Little Goffy

Not sure if it warrants it's own thread but Alex Neal-Bullen finished the season with the most tackles inside-50. Incredibly, Pickett missed out on being second by just a couple of tackles, finishing 3rd. Honorable mentions go to Viney, McDonald and Brown (Yep, Ben Brown) who all finished in the top 30 based on average per game.

I think it is hilarious that until this year Goodwin vs Scott was 0% wins in home and away and 100% wins in finals. Going back a bit further the Melbourne-Geelong history still holds. Round 21, 2006 - 94-94 Draw. Other results went our way in the final two rounds so it didn't decide whether we played finals, but missing the win did end Geelong's finals chances and the game itself was desperate and magnificent. Round 20, 2005 - 100-99 Win. Featuring a seven goal haul from Russell Robertson. This and the next two games were all must win to regain our place in finals after a roller-coaster season emotionally charged by the loss of Troy Broadbridge. Clearly emotionally exhausted, just three weeks later we we easily bundled out of the finals by none other than Geelong. Round 21, 2000 - 126-108 Win. At the 'G for a change, and in front of 75,000 fans, Melbourne directly seized a top 4 spot from Geelong which we held onto in the final round. In every season this century (including 2000) in which Melbourne have played finals, there has been a crucial late-season game against Geelong. Anyway, there's a pretty fair chance we will play them in finals; - meet in prelim if one side loses qual then wins their semi while the other side wins their qual. OR - both sides win their qual and prelim to get into the grand final. OH HELL IT IS FINALLY DAWNING ON ME THAT WE ARE PLAYING A QUALIFYING FINAL AGAINST BRISBANE THIS COMING WEEKEND AND NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.

Ranked 271st for score involvements but that one must count for extra.

The range of important stats which both May and Lever feature in prominently is all the more impressive because of how well they shared the burden of responsibility. On a less dramatic note, Lever was the player who spent the most time actually on the field in the 2021 home and away season with 22 games 99.14% time on ground. Confusing Archimedes no end, Lever has been an immovable object.

I had he pleasure of being at that game. Strange feeling on the way there as it was within a few hundred meters of the vaccination hub I'd been to twice in the previous month. Also a very strange atmosphere with the crowd restrictions leaving three quarters of the stadium empty while everyone was packed shoulder to shoulder in the remaining part. They also didn't lay on the facilities to appropriate scale; imagine there being queues to get in and an urgent struggle to get so much as a half time coffee at half time when the crowd is under 4000! But we all had a good yell, and very strangely there was no sense of doom when we were a bit flat in the first half and behind at half time. The nine goal to three second half was great fun. Possible omen coincidence - the last time Gawn had a shot after the siren our opponent the next week was Brisbane, who we defeated solidly.

When a game is so epic that even the losers aren't interested in sour grapes, that's good football.

I was hesitant to add that thought because it is all so complex, but then didn't want to add a further wall of text. I don't personally favour the polarising 'Australia is wildly racist all the time' angle but there's no doubt that close enough to every Aboriginal person in Australia goes through life just a few steps away from the next time some b43t4rd will openly insult them or, much worse, undermine them. But, yeah, not looking for a political angle here so much as just noting that for an Aboriginal kid there's... how to say it... always someone ready to tell you you don't belong.

It's a thing often noted with child prodigies that when they finally come up against something they can't do they can really struggle to focus on working through the problem systematically and they can get very emotional and angry about it. Similar stories are told of the 'big' teenagers who developed a little earlier and had a bit more bulk and power as key forwards, dominating their teenage opponents but then getting a serious shock when they find themselves always the smaller guy at AFL level. Just a hypothesis, but I think a lot of the tragic faliures of high draft picks (ours and in general) are partly that shock of suddenly finding you're only okay or, very commonly, hit the second-year blues where your game reaches a ceiling and opponents have worked you out. It takes a lot of personal courage to acknowledge you can't go on the same way that worked just fine for your first 18 years of life and to then change the way you go about things. Jackson is our only very high draft pick since back in 2015 (Oliver and Weideman) and 2014 (Petracca and Brayshaw). He seems to have come in with a terrific attitude while the three midfielders have all been on the proverbial personal journeys to get where they are now. Weideman is the odd one out and I think his story supports the theory - he always seems to be playing with enormous pressure that he's put on himself. He'll miss doing the 'outstanding' and then the confidence drops and he'll struggle to follow up with the grunt work that keeps you involved in games. I think it served us well to not have a couple of very early draft pick kids for a couple of years - not to mention that got us the very important characters of Lever and May. Meanwhile, every other new kid on our list has had to prove themselves -after- they were drafted and do so by following instruction and playing according to the team's needs. Sure, Pickett was a pretty early pick and had some pre-draft hype... but he is Aboriginal so, you know, has never really been allowed to feel completely secure.

One person decided that their symptoms didn't warrant a test and they would go visit their frail elderly mother in a nursing home anyway. After working to midnight last night my wife and several other staff are currently working for their full weekend to help radically reorganise a large aged care roster, identify who needs to be isolated and where needs to be deep cleaned. This process includes the awful aspect of needing to relocate people with varying levels of dementia. All this is being done in the full human condom PPE outfits. She'll be skipping lunch because it just isn't practical. That story just keeps repeating and repeating everywhere you look in any part of the care sectors. I'm running out of patience for the self-indulgent gits of Australia, whether it is the smug complacent establishment types like Kennett and Hazzard or the parolee social club out 'protesting' on the streets of Melbourne.

Oddly enough, in the drawn grand final and replay if you total the scores from both games, both Collingwood (25.26) and St Kilda (17.18) had more behinds than goals. That Collingwood would have won the drawn grand final easily if they had managed even a 50/50 rate supports the OPs observation. Hmm... now I'm looking at grand finals specifically and noticing that a lot of the losing teams had very poor accuracy on the day. In fact, it looks like about 90% of grand final losers had more behind that goals, and that includes some real stinkers. GRAND FINAL SCORING SINCE 1990 WINNERS: 511.421 (55%) LOSERS: 313.381 (45%)

I saw that Tom Browne segment at half time. / He was asked, "Do you think Adelaide have a case to host the grand final or would Perth still be in pole position despite the easier travel to Adelaide and the presence of Port as a contender?" I swear that man is some kind of malfunctioning android. There should be a twitter account dedicated to determining if the passes the Turing Test.

So many factors to consider. Was it for form or fitness reasons? Like for like replacement or bringing in a specific roleplayer? Are they still being retained as a depth option?

(imagine that I am saying this is a very quiet and hesitant tone) At the other end of the scale from Parker, King, Cerra and the like, poor ol' Paddy Dow has been omitted. Apparently because he still had a tiny fragment of confidence left and they needed to completely Carlton that out of him before the end of the season. Dow seems a tragic case of the high pick blues and for relatively little trade cost or salary, and still only 21 years old, I'd wonder if our club has the culture in place to turn him around. He doesn't have to be a champion but he's a bit different to our other midfielders and if he can be 'rebuilt' as a role player without the pressure he could be very good value. Just to make sure I wasn't being completely stupid, I watched a bunch of tapes of him and one thing I noticed is that he is reasonably good at getting a few steps away from the pack and then scooting a handball to a loose player (usually Cripps, oddly enough). I've commented elsewhere about how much it could add to the Petracca/Oliver weapon combo if they had other players taking a little more of the extraction task... so maybe Dow fits with what would be appropriate to grab for midfield depth.

Both Petracca and Oliver thrive when given even a couple more steps to work in. If Sparrow is doing okay at bashing and crashing and drawing attention to himself at the contest that means the ball is coming out to Oliver and Petracca a bit more instead of them having to go in after it and getting sat on. That'll be worth goals. That said, the effectiveness of Sparrow Viney and Harmes is very dependent on their humility. It's very visible that Viney's best is when he is playing a selfless defensive and blocking game. It's even more visible that Harmes' worst games and moment come whenever he thinks he is a star.

I would guess that Jordon is being rested given the lack of a week off. Might be a similar deal with Hibberd and Smith. On the one hand, Hibberd is old enough to benefit from a week off as well as mature enough to not lose form while away. On the other hand, after so much time out of the game Smith needs to be tested and run in if he is going to be any part of our finals effort.

Reinforcing that - in one of Nibbler's interviews for his 100th he talked about the forward pressure and how valuable it was that the midfielders were covering their opponents and closing down any escape options. "Which lets us pressure forwards go to work," I think was how he put it. You put that together with the number of times Brayshaw has been on the spot to spoil or intercept exactly those relief kicks and you begin to see clearly what is being asked of him and why his disposal count doesn't reflect the value of his game. Remember how even in 2018 we still had the critical weakness of the rapid breakaway goals against us that just sailed right past our defensive zone? Dealing with that is probably the single greatest difference (among many) that has us now in serious premiership contention.

For quick reference - 33. Melbourne 42. Melbourne 52. Melbourne 91. Melbourne Presumably that will somehow become picks 12, 65, 70 and a 2022 second rounder by the time of the actual draft night.

Luke Jackson is starting to look like the football unicorn. That moment late in the game where we had two ruckmen combining for a running play on the wing/half-forward flank (Demonland's current highlight video) gave me a good laugh but it was also the moment I finally digested the idea that we are legitimate premiership contenders. When people talk about great teams they always talk on the two levels - on the one hand praising the completeness and work ethic and depth, on the other hand describing things about that team which were genuinely outstanding and unmatchable. Richo describes Jackson in both those ways and right now it also applies to the club as a whole.

What's he doing on that show when there's already an invite to Gus and Gawny?

At least keep a mask on for the benefit of public health. In fact, maybe a second mask as well, you know, also for the benefit of the public. As for me... I reckon I might convince my wife/her family to do a Vietnamese match commentary and crowd noise. The 95% of relatives back in Vietnam are all heavily locked down so it might be a fun family project that would also make them all understand football. :D EDIT: I brought it up and she declared the plan has to be for ME to do the commentary in Vietnamese! Now we're talking a serious commitment. "Cú lấy tuyệt vời của Pickett trẻ tuổi! Anh ấy ngoặt sang trái và ghi một bàn thắng tuyệt vời! " Goosebumps.

Looks like Pickett has some serious resilience. Worked hard to keep himself involved and turned a very quiet start into a wholly respectable small forward's game. Not the first time he's done it over the course of a game, too. It's a priceless trait in a small forward. Then there's the way he pushed himself in the preseason despite being away from the club for a while to mourn his mother. I think we can all set aside any questions about Pickett's 'mental toughness'.

Right on the shortlist of my favourite things to see in a game is when a player has a poor start but keeps working at it and cracks through to end with a great game. Also on that list is when a player is notably doing the team-first things more than they usually do and then find that they've ended up having one of the best games of their career.

Likely to be dropped with Viney coming back in but I am pretty confident in Sparrow's future and I hope he is too.

Noticed that but he seemed to also make a whole bunch of guess predictions about other incidents so it is quite possible he's just making it all up and will later if his guesses miss he can just say the tribunal got it wrong.