Little Goffy

Look on the bright side, by dramatically reducing the number and severity of head knocks and concussions in the game, we greatly increase the prospects for future quality of football commentators. I wish I was kidding.

Just for a laugh Harmes should spend next Monday just following De Goey around, getting in his face and trying to interfere in everything he does.

Final quarter of Port/Hawthorn has the mood of a carcass being slung onto the hook to bleed out post-slaughter. Next up, Collingwood/West Coast. Basically pushing the whole pig directly into the bacon slicer. An afternoon of football.

We'll see how the round plays out. A lot of those disposals were pretty valuable! The rest of the stats favour him, too; 7 Marks, 2 contested, a bunch of score involvements, just shy of 90% disposal efficiency, two tackles inside 50 (behind only Pickett for either side) build a picture of a really effective game. It was an excellent tall forward effort in a game which did not favour tall forwards at all. Unless there's another kid who has a genuinely outstanding game, he'd be under serious consideration. But I think we all agree on what has us really excited. Structure. Even when Brown and McDonald were each mixing between good and just okay form, it was releasing maximum Fritsch. I think we went 20 wins, 1 loss in games where we had the three out there together.

Watching him getting more and more embarrassed and pleased in the post-match when Abbey Holmes kept saying things like 'shining star' and praising him over and over was just beautiful. 100% pure 'Aw shucks the pretty lady is saying such nice things about me in front of all these people'.

6 - Petracca has decided that it is his Brownlow now that Oliver has missed a couple of games!) 5 - Fritsch would have been our best, even over an epic Trac effort, if a couple of set shots had gone through. 4 - May did such an important job on Carlton's main weapon. 3 - Lever back to being Lever with 12 intercept possessions, a couple of goal-saving scrambles, and very few flaws. 2 - Brayshaw was low-key very good except for a couple of clangers which the usual suspects will fixate on. 1 - Gawn worked hard all day then turned in a true captain's final quarter which rallied the team.

It is a bit like predicting player's careers on draft night at the moment. I'm not sure I understand your point?

https://youtu.be/XOhZgAPn_CU Gil at the kitchen table.

In: A.Cincotta, Le.Young, J.Silvagni, Z.Fisher, L.O'Brien Honestly... a loss tonight would deeply test my belief in our seriousness for 2023. Also, we're not going to lose.

Now I'm worried this game is going to umpired by a man with a golden eyeball.

I recall almost word-for-word comments when it was Pittonet in, for something like his 7th game and first at Carlton. Gave a good rugged contest, was one of Carlton's best on the day, and set up his career. Okay, after checking I just need to take a moment to be amazed that I had that 7th and 1st exactly right. For the record, Gawn also had a bit of an on-field party that day and I don't think letting TWO top quality around-the-ground rucks run free will do Carlton any favours. I'm just reflecting on what has actually been a curious pattern of new rucks proving their attitude in games against Gawn.

Fingers crossed because Tomlinson playing well (at the standard we did see from him for a good run before the injury) would make a huge difference to our options for organising our talls. Smith we all just want to see a good effort and effective team play and let the poor [affectionately censored] get a solid block of games into him. I don't mind these changes. It feels a little bit like 'not minding' a 10% rent increase because everyone else seems to be getting charged 30% more... but it is bearable.

I was looking at those tallies and thinking it was a weird one - very little agreement between coaches.

I for one am concerned that our drafting strategy is now too focused on whether players share a name with a former President of the USA. It is almost compulsory if you are over 195cm. Jefferson, Adams (x2), Jackson, Van Buren, and even two Harrisons if you're willing to stretch. So, I guess we'll be taking Darcy Wilson with our first selection, given he's the only eligible player in the 2023 group.

If you don't count ten games we won, our last two seasons are looking pretty average. Love it.