Mazer Rackham

If you've ever played a good team or a good player in any sport, the really good ones play the same way every time. They're all over you from the first second trying to score as heavily and frequently as they can. It's almost mindless to see it in action and especially to experience it happening against you. As in, it's machine like. They don't worry about if you're any good or if they "should" win, or anything really ... they just go about scoring as much as they can as quickly as they can. It's demoralising and a feeling of helplessness can set in very quickly. We should have scored the first goal against Ess, and as quickly as possible. A second one wouldn't have hurt either. Instead we let them get the first one and took our sweet time getting it back. We gave them heart and hope when we should have crushed them immediately.

Not "get rid of". He is very important for stability and calm. I hope he stays around after this season as a "wise old bugger" director of coaching. But from what we've seen of Goodwin, his game day plan is better than Roos'. Funnily enough, Lyon is starting to look like he's wrung every last bit of football out of his ageing list and they look in danger of plummeting into the Marianas Trench. Unless they change something.

Well that sucked all the fun out of the weekend. Those bastards beat us. Them of all clubs. Their only win of the year. Another singular achievement by the mighty Demons. Was there, surrounded by Essendon supporters. What an irritating bunch of entitled [censored] [censored] they are. The one right behind me was giggling like a child the whole game. I stuck with it so that when the tables turned I would give it right back at them. I was waiting a long time. Even at the 26 minute mark of the last I thought we would still do it. That final siren ... I still can't believe that really happened. Win it for all the clean teams, Melbourne. Or, [censored] it up and give them a win and some belief. And look damned foolish at the same time. To those who say we got ahead of ourselves. No we didn't. We should have beaten them. Maybe not by 10 goals. But we should have put them away without much trouble. Because they weren't very good. Like someone else said, I feel cheated. It felt like when C’wood won their last flag, I didn't use or read tv radio or papers for a week. Couldn't bear it. We played right into their hands. They crowded us for space and time and we played right into their hands. Was obvious right from the start what they doing. Their spread killed ours. They had players in space so often. How could we not counter that. Then they would chip it around chip it around, sideways, backwards, until they got some space and you'd look down the ground, loose men everywhere. They moved it easily compared to us. We had enough trouble just getting our hands on the ball. Always seemed to be under the pump. And when we did get our hands on the ball, we couldn't pick it up. If we did, we couldn't get it to one of our guys. If we did, he was under the pump. So many bad skill errors. I pulled the bill of my cap down a bit every time there was a particularly egregious one. Habit of mine. By half time I couldn't see anything coz it was pointing at the floor. If we found space, you'd look down the ground, plenty of loose men spreading. But the guy with the ball would stop, look around, maybe play on, maybe not. He'd kick it to the next guy in the chain. He in turn would stop, look around ... the half second delay for each possession killed us. Add it up over 3 or 4 possessions and suddenly we’re manned up and there's no-one to kick to. That hesitation, where they had none, did more than anything else to beat ourselves. We played like we were scared of losing (and clearly were), but they played with the carelessness and freedom of a side with nothing to lose. The shot from Angus in the last that went OOB summed up the whole day. I don't pretend know the dynamics of a group mindset so I don't know how a team gets into that kind of panic. And so don't want to single out any player, but here goes anyway .... Hogan needs some tough love. He needs to lead, or go to Casey until he learns to lead. Compare him to (shudder) Daniher. I know who was the most dangerous and damaging player out of the two of them. He simply cannot succeed at this level glued to the goal square expecting his mids to bomb it on his head and pick him out of a group of 3 or even 4 defenders. How to make it easy for the defenders, in one easy lesson. They know where he'll be every single time. And if he won't lead and insists on playing a solo role in a team sport, then he can leave the club and it doesn't matter where to. Coz until he pulls his head in he'll be a shadow of his potential. I thought the new, 80 interchange open style of play would suit Lumumba. Maybe it will, if we can work out how to play it again. But how the [censored] does he always manage to run back into trouble? It's like he's got agoraphobia. (Fear of open spaces, to save you a wikipedia lookup.) Tommy Mc. Dear oh dear. Dear oh dear. Set the tone early when we badly wanted the first goal. So many players who were near invisible. Only ones I could see putting in the whole time were Pedo & Tyson. But they weren't very effective. Jetta also tried his heart out. And yet ... We're not as bad as it would seem. We have good football in us. It's all attitude. But we're at a crossroad already. Next week will see if we stumble through the season like 2014 or if we will continue on from where we thought we left off. They cannot let this define the season. It was crucial on Saturday to win, by any margin. And get the monkey off our backs. Win when favourites. Next game against Carlton? Huge mental test. Goodwin to take over on match day. Roos has us playing too carefully. Last quarter against GWS shows what we can and should do all the time. I still can't believe Saturday really happened.

While we have Roos as match day coach we will bumble along like the last 2 seasons. Some slashing wins, and some games where we slip on a banana peel and fall down a manhole and then the pretty girl shoves a cream pie in our face. Like yesterday. We have the list. If we're going places we need the Goodwin style every week, for better or worse. Otherwise we risk treading water while everyone else is doing the aussie crawl for the finish line.

It would be TMac's dream to play on Hogan. All he would have to do is punch. Plant himself in the goal square and punch away the rainmakers falling vertically down.

And they are tiring just needs a bit of a spark Nine points down playing garbage footy

Hold your nerve guys. We're not that far off it. It's a bit like last week, when it clicks we'll be off and away So far we have played into their hands

The Neeld years set Jack back more than the club. He didn't get guidance, just abuse. That was when he went to get counselling from Malthouse of all people.

He's Old Dee's apprentice. "Always two there are, no more, no less."

Well, you know they're going to try the same thing with Hogan. But probably not "legally". And Watts. And Brayshaw, Oliver, Harmes. The leopard doesn't change its spots. Worsfold was a thug of old and it's their only chance of getting over us. Give 'em a taste of their own medicine. (And then bury them.)

Heh heh heh. Let's put their season back on track then!

That was a strange one. It looked like the Tiger guy was handpassing into space for his mate to run onto but under pressure didn't pinpoint it. I thought when under pressure you were given greater leeway regarding deliberate anything? (OOB, rushed behind) Maybe there's a special "interpretation" that says when down the Ponsford Stand end in front of thousands of baying Pie supporters, you just decide in favour of the Pies. Like Fasolo's "mark".

Possible bottom 4 for season end? Coll, Rich, Carl, Ess.

Both teams played some terrible footy and I hated seeing Collingwood win. But that win will paper over some cracks for a while I reckon. Fasolo the only one up forward who looked dangerous and he had the help of the umps. Their midfield is not setting the world on fire. And so many skill errors. We are expert in identifying lousy footy and both teams last night served up a double sized portion.

I don't disagree that we're not up to challenging for a flag yet. But these things can come on quickly. There's no script that has to be followed. Demons in 87. Challenged for a flag from out of nowhere. Crows in 97. Way down the ladder the year before. Cats in 07, were out of the 8 the year before. Dogs in 08. same. Teams can and do come from nowhere to be contenders.

No you haven't Yes you have

Helen Lovejoy, beautiful heiress to the Halibut millions, has been jilted at the altar by Villion de Paprikon, son of Louis XIV. Peter, Villion's Eton boating friend, has heard this, but being in Tibet has embarrassed Mary, his fiancée, who, being the only cousin of Sir Ray Ellington, has passed the title on to Baron Geldray, also heir to the Halibut millions. Now read on.

Oh boy. This victory is going to be so sweet.

I reckon two. But will be one with an early plea.

How prosaic. What a downer. Can't you do better than that? "The gif brings the viewer face to face with their own preconceived hierarchy of cultural values and assumptions of worth." "The gif imaginatively propels its viewer forward into the seemingly infinite progression of possible reproductions that the OP engenders, whilst simultaneously pulling them backwards in a quest for the original source or referent that underlines the thread's oeuvre." Something we can sink our teeth into.

They're going to get games as a group simply because there is a list of 44, of whom probably 25-30 are up for a game, but only 22 can get on the park each week. They should be learning how to play good footy while getting games as a group. That group didn't seem to be learning that.

I'm sure he did. He did have us on what looked like an upward trajectory for a while. But the foundation of his strategy was getting games into a group of youngsters.

That's cargo cult science. "If we simply get games into our group, up to the average of 120+ & 2/3 etc, then we will win a flag." That's what underpinned Bailey's strategy. Just get a group of youngsters together, and get games into them as a group. But what were they learning while accumulating all these games as a group? How to get the splat kicked out of them. How many teams have lists that "meet the required stats" but don't win flags? Probably just as many.

Speaking of option 2, although I don't intend to watch, it would be amusing watching Newman struggling to contain his contempt for one of those "other" humans, you know, the ones who don't play footy, don't know anything about footy, certainly shouldn't be allowed in footy dressing rooms, shouldn't be allowed to report on the footy .... rumours are they comprise around 50% of the population! How will he deal with one of them being on the set?

Do what I do and don't watch it. In the few minutes of snippets I have seen in the last 10 years while at other people's houses, it has resembled an animated corpse or a trained parrot saying and doing the same old things over and over and over and over again. Entertainment value = zero.