Little Goffy

At a population health level it is all about flattening the curve so that everyone who does get serious symptoms can actually get the necessary treatment. For a football club the key challenge will be similar, in that we definitely want to avoid having large numbers of players all unwell at the same time. Lots of testing, lots of segmenting of groups, precautionary isolation, all that. I expect finals will see some bubble formation as well, though hopefully with a little more family presence. We may even need to do some load management changes and dietary tweaking - there's a strange phenomenon where people maintaining super-intense training loads can actually have slightly suppressed immune systems because their body is shifting to maximise performance rather than the usual balance and 'risk management' rhythm. A known problem for marathon runners, tour de France and for many sports' pre-season training.

I wrote a bunch of speculations and then deleted them and wrote some more and deleted them, also. But I do want to thank you for giving me an excuse to look over our list and go, "ooooooooh nice".

You know the old cliche line from horror movies, "It is inside the building!" Aged Care. They've done everything they can to keep the virus out for as long as they can but when the choice is between not providing care at all or using staff who bring some risk of contact-spread, you just have to take the infection risk. Then once it is into your residents there's very little that can be done. It's not like there are hospitals with spare beds and staff to monitor them safely unless they are getting critical. Thanks to lockdowns we've had time to roll out vaccinations and improve treatments. The mortality even for the (vaccinated) elderly could be as low as 1%, provided the treatment is actually available. Unfortunately, right now all branches of health care are woefully understaffed and disrupted by daily waves of positive tests and close-contact isolations. If anyone still remembers 'flatten the curve'; that's the whole ball game now.

That is happening in some places that I know of (well, three specifically - two that I was turned away from and then the third put up their 'closed' signs shortly after I got there). They were, however, relying a bit on the honour system because random people were definitely adding themselves to the end of the queue after those signs went up. What was really noticable was that the testing location we were able to get tested at only had two staff, and they were covering all testing and then all prep of test paperwork to then be picked up by courier. At least they were getting to alternate between sitting in the office and standing outside in the marquee, but I couldn't help but think that one extra person could have made the whole thing twice as fast. It blows my mind that ALL state governments are being stingy on the staffing at so many of these critical bottlenecks. It doesn't add up but that's what you get from silo/bucket budget planning.

Yes, but what country are you actually from? It's the 'Loons and the Phlegms. The latter got the name because their language sounds similar to Dutch. I actually have a friend who grew up/still has roots right on the edge of Flemish and French language zones, and went so schools in each zone at different times in her education. She speaks English like a native because both language zones taught English as a second language instead of the other Belgian language! :D

I wonder if the guy who went to Perth was there? But, seriously, best of health to all.

I think Nibbler, McDonald and Pickett completing our B&F Top Ten is also quite fitting. They are there because of their contribution to the overall result rather than individually stellar season. Most of our B&F are there because of their teamwork commitment, I'm sure, but it is harder to tell that is the reason when the individual players are also mind-meltingly brilliant!

Wow that's a lot of kids doing well in a premiership team. Also, nice reminder of how well Salem started the season before tapering a bit in the '3rd quarter'. He sure knew when to put on his best game, though!

Our cake doesn't need icing. Certainly not patchy icing!

Similar thoughts to Wrecker here; If you've got a 25 year-old with 100 games under their belt, you'll probably get another 5 years and 100 games out of them. But an 18 year old is maybe a 1/3rd chance of giving you even 100 games at all. A team that is older on average is just a team that has managed to collect more AFL-level players over recent years. Put another way - it matters that Josh Kennedy is old because he's Josh Kennedy. Nathan Ablett is also pretty old now but you wouldn't be concerned about the impact on your list if he retired! And as always with all statistics, you've got to break it into the segments if you're going to get any real value out of it. In this case, you really have to know about the bulges at the ends - if you've got too many kids that will cause problems even if they are talented. If you've got too many 'genuinely older' players you've got risks to endurance, injuries, and retirement suddenly blowing a hole in your team.

Have fun everyone! It's a wet and coolish day up here in Sydney so I'll be wearing the scarf. Please post photos here - it will be great to have the memento on Demonland. In fact, should we start a thread specifically for posting event photos?

Could be a record-breaking get-well-card handed around at the 'G.

Bring back the bugler.

At this stage I'm willing to believe that the Saints are where you'll find the personality problem.

Will rotate with Luke Donston.

Given how many kids we had out there, the grand final was not that far off our draft day!

It is just too slow for me. And there's the same problem that means it hasn't even worked for suicide bombers; they often have time to produce offspring before detonating. I've got a very strong commitment to the social contract, the safety net, and a society that doesn't leave people to die of starvation in ditches, but when people call nurses and doctors 'medico-fascist' and will later expect to be triaged into ICU taking critical resources away from blameless others, my inclusiveness is sorely tested. Feel free to tap your desk in irritation while contemplating that whole countries are going back into lockdown solely because of anti-vaxxers and also very much to protect those same people who refuse to do a most basic thing to protect themselves. I also haven't seen any stalls set up at the nuffy-marches where people can sign a commitment to not accept the several thousand dollars worth of treatment a significant Covid19 case requires and which the community will, despite everything, provide to them. The mood could change a little when we see something tangible like the AFL 2022 season disrupted because of this gitswarm.

Adem Yze was definitely annoyed when he was 'retired', firmly believing he had more left to give. I believe he was pretty chipper on the night, though! Generally I've got the impression that the club has made quite a bit of effort to reconnect in recent times with a message that this has been a long journey and those who kept us going at the hardest moments are a part of this victory. Not to be underestimated how much Nathan Jones' situation has compelled people to recognise that not everyone who got us to this point got to stand on the podium.

AFL trading is a village market where everyone knows everyone and knows they'll be dealing with each other for decades to come. As opposed to a ruthless metropolitan share trade floor or the like. The relationships matter. In the end the big value will be the accumulated win-win deals you can make with people who will listen and even come to you with ideas, not the occasional deadline staredown.

Richmond went 7 years with only one or two changes to their B&F top 10 each year, and many of those changes were injury related. The moment it became hard to be sure who their best / most important 10 were, they were winning premierships. We've got several players who could be considered in our bottom six but also have an argument made that they are in our most important ten. It's freak'n magnificent. Not a useless body on the field.

Add to list of things that are close to inevitable and also very good. Not many things on that list but always nice to add something.

I'm trying to think of evidence to support keeping him. Best I can come up with is; - BT's channel 7 commentary is a huge boost to radio. - every time BT and Daisy Pearce are both commentating a game, the most positive version of feminism goes a bit more mainstream. - it keeps BT busy enough to not run for parliament.

Basically the club has said to Goodwin, "Take this group, take these mature champions you have, see what you can get out of them and then once they start retiring and the list begins to turn over you can see how you are feeling." I'm happy with that. There's clearly a pretty deep bond between the coach and the leading players at the club. Knowing they are committed to chasing glory together can't hurt. I still maintain my theory that Goodwin took a personal pay cut prior to 2021 so that we could afford our elite panel (Bringing in Burgess, Yze, Williams) under the soft cap rules. I often find it hard to believe when people still scrounge and scrap about money whenever their income is over $5,000/week so I'd believe it now if someone told me he was still on pretty modest coin in recognition that it is the coaching team as a whole which maximised his strengths and completely overcame his weaknesses. Personally, I wouldn't put it past possibility that Adem Yze will be our next coach. If all goes to plan he might even get a 'freebie' Chris Scott style premiership before our current monstrous group of 24-26 year olds begin to retire! La la la la who said just because we won a premiership I can't get wildly unrealistically optimistic in October?

Just crossed my mind that by then it might even be realistic for me to make the trip down. Visit family (not one of whom I've seen in six months), visit friends (almost as sparse), do birthday stuff, and go nuts at the 'G. Should we be planning a Demonland rally point? Should someone bring a banner?

Historically the ultimate smokey is James Hird, tucked away in Canberra and taken at woopwoop pick. Unfortunately people are now aware of the existence of Canberra. Even Tuggeranong (Aaron Hamill) which is technically Canberra I suppose. Now, to be 'invisible' you really have to be from woop woop and beyond. It hurts a little to remember but, wow, what a thought it would be to have someone like Liam Jurrah arrive in the system and supports we have now.