Mazer Rackham

The year is 1988. We scraped into the finals, beat WCE by a bee's proverbial, then comfortably won our way to the GF. Who's there waiting for us? One of the great teams of the era. The powerful Hawks. Carlton had upset them the year before ... maybe this year an upset is on the cards? No such luck. They drummed us into the ground and kept drumming. Game over at 1/4 time. Disaster. The year is 2000. Nice high finish on the ladder ... no scraping in this time. The historic comeback against Carlton, who really should have had no problem dispatching us comfortably. On to the grand final. Who's there waiting for us? One of the great teams of the era. The powerful Bombers. Dogs beat them in a freakish upset near season's end. Maybe we can too? No such luck. EFC then proceeded to take us apart the same way they'd done to sides all year. Game over at 1/4 time. Disaster. Each time it felt like boys versus men. And we suffered the likely outcome. The year is 2021. The Mighty MFC is the best team for the H/A season, having beaten all the top sides. This time it's different. This time we're in the box seat. Our team is settled, our style is solid, our boys are confident. We have genuine stars on every line. This is the year.

Port smell blood and they get to play a home final with a crowd behind them

1. Miller (no one to take votes off him) 2. Bontompelli (the umpires pet) 3. Oliver (the best mid in the comp)

They put Roundup on the green shoots instead of Osmocote.

Brian "BT" "Roaming [censored] Brian" Taylor IS the entertainment. The football is secondary. It could be darts going on in the background. BT IS the entertainment. This will be referred to eventually as a "freak accident" when it's more likely that he did something like light a match to see where the gas leak was coming from.

"We're probably going to make our coach walk the plank ... but don't tell anyone." Morale building stuff.

Has anyone asked about the fridge?????

They're all anagrams

Practicing his commentary for this weekend?

At finals time, some players get lucky and some get unlucky. We see the accidental heroes and the Bob Murphys. The club would be mad to play Jayden this week. There's 57 years of tears and angst at stake.

♪ Take me now, take me now, sexyland! ♫

It's well known you have to pay overs to prise a player out of his current club. And his manager will be making MFC well aware of that. "Show me the money!!!!!" Do we have the cap space? But ... Carlton??? One of two clubs in turmoil? Also ... flag contender. Never say never.

The club did the club culture thing in getting Nate to 300. Well done, club. Now the club has to do the club culture thing by landing a flag. Thank you for your efforts, Nathan.

To Channel 7, the football is just clickbait to get to you sucked in to watching Married At First Sight, Celebrities Renovating On Ice, and other higher rating shows. And to stop you watching the opposition channels when the other shows aren't on. To the Channel 7 sports department, the show is "Brian Taylor, World's Greatest Showman, And His Amazing Team Of Wits And Characters." And they think they're doing a DVD commentary track to the visual background of the quaint game of Aussie Rules Football. Tonight, Brian and his team of entertainers perform to the backing of the Swans versus Kangaroos match. Which team has the real shinboner spirit? It's bound to be a barrel of laughs as Brian and the boys talk and joke their way over 120 minutes of players running around on a large oval.

I ran this through the old stats calculator. Mean -0.11, standard deviation 31.7. All numbers comfortably within 3 standard deviations. Chance of 72 or more: 1%. Change of -86 or lower: 1%. So outliers, but (unfortunately) nothing extraordinary. I also ran it through the old conspiracy calculator and it ranked the Dogs as "teachers pets". So again no raised eyebrows. I also ran it through the old mongrel calculator and it confirmed that Richmond are in fact mongrels. So that makes it official.

I would have thought Selwood or Danger would be the Tossing King. In an earlier era, and less figuratively, Jon Dorotich.

When he kicks a goal, the oppo fans call out "Spargo, you're another ducker", so I suppose he must be. (I think that's what they're saying.)

All aboard!!!! This is how we win new fans and get kids on board for the life journey. This is how we move from a minnow (sob) club back to a powerhouse. All aboard!!! No-one cares, but I've had no empathy or good will from my footy supporting mates. They're all too concerned with their clubs (none playing finals) to give a rats about the Mighty Demons.

No, because the ump was saying "clear out Patrick ... clear out ... clear out Brad ..." .... coaching them on not giving away another 50! In a fair comp where the umpires are not the players' pals, and don't have posters of them on their dunny doors, yes.

That's why Scott is so adamant about a finals bye, and he might get it yet, assuming the Cats can stay alive that long. This is good point. It is assumed that the Tigers are so low in the "free kick differential" because they moan and whinge to the umps, so why aren't the Cats equally disfavoured? Selwood & Danger get away with murder on the field. Hawkins and his "carelessness". Etc.

It's happened a few times this year, as it does. It happened against North for a large chunk of the first half, but they weren't good enough to make it stick. It happened against Adelaide for most of the game, but we didn't do ourselves any favours by playing from behind. Some bad luck at the death but it shouldn't have been that close. Collingwood, well, the day & the occasion were tailor-made for them. And it was one of the days where Buckley's game plan came off just right. They're not skilled enough to make it work consistently. If we ran up against them now we'd tear them to bits, but at that stage we were still learning how to be a top team. (Our education is nearly complete.) GWS & Hawthorn, just outcoached us on the day and we fell into their traps. We also played from behind against HFC. GWS will be a dangerous finals opponent. On the other hand, we finished top and not by accident. What a great feeling and to think it's at the end of the home & away season. Marching into finals with full wind in our sails. GO DEMONS!!!!

Also in their run of goals ... Selwood holding Oliver off the ball, ump gives the free to Selwood! Danger then runs 20m and goals. (A lot of long runs in the game, by both teams.) When Selwood & Danger get in trouble close in they're almost guaranteed to throw it. The dive/pick up ball/throw in one move is perfectly executed by the Cats team. Pity it's not part of the game. The umpiring was not awful compared to some recent games, but still some bewildering trends in AFL football ... protected zone infringements. Short kicks paid as marks (some were not paid, so why not all/most?). In the back not paid (but some were paid, so why not all/most?). Max grappled with and held at many contests. One throw-in in the 3rd, Hawkins was rucking and basically just whacked Max's arm. Didn't even attempt the contest. With the umps miced up and no crowds its possible to hear just how absurd the "nominated ruckmen" rule is. Why wait for someone to pipe up and nominate? Just throw the thing up or in. If a team isn't ready, hard cheese. And the amount of player-coaching by the umps does my head in. The umps should not need to say anything. Maybe "play on" is the only thing. ""Foot on the line ... foot on the line ... foot on the line" ... "back 2 metres .... back 2 metres Joel" ... if the player doesn't comply, give a fifty. Watch how quickly they start to comply.

I hear King on SEN sometimes and he seems to have fallen in to this role where he just has to provide the counter intuitive take, and especially the one that no-one else has seen. Even in the most mundane situations. It's almost become a crutch for him. Wasn't it King earlier this season who was touting some statistic about the top teams vs the bottom teams like it was some magical revelation, when in fact it was exactly what you would see in any comp, of any size, in any sport, anywhere in the world!

Here we see in one picture, the MCG, and in the other, Kardinia Park. To scale.

No one remembers that. Didn't happen. I in particular was not even there. Nothing exists except Melbourne 2021. GO DEMONS!!!!!