Little Goffy

We are a lot fitter than we were a few years ago and we are committed to creating options. Fact is, not so long ago if you didn't take the first option then there probably wouldn't be any other good ones come up. Now, if a player isn't sure of that kick then they can look around confident that at any time there will be teammates working to create both a good attacking option and a good escape hatch and defensive outlet. You wouldn't dig up your garden unless you actually thought there was buried treasure. Similarly, now that there is a real prospect of good options being available, our players have built the habit of looking for them. We are a very good, maybe even great, football team.

I have the alarming feeling that right now we ARE pacing ourselves. I think our team has the most precious gift available to a top-performing side; the ability to respond to circumstances and deliver super-intense surges when required, but the rest of the time we maintain full defensive discipline as the standard expected. We are almost literally using the main season as a training problem with live targets! Anything can happen with Covid lurking around ready to knock four or five players out at a moment's notice, but that would be why we have the likes of Dunstan and Smith, who each reminded us last night that they are capable at the level when required and would still be thinking they are a shot at their own premiership medals.

201cm? It's a wonder what a solid diet of bananas can do for a young man.

Whenever I read or hear or have a chat with someone who wants to tell me all about my club, Viney gets a mention as symbolic of the disciplined coverage at stoppages and around the group which makes it so hard to get good quality clearances against us. Let us all take a moment to remember the frustration of just a couple of seasons ago when we would see, far too often and far too easily, opposition mids break away from a stoppage without having to so much as evade. Back then it was 'oh, we didn't win the clearance, so now it is up to the defenders'. It took me a moment to figure out who it was I was being reminded of - Viney being mixed with Petracca and Oliver puts him in a position a bit like James Kelly during the Geelong golden run. A fixture in the best 22, a three time premiership player, an All-Australian, but never the leading light. Mind you, in-form Viney is a step up on Kelly, especially now that his brain understands the limits of his body and he knows he doesn't have to be a hero.

I had just seen the 'nine things we learned' article on the AFL website which talked up the Swans as having the best youngsters. I was expecting this to be a kind of reply to that clearly erroneous point. I'm not quite sated so I'll just say; Sparrow, Pickett, Jordon, Rivers, Jackson, Bowey. Not only are they all quite talented, but they also all stand out for character and commitment. I'd be quite content if you told me that five years from now that would be our best 6. Having new young players who have rapidly embraced the necessary commitment to effort and to team is just gold. Credit to the development coaches.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. As a team we a relying very much on big scoring bursts in just one quarter. I went back and had a look at what our results would be if you removed our best quarter each game. ... Yeah, nah, we still win every game. I really put effort into my MFCSS then, and it still didn't work out.

58k to the Bulldogs game, 45k to the Essendon game, that doesn't seem too bad. It is the easter long weekend, there are a lot of people with serious visiting family/friends backlogs to clear, and lots of people skipped their usual summer holidays because of the Omicron spike. We've also got three more consecutive games at the MCG coming, against opponents that some people may even care about. For me personally, I'm many thousands of kilometers away so definitely the issue is the cost of the Uber.

I agree but please leave poor old George out of it.

I'll be flying over your head (Nha Trang back to Hanoi; le tour de in-laws) about 30mins after the game finishes. Sometimes even a flight delay is favourable, although listening through a mobile in a packed airport waiting area isn't ideal!

Will it shock anyone if I say that I think we've been in only 'adequate' form so far this season? It feels more like the last few games of our big run of wins last year, rather than either of our dominant peaks. To be sure, it is a whole thrill of its own to be winning solidly when off our best, but I'm slightly impatient to see us really turn it on at least once. Just for recreational reasons I'd like to see 120mins of football at the level of the last 40mins of 2021! I'm not sure GWS are even worthy of being thrashed so historically, so I guess I'll keep my focus on maintaining the defensive rigor up to standard. Wins are wins and Bowey still needs 17 more to break the record run.

Geolocked. Can't even use VPN for it.

Dammit, I'm reduced to listening on radio. Any tips on watching from overseas without subscribing to stupid things from stupid companies?

Time for a random bag of individual statsl Clayton Oliver; most handballs in a season with 482 in 2017. Incredibly, that count still stands despite being against players who had the extra games from finals. Oliver claimed the most contested possessions in a season in 2021. He is currently chasing most clearances/season, with his current 9/game behind only Brett Ratten's astonishing 265 total in 1999. It has already been noted that Gawn holds the 'most hitouts in a season', with 1119 in 2018. Chasing; Steven May is currently on 8 rebound-50s a game, which is on target for the most ever, while he is also a fraction shy of the pace for most one percenters. Christian Petracca is currently well ahead of the pace for inside-50s/season, with more than ten a game chasing Dangerfield's 194 total. Oliver and Petracca are 1 and 2 for clangers in a seasons, which is the champion's stat given Franklin, Martin and Bontempelli are all in the top echelon. Alex Neal-Bullen is going at 2 goal assists per game, chasing Jason Akermanis' 44 total in 2004. Unicorn watch: I'm convinced that Luke Jackson will become the first player to record every possible stat in a single game. 🦄

Yep, just because the AFL HQ made an absolute mess of it doesn't mean the ambition is correct. Karmichael Hunt. Israel Folau. Geezus. As for Tassie, there have been so many promises and slipping schedules that even when there is a signed contract to look at I'll trust it about as much as a Submarine Procurement Agreement. I've always believed in a massive boost to the second-tier competitions and feel like Tassie could have been well served by that, but I'm not Tasmanian and won't attempt to speak for what they want.

I have faith in Serious Sam. I also think it is going to be absolute scoreboard carnage. Essendon have been exposed by small and mid-sized forwards as well as attacking midfielders this season already. (12 of 15 goals by Brisbane, 14 of 20 goals by Geelong) I would argue that we have one of the best groups in the competition for exactly that kind of attack. I'm perfectly happy with any win, but a little part of me wants to cleanse what has been a wildly stressful (but successful) couple of weeks for me and unwind with a nice relaxing obliteration of an opponent that still somehow manages to be sound smug and entitled at 0-2.

'Foot, don't ask' should be a category of its own. Good read, thanks for the depth. (Everyone knows I love a good screenful of text!)

For sure. I would say the only reason he isn't mentioned here is that there is no debate to be had! B&F, endless smiles, showed a way to be successful and professional without being a robot. Highly valuable and I hope I'm sure he had fun celebrating the premiership!

I rate each of them about a 50% chance. But seriously, Petracca after two games in 2022 is AVERAGING the numbers that were his very best games of 2021. It is horrifying. He is the god of war come to destroy us all.

Absolutely. He gave us two years of being solidly in our best 22 and one further year of being a kind of 'playing assistant coach.' Standard setter and a substantial part of the sheer weight of effort that it took to turn the culture towards professionalism. One of the best veteran trades made. Nods to Daniel Cross, also, who gave an uncannily similar contribution. Unlikely we would have a premiership without what those two added to our club.

I'm not sure out salary cap position is as bad as it might seem at first glance. Yes, we have a number of **SUPERSTARSZZZ** who add a lot within the first few names you call out, but then consider just how many value-for-money role players we have out there. I'd also suggest that a few of our older very important players were brought in on front-ended contracts and would not be expecting their peak salaries for their next extension. But let's focus on the swarm of role-players currently giving excellent service in the best 22; Nibbler, Harmes, Ben Brown, and Tomlinson are each examples of players who put longer-term deals ahead of getting maximum coin year-by-year. Harmes was the only one of these who signed their new contract while at their best form. As essential mature players contributing their role to a high standard, they have all delivered great value for money. Fritsch it is hard to know exactly but even though he is terrific, there's still the fact that he is not a 'structural' key forward and he can be inconsistent. Very hard to assess what money he would be considered 'worth' and what his attitude to cash would be. Also worth noting that we actually have a very long 'tail' of kids and top-up types who would be on very little money, from Daw and Mitch Brown at the older end, to 16 players aged 21 or under. Setting aside Jackson, whose performance plus hype is a bit wild at the moment, there's Spargo, Sparrow, Jordon, Pickett, Rivers, Petty and Bowey. Seven players in our best 22 who are still kids. Contributors, with great futures, but none of these are going to be earning mega-dollars within the next couple of years. We have a little bit of a shallow list and we were a little lucky that injuries didn't expose our depth too badly in 2021. Also, we just happened to have a whole collection of really solid, respectable young players! Quick comparison; at present our players 22 years old or less have accumulated 250 games between them. Those up-and-coming Bombers we play on Friday have just over 100 games total from the same age range. That also takes a different shape to, say, the Bulldogs, who have almost as many games played by kids, but that number is almost entirely in Naughton and Bailey Smith who will, like Jackson, come at a premium. In contrast, we have all those kids who have been picking up games and making steady progress in the normal way that good young players do. Long story short; our salary cap isn't as tight as it might look, and we don't need to be throwing wads of cash to desperately recruit stars, so we should be able to manage it.

Playing a team role beautifully. He's two good possessions off his 2021 and that's all, while clearly taking an accountable role to neutralise opposition rucks. He may have another comparatively quiet game against Essendon on Friday, looking to physically evaporate Sam Draper, which will again give Jackson a chance to play free and wild. Gawn is giving Jackson the kind of support and protection that few young rucks would dare dream about and it is also giving the Demons the very best attacking output from the young gun. This is dynasty-building stuff we're watching.

We have 4 players over 30 who are realistically likely to retire at the end of the year. Probably the only players who wouldn't be 100% secure on the list would be Hunt and Smith. Weideman seems forever stuck on the edge of being a good forward, but I'd expect we would persevere with him given that Brown & McDonald are both 29, and our other back-up forwards are actually older!

His next contract may well resemble a 'football ATM'!

I think it is all a bit of hype, just because of how much he looks like the perfect modern prototype footballer.

I simply cannot cope with the thought that Max Gawn, who can be talked about among our greatest all-time players, might end up not even being our best current ruckman. But, seriously, can we give a nod to the big man here - he was working incredibly hard to wear down Witts in particular as well as Chol, both in ruck-wrestling and covering them around the ground. This was letting Jackson spend a surprising amount of time on ground being comparatively fresh and lurking menacingly (if someone that affable can be menacing) in dangerous places. Pretty phenonemal little stat - we had two ruck players who played 84% and 83% time on ground. Last week it was Jackson on field for 86% of the game and Gawn was out there for a mind-boggling 97% time on ground. I don't think there's any ruck combination out there who could go with them for sheer time and endurance, and then there's the talent package as well.