear by any stretcher, and he's exactly right. No one
suggesting it. As he said, they're never going to win again, and they've lost the plot. Not one media person who's said Hawthorne have lost the plot on the back of those two losses.
And we will say anything, and we will, so let's just control the narrative.
No one said they've lost the plot, but we do get excited about them from time to time.
But you know, this is reality.
The clearance is down seven eight against the line center abound seven down fifteen against some cent abounds nine. That's with Warple and that's with newcom in the middle of the ground. It's interesting that they're getting their hands on it. Opposition teams are taking the ball away, so they're gone
to work on them to some degree. And the players that are just off more is just off all Australian last year thirty plus, he's kicked eleven goals from eleven games, okay, being okay, but he's an all Australian Jared So that was the driver in that back half. De Ambrosio all Australian forty, he was a driver in the back half. He was a top twenty player from the ratings. He ended up right now outside the top one fifty. So off in off just a bit, sicily off just a bit.
You know.
All these things out up to the fact that yeah, okay, they've lost four of their last seven games and then they come to Collingwood. They've got doing a lot right though they're hard to play against steel and you don't score against the money in the set. You don't score against them necessarily from clearance. Although the last two weeks has been a battle and you know, they defend their inside fifty really well. So all those things. He'd look at that and go, we're okay, and he can be feisty.
But I just get a feeling they wouldn't have been much Hollywood Hawks this week. I reckon it was to get back to work, you bolks, and let's put a stake in the ground here and mind people how good we've been. And no better team to do it against the than the top of the team. Yeah, the Premier the couch Premiership window. They're in it. So top five, top five points, four, top four points again, so that tells you that they are still in really good shape.
But little concerns are there, and that's okay. That happens long hard season. We saw it last year. They started slow and finished like a train. What they don't want is start fast, win the four games and fall in a heap. I don't think they will do it. I think they've got too much down.
Credible against the Suns and then outplayed for most parts against the Lions. They've got Collingwood, the Western Bulldogs and Adelaide. So these we get fussy at this time of years. Who have you beaten? Well, they've beaten the Giants, who have been eight of eighty. So we've had a top seven and the Giants have occupied the next place and then they've built their numbers against those below that. So get to a moment of the season. It's time to
take a scalp. Do it convincingly, show us what you've got. Do it against Collingwood, who we all regard as the benchmark team right now.
And there's only seven games this round, you know, So I suspect he's walked into that press conference today, been heavily dissected last week and now heavily focused on and it'll be heavy focused Thursday Friday in the build up and if the coach has got a bit of a bristle about him, which it wasn't too bad, but I like, actually love it when he gets a bit indignant, like James Sisley is the number one turnover kick in the competition, all right, so that's just out there, and last week
was okay, it was a bit better that when he goes in to defend the coat, defend his captain. I love it, Jared, because that's that's closing the walls and saying Friday night, everyone has a bit of the A against them and away you go. So let's get into it.
I can't wait.
I don't want to tell your panel how to do its job on Friday night. But if anyone's going to ask about sisily have the vision.
Cut, I'll not ask me.
Thursday night is where the round starts when we get the Gabba tomorrow. Nice It's compromised to a couple of degrees. Essendon is in the scourge of injury while Brisbane are off a five day break and it's a scenario they didn't handle well last month.
It's hard to freshen them up because you've only a five days so we haven't done a lot. We've just been really in recovery mode. We had a reasonable reasonably short hit out yesterday. But the good thing is everyone's recovered well from the game on the weekend, you know, so that's all you can ask for. They're very professional their players. They do all their recovery things that they do during the week to give themselves the best chance to be in great chap and to be honest to
medic and played the day before. They've had six days they got to travel so heart and pass of as l forty these days.
They've dropped a couple l at the gap of the line, so that has to stop if they want to build their credentials to that top two finish. That's Thursday night forty.
The teams are always going to be fascinating tonight. So the lines are unchanged, which is not surprising except that it means mcinnernie they're going to take the chance to rest him again, and why wouldn't you at this stage And Kitty Coleman, who played that one game, was then rested and doesn't win his place back for now, it was always going to be about what happened at Essendon, who are forced to make three changes. So a seventh debutante,
Zach Johnson comes in. He's picked seventy from the draft, an eighteen year old rebounding defender, a larger statist who's played the three games this year hasn't been able to hold his place. And Archer day Wis who played the games against Sydney and the Bulldogs. McKay reed Langford joined Ridley and Jones and Draper and Brian and Hayes and Cox, and that's why they'll be taking so many picks in the mid season draft. Their bone dry.
And that's their spine. McKay read Langford there, So I mean you look at it, it just means that the peripheral defenders who have played second and third come into more focus. They Laverde and Redmond have to play bigger roles and then you know they still have Caddie. They still have right in the front half.
Is interesting.
Dylan Shiel remains as an emergency so when you look at a situation like this and you go okay, you think that you want to turn to a pretty experienced player, but he doesn't get a look in. Even Joe Menzi sits on the emergency bench as well. So these are those games where they'd never say it, but it's stuffing
to lose here for the essendent team. You go there and you just build and build, keep challenging your group to take on Brisbane pain and narrative around the fact that that's a five day break and they might just be a little half a step off and see if you can't jump them. That's sort of what you build up.
And the lines have had those couple of games last year. Last week they were roused by the challenge come to the nbcg face for the previous two weeks they got to be comfortable against Melbourne and then ten minutes where it got out of control, and I suspect that didn't appeal to them. The trip to Tasmania and they thought they had that under control as well. So I can't imagine they'd be taking a game like this for granted with those two recent case studies for.
Them, No, but on that basis then there is a pattern of behavior there. So they to be forewarned is to be forearmed. And I'm sure that Chris Fagan's showing that down their throat, but we're seeing sillier things happen. So I'm trying to build some interesting Jared, and I think these games are sometimes really interesting. That these you can in the end the time they run out this and boys will have been put into a mind frame
that says, yeah, we can take them. So let's see what happens tomorrow and on.
All right, that's Thursday night four. That's your team right here on Fox. Have you felt the bite of winter.
Just it's been pretty well. I want the bite of range for everyone, That's what I want.
It was a bit on the NATS. I was reaching for Beanie today.
Do I have a beanie.
Time to get your beanie.
Well you get the numbered beanie of course, having been a slider, but for everyone and we do also by so get out and get them. They're there. Cole's Bunnings Big Freeze slides we had the slide hasn't been named yet.
They start being named tomorrow, so you can ask this a bet. Danaher, who's about to join us. Big Freeze eleven is on the horizon. It's always such a day for the footy community as we stand with Neil, Danaher and the game itself is taking great shape on the King's Birthday with Collinwood and Melbourne to meet on one of the most cherished days in the footy calendar.
And to Garyline, did you about to go into minds too fantastic?
You coached him for a year, but I reckon this is his best performance for you.
Hey, it's tough to feeling at the moment great idea at the time.
Well, she and the robber and be t you not much water and ice left in enity, perfectly honest.
Three two.
You have to go into that ice bath. You might wake up tomorrow feeling a little horse. I see you've got a little horse there who you dressed as?
I'm Black Cavias, shocking.
This is all Luke Nolan's care, from the helmet to the boots, weighty, from fox footy to dressed.
Here is Luke Nolan, of course, Black Cavier twenty five consecutive wins, three two, one, go there you can play.
So graceful, so graceful.
The chill and the bone still all these right, whispered a nice There.
Was a little horse from the west, was beautiful, infect out of her. It's great to see you, bet, thank you for having me on.
I love coming on AFL through sixty. It's an exciting time of the year.
This is always Dad's call to arms.
This is when you know that we're settling in and it's time to get the beanies and you'll unveil the sliders shortly.
Yes, I know, I was so excited. First slider tomorrow.
So everything, oh well.
When Dad one Australian of the Year, we decided that we needed to find a way to recognize iconic Australians. So everyone is an iconic Gussy and we will be having someone live there at the Gabba. So that gets a little bit of a hint of who it might.
Be Queensland flavor Jared. I won't go any further. We won't want to steal your thunder bit. Help the water comfortably in water. You've gone an extra, you've taken it shot.
What about that?
How is the old fella right there?
He's good. He's good. I think you know. There's so many challenges that face him, but having that recognition of Australian of the Year was something for our family and for the M and D community. It was so special and Big Freeze is always a moment that it gets excited. We went to the footy on Sunday together the DASA backs back.
We were very happy, happy task master. I tell you you could.
Not wipe the smile face. Honestly, when the DASA aren't going that well, he doesn't need to say anything. You can feel the tension. He's kicking his legs. But there was a lot of smiles on Sunday. So it's good to see.
What have the demands been like for him as Australian of the Year.
I think it's just a really great platform to continue to spread awareness about M and D. We have such great support from the AFIL community and they're the people that got on from the very beginning and they've been leading the charge. This is an opportunity to just continue to spread outside of that. We always talk about how M and D doesn't have borders, so neither do we. We need to be able to continue to talk about M and D and get further people within Australia involved.
So I think it provides that platform and I feel like it's given him a bit of energy. He's doing things that he hasn't done before. We're doing some keynote speeches together and then he's doing a little bit of a tour. It's hard for him, but he's doing what he can.
I know, from both Collingwood's point of view and Melbourne's, one of the highlights of the year is when he's able to get along and deliver a pre King's Birthday speech to the boys. Is he going again this year?
Yes, he amazes me. I don't know where he finds the energy. It's really incredible. So he'll be heading to Melbourne on Tuesday, Collingwood on Wednesday. If I've got them right, it's one way or the other that he's doing everything that he can to continue to support the people that from the very start with yourself and new Jared got behind it, took on the challenge. You know, you got tapped on the shoulder being like, do you mind sliding down a slide in toolpool of vice?
Ever floated to me?
And when he first was he using the coach voice.
Yeah, it wasn't a question. You get behind this. This is what we're doing. Get behind it and the way we go. Yes, that's exactly what we'll do.
There's this beautiful day on the footy calories.
It is just walking into the mcg and looking around at the crowd and seeing it. You don't see Melbourne or Collingwood colors, you see blue. And I always talk about how meeting so many families that have been impacted by M and D, when they see someone walking down the street and they're wearing the beanie, what that means to them is just so powerful that we can't understate it.
It might be a simple thing to you know, putting your hand in the pocket twenty five dollars, but it shows people out there that there's an army of people who are trying to help and support and they care about what they're going through, and it lifts spirits, It really does.
It's one of the great activations of all times. There's no question about that. And the tangible difference that is being made right now because of people who will So you can scan your QR code right there, right now and get involved going out and get one of these. Buy one for someone that twenty five bucks. They mightn't be able to afford it. So if you can buy one for someone else and it is making a difference, it is.
Making a difference. And we know that times are tough and there's so many challenges out there, and I think I always reflect on this that when times are tough, that's when you see aust Aliens rally and they get behind it. The generosity just amazes us each and every year because they want to help and they want to
help the underdog. Because we've come so far. We're not there yet, but we know by every beanie purchased, every pair of socks, every donation, we are getting closer and closer to finding a way to get rid of the beast.
As you well know, this woman, lady, daughter, sister and wife has done the most incredible job here. So there are many many people who have been a part of this, but you right alongside your old man is one of the great stories that I've ever come across. And you should be so proud of what you're doing. And I know may be watching this so incredible.
It's a privilege. Honestly, this is such a privilege to be in this position where we can make a difference. When Dad was diagnosed, we told no treatment, no cure, nothing, go tick up the bucket blues. That is not a world that I want to live in. I want to make sure that when Billy and Hazel, my girls are older, that they're not going to be in a position maybe that someone sits them down and says, there's this is terminal, Like we need to fight for people in the future.
We know it's not going to help Dad, you know, we're realistic with that, but we want to be in a future that's different. And I feel very lucky that I get to be a part of this journey. I get to walk beside Dad, work with him every single day. It's been incredible, and meeting people in the M and D community. I wouldn't change anything.
Mention you your beautiful children, Billy and Hazel, who loves seeing young TV.
I left them at Grandma's. I was like, I got to go on TV.
They're like on that.
Strength to you and to kneel over the over the coming week. Wednesday, next week we'll be unveiling slider number. Yes, pick up our moment there.
I am very excited. It's going to be a name that's going to be very well received.
Chabani's show of support we always have as a three to sixty family. So let's stand with Neil again as we look towards Big Freeze eleven