My team for Rd 1
B - McGrath BZT Kelly
HB - Redman Laverde Ridley
C - Durham Setterfield Martin
HF Langford Weideman Davey
F - Menzie Wright VOSS
Foll - Draper Parish Merrett
INT - Shiel, Caldwell, Massimo, Perkins
Sub - Walla
Emg: Walla, Guelfi, Jones, Phillips
Bring on that classic unsatisfying early season win where we play like utter dog shÂĄt and project to all the members and supporters that weâll be rubbish for the year ahead but just do enough to creep over the line against another cellar dweller.
I just want to see four quarter efforts. I donât mind if we lose, as long as we donât lose because of one or two bad quarters.
If we lose each quarter by 2 goals, I can live with. But if we lose one quarter by 8 goals, that I canât.
This guy knows his Essington
I am a fan of Baldwin, but he is nowhere AFL level atm. I was at the Gold coast game.
The more I think about it the more I canât comprehend how on earth tippa gets kicked over Snelling based on what weâve since in the 2 games and the respective playersâ fitness levels
We will all suffer varying degrees of disgust, loathing, happiness, and ultimately relief, as we scrap over the line in a dour, unskilled win.
even if its a dour win, ill take any win, as they will be few and far between this season
Sunday twilight. Is where we belong. Shame itâs not at marvel
Lets not be silly about a 3.20 game start in a game in mid-late March.
Hawthorn have a lot of memberships to sell. They have an ambitious major project running and scarcely enough money to pay for it.
So they will be trying to win as many games as possible early in the season and do all the tanking in the second half.
They will come out full of intent. we will need to match that effort. Lets see if we have the will.
Is it really 3.20 or is @theDJR lost again?
No way this season can hurt as much as last year, but â â â â me morale will be low if our rabble lose to their rabble. Not a good way to start the year.
weâll be competetive for about 15 to 20 minutes, then once heat is applied, will go to absolute water again, hawks will get up by 6 goals, coast to the end, maybe weâll kick a few in the last when game is over
We will lack intent and be smashed in the contest. This is a major area of weekness for us, has been for years, and was on display in the practice match.
May look good for the first 5 mins.
Pains me to say, i predict the little feral Mitchellâs team will win by 28 pts.
We will surprise everyone, well all the gloom and doomers here,
We wil Play a well organised strong brand of footy and win comfortably.
Pete will get back on target.
It wonât be a huge victory nor should we expect it to be if they throw everything at us, and I expect them to.
Our midflied will tidy up their cohesion and players wil keep their feet.
50/50 game
Not sure who is the underdog.
Would not be surprised to see
Tough gameâŚ
watched Hawks and think will be a close game.
They arent as bad as we thought they were, but we are 
someone will step up and surprise us round 1, maybe is Davey or Weideman with 3 goals, but someone will likely do something outstanding. Hawks arenât huge in the midfield so should matchup ok.
Likely will be calls of we should have drafted Cam McKenzie also. Which is a bit harsh on Tsatas as he cant get on the park. And was in the ballpark pick 1 discussion.
Ashcroft should start on fire and will be hard to beat for the rising star this year. But if we let McKenzie rack it up like he did against the pies, they might give him the round 1 nomination.
If we lost but VOSS flattened Jai Newcombe and kicked some goals I would still be pretty impressed.
We all know whatâll happen.
Their young midfield of Ward, McDonald, Mackenzie, Worpel and Newcombe will work their â â â â â off and work better as a midfield team than our group of individuals.
Reeves and Meek as a duo will outlast Draper.
Jiath will be their loose man and weâll have no way to combat him.
Koschitzke and Greene will play like Dunstall and Brereton.
Luke Bruest and Chad Winged will not miss a shot on goal and look like they were ten years younger.
I didnât think we were that much better than Hawthorn a few weeks ago and Iâm glad most are tempering their expectations (mainly off last weekâs game).
We overrate ourselves. We lost to them a few years back in round 1. We started off great, then lost the game in the second half. Last yearâs game was looking absolutely terrible until the last quarter and we won.
actually very little to do with âpsycheâ than pattern recognition.
It was only a unimportant, inconsequential, insignificant practice match last year too, how did rd 1 go again ?
was the same in 2021, how did that go again ? canât hide behind the âturned out to be the premiersâ bullshit justification, cos we are playing the exact same poor team as we did in 21 this year.
2019 went a similar way, how did rd 1 go again ?
2018 tbf we won the first game in 2018, how did the season go after that ?
2020 is the only season we vaguely took the preseason comp seriously, and prior to the world â â â â â â â â itself, how were they going in 2020 ?
So you and other supporters may see it as a meaningless game, and probably so does the club.
however to some of us, that is again merely a pattern of a continuation of poor habits, poor thinking and poor culture, that we ultimately have 20 years and building of evidence of how the results look cos of that â â â â â â thinking/behaviour.
but hey, no doubt we will be back in the same boat next year, with the same people saying the same â â â â , with yet another years worth of evidence itâs a stupid philosophy to run with
but hey, blitz and the EFC do love to live in a delusional fairyland, so itâs not surprising