The Taciturn Demon

Wow, that injury list isn't diminishing, is it? Richmond stuck around against Essendon. I thought they were OK. This could be a bigger challenge than it might have seemed as we were steamrolling St Kilda a couple of weeks ago.

Yep. Punt Road was probably the worst venue I've been to to watch the women (although from memory it was a scorching hot evening, which didn't help).

Oh that's interesting. I thought Oliver showed some encouraging glimpses towards the end of the year, but much of his season looked to me not a huge deal better than 2024. Perhaps I set my expectations far too low for Petracca (I remember thinking there was zero change he would even be available in Round 1), but I thought he was pretty good throughout. Way down on goals, and as you've said, making inconceivably bad kicking decisions, but still contributing.

Honest question: do you have to be a regular Foxtel viewer to understand the aura around Buckley? I absolutely understand that it was real in 2012. I don't understand it now.

Ha ha. I think it's a conspiracy but not a theory. It's impossible to deny.

A lot of the play was on the other side of the ground from where I was, so this is probably badly skewed. Chaplin Hore Harris Hanks Wotherspoon Paxman

You don't hear this very often: Stinear said Collingwood deserved to win in his press conference.

Totally agree. Casey would be fine if the locals were mad for the Demons. Crowd numbers suggest they're not. Interesting to see how many Melbourne supporters were there today - more than I usually see at even Princes Park, I reckon. Hard to see what the ratio was like in the grandstand behind the goals, but in the wing seating I think the Melbourne fans comfortably outnumbered the Collingwood fans.

In a lot of ways that was a very un-Melbourne performance. So fumbly and lots of poor decisions. The forward handball that served us so well in the previous two games got shut down really well by Collingwood. And Collingwood were excellent. Brit Bonnici is an absolute gun - and has been for ages. That's one of the best individual games I've seen in the AFLW. Good to squeak home, but I do worry that all the injuries might have brought us to a screeching halt. (Victoria Park is a great place to watch footy.)

I've softened on umpires over the years, but I have to agree with this. And it would be fine if it was upcoming umpires making mistakes. But by far the worst umpiring came from Chris Donlon, who's umpired well over 400 games. He just [censored] the bed in the final quarter.

Andrew Dillon! You son of [censored].

Way way back at the very start of Goodwin's tenure - year one or two of his senior coaching - he said in a radio interview he wasn't a big one for stats. I think he said something along the lines of he preferred to trust his eyes. I liked it - but I never heard him say it again. What you've outlined is one of the main reasons I think football stats are sometimes fun, ocassionally interesting, but rarely definitive. Even when someone develops a really plausible connection between certain stats and team success, it's ephemeral. Going back to not seeing the forest for the trees, my completely un-scientific and conjecture-based guess is that by the end of his time at the club stat correlations came a distant second to trusting his observation.

Definitely. 2016 Dogs is a good example. Injuries left right and centre, but those who came in kept doing a more-than-adequate job. Over and over again. You could mount an argument they had only one champion and even he wasn't at the peak of his powers.

Let's be honest: he was disastrous. He's improved significantly, although I think it's almost all to do with decision making. I think his technique remains pretty awful.

The Dogs and Carlton underscore to me how incredibly important the non-stars are in any team. And how weird it is that "role-player" is often used as a gentle perjorative.

That's News Corp levels of stating the laughably obvious.

Tyla Hanks?

At the start of this thread, a fair few people are assuming he'll be a forward. He kicked a lot of goals at VFL level in 2023.

I wonder if Latrelle's parents played a lot of NBA Jam growing up.

Is the thought with Duursma that North have just given up on him or is this just idle speculation? If the former, maybe there are obvious cases I'm ignoring, but it seems so unusual to consider trading a top 5 pick after two years and less than 20 games.

True. I also think he's quick enough. He just takes a long time to hit full speed.

I don't know how to reply to that except to ask who do you think the best kick at the club is?

Coaches' votes: 10 Tayla Harris (MELB) 8 Tyla Hanks (MELB) 6 Kate Hore (MELB) 4 Paxy Paxman (MELB) 1 Lauren Pearce (MELB) 1 Sinead Goldrick (MELB)

I thought the same. A little bit disappointing that we got were content letting him go ostensibly for those reasons but remained a team that rewarded butchery by foot.

Raise a Nippy's in recognition of a fine career.