Nasher

Yeah Goody. Abandon the premiership winning zone and man up.

Nah. St Kilda through absolutely everything but the kitchen sink at us, and they clawed back a total of 7 points on the margin. Tough quarter of having to defend a lot. It's what we do when the game is going against us that makes us such a good side.

Thoroughly enjoyable quarter. What's not to love about a quarter of Kozzy magic, finishing with a ballsed-up regulation kick for goal from 20 out for the opposition? Awesome.

Dear Victoria, Please cease trying to dump your garbage on our state, immediately. We don’t want it. Regards Tasmania

If that’s the logic they applied then their decision makers should be sacked. Fagan was an extremely experienced coach who had been in the system a long time, in a coaching capacity. A quick glance at his resume would reveal he is very clear qualified to be a senior coach, even if his most recent role had been administrative. Could the same be said of Noble?

Yep, the “fab 4” were incredible. I would say very loose equivalence would be Trac to Voss (powerful, skilful, untacklable) and Oliver to Black (sees through traffic as if it isn’t there). We don’t have a player as lethal as Akermanis, who could do anything from destroy you through the middle to park in the forward line and kick 5 goals. But those flag teams had combinations of Clark Keating (2), Beau McDonald (2) and Jamie Charman (1) as rucks - all decent but nothing particularly special and certainly no Max Gawn. Good point on those West Coast era mids. I’d forgotten. Maybe there are more I’ve forgotten.

It’s really hard to compare players across eras. Hell, it’s really hard to compare players in the same era. Who’s the better player between Oliver or Gawn? I haven’t seen Max get 30 contested possessions in a game, nor have I seen Clayton take endless contested marks at crucial times of games. They’re totally different players, but both contribute enormously to our momentum. What I do know is that we’ve never had three players of this quality playing together all at once though. The last time I saw a team that did was the 2001-2004 Brisbane Lions juggernaut. This is a special time for the club and us as fans. Chances are, we won’t see a group like this again in our lifetimes. Savour it while it lasts.

1. Goodwin 2. Daniher 3. Northey 4. Roos 5. Bailey I’m of the firm belief the Bailey rebuild was on track until it was derailed by senior management meddling. It gets blurred in to one massive traumatic period because of ‘08, 09, ‘12, ‘13 and 186, but other than the latter, we were competitive and not that far off in ‘11. I reckon he gets a bum rap. The only other permanent senior coaches in my life coached spoons.

The starting 18 = definitely in the team rule wasn’t applied two weeks ago when TMac was named on field and then dropped, so I’m officially abandoning my long held belief that that’s how it works. That said, I’m still of the belief this means they’ll play TMac and drop Weid. In any case, that’s one role in the team that is obviously far from settled in match committee’s mind. Looking forward to watching it continue to play out.

And I guess he only holds it until we finally lose one, if I’ve understood that right. Bit of a weird record that one, in that you can lose it without someone taking it from you.

This game

Harsh. Frost is a capable AFL level defender. He has obvious limitations, but I think it’s rough to pin the whole side’s performance during his time with us on him. We spent a huge amount of draft/trade capital on May and Lever; had we not been able to attract defenders of that calibre, Frost would probably still be with us.

I love that while pace and drive are key assets of his, he’s turned in to a legitimately hard nosed defender in recent years. Toughness and helping his teammates have become the cornerstone of his game, any time he gets to go for a run is just a bonus. Great stuff.

Watched the Bedford running goal a couple of times now. How good is the gather (kick from TMac was a scrubber) and handball from Melksham? Perfect. Vintage Melksham. Well done.

Exactly my take on that. Got disoriented and made the wrong split second decision. An error but not an intentionally selfish act. The noose would rightly be raised if he’d spilt the mark though!

- We won - We had a massively disrupted week - Hawthorn threw absolutely everything they had at us - We won Save the overanalysing it for the replay. This was a tough game, we still won and we’re 7-0.

I’ll give him benefit of the doubt on the mark: I thought it was just him losing track of his own location and needing to make a split second decision with the ball about to land on him. It was definitely clumsy and didn’t look good but I don’t think it was an intentional goal steal. I agree the long range shot was poor though.

In: Neal-Bullen, Pickett, Petty, Jackson, Sparrow, Goodwin Out: Melksham, Bedford, Smith, Weideman, Dunstan, Yze Edit: that said, no doubt there’ll be more COVID during the week. Happy for any of the above “outs” to go around again depending on who’s out. I thought they all contributed really well.

Thanks Hawthorn for playing such an aggressive game. Took it up to us. I was never really worried we’d lose but it’s the first time I’ve felt some legitimate tension in the last quarter all season.

I don’t know what the right word is then. Singling out one player as the reason we might lose or not want to watch the game seems terribly personal to me. Whatever the right word is, it’s a foreign concept to me and a long way from any emotion I experience or recognise.

I will never understand why some Melbourne supporters actively hate Melbourne players.

I’m mentally preparing myself for the fact that we might be flat, with all the COVID in the group. No doubt in my mind there’s at least one player playing who has it and doesn’t know it yet. The side still looks strong on paper though. I’m still pretty confident we should get the job done easily, but the sheen of invincibility I had earlier in the week has gone.

I fell asleep on the couch with West Coast down by about 70, wake up and it’s over 100. Things didn’t get any better, then.

Surely even Richmond fans would be a little circumspect about this win. West Coast are taking the wizz with their effort here. I just watched Nankervis, the slowest human on the planet, just jog to an open goal, only to give a Joe the Goose to Riewoldt. Anyone gonna defend, or…?

Occam’s Razor says they’re just this bad.