Little Goffy

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.

I'll definitely be turning my television upside down every second quarter.

From about the same era and could become topical if ol' Jonesy starts to fight his way back into the 22. Could do with a remake, too.

How many under-pressure coaches dealing with active discontent from members of the board would graciously welcome a) a still relatively young former premiership coach and b) an extremely promising 'next generation coming' coach into their panel? Everything I've seen lately is pointing to real humility and character. All the little stories add up to the feeling that Simon Goodwin thinks other people are important. So simple, so valuable.

If we're confident of his fitness then yes. He's always had the grit but over time he has become an unselfish and smart player and completes our inside mid group. This is a debate we would have had back before Brayshaw fully got his head around his role on the wing, but not now.

Do Walkley awards count? Also, yes, she has journalism qualifications and even did a proper cadetship. Any other people covering AFL who you need to know about?

Wouldn't mind seeing a few hundred giant heads of fans in the empty stadiums just to make things a bit fun. Maybe Nibbler's mum beaming down on everyone and giving blessings to all good Demons! :D Could be a raffle prize - "Be the giant head for round 17."

Struck Rich but left poor. Bad luck any way you look at it.

New German technology is now available for exactly that. It even allows sex-identification of the chicks in embryo so that the eggs with male chicks can be removed and allowed to addle so that later there's no need to, you know, shred a baby animal. Moral of the story: Rechnen dein küken und zelebrieren!

Last night's win nudges Goodwin's win-loss percentage up above both John Northey and Ivor Warne-Smith, making him Melbourne's 'winningest' coach since the great man himself. It'll take just a couple more wins to push Goodwin ahead of Jack McKenzie (1915, 15 games coached) and there would be only the three Demon premiership-winning coaches above him in our history. I'm keeping my lid on until Goodwin passes McKenzie, but after that I'll be going bonkers.

This thread inspired me to a closer look and I thought it would be nice to share that both Pickett (20) and Sparrow (21) just had their birthdays this week. Bummer with the lockdown but I hope they had fun anyway. Also, I'm a little worried about just how young we went in the mid-season draft...

For what it is worth, at the ground there wasn't a sense that we were out of it or being comprehensively beaten. It was clear enough that we were letting a few too many easy breakaways happen and that the Brisbane midfield was doing an excellent job getting speed away from stoppages, but it never felt like we were doomed and I am honestly surprised to find out that people were ranting and raving at any stage of the game. Goodwin had the team in a huddle until the absolute last moment before starting the third quarter and whatever they discussed, they came out much, much better organised and the rewards flowed immediately and beautifully. Pretty sure they weren't discussing Demonland's little trash-talk squad!

Nothing to worry about. Australia's Titans of Industry have been under performing for almost as long as Melbourne. Maybe the mood lift will help them actually get something done!

Couple of thoughts about that - Lightning doesn't strike the same place twice... because after it struck the first time, it ain't the same place no more. Top-8 teams are less likely to have return games against top-8 teams because the teams they beat are, obviously, a win down. Also, if you're in the top-8, you've only got 7 teams to pick from! As much as Melbourne have been said to be playing against themselves too often / there are two very different Melbourne sides! Finally, of course St Kilda play the top-8 again. Saints are practically the dividing line. You beat them, you'll be a top-8 team. You lose to them, no finals for you. Right now I'd argue that beating/losing to St Kilda is a more reliable indicator of whether you'll play finals than current ladder position.

Between Schwab and McNamee you can find analogies for everything that was wrong with the club back then. Schwab the technocrat Robert MacNamara wannabe who tried to interpret and manage human problems as boxes and lines, yet also indulged his own emotions in constant powerplays. McNamee, the mesiah-hunter, with dreams of being Melbourne's John the Baptist.

Ticketmaster had very few seats still available as of last night so it would seem to be close to a full house. We'll see what that really means once the storm front comes in and all the soft Sydneysiders wimp out!

It's going to be wet. It is going to be cold. Our seats won't be fully under cover and Giants Stadium gets it's own little wind swirl because of the open end. It'll be great. I'm a bit excited. The last time I was able to attend a Demon's game in person was 2016. Paul Roos was coach, and Jack Watts had a great game even though his shoe kept falling off. More than half the 22 out there tonight are 'new' since then. Also a bonus that I'm now part of a fully vaccinated household so won't be quite so disturbed by the shoulder-to-shoulder seating.

#positivespangers

For 192cm that frame does not look just 79kg to me. Unless it is just the broad cheeks fooling me, he looks pretty solid.

When people who believe they are entitled to preeminence regardless of their actual merit suddenly find that not only aren't they good enough but even the facade isn't holding anymore... BOOM. A swirling vortex of cognitive dissonance, vulnerable ego, and irrational grievances bases on unreasonable expectations going unmet. From a rival's perspective the best part is that no side in this is articulating any clear agenda or even an agenda for how to set an agenda. It is pure "I should be in charge, not you," which means that no matter who wins the power struggle the new leadership has taken on personal blame for anything that goes wrong for the near future, and the embittered rivals for that leadership will snipe any chance they get. And what a future they have in store. Salary cap is already so tight that they had to off-load clearly required players. They are hardly likely to be the dream destination for any free agents and they've not got much to offer at the trade table that has value to other clubs without also being crucial to what is left of Collingwood's own structure. Father-Son selection aside, with no top picks at this year's draft (current first selection is 37, because they so astutely acquired the Bulldog's second-round pick!) and a very week draft hand for the last five years (since 2014 when they took Moore and De Goey, their only high pick was Jaidyn Stephenson) their recovery isn't going to be coming from any surge in young talent. I'm kind of hoping that both Adelaide and Fremantle move up the ladder a bit just so that even the Pie's third-round selections go further down in value. Double-lols if Collingwood have so little trade value left they have to burn their 2022 picks just to cover the points-cost of getting Nick Daicos. I'd laugh till I hurt if GWS used their pick from Collingwood to bid for Daicos, too. So many things can go wrong for Collingwood in the next five months or so it is hard to keep up.

Out at the adorable little stadium in Western Sydney. I have a soft spot for it because of the time I was there when the fourth quarter had to be a delayed restart because lightning was hitting more or less the stadium itself. Could this actually be my first chance to get to a Demon's game in person in two years?