Little Goffy

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.

Ooooh but wait till Buckley's Tasmania starts crushing all before it. 'We missed the chance...' etc etc.

We're going to need a dedicated thread just for horror gifs and random Demon King comments. Is this the beginning of the end for the no-ts-no-bs thread? How much overt silliness can one footy forum retain?

I for one would like to thank the club for giving my brother the opportunity to send me 'evil clown face' gifs with no context.

I mean, the obvious moral of the story is "Don't coach Essendon."

Very General Haig.

Dibs on Ghosty for my scrabble team. Those 'em' and 'en' scores are the 1%ers that get the win at the death after sitting in your hand since the start of the game. The proverbial David Swallows of scrabble.

I for one am glad that Bailey Smith has been able to find a club which is able to accommodate his unique personality. Yelling abuse at people, walking away, then coming back for another round after they've said nothing and you've got nothing to actually add, is never a red flag. Also, the move has solved a significant problem he was having with autocorrect while at the Dogs.

Probably a good fit for North, with the caveat of his perpetual injury recovery. They have a wave of all-purpose high productivity midfielders and need to fill out their list with AFL-grade role players. A fit Spargo is a useful contributor to calm and smart entries inside 50 and good positioning to reduce counter-attack options. North certainly have plenty of accumulators, and whatever Spargo might be, he is not an accumulator!