July 15, 2025
News topic:
Friday July 18
2:05PM AEST Essendon v GWS GIANTS
Windy Hill, Melbourne • Wurundjeri
Saturday July 19
12:05PM AEST Sydney Swans v North Melbourne
Tramway Oval, Sydney
12:05PM AEST Port Melbourne v Gold Coast SUNS
ETU Stadium, Melbourne • Wurundjeri
12:35pm AEST Brisbane Lions v Footscray Bulldogs
Brighton Homes Arena, Ipswich • Yagara/Yugara
7:10pm AEST Geelong v Collingwood
Mission Whitten Oval, Melbourne • Wurundjeri/Boon Wurrung
Sunday July 20
1:05PM AEST Coburg Lions v Werribee Tigers
Barry Plant Park, Coburg
1:05PM AEST Casey Demons v Carlton
Casey Fields, Melbourne • Wurundjeri/Boon Wurrung
2:05PM AEST Williamstown v Box Hill Hawks
DSV Stadium, Victoria
2:05PM AEST Northern Bullants v Frankston
Genis Steel Oval, Preston
Coburg v Werribee looks like being the close game this weekend.
Preston v Frankston should also be a good game, with the Bullants in stellar form over the past two weeks.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Two great games featuring vfa teams. Both games should be hard fought.
Another disappointing result for Port. The frustration is that it feels like we aren't too far off being a decent side. We win enough of the footy, but seen to lack footy smarts sometimes.
It will be an interesting off season, and we might see a few experiments tried out in the remaining games to assess the list for next year.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Not sure there's a lot I can say this week that hasn't already been said. I agree, NorthPort, that we aren't too far off in a lot of ways. Some of the lack of footy smarts may come from much of the side not having played together before this season and from the players working on learning what looks to be a fast-paced, fairly direct ball movement sort of gameplan. Mega, your comment in the other thread about McCartney saying there won't be many changes to the side for next season seems like a good sign in that the playing group should be more cohesive next season with more experience playing together and playing to McCartney's gameplan. (I suppose there's no need for me to repeat here anything about the specific change to the side that we are all hoping to see!)
The mids, who overall look fairly good (Rosman and Rankin really stepped up in the last), were still sometimes kicking the ball out past all our forwards, even in the third quarter when we were going against the wind. And when the direct ball movement is clearly not an option, we have a tendency to overpossess with lots of handballs that don't really go anywhere. Those all seem like the sort of mistakes that more experience playing together as a team should tend to fix.
Lazzaro at halfback was an interesting move; I'd wondered if it might happen at some point. With all of Johnston, Van Es, Grant, and Graham in the side we had enough tall options without Rosman there, and as good as Lazzaro has been in the midfield (which is still where I hope to see him play most games), having him play at halfback sometimes may well pay off.