Little Goffy

Definitely not denigrating fence posters or shearers! My point is simply that Clayton will be craving the physical demands and there aren't many jobs which put in a more relentless days labour than those. They also have the rhythm of always having the next task in front of you and you keep going until you are done. In contrast, imagine him in a corporate cubicle farm!

I'll call 'fair play' on your first point there. Once he got into it Clayton lived for the routine of physical training. Catching the 'workout bug' in his late teens was what turned him into one of the all-time single-season draft bolters. I think we would all agree it was only when injury denied him that routine that he really started to struggle. Post retirement from football he's going to need to be a fence poster or shearer just to keep his mind occupied!

This topic got my attention enough to go digging around, but I've mostly come up with just trivia and curiosities. Assoc Football has an enormous number of sprint actions, above 50 per game per player. Compared to 10-20 as the best estimate I found for AFL. On the other hand, there's a difference in how sustained those sprints might be. An AFL player's sprints could be over 50m, while that would just look silly on a soccer pitch. AFL players cover similar or slightly more total distance in a ~120 minute game compared to the 90 minutes of soccer. The ball is out of play for 1/3rd of the time in an AFL game, and almost half the time in soccer. Resetting field position is also much more demanding in AFL on account of double the total playing field size. (See the new ruck rule, for example) NFL timekeeping is weird and the rapid set-play and reset structure of the game means almost every play is done at full freshness. Hence the frankly obese but immensely powerful scrimmage line players. There have been rare but genuine NFL games with less than one minute of total time with the ball actually in play! To round it off, I'll finish with some data I just stumbled across, shared a few years ago by Topend sports. World Cup players 2018 https://www.topendsports.com/sport/soccer/anthropometry-worldcup2018.htm AFL Players 2012-2018 https://www.topendsports.com/sport/afl/anthropometry-position.htm There's some interesting thoughts to brew there, for sure.

As I understand it, the round ball game never really stops. Between Premier, Champions, National representation and a few gap fillers, a top level footballer is more often stuck to choose between competing fixtures than to have time off. Fortunately for them, soccer has a more narrow range of physical demands, and each individual game isn't anywhere near as taxing as top level Australian football.

Oooh, a naughty ruse indeed you cad! In about four minutes my wife and baby son will come out the arrivals gate after six weeks away, so there will be some delay while airport staff figure out how to restore me from a pile of quivering jelly on the floor. Did I ever mention I love youse guys? Cos I love youse guys. Even Cranky and Pickett are all right, y'know.

As a recovered public servant, I'm a big fan of jokes slipped under the wire so stuffy serious people don't notice it. At the micro scale, a boss of mine in the public-facing private sector always included explicit stipulations about quality and quantity of muffins to be provided at all client-called progress meetings. Slightly more forcefully, my dad infamously added the staff who had worked copious unpaid overtime to the 'sponsors' page for a certain peak body's annual report, right next to Linfox and Visy et al. But if you ever want to witness an exercise in deadpan humour carried out in full, there is the 1999 Report to the Minister for Defence on the Collins Class Submarine and related matters The utlimate shaggy dog story. Just from recall; the propeller blades were misaligned causing cavitation which in turn caused the defects in the propeller manufacturing to be exposed as sudden potentially catastrophic cracking the propeller shafts were not designed to match the size and RPM of the propellers, so wore out quickly and needed frequent in-port maintenance, dramatically limiting missions range and capabilities. the periscopes were not hydrodynamic and would begin vibrating loudly and potentially breaking if the submarine moved too much while periscopes were in operation the periscope mirrors weren't properly shielded, such that at certain times of day around dawn and dusk the periscope operator could suddenly be hit by a concentrated glare that would leave them blinded for minutes. the hull shape wasn't correctly modelled and had to be modified after construction to prevent the submarine generating a bubble-wake the hull paint/coating wasn't on spec for acoustic dampening the engines were prone to collecting backwash water, radically reducing performance and causing constant loud banging, causing corrosion of parts, emitting fumes, and vibrations damaging parts such as gear trains and pistons. the contracts defining who was responsible for what were hopelessly lacking in details, leading to months of lost time and legal wrangling over almost every issue which came up. Some contractors were released from their contractual quality standards because it was all too much trouble to administer the various offices involved and the key people in the project (Navy/Defence Materiel-DSTO/Australian Submarine Corporation) all developed such an intense hatred and 'trench warfare' culture towards each other that they actively avoided calls and the meetings required to make progress At no time was there enough crew to field any more than three of the six subs, and typically only two but that wasn't particularly relevant because it was unusual for more than half the fleet to be available for service anyway, or even for sea trials in preparation for service, given the continuous maintenance burden the performance limitations and genuine risks of operation at high loads meant that crew training and development was far below the rated expectations for service the computer systems (both software, and, by the time the software was updated, the hardware) which were initially installed were out of date by the time they arrived. The networking was so unreliable that crew were writing down the details from the screen in front of them to pass to the person at the next screen - for example, target information from sonar was no longer accurate by the time the weapons officer's screen refreshed. Now, I did say this was a shaggy dog story. So the final punchline is, of course, that after more than a decade of hilarious shemozzle... (put on your best Norm MacDonald voice) "The Collins class submarines are well designed for Australia's special requirements and have generally been soundly built."

You said reply only in PMs, but didn't say the had to be Australian PMs. So here is my guess;

England has just dropped off the chase for Essendon's claim to worst failure streak in world sport. This is good news because it makes Essendon look even sillier.

Until this moment I had no idea you could pluck stawberries out of the face of toddlers. (I didn't sleep well, okay?)

Awful lot of bunkers out there heavily stocked with prawns. Not an ideal long-term companion to wait out the nuclear winter, I'd say. As for the good news, since there's already been some toddler joy! My rapidly-less-tiny about-to-be-6-month-old is about to get back from visiting the in-laws overseas. He's been utterly loved by his little cousins and has survived the attacks of swarms of asian aunties. Fun fact - all babies get nicknames in Vietnam, often well before birth, and they are often used in priority over actual names, especially among family. So when Sam is in a group with his little cousins, they are 'Pumpkin', 'Peppermint leaf', and 'Moon' - all one-syllable words in Vietnamese so it sounds cuter. I don't even know their formal names!

Stats from his consecutive Brownlow vote earning games late in 2017. He would have had the three votes in both games except two were deducted against Brisbane for taking running bounces while nominally being a tall forward / ruckman, which as we all know is against the law and spirit of football. Melbourne defeats St Kilda Round 21 Melbourne defeats Brisbane Round 22 Played >90% game time while being backup ruck for Gawn who was on the field for ~85%. Take notes, Max Heath, it can be done!

At which point North starts looking more like the next Fitzroy. Wouldn't ever wish it on them, but there's a little hint of background anxiety about it. They are currently on the worst 6-season form run of any club in the AFL era. O'Sullivan their only rising star nomination in 25, and since/including 2020 there's been Wardlaw, McKercher, Archer, Ford (since delisted), Sheezel, Jason Horne-Francis (traded), and Curtis Taylor (delisted). Just 4 rising star nominees on their list from the six years they have been on the bottom of the ladder. A lot hangs on Wardlaw coming back and the midfield reaching critical mass. If it gets moving, that young midfield could be absolutely game-breaking. But West Coast, honestly, they are welcome to sit right where they are. I don't get enough to look closer!

Ned Guy is being recruited as a big-picture level strategist, and has a track record of making tough decisions and being hated for it. Part of him must be thrilled that the Demon's have already made the toughest of tough decisions. Early in his time as list manager he was under huge pressure to keep the list topped up by retaining and regaining 'beloved' Collingwood players, such as the ultimately disastrous trade for Beams (for pick 17 and the next year's 18) and the excessive long-term contract for Grundy - both of which we're resoundingly popular decisions made under board pressure at the time. Later, he was deeply hated for making the salary-cap-management decisions to move on Treloar, Stephenson and Tom Phillips. I think hindsight favours him there. From an article at the time of his departure from the Pies; Highly regarded and well-liked internally, especially by those with an understanding of the dire mess Collingwood was in with its salary cap, externally Guy has worn blame for the ugly post season. Quoting Graham Wright - "Recalibrating our player payments structure was a tough and necessary job. Our future payments profile is healthier in large part to him. In years to come his achievements will become clearer."

Sounds a lot like the tasks my baby Sam is working on. The 'integrating interfacing functions' part is great fun, but I could do with a little less backwards overflow, synergised or not.

An AI hallucination of this appointment briefly appeared at the European Marine Energy Centre website. Basically, AI assembled; 'Melbourne decision' 'Former boss' 'ending time at AFL HQ' And concluded Melbourne was ending Ned Guy's time as the boss of AFL HQ. It is hilarious in its way, but if there are any C-level executives on here, please remember to expunge AI from your organisation before it gets someone killed.