Little Goffy

I wonder; if Essendon supporters hadn't started booing wildly within the first five minutes because of one free kick that they reckoned should have been there (or whatever), would the Bombers have had a better run from the umpires? Did anyone else catch the mic'd umpire saying "Just stop yelling at me, Devon." Third quarter, I think. I have an Essendon-supporting ex from many years ago who would have been absolutely table-banging furious. Such joy.

The ultimate team player even managed to arrange for his baby to be born during the bye. What a champ. Coincidentally, much like his father's all-meat diet the kid is on an unusual all-milk diet. Expected to continue for at least the rest of this season. :D

Don't know if it is lockdown up here, a tiring week, or just that I forgot to eat today, but I'm hungry for the suffering of Essendon supporters. If anyone else recalls the scene from the Dark Crystal where the little dude is being forced to stare into the evil crystal and having his soul sucked out... that's what I'm hoping to see from Essendon supporters from about midway through the 3rd quarter.

WOW. In 55% time on ground - 1 hitout and 1 free kick against. I hope he gets a call from Kade Simpson to cheer him up.

Looks like we'll be spending the next couple of weeks playing whack-a-mole with teams trying to bob up into the top 8. Time for the Demons to turn some other fans dreams to dust for a change! :D

With Viney back in and Weideman out, I'm wondering if we'll see Petracca play a bit more time up forward. Certainly knows what he's doing up there and can provide a marking contest, a bullocking presence, and a pretty good instinctive shot on goal or goal assist. Be fun to have three housemates all running around up forward, too. (Trac, Spargo and Pickett) I'm trying to think of who Essendon could assign to cover him: Heppell or Laverde would just be overpowered. Redman? Francis? None of the talls could go with him, obviously. Nick Cox would be broken into pieces by quarter time.

Trivia question: When was the last time Essendon won a final without Kevin Sheedyas coach? Clue: Kevin Sheedy had only recently started playing at the time.

Certainly not scrapheap just yet. Even if he was, please be courteous and say he's been 'put out to stud'. If a couple of the younger guys drop off and aren't providing the manic pressure they need to, then Jones can be more than useful because even though he can't bring the closing speed he definitely can get to smart spaces to interfere with opposition rebounds or receive-and-snap. He's a smart player who will do the team thing and is still fit. Might be just what we need to steady us if the little mid-season fluctuation becomes a problem. Remember, we haven't lost a game with him in the team this year. And if the moment comes when we need someone to just constantly iron out Toby Greene for two hours I'm sure it would be a footballing achievement any self-respecting player close to retirement would want to add to their medals.

Oooh, it all makes sense now the pattern is explained. I think I've figured out the centreline. Dyson is a premium vacuum cleaner company. Kelly's is an Industrial strength vacuum cleaning company. And Merrett... plays for Essendon... (So childish of me)

Closer to delisted free agent targets than trade targets.

Just a hunch coming through, but have they all played in or coached (not necessarily won) a grand final below AFL level? If not, there's a whole pile of coincidence going on here. Hmm, I wonder if the line-by-line distinction is the type or timing of the grand final - before AFL career, after, or even during.

I'm half getting a bunch of them, like McLeod and Robinson both winning B&Fs after being traded/delisted, but not sure how Ford fits. Hall and Dunn not playing finals at their first club... and also they have each punched the other at least once... but don't know how Silvagni fits. Hudson and Mitchell were both WW2 bombers... but Robertson... drawing a blank. Yep, I'm useless. Back to work. Sigh.

Also was there on the day, and the two big things that were most clear were: - giving Collingwood lots of time to break away from and through congestion and kick cleanly to their talls who were presenting hard and in front. - failing to break away from and through congestion and then kicking loosely to our forwards who were either still trying to get to our forward line or giving half-intensity leads step-to-step or even behind their opponent. It all broke down very badly. I was interested in a few people suggesting that our scoring firepower isn't so much a problem because we've got a pretty good 'for' total overall. I think the trouble is the vulnerability of our forward line to severe droughts. Fristch, McDonald and Pickett are our leading goalkickers, combining for almost half our total goals, but all three of them can have very quiet games. On Monday each one of them had close to their worst individual game for the season. On Monday we kicked nine goals. Three from the ruckmen, 4 from the midfield/wingers, one from Nibbler and one from Fritsch. That'll won't cut it. But also... if we do get the forwards functioning consistently we will become truly terrifying.

It's a habit in my 'village' of family and friends to burn off some of the stain of a bad loss by watching some neutral football so a really disappointing loss like that without the 'plain digestive biscuits' to help settle the stomach is pretty rough. My poor wife was all but ready to call in sick she was feeling so bitter and annoyed post-game. Even as recently as a year ago she would be the one doing a bit of patient consoling and cheering up, but something has changed and now... she knows. Oh, she knows the pain of a true fan. I think this one upset her even more than the West Coast final because she wasn't so serious back then and there was the consolation that, well, it kind of made sense. She now deeply hates West Coast, Hawthorn and Collingwood. Didn't even need a particular reason to hate Hawthorn, it just happened by instinct. What a keeper.

Weideman did one good thing today and it created a goal. That was basically it for four quarters. Overall it was just plain bad. I am very patient with players in general and have a lot of sympathy for poor Serious Sam, but he can't be at AFL level right now and if something doesn't significantly change then he needs a new club at end of season.

If it's John Ralph he'll probably tell us how many centimeters apart the contractions are, and probably monitor the wrong woman. At least it would be better than Robbo... that scene doesn't bear thinking about.

Surely Yze is wise enough to know he would be taking on a career-damaging scenario of constant political crises, broken list, demoralised players and a severe shortage of on-field leaders? There hasn't been a "new coach to basket case club" prospect this bad since the very highly rated Mark Neeld took over at the Demons. Yze has a realistic prospect of being a very visible part of a drought-breaking premiership at the Demons, perhaps even this year as well as riding the peak of the next couple of years. Staying with the Demons will only boost his credentials and give him a better prospect of a better senior coaching position in future.

Fair points well stated.

Listening to people on this thread working out how to play the rules on movement restrictions makes me glad that myself, my wife and in particular the aged care home she works at are all fully vaccinated. Presumably the seating at the SCG is going to be in the same blocks method as they used at Giants Stadium so it'll be shoulder-to-shoulder. On a brighter note, I've been thrilled to see the Freeze MND beanies around Sydney this week. I wasn't even sure they'd were actually selling them at Coles/Bunnings and so forth but I got mine the other day and quickly had a few people ask if I could pick up some more for them. By the time I got back to the local shops this morning I was buying all but the last one in the display. I'm sharing the news because I'm sure a few people will be relieved to know that this event is getting some traction up here and the MND effort isn't facing as much of a failed event as we might have feared. Plus, the #positivelingers t-shirt sales have gone through the roof, which helps.

Yeah, I think salary cap tightness and a pretty good first 22 means we'll be looking to the draft for a while. Having a nice selection of possible replacements who can get opportunities as cover while also anticipating their future natural accession to the 22 is a nice place to be. Also an element of wanting to have kids in our system while we still have the mature leaders around to guide their development without being on the football department soft cap, rather than waiting until the leaders are gone and trying to develop culture from a whiteboard. Plus, we go pretty well at this drafting caper these days!

Wow, you're not wrong. That's awful stuff. You'd be disappointed to see that from a young tall forward starved all day in a team being thrashed late in the season, not an alleged gun in top team when the game is on the line against a likely finals opponent.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/teams/collingwood-magpies/afl-2021-nathan-buckley-collingwood-coach-lost-the-players-at-magpies-harder-to-connect-player-unrest-latest-news/news-story/7568a6023e350148cedbdfd09fa85791 Also got to wonder what happened since monday, when Buckley was still openly stating his interest in continuing and was "...still as energized to get into the club and to embrace the next challenge, so we’ve got Melbourne on Monday, in a week’s time, they’re in some great form. I’m looking forward to this week of preparation to see what we can do against them."

https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/afl-news-2021-nathan-buckley-collingwood-contract-coaching-deal-extension/news-story/f1e1eb096e88b6f4fee5d07b0e117a50 “The pressure clearly has been on Nathan Buckley and the team. I sit here tonight quite confident that he‘ll be coaching Collingwood in 2022,“ McClure said on Channel 9’s Footy Classified. Good get, Sam McLure.

Pies players with a full week to sit and think about it. Real possibility that a few veterans will be thinking 'Will it be me next?', and a few stars will be thinking 'Is this my fault for demanding so much money?', and a few young guns will be thinking 'Do I really want to be here with all this chaos?', and a few key players will be thinking, "How will this affect the character reference he gave the court?" It wouldn't take much for the players to be thinking about a lot of things other than their opponents by Monday. Switching my '186' tracker on. Of course, they might also weather the initial shock and have time to bounce back emotionally and set themselves for maximum effort. But even then, it won't be maximum effort with maximum organisation, so I'd expect the Pies to still only manage a respectable loss.

Here's hoping she gets back to being as outstanding as she was when she first wore the red and blue.