Little Goffy

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.

Should be a part of every football conversation, really.

Engage whatever superstitious requirements are needed to prevent this being a mozz, but; Nathan Jones has never been in a team on top of the ladder. There is currently the tiny sliver of a chance that Melbourne could be on top of the ladder (after beating the reigning premiers, no less) at the end of Jones' 300th game.

Stating the obvious twice in one sentence is pushing the Demonland moderators a bit.

At some point we will have a bit of a stumble during the season because we aren't some kind of flawless machine, we're 'just' a winning team. But that stumble can be weathered thanks to this terrific start and will give us the stimulus we need to really address the remaining deficiencies then attacking the late season and finals with renewed vigour.

Bear with me, it's time for another Little Goffy wall of text. I spent a bit of time last week doing some digging of old Nathan Jones threads and it was quite rewarding so I bookmarked them to share later. I'll try to share in chronological order. I hope this bring a few moments of poignancy for others as it did for me.

I was at the Sydney/Giants game on the weekend and the contrived noise reached the point of being just embarrassing. It was on that level of the style of comedy I hate where someone is just being incredibly bad at something and not realising it. At one point they even had the 'Syyyyddnneeeyyy, Syyyyddnneeey' chat playing over the speakers. The interruptions actually killed the spontaneous vibe of the crowd a few times, including in the last quarter.

Now that it is just us and the Dogs on top of the ladder, the maths to secure top spot become very simple. Melbourne 170 Hawthorn 35 Sounds good to me, but of course I'll take any old win that comes our way.

First time in a while I've looked at a team list and felt like we had winners all over the ground. They have the least depth of inside mids I've ever seen, clearance are basically O'Meara and Mitchell then... Wingard?! I say assign Viney to bite chunks out of O'Meara like an angry velociraptor and see if the Hawks cope. I also seriously doubt Hawthorn's defenders could cope at all if we bring our new and improved forward harassment to this game. I wonder how many turnover goals we'll get from Frost trying to run it and being mown down or kicking wildly in panic? My only concern is that a couple of Hawthorn's smaller forwards might get a little free and do some damage. That all comes back to our defensive effort to get back and give support. Simple fact is, if we play the way we've played so far this season we win, May and Fritsch or not. And there's the test.

Tom McDonald for one! All I can think of at the moment is players going in the other direction, which would seem more common too. Liam Jones the first and biggest present example of a player who switched ends and became something completely different.

I think the most painful part of the St Kilda game was in the last quarter seeing some body language and matching behaviour from a couple of the Saints' young guys. Max King very visibly just decided it wasn't worth the effort to put on a few steps worth of pressure when Richmond were breaking from a contest inside forward 50. It clearly wasn't just laziness; it came with a visible sigh of disappointment and futility. To see that from a player who kicked 5.2 and added two goal assists just the week before is a real worry. We all know and we have all felt the way a few massive hammerings can affect a team and especially the promising young players in that team. Very clearly the Saints have fallen apart once their spirit is broken on two occasions already this season. There is danger of that compounding horribly given they came into the season with high hopes and promises.

Apparently the season is a marathon and St Kilda will be fine. I didn't know Selwood had such a generous spirit. Port in Adelaide next week. Still, football is hideously fickle and I'm strangely glad we don't play them again.

Well, that sucks. Just a little bit better timing and we could have reshuffled with Brown coming in anyway. But these things happen throughout a season and that's why it was so valuable to go 4-0. Also, our frenetic forward tackle-squad is still intact. It is also an opportunity to cement the idea that it is the team that wins games rather than relying on particular players. Presumably Melksham gets used very explicitly as that final connection going inside 50, which is where he played the best in his career anyway so he'd better make use of his opportunity. Big moment for Jackson, too. A bit more pressure to be a focal point rather than just a delightful bonus.

I was wondering about just how rare it is for a teenager to be holding their own rotating as a ruckman and forward with such effectiveness. The only easy source I could think of was the '22 under 22' teams the AFL puts out. So, here's what I found for rucks; 2012: Nic Naitanui in his 4th season 2013: Tom Nicholls in his 2nd season... kind of confirming there aren't that many examples to work with. 2014: Jarrod Witts in his 2nd season. 2015: Brody Grundy in his 3rd season. 2016: Brody Grundy again. 2017: Peter Wright's 3rd season, when he played forward and had 5 hitouts a game, again the shortage of 'kid rucks'. 2018: Sean Darcy, in his second season, played only 8 games filling in but did well. 2019: Tim English in his 3rd season. 2020: Sean Darcy again. Touch wood, but Jackson seems to be an early lock for the spot this year and his realistic trajectory could see him surpass any other 2nd-year ruckman I can think of.