titan_uranus

Here's one. We know there's a top 9 and a bottom 9 this year. The top 9 scoring sides this year are, funnily enough, the top 9 on the ladder. Guess who's 10th? You guessed it - us. Would you instinctively believe we're the 10th highest scoring side in 2025?

Yeah probably. He was devastated when he dropped that mark down the City End which led to a goal out the back. He did it a few other times too. The exciting point is that he gets to these contests in the first place.

This is my view. Adams was just ok. Got his taste but not good enough to keep May out.

First time seeing him live yesterday. He seems to read the play well, almost floats across the ground, and we know has strength and great hands. I find him a really exciting prospect. Could make a real impact as a marking winger. Needs to learn when to spoil in D50 rather than trying to mark everything though.

Against Gold Coast a few weeks back, we shifted Viney out of centre bounce. We got smashed at clearance in the first quarter and immediately abandoned that plan. Yesterday we kept Trac forward despite being smashed at stoppage early. I like that we didn’t cave. We kept at it, which helped Windsor, and IMO Trac got better as the day went on.

6 - Gawn 5 - Rivers 4 - Petty 3 - TMac 2 - Fritsch 1 - Petracca (10 score involvements and marked improvement by hand in the second half)

We were pretty damn good today but got beat by a side that is so stacked for elite talent it’s not funny. Bont, Darcy, Richards and Dale might be 4 of the 10 best players in the comp. The first 3 might be in the best 5 players in the comp. By contrast, other than Gawn, we didn’t have too many stand out performers. We kept in the game through system and work ethic, and that’s what I loved about today. Windsor in the middle looked good. Rivers and McVee got up the ground more and looked good. Culley on a wing looks good. Langford did some ridiculously good things in the forward 50. Trac started slow but IMO his second half was much, much better. Turner did a lot right, although his turnovers really killed us. Would love to see us bring this system and intensity these next two weeks.

It's pretty unlikely. Still requires Hawthorn to beat Brisbane in the final game or otherwise make up the 3% gap to Collingwood despite losing to Brisbane, and requires GWS to beat Gold Coast on the Gold Coast (along with their other two games) or otherwise make up a 13% gap. I'd much rather us beat Hawthorn next week and ruin their season. Collingwood's is looking increasingly shot already.

I disagree with almost every part of this post. I will concede I haven't got the data and so can't say whether Spargo is indeed "far and away our best kick inside 50". So let's assume he is. IMO, that's useless because Spargo's unable to run or spread to AFL standard, which means he can't get separation or into space, so he can't get the ball enough, and so he can't make use of that skill. He also has no other strings to his bow - he isn't a long kick, he doesn't kick goals, he doesn't apply strong forward pressure (or at least no better than the other players vying for his spot in the 23 already on our list), he's slow, he's short, and he can't/doesn't play midfield. IMO Spargo is the quintessential example of our poor list management. We take and hold too many players who we laud for having a known or potential elite AFL trait, but who can't impact games because they lack too much in other areas. So for mine, it's not Spargo's decision, it's ours, and the decision should be to let him go.

Remember what the Tribunal said about May: "We find that at the moment May changed direction and ran towards the ball, a reasonable player would have realised that it was highly likely that Evans would reach the ball before May did... May could and should have realised before the last bounce that he remained unlikely to get to the ball first... Both players had a clear and unimpeded view of the ball and of each other... May made no attempt to change his path, his body position or his velocity at any time leading up to or in the contest. As a result, the effect was that he ran through Evans at high speed. A reasonable player would not have done so. May did not have a lot of time to do so, but he had sufficient time to avoid or minimise a high speed collision with a player who was gathering the ball... It's important to note in this regard that May had a relatively long period of time to sum up the key features of the contest. This was not a situation where May had a split second in which to assess what might happen in the contest and to consider what he might do if the ball did not bounce in an entirely favourable way or him. May ran at a sufficient distance and had sufficient time with an unimpeded view of what was before him to determine what he could and should do in the likely event that he did not reach the ball either first or at the same time". Almost all of the above apply, IMO, to Newcombe on Howe. One key difference is that the ball was to Newcombe's left but Howe was on the right (not both in front like May), but Newcombe has time to turn and look at Howe coming the other way, and then elects to run through him to try to tackle. If the game today required May to assess that situation and attempt to minimise contact, IMO it required Newcombe to attempt to minimise contact, which he did not do. I haven't heard David King's argument on it but if he has gone with "no weeks, football accident", that simply confirms that he's a [censored] moron, the complete opposite of the "best analyst in football". He's a hypocritical, finger to the wind, opinion-flipping, non-sensical moron. Where's the whole "these players are capable of split second decisions, they can react to these things, I'm the only commentator in the industry who cares about concussion, stop thinking about May and think about Evans instead" now? And Jon Ralph would love his time again when he went with "the good news is it's only concussion". I suppose, being nice, he was trying to say there was no additional neck/bone damage, but seriously, do better you [censored].

Always enjoyable seeing Collingwood fall apart. But we now have a newfound purpose to our remaining games. We must beat Hawthorn next week. Everyone will declare they are into the finals now, because they will assume a win against us next week. They’ll hopefully have been so focused on tonight that maybe they’ll have their foot off the pedal next week. If we only win one more game this year, please let it be next week.

10 minutes since teams dropped and no one’s posted? Sign of the times huh. In: Jefferson, Adams, Campbell All on the extended bench with McVee, Windsor,Oliver, Petty and Sharp

Don’t know if this has had a run anywhere else: Riley Beveridge says Fritsch going nowhere, he and club both want him to stay next year. Josh Gabelich says the same thing about Lever.

It’s barely been 24 hours. I reckon cut him a touch of slack.

The Jon Ralph grain of salt applies here: “Judd McVee has to be kept, he doesn’t want to leave Victoria. His partner is an AFLW player and also plays for Melbourne. There’s Victorian clubs swirling, but they just need to keep him.” Fox Sports‘Diametrically opposed’: Inside Goodwin’s axing, $1.2m pa...‘Was he deluded?’ Inside story of $1.2m Dees axe... and trade watch set to re-ignite

According to Jon Ralph (yes, yes, I know): “Christian Petracca doesn’t want to leave and the club is adamant it is not letting him go. They want to set him up for a superstar return to form, he’s not quite there this year. They also want to help him off the field to set himself up for life, if he hasn’t already. Ralph said the “big one” to watch is Oliver, who nearly left for Geelong last year, suggesting the only way the four-time best and fairest could move is if he took a pay cut and Melbourne contributed towards his salary elsewhere. “If he accepted a massive, massive pay cut — let’s call it $400,000 — and Melbourne paid out — let’s call it $300,000 — he’s still on that $800,000-$900,000 a year. I just don’t think there’s any takers for him,” he said. “But if I was a fresh coach coming into this situation, would I want Oliver always in my midfield? I think I’d probably want him to move on. But it’s just so hard to factor a market where there’s enough money off the books to pay him. “I think if you’re paying over $1 million for him, Petracca and Kysaiah Pickett, that’s too much of a handcuff. Especially if they’re not going to win a premiership in the next couple of years. “I think it's a big decision ahead on Clayton. If I was them I’d move heaven and earth to move on Clayton.” Fox Sports‘Diametrically opposed’: Inside Goodwin’s axing, $1.2m pa...‘Was he deluded?’ Inside story of $1.2m Dees axe... and trade watch set to re-ignite

Hutchy ran with Waverley last night:

Hird claims he’s not interested. Eddie thinks we want two big names - one senior coach, one senior assistant or similar.

We might have the better list, right? But we have worse facilities, fewer members, less money, a 2hr round trip to Casey required multiple times per week, a dysfunctional board, a new CEO, probably/hopefully a new head of football, possibly/hopefully a new list manager, a $1m coach payout that is going to impact our bottom line and salary cap problems. It's probably no wonder we went early on this. We're worried that, in a choice between us and them, our preferred coach would likely choose Carlton.

Goodwin joking about Casey is as good as sign as any that we desperately need to sort this disaster of a situation out ASAP. We don't really need any more evidence that the enormous drive out to a place that is (sorry to those who live there) soulless and meaningless to our club, with facilities that are the worst in the competition, will dissuade some from joining our club, and will motivate others to want out.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/mate-we-need-to-talk-the-inside-story-of-simon-goodwin-s-sacking-20250805-p5mkkk.html Fairly decent level of insight from Gleeson, again. Same board member leaking to him as last week, you'd imagine. "At about 7pm Monday the phone rang. Simon Goodwin was at home in Malvern when Brad Green called. “Mate, we need to talk. Are you home? We need to come over for a chat,” Green said. Goodwin knew the news wouldn’t be good. Green rang from his car in the MCG car park soon after the board met, with president-in-waiting Steven Smith joining online from Europe. They’d decided that, after nine years, a premiership and no finals victories since, Goodwin’s second successive season of missing the finals would be his last. Green arrived at Goodwin’s house about 7.30pm with head of football Alan Richardson, a former coach himself and now in the uncomfortable position of having to help deliver bad news to another coach. With them were interim chief executive David Chippindall and board member Angela Williams. They wanted to give Goodwin the news personally and, as a group, convey the unity of their decision. With the decision made, they reasoned it would be disrespectful not to tell Goodwin straight away and risk word leaking out, as it undoubtedly would have." And on the payout: "When the quartet left, Goodwin picked up the phone to his manager Michael Doughty, a former Adelaide teammate who is still based in Adelaide working for agency TGI. It will be for Doughty to work with the club on the details of the payout. It will be for the club to decide with the AFL if it can be staggered over several years under the soft cap, as Hawthorn’s was to Alastair Clarkson. Doughty and Goodwin discussed what was next for him in the short, medium and longer term. They are, in order: holiday, probably media work next year, and hopefully a senior coaching job after that. Thus, his demeanour at his press conference with Green was as much a job application as it was termination."

So Will Faulkner on Fox reports that Longmire is top of our list. Damian Barrett (yes, yes, I know) has done a piece on afl.com.au arguing that we are would prefer an experienced coach to an untried one, and that we want to appoint the new coach before the Grand Final. We know the club's leaking, so I tend to accept these reports. Sounds like we want an experienced coach, and maybe Longmire is the first choice. Personally, he's the only experienced coach I'd want. They're mates I think, so this doesn't surprise me, but this also makes me sick. Put the supplements to one side, Hird wasn't even any good.

In: Chaplin? Out: Goodwin

The passage of time will tell us whether it needed to be done now, or could have waited 3 weeks. But for those who want the club to be #ruthless, you’ve got your wish. If this destabilises the club, well, you made your bed. I hope this isn’t Green making a #bigcall just to justify that he isn’t an interim president. I hope this has been well thought through.