Little Goffy

A bit more seriously, just to illustrate the diversity of sources and consistency of ideas, a couple of comments about how a commander (or coach, or anyone, really) should seek counsel. Each has their own context and style. The most consistent theme through all the authors on this topic is that the leader must be energetic in seeking counsel to ensure that they are always the one taking initiative, rather than other people feeling they can be the ones to drive these conversations. Machiavelli's The Prince (15th century, Italy) The only way to safeguard yourself against flatterers is by letting people understand that you are not offended by the truth; but if everyone can speak the truth to you then you lose respect. A shrewd prince should adopt a middle way, choosing wise men for his government and allowing those the freedom to speak the truth to him… he should question them thoroughly and listen to what they say. Then he should make up his own mind, by himself. A prince must, therefore, always seek advice. But he must do so when he wants to, not when others want him to. Kautilya's Arthahastra (~3rd century BC, India) No deliberation made by a single person will be successful. He shall consult three or four ministers. Consultation with a single minister may not lead to any definite conclusion in cases of complicated issues. A single minister proceeds wilfully and without restraint. In deliberating with two ministers, the king may be overpowered by their combined action or imperilled by their mutual dissuasion. But with three or four ministers he will not come to any serious grief, but will arrive at satisfactory results. With ministers more than four in number he will have to come to a decision after a good deal of trouble; nor will secrecy of council be maintained without much trouble. Maurice's Strategikon (6th Century, Byzantium) For what should be done seek the advice of many; for what you will actually do take council with only a few trustworthy people; then off by yourself alone decide on the best and most helpful plan to follow, and stick to it.

Just to get the examples started on a light note rather than dumping 1000 words of 'the art of counterattack from samurai duel to massed artillery'. Ibn Khladun, the great 14th century North Africa philosopher, jurist and sociologist, weighed in early on the 'team of champions' versus 'champion team' debate. “Al Turtushi mentions that one of the reasons for victory in war is that one side may have a larger number of brave and famous knights, than the other. For instance, one side may have ten or twenty famous heroes, the other only eight or sixteen. The side that has more, even if only one more, will be victorious. He states this very emphatically… but he is not right. What is the fact proven to make for superiority is the situation with regard to group feeling… the side with a united group feeling is stronger than and superior to the side that is made up of several different groups.” And Sun Tzu always knows the essential truths. Yes, this is a real quote; "...the side with more points will win."

Hello Demonlanders! It’s a project which has been brewing for a very, very long time, but now is at a point where it must come out of the shadows in order to grow any further. The Sword and the Sherrin. Inspirations from the great strategists, for Australian football. Apparently I hate myself enough to write a book. Over many years I’ve trawled in detail through the writings of dozens of history’s most notable strategists from all over the world. Inspired by the deep agreement shared by many of these strategists on many topics, I’ve assembled a collection of insights and quotes on themes ranging from practical organisation to tactical maxims to deeper thoughts on human character. The sometimes profound similarities of observations and advice come from sources as varied as Vegetius, Machiavelli, Ibn Khaldun, Clausewitz, Sun Tzu (of course) and even the Vedic Arthahathstra. Such a deep consistency of agreement between strategists, across thousands of years, across continents, cultures, and contexts as opposite as a Soviet mass operations analyst or a legendary Samurai, suggests there are some universal lessons to be extracted. But it is also clear is that on its own this is very dry content, and I am neither a brilliant nor famous author capable of overcoming that. So, the plan is to involve proper football people and create a kind of ‘round table’ discussion where football experts interpret and apply the ideas shared by the historical strategists. My part, more or less complete, has been to gather the key themes into appropriate chapters, such as tactical topics or more institutional ideas about authority and decision-making, then to add context and to clarify anything a bit obscure in the language or historical reference points. From that point, the conversation can really begin. For example, a major theme is the importance of defence being founded on counter-attack, the vital action of constant harassment and anticipation of the reversal. This has been written upon by everyone from Julius Caesar to Che Geuvara and naval historian Julian Corbett, with endless variation on details according to the context. There is also, in football, never a shortage of opinion on rolling zones, forward press, interceptor roles, slingshot football and so on – all of which apply the strategic principal in different modes. One former coach might closely identify with the constant harassment and sudden concentrations of force of Corbett’s ocean-spanning naval doctrine, while a current assistant would endorse Jomini’s love of sending aggressive detachments to create an implied menace, and a media pundit might be amused by Sun Tzu’s art of leading the opponent into dead ends by ‘offering’ them easy but actually worthless gains. The intended result would be a book with actually relatively little text of my own, but producing a kind of moderated conversation between the great strategists of history and the best minds of modern football. So, the big question is, how much interest do people have in this book? I’m also keen to hear suggestions in the search for who these ‘best minds of modern football’ might be. At a personal level, despite my dashing good looks and charming small talk, I’m entirely unmarketable, so who out there has the brains and the brand to make this the kind of book people impulse buy for their sport-and-history ranting uncle? Whose opinions would you want to hear? Cheers, Little Goffy

Yep, rightio, who else wants to use us as a bargaining gambit to pump up their contract? I don't mind it. The attention is nice. In high school one of the official 'hot girls' was all into me for almost two whole weeks for much the same reasons, and I wouldn't say I was suffering.

It is a well established psychological fact that happiness recalibrates to where you are. Perceived or even anticipated movement from your current condition, for better or worse, will drive happiness more than your actual current condition. For example, many Demons found 2022-2023 excruciating because it felt like not only a disappointment but had the anticipation of ground giving way under us. The emotional baggage of so many disappointments made it all the harder to maintain a unified club. All you have to do is think back to the messiah complex we had as a club - only some great talisman could get us in line and we craved it everywhere and resented all who failed to deliver. MFCSS is real, but just by being able to name it we have made great therapeutic steps. Our new coach doesn't have to be Paul Roos come to save us, he just has to be capable and committed. Harvey Langford might yet be the best player of his generation, but he doesn't 'have to' be. We're able to imagine ourselves functioning even if he is just very good. Max Gawn being the greatest ruck of all time is a joy to savour, not a necessity to cling to. We're a different fan base now. Same people, but changed. We're a different club. Most of all we're a lot less fatalistic. We've restored something of an internal locus of control.

Lol, half the planet thought May was a chance to be moved on or want to move on. It's been media babble for over a month. What I'm really curious about is whether waiting on May's exit was a factor in McVee delaying... That's a brutal theory on just how sharp some club divisions might be.

Obviously it would be Essendon except they have their memories erased at the end of each season. "Ladies and gentlemen, what you just saw was a freak anomaly caused by aliens using the MCG lights to guide their spacecraft. Essendon were great. Essendon always has been great. Essendon will be great again next season. And Kevin Sheedy is definitely sane."

I love that a thread like this comes up seemingly every year or even more often. Clearly the legend is passed around and the 'young folk' get curious. I love that none of the 'old folk' ever get tired of retelling the story of a player who went beyond excellence into some form of art.

I must admit I'll be just a little sad if we go into the draft already knowing every choice we'll make. Where is the joy of speculating about random obscure picks?

Very simple make or break scenario for him. Ace the preseason, gain a step and a little extra strength, put it to work. He has on-field initiative and is smart enough, but it's no use falling 10% short every contest and moment. A really good preseason, though, and he'll be better than just depth.

A quick scan around confirmed that Scarlett worked alongside King at the Dogs, specifically in the 'development of young defenders', not a primary line coach. I actually think that exact role would be a great pickup in itself, even if Scarlett wasn't interested in anything more intense, because we must surely be looking to develop our next wave of defenders with each of May, Lever, and Mcdonald all getting on a bit or a lot. Most recent info I can find about Scarlett is that he basically hanging out at the Barwon Seagulls making himself useful any way he feels like! Most recent AFL-level article is about him deciding it was time to take a break from coaching and the AFL world for a while, in 2021; geelongcats.com.auScarlett Steps AwayMatthew Scarlett's incredible journey at Geelong comes to an end I'm sure Adams, Howes, Turner and the incoming White would all be thrilled at the chance to improve their game under perhaps the most effective and versatile tall defender in the AFL era. It is basically between Scarlett and Silvagni (Senior, Junior. I mean, junior to senior but senior to junior. You know the one.) for best full back in living memory and Scarlett's counter-attack makes him more suited to the present game. I am talking myself into a froth about the possibility of getting him.

I googled 'how to fit an additional assistant coach under the soft cap' and 'Mihocek on a two year contract' was the first seven results. Our forward line needs brains, our wave of new coaches will need supporting voices on every line. At the very least, 2026 is about completely resetting our culture and we can't go hard enough at that, and Mihocek brings a whole lot of good attitude and smart play. Even if he hits the age wall, he will still be very useful at Casey because he can help guide and develop our young forwards without actually competing with them for the same spot on the field.

Went on a dating show. They asked her type and she said "Half back flanks with good metres gained. Open to trying midfield for the right person."

Hi, I've been contemplating the assistant coaching possibilities on the train and decided to attempt to build an information base about who is actually out there. There's an article or two which basically just says every third assistant in the league is a senior-coach-in-waiting, and if you have the patience to scroll through then wikipedia's list of current afl team squads included the full sets of coaches. There's also a page on Whirpool (that's still around eh?) which is about a year out of date but has many relevant names to digest. I just thought it would be helpful for anyone else having the same musings, to be able to 'see the whole board', as they say in chess https://www.zerohanger.com/the-afls-next-wave-of-senior-coaches-which-assistants-are-ready-to-take-the-next-step-at-your-club-157211/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_AFL_team_squads https://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/afl_coaches

"What are these two years missing in your work history?" "Oh, uh, I was in prison. Yep, that's it." Please allow passengers to alight from the train before boarding. But seriously, what an intriguing moment. The little murmur implying that his potential assistants would have been a point in his favour does make me sit up a little. There's been a lot of quality people around him, throughout his career.

We have many very young players on our list now, as well as several mature age recruits and budget recycled players. It didn't get us the depth of AFL quality we were hoping for but it also would have been pretty light for salary cap. I think that scenario pretty quickly balances the impact of our set of very highly paid players, which is really just Petracca, Oliver and Pickett. An upside of their very long contracts is that we can also plan ahead a bit; quite possible we did some front loading already by 2021 as that would have been before many of our players became 'premium'. I'm comfortable with our overall list strategy of trying to target/hold crucial players and roles at whatever it costs, and then look to fill out that best 25 with optimistic transfers and picks. Just a shame we lost our touch after the run of players like Hibberd and Langdon who contributed so much at very modest trade and salary costs.

In the later half of 2024 Flanders bagged 12 Brownlow votes in as many games, but the difference I find interesting is from round 16 when he clearly changed roles and thrived. He went from a 'rebound 50s' to an 'inside 50s' player. From that point on he had more than one goal AND more than one goal assist per game, with about 30 disposals and half a dozen clearances every game as well. He broke double figures for score involvements three times, including 11 against us when his entire side only had 18 scores. I've convinced myself, after initial doubts. He is certainly an AFL-grade player and Lord knows, as presumably does King, that we need more attacking dynamism.

Do we even have multiple assistants left to not tip out?

I'm not sure who the commentator 'Bec' is but based on her voice and our goalkicking, she had a few drinks with our forward line pre-game.

grumlbe grumble When it comes to our women's team, I want to see crushings, not slugged out evenly matched fights. I want Jack Reacher from the series not the movies.

It did my head in looking back to investigate the theory that all these players won their first final. Poor Matty Whelan missed 2000 and 02 die to late season injury, then copped the 2004 elimination final robbery by Essendon and the awful cats elimination final in 2005. Finally got a win against the Saints in 2006, but was injured during the game and missed the semifinal. Matty Whelan is many good things; tough, smart, handsome, skilled and charismatic. But he is definitely not lucky!

As they say at quiz primary school; "Blurter blurter pants on squirter."

I would feel more comfortable if you said Demons '18.

I think you might be going a conspiracy theory too far there.

I've had to abandon about five theories that each covered about 80% of the group, so not contributing except the sound of my own brain fizzing out. I'd forgotten how much I missed/ dud not miss these! One day I'll get one, and it'll be something ridiculous Ike they all did an internship at a sponsor.