Mazer Rackham

What happens in this putative 5th year? Memberships leak away, sponsors dry up, players look to go elsewhere, every match Sunday twilight ... will there be any club left after a 5th year of Goodwin?

Just remember. Conditions are going to be wet and slippery. Ball handling will be at a premium. Get in and under, then work it out the back. It could get tight at the finish, and finally, it ain't over til the [elided] lady starts singing.

We've become experts at it!

Or we'll belt GWS and the EFC with champagne football, and miss out on the 8 by the bee's proverbial, just to rub in to everyone what could have been.

It's rainy. It's windy. Ball is a bar of soap. And we try to finesse it with slick handball and threading the needle in traffic Handpass to your teammate 1m away. He handpasses to a teammate 1m away. More demons pile in to help. Meanwhile Freo set up outside for the turnover Laughable how many times they had men in space, while we always seemed to have about 8 players crowded around the ball. The more things change ...

With COVID, it's a buyer's market. People are flogging off things cheap to make ends meet. Don't pay any more than $350, and make sure they do contactless trade. Get photos to make sure the sticks are made of pine or cypress -- if it's gum or something hard, it's dangerous and fake! Don't be a statistic.

We'll scrape in a win coz we've got something to prove after last round. Our players are burning! (This sensation lasts a max of one week.) We'll beat GWS because we'll be the underdogs and have something to fight for. We'll fall flat on our faces against the Bumbers because that's the do-or-die crunch game and we'll expected to walk all over them. The ultimate MFC ****up scenario. Our players will taunt them, asking where they'll be spending their October holidays, even while EFC pile on an insurmountable lead (which we'll gradually claw back and wish we could play a 5th quarter).

Heeeeeeeeeere's some mathematics! If making finals was completely random... 8 chances in 18 every year = 44.4% likely to play finals The chance that you do not play finals at all in 14 years = 0.02% The chance that you play finals once only in 14 years = 0.3% The highest probability outcome is that you would play finals 6 times in that 14 years span (21% likely).

I'll say this for Brayshaw: on the limited hearings I have (watching/hearing highlights on melbournefc and AFL websites) he is clearly trying to forge a style of commentary based on soccer rather than the traditional Aussie rules "horse racing" style. "Horse racing": Jones kicks it to Fritsch, who goes for the mark but drops it ... spills out to Spargo who tries to kick but is tackled ..." Yes, yes, we can see all that. We can see he went for the mark, we can see it spilled out, we can see he was tackled. You don't need to tell us what we already know. Soccer: "Jones ... Fritsch ... Nurk with the spoil ... Spargo ... Blow putting on the tackle ..." And soccer style leaves more room for the experts to say how it was that someone was in position to effect the tackle (for instance). Horse racing style is good for radio but pointless for TV. But our commentators are generally slow on the uptake. They don't think about their craft. Try getting away with that in any normal vocation. Soccer style is more succinct, less mindless, and I commend Brayshaw for trying to introduce a new style (to AFL at least) rather than the laziness exhibited by so many commentators who obviously don't think about their craft, to the point where they don't bother to learn the players' names.

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What! Surely we're a cognac club. (Sherry for the ladies.) Outed as a gonorrhoea expert "Hail Mary! And if you're listening ... can you inspire me with a game plan? I understand your son has some connection with Peter Hudson?"

Don't do this! My mind is racing. "No Daisy ... no Daisy ... keep your hands to yourself ... I've got a headache Daisy ." (Later) "Oh Rhett ... oh Rhett ... no, I can't ... don't ... Daisy's outside mowing the lawn ... I can't ... oh Rhett ... OH MY GOD ... OH MY GOD ... YES I'LL DIVORCE HIM"

"Charmed life" Melksham managed to stay in the side. Other than that ... yes, let's turn over these [censored]ers and see who's prepared to give a red hot go.

You just know we'll set ourselves up so win v EFC = finals, loss v EFC = miss out, and we'll be favourites to win. In which case the outcome is a foregone conclusion. You young people have no concept of commitment or self discipline.

Interesting point, and is why training outdoors and in adverse conditions is valuable. Yet we see some clubs pushing for indoor training ovals, which you would think would set them up for poor performances on wet or windy match days. We will be the last club in the country to get an indoor training facility, and Casey is said to be nature's wind machine, so it is a mystery why we would be so lousy at handling the wind, when we should actually (long term at least) have an advantage.

"They kept kicking it to each other which shook us to the core. We didn't know you could do that." "We'll see what learnings we can take away from that and by 2028 we'll be ready for them. If we still have a club that is."

They smelt blood and knew this was exactly the kind of game we drop. They prepared for that situation and as usual we let the door hit us on the dong on the way in, and on the *rse on the way out. Not to mention every club, every club's players and coaches, every club's supporters, all knew this game was set up perfectly for a classic MFC fall-on-your-face effort. Except the MFC players and coaches.

"We'll cross to Tommy down in the rooms. Are you there, Tommy?" "I'm not sure, 'Arry. I fink I must 'ave gone fru the wrong door." "Well, where are you, Tommy!?" "I'm out in the carpark, 'Arry."

I never watch with the sound on. On the rare occasions I hear him, Derm sounds like he's acting out what he imagines a smart commentator would be saying. But he always takes 3 sentences to say what a smart commentator takes 3 words to say.

I saw the craziest thing ... a forward being held off the ball by his opponent and getting a free kick. Like watching Huddo kick a flat punt ... so quaint and old fashioned.

Well, you can forgive such behaviour ... they didn't play to systems in those days.

Wow ... teams could score 77 points in just 4 quarters of footy? And what about the other team? Must be a typo or misprint.

A couple of posters have talked about club culture and how important it is to have these milestones, such as 300 games. They're right. Milestones like this don't come around every week and when they do they should be pushed for and celebrated. But it has to be on the club's terms, not the player's. It's a team sport. Nathan earlier this year said something like, when he's playing he brings more to the team than any other player. He must genuinely believe that to have pushed on this year. Unfortunately he's managed to highlight to the football world the hollowness of that statement. I think the club have let it play out on Nathan's terms too much. The closer he gets to 300, the harder it will be for him to come to grips with missing out. He'll be at the coaches this week demanding a chance for redemption against Freo. Will they give in? He should have been tapped on the shoulder at the end of '19 and given a dignified champ's exit. He'll be remembered fondly, as MFC royalty, as a bright light in a dark time, but every game he's playing now tarnishes his record just a little bit more.

♫ Don't be sad ... one out of three ain't bad ♪

God almighty. Tell me this isn't true. "Concave flight" ? "Drops quickly" ??? These things are optical illusions. There's no way a drop punt, especially a short pass, can get enough backspin to seriously affect either of those things. It's not golf. As a result we have mastered the high floating kick which forces our boys to stop in their tracks while the ball drops "on their heads" -- ever heard of kicking to advantage? -- while the opposition dash off a note of appreciation to our coaching box, post it, have a quick breather, and swarm all over our boy waiting patiently for the ball to descend from the heavens. The contrast was stark last night ... Swans were dishing out hard flat kicks that looked like the old Tony Greig tracer bullet in comparison. "Drops quickly". God help us.