Little Goffy

It's fine. Jones himself is probably much more interested in being as fresh as possible to give him a chance for the late season. Fairytales don't climax with an early winter win over the presumptive wooden spoon team. We also still have some kinks to work out and partnerships to fine tune if we're really going to challenge in September and Jones is the most 'known quantity' of known quantities.

Did I see it correctly that there were only 24,000 at the Collingwood-Gold Coast triumph today? Top deck of the MCG looked closed whenever it appeared on camera, so I'd believe it. But... where do they go?

Thinking of all the poor Collingwood fans really suffering through this... and for the first time ever I'm beginning to like the Suns!

I'm much more excited about our defensive combination than I am about whether any given one of them outperforms Rance. Of course, that can't be said without also nodding to the fact that Lever showed magnificent leadership keeping our defense confident and organised after May went down. Also worth noting that if not for the stats hole created by Tom Hawkins elbow, May's numbers would be just as good. Hold this Lever-May-Tomlinson set of tall defenders together and in form and they will go down in history alongside the likes of the Scarlett-Harley-Taylor trio. But that is ambition, not yet reality. Ambition definitely worth having, though.

Huh? Weird. Entirely unsuited to any need we have.

Goodwin's 46 losses and 43 wins put him just a couple of wins short of passing Northey and Ivor Warne-Smith. A little jump above that to get there, but it is all premiership coaches. Just adding an extra thought about successions; there is a neat link from Jones to playing in Neitz's 300th to Neitz playing with Jim Stynes at his peak and Stynes playing with Robert Flower. Is it ridiculous to then connect Flower playing with Stan Alves (the man with the unluckiest timing in football) who just briefly played with several of the greats of the greatest era, but it seems the chain breaks there because really, it should be Barassi. It should be Barassi.

Maybe Port Melbourne?

It is interesting that Viney's winning percentage is almost as low as Jones'. It makes sense after a moment - Viney missed that couple of nearly competitive years under Bailey where we got the 8-9 wins a season, but was on deck from 2013 so got to participate in some of our worst. Also missed a bunch of wins in 2018 through injury. This is as good a moment as any to note how much he has been exemplifying the team-first approach this year. Not having flashy games but playing an accouable role that releases Oliver and Petracca to do more. He's the Tomlinson of our midfield! ?

When I saw "Dracy Fritsch from Coldstream" I really thought it was some kind of celebrity band endorsement.

As well as being effective in his role, Alex Neal-Bullen is making football a bit more fun. Sometimes it's the little things I like. Whenever anyone kicks a goal you can bet that one of the first people to get to them to celebrate will be Nibbler. I'm also a permanent fan of: - players regaining form after a slump. - non-'star' players making a contribution above their price. - team-focused hard workers being rewarded with moments of personal glory.

The game against North is a case of the many versus the few. North have one genuinely effective clearance winner (Cunnginton), one genuinely effective rebounding defender (Ziebell) and only one or two serious performers in any other area, too. A few specific changes aren't going to decide the matter. If we are going in with 22 contributors again then the rest is details.

Last 20 games: Melbourne 2 wins North Melbourne 18 wins We have a few of these ledgers to square but North have been our worst record during our darkest times with a 17-loss run.

Ah, that classic larrikin humour. So glad it is able to survive despite all this political correctness.

Richmond's first goalless quarter this season. (and since round 15 last year)

Anyone else building up a bit of angry-misty-eyed emotional chaos? I haven't been this wound up before a non-final since Neale Daniher's final game. Which Nathan Jones played in as a teenager just a few games prior to playing in David Neitz's 300th. I'm becoming really angry at Richmond for even having ambitions to get at all in the way of Jones' triumph.

Let's not forget one of his finest moments; https://www.afl.com.au/video/137692/gus-and-razor-share-a-low-five?videoId=137692&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1531582734001

5 years is fine for a player who has shown the consistency and steady improvement that Salem has. 22 Salem-level players would crush any team they came up against while still fitting under the salary cap.

I'm in the 'May for Petty, Weideman for M.Brown' crowd, and also if available Fritsch for Melksham. However, I won't be too upset if Melksham stays in as he began to show a bit of what he is useful for and Melksham in form is a killer half-forward. Figuring out how to fit B.Brown in will be a challenge in coming weeks, and soon enough Harmes will come in for Jones 'rested' but other than that there's not much to fidget with. I guess that's what 5-0 looks like.

Looks like James Jordan is the new Clyde Laidlaw! (Fingers crossed because that's an 81% win rate and four premierships in 124 games)

I for one can say I have put barely the smallest fragment of a thought into finals or anything of the sort. I'm very much in the moment and determined to keep it that. Which is a bit like reminding myself to not think of elephants, but I'm doing my best. To the extent that I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming that we might realistically win again each new week. And to be honest that is an uncanny joy.

Before we started winning it was demeanland.

Love it when a plan comes together. Love that it was clearly an unambiguous 'here's what we need to be premiership contenders' plan. We paid the price to get what was needed and not only did we get what we needed we got a whole lot of triumph in hindsight, too. Imagine; Lever, May, Hibberd and Tomlinson could instead have been Begley, Fogarty, Stocker, Hogan and blank. Now that the rest of the team is making a good fist of applying pressure and making the opposition's attacks less precise and more predictable, the game-reading ability of May and Lever and Hibberd (and recently Salem, too, which is nice) is really paying off. Kudos to the long term vision and the courage it took to pay what it took at the time.

I'm starting to think there are some strange mathematics going on here. Maybe Log-scale measurements apply when shifting from 'place in top 8' versus 'place in top 4'? Or maybe they are 16 point games? But seriously, since we are about to play Richmond it is worth noting that they have lost both of what might be considered their 8-point games so far, to Port and the Swans. Setting silly old 2020 aside, in 2019 they also managed to lose to each of Collingwood, Brisbane, Gerper Werben Sydney and Footscray all in the first half of the season. We are absolutely in this with nothing to lose and the only way we come out of this game badly is if we fail to bring the pressure and effort that has defined our 2021 to date.

The liberty that Jackson has allowed for Gawn is one of the reasons I'm not too anxious about the Riewoldt/Lynch double this weekend. Even more so when presumably we will have some more tall target strength up forward when one of Brown or Weid come in. Gawn will be less needed to fill holes and more able to choose where he is most useful, and may even have the luxury of not running up both ends of the ground so much. Nankervis is a respectable ruckman but he's got no chance of covering the ground against Gawn alone, nevermind with Jackson running around out there as well. With Richmond smart enough (and Nank humble enough) to be able to work from sharking Gawn's taps, Jackson's time actually as a ruckman could be significant. I also feel like Jackson might be given slightly fewer total minutes on the ground. Get the most of his agility and energy by keeping him fresher and also it is just a good idea to not overcook young players. Poor Nankervis. A day spent lined up against either the fittest ruckman in the game or a agile, intuitive follow-through kid fresh from the bench.

Proper comedy, the 'we are the best of all time' comments. We just beat Hawthorn and Geelong, both of whom have players still in their team leftover from the time they were better than Richmond's best. Oooh, I'd love for Melbourne to be the classical nemesis to their hubris.