Little Goffy

Sorry if I missed someone already explaining it, but does anyone know why the West Coast supporters were booing at the end of the game? Can't be umpiring - the final count was 28-17 and the string of frees after the reset helped enormously (cough... Melksham... cough... no finals for you) Can't be because the team disappointed them; they gave a good fight against the top team for most of the game and that post-reset surge was alarming. Are that just that sulky? Did they see a cloud that looked like it was asserting Indigenous pride?

They'll Neeld a whole new coach to deliver on that ambition.

The depths of your ignorance of global history ironically displays your Eurocentric worldview.

Your rhetorical method is odious and dishonest and it detracts from a crucial cause.

Racism is far from being an attitude restricted to only 'white' people. There are very few countries that have less prevalence of racism than is found in Australia. The urgency of addressing any given racist attitude is determined by the amount of power held by those with the attitude. For example, a crazy person living in a shack on an island off the west coast of Tasmania is not the issue. The massive accumulation of power by industrialising and coincidentally 'white' countries in the 15th to 20th centuries has led to legacies which must be addressed if those societies are to now be harmonious and just, particularly given their voluntary embrace of highly cosmopolitan culture. The legacy of slavery in the USA is of course a particularly egregious and exceptional case, as are the invasion/defacto genocide impacts upon indigenous peoples in several 'colonised' countries. But, to reiterate, racism is very much not some kind of 'whites only' phenomenon (if you'll pardon the ironic pun) and it helps nobody and no cause to act like it is, particularly when the 'Western' tradition is at present the only one which has widely embraced self-reflection about being a perpetrator. Referencing a grab-bag of random offences like the Opium Wars and 'Two Wongs don't make a right' and declaring that to be good enough to rest your case sets back the cause you claim to be articulating.

It could be a very weird final round of the season and first round of the finals. Melbourne vs Geelong. Bulldogs vs Port. Brisbane vs West Coast. ... are all realistic chances to be double-ups. Just Sydney v Gold Coast letting down the trivia nights of the future.

Come on Dieter, look closely at what you just said. I can only hope, unrealistically, that you were aiming for some kind of biting irony/sarcasm. Even then you need to flesh it out because internet text doesn't pick up nuance so well. But if you are actually resorting to the rhetorical ploys of the dreariest rationalisations of social darwinism and all manner of racism, then you need to take a few deep breaths and think about what your motivations and goals are in this conversation. Also, please keep in mind that racism as an attitude is not exclusive to or even more prevalent in 'white' societies than in any other - the catastrophe has always been the combination of racism with a massive preponderance of power. It's really important to stay on task when combating racism and 'ooh, you filthy white people' comments don't help anything.

Yep, Alex Neal-Bullen would be well advised to take next week off.

The only thing interesting about Taylor Walker is whether Bayley Fritsch can pass him on the goalkicking. 3 rounds, ten goals, get it done. Ideally he would pass that line during the game against Adelaide, too. What a 360-degree boofhead.

The basic trouble is that if we trade Weideman out, we'll be in serious need of new young key forwards in a few years as McDonald and Brown both get older. On the other hand, will Weideman even fill that need? I like him, but I was up very close to him for a lot of the game against Collingwood up in Sydney and had an eye on him... and was very disappointed. Interestingly, the tall prospects in this year's draft don't seem to appear until the late teens/early 20s. I feel like if we could get a package trade that saw us enter the draft with a pick around 15 we'd have our choice of the season's talls, if Taylor has a special in mind. Hell, we could even just take Mac Andrew.

Will this help us catch the cats napping in the final round? Will it put the Dog's midfield to bed? HOW WILL THESE PREMIUM QUALITY PET BEDS AND ACCESSORIES HELP US WIN A PREMIERSHIP? Also, do they have one big enough for the Viney family's mega-dog? That thing is alarming. https://www.instagram.com/p/CHqtrOLnXIe/

Just sharing a little article from the MFC website about our players who are at the top end of various stats. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/994066/top-of-the-stats-sheet Surprised they missed Max Gawn at 3rd for contested marks. As a supplement, congrats to James Jordon leading the Rising Stars for tackles and Trent Rivers for leading the rebound 50s and intercepts. They also both feature in the top bracket for a whole bunch of relevant stats. Luke Jackson of course leads Rising Stars for hitouts, and his spread of stats where he is highly placed is quite amazing. Basically the order is the specialist roles in that stat, then Luke Jackson.

Footscray is an interesting one. Not only have they have a recent premiership as well as currently being a potent team, but they've really only had six uncompetitive years in the last thirty while racking up finals appearances and many charismatic, high profile players. Feels a bit like North from the 90s - 8 consecutive years of finals, 3 grand finals for 2 premierships, the absolute star of the competition and plenty of others with them... but it never translated into a growing supporter base. As for Carlton - the Teague Train was coming! A lot of Carlton supporters went into this season feeling like they were on the cusp of something. The blues have several players who each could realistically be the best in their position when in form and returned from injury. There's something to proverbially 'build a team around' there and there were a lot of highly rated (highly drafted) kids who might have filled that 22 into something really potent even if they didn't all reach great heights. Essendon... I have no idea why they have members at all. Their only impressive season in the last 15 years was the one they cheated in.

Looking at it over and over, it will all depend on where the actual force was. The only way Viney doesn't get suspended is if his arm was actually forming a 'bridge' between the jaw and shoulder of the Gold Coast player. Having done police transcription work in the past I've got no time for any kind of choking or throat crushing. It's pretty much the number 1 way people get hospitalised or killed by domestic violence and that's even after months or years of other forms of bashings. It is incredibly high risk and a bit like concussion in that it can seem innocuous at first then really hit hard that night or even the next day. I'd rated it on the level of eye gouging, but that isn't helpful given the Chris Judd precedent.

I appreciate Harmes' effort but he just isn't quick-thinking enough to be given attacking responsibility. Genuine tagger role or not in the team. I'd certainly rather have Jordon on the field. Speaking of young players I'd like to see on the field more - how about that Bowey? A debut game without a single ####-up! That win has me not only feeling better about the rest of this season, but has reminded me of just how many quality kids we have.

Lol, not even a crowd a the game and Essendon supporters still going berserk. I checked in on twitter just now and 'Razor Ray' has been trending for the last 30 minutes and it is just Essendon supporters telling him to 'eat a D', 'Gagf', 'and his mother', etc etc etc. Hilarious. It suits Melbourne for Essendon to win, but I hope it only happens because of a really bad free kick in the dying seconds. That'll confuse them.

1. This is now Melbourne's best odd-numbered year since 1955 (yes, the start of our premiership run) 2. Clayton Oliver + Luke Jackson = 5 goals, 7 tackles, 23 contested possessions, 15 clearances. All seven Collingwood players under 26 combined in yesterday's 'youthful triumph' over West Coast = 5 goals, 12 tackles, 29 contested possessions, 3 clearances. I just find it funny, is all.

Play the tape back from 7m to go on the second quarter. Nic Naitanui runs TOWARDS the player with the mark, from behind and then alongside, clearly within a few meters, the umpire sees it and can be heard shouting 'Nic, Nic' but Naitanui makes no effort to move on or deviate path. Clearly not in pursuit of any other opponent. Was it a 50m penalty? Was it ####

What just happened in the Collingwood goalsquare in the marking contest? Looked like Josh Kennedy just crumpled a West Coast teammate and left them struggling for breath on the ground and just walked off casually without interest or concern. Meanwhile, is Alistair Clarkson such a great coach that two different teams have both found form just on the possibility that he might coach them? :D

That's a re-rostering job my wife would be impressed by. Well, at least give an approving nod to. Especially since it means she'll be able to see the game now! She's managing the roster at an inner-west (NOT directly in the 'problem LGAs', thankfully) Sydney aged care centre with about 30% of total staff headcount unavailable due to the one-site-only restrictions, the zone restrictions, and the any-kind-of-contact restrictions. All of which are welcome as far as they are keeping the residents safe, but make roster management incredibly hard. If her shift officially finishes at 5, I doubt she's actually left before 7 in the last two weeks. I'm sorry. I'm just so freaking proud of her. Plus, she's become a legitimately intense Demon in the last 12 months or so, so I'm glad she gets to see today's game tomorrow.

I started a rant about our forward line beginning to get organised at last, but then realised I was in the wrong thread, apologies. I'm seeing the changes as resting Jordon and omitting Hibberd. Hibberd will need to seriously refresh if he is to make his way back into the team, whereas Jordon I would be confident of seeing again once the young legs have taken a bit of load off for a short while. I expect we might see some other players, especially the young ones, get a rest in the next week or two. Bowey I'm excited to see out there. I am, of course, thinking he will immediately be a more skillfull Caleb Daniel or the ultimate Ranga Rioli. Sparrow actually has a decent kick so I'm pleased about him getting a game. Plus, he's earned it after six unused games on the bench. According to AFL Statspro he only averages six disposals a game.. possibly because they've counted every one of his unused sub games as if it were a game. As a result of that he actually is one of the lowest 'rated' players of all time. Idiots.

https://www.afl.com.au/video/655053/draft-watch-melbourne-nga-prospect-mac-andrew?videoId=655053&modal=true&type=video&publishFrom=1627588800001 Some nice long kicks and a very nimble 2m there. Sigh. I've heard this song before - "Other club gets huge advantage from badly implemented rule, AFL knee-jerk changes the rule without notice and without considering effective implementation, Melbourne misses out on the benefits after following the exact intentions of the original rule."

Just to add some weight to the Gold Coast first pick fantasy that is floating around in my head - do the Suns have any highly rated academy or otherwise pre-access players coming in this draft? The picks we have at the moment aren't exciting as far as draft order (both in the early 30s) but are kind of in the sweet spot for cashing in for points. This could be the start of a beautiful wildly complex multi-club trade.

So long as it is not Cairns...

Just to be clear. I don't think there's an umpiring conspiracy. I just think the Dogs are a little bit, well, you know... cheaty. And the AFL leadership has opened the door for it with their constant reactiveness and the accumulating complexity of rationalisations that flow from it. Umpires are filling out three pages of paperwork in their head every time there's a contested possession.