A. Players don’t want a longer season, let alone one increased by more than the existing pre-season comp.
B. The first few rounds would be a scrappy spectacle with no practice beforehand
C. No-one would care one way or another about practice matches if they weren’t televised
Wonder who will play given we have 6 players down with gastro tonight!
Fark
What, please tell me your kidding, right ?
Was repotred on the news Zaka said is was pretty much the leadership group who were hit with gastro.
Hurley and Merret were the 2 mentioned Joe is fine mis at the season launch
I wish I was!! I’m currently being reassured that it’s not a bad omen that our leadership group is out for our season launch!! 
Good. Rest up and be better by Saturday. 
What I want from this game is a win. I don’t care that it’s a practice match and I don’t care that we will be avoiding injury. Our aim this year is to win the premiership, and the way to achieve that is to start winning as soon as we start playing, and keep winning for the rest of the year. I am totally sick of listening to excuses for pre-season losses and explanations about how they mean nothing. I want to win the ■■■■■■ game and see the other team make the excuses.
When we play a practice match, let’s practise winning.
I don’t give a stuff about winning. I want:
Winning premiership points is the objective.
Okay, so we lose by one goal less than last time, a couple of first and second years show a bit, and there are no serious injuries. If you’ll be satisfied with that, good on you. I won’t.
My main intrest will be seeing an imrpoved defence and harder edge midfield.
I soooooo want to change my panic dollar choices after reading this thread.
Here is the squad. Four to be cut before game time.
Essendon v Richmond at Norm Minns Oval (Wangaratta), 4.35pm AEDT
.
ESSENDON
B: A.McGrath 1, M.Brown 28, P.Ambrose 29
HB: A.Saad 42, M.Hartley 36, C.McKenna 45
C: M.Gleeson 8, Z.Merrett 7, D.Parish 3
HF: A.McDonald-Tipungwuti 43, S.Draper 38, D.Zaharakis 11
F: D.Smith 5, J.Daniher 6, S.McKernan 44
Foll: M.Leuenberger 22, J.Begley 16, J.Long 34
I/C: M.Baguley 12, D.Heppell 21 ©, J.Houlahan 24, M.Dea 49, K.Langford 4, M.Guelfi 35, B.Goddard 9, J.Green 15, D.Clarke 37, J.Stringer 25, J.Merrett 20, B.McNiece 41
Notable absentees: Michael Hurley, Tom Bellchambers, Orazio Fantasia, Cale Hooker, Aaron Francis, David Myers
.
RICHMOND
B: A.Rance 18, D.Astbury 12, D.Grimes 2
HB: N.Vlastuin 1, B.Houli 14, B.Ellis 5
C: S.Grigg 6, S.Edwards 10, T.Cotchin 9 ©
HF: J.Castagna 11, J.Graham 34, C.Ellis 32
F: J.Riewoldt 8, J.Caddy 22, D.Butler 7
Foll: T.Nankervis 25, K.Lambert 23, D.Martin 4
I/C: R.Conca 30, S.Bolton 29, J.Townsend 21, K.McIntosh 33, J.Short 15, R.Garthwaite 42, J.Higgins 28, M.Chol 41, A.Miles 26, C.Moore 36, S.Lloyd 27, I.Soldo 47
Notable absentees: Dion Prestia, Daniel Rioli, Nathan Broad
No Fantasia,Hooker,Hurley,Bellchambers
That sucks hopefully they are ready to go for JLT 2
Most of those guys that are missing have/had gastro this week. Interesting that Stewart wasn’t picked. He trained fully yesterday…
Will play JLT 2 imo mangning his loads by the looks of things.
Ha, they looked at a team with Draper at CHF and concluded Stewart wasn’t a notable absentee.
Also, McGrath named in the back pocket and Heppell named on the dunny/bench.