Little Goffy

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.

The looseness at defensive 50 stoppages is a clear problem, but allow me a wall-of-text post to elaborate on my personal alarm bell. If you don't want to go through the whole thing the short version our kicking has hit the fan (and the fan is not a teammate). Petracca, Oliver, Gawn, Langdon, Neal-Bullen, Brayshaw, Jordon and Jackson have all had MAJOR drops in their kicking efficiency. Petracca is the key example. Crucial going into attack and a barometer for the team. No prizes for guessing which of the following games we won: Round 19 vs Dogs: 18 kicks at 22% efficiency Round 18 vs Hawthorn: 10 kicks at 20% efficiency Round 17 vs Port: 22 kicks at 72% efficiency Round 16 vs GWS: 18 kicks at 44% efficiency. Clayton Oliver also has a very poor kicking game about one in four times he plays. When both Oliver and Petracca have off kicking days we're bound to be in trouble - as very noticably happened in both the Bulldogs in Round 19 (37%) and the Round 16 GWS (40%) games. Max Gawn, who incidentally is now the most frequently 'kicking' ruckman in the history of the game, was going okay at about 60% efficiency overall up to round 12, but since then his best has been 54% and he's had three games in the 30s. Ed Langdon's kicking also dropped below 50% efficiency for the Collingwood, Hawthorn and Bulldogs games, compared to his usual 65-75%. Alex Neal-Bullen only averages 55% kicking efficiency this season anyway, but that is built on some real shockers; again, didn't crack 40% in the Bulldogs, Hawthorn and Adelaide games. Angus Brayshaw has a normalish midfielder average of just over 60% for the season but in the last two rounds, again, 42% and 43%. James Jordon is one of our more reliable midfield kicks except for the occasional shocking day out but here it is again, the last couple of weeks - 45% vs Hawthorn and then against the Dogs just 3 kicks total, with zero considered 'efficient'. Luke Jackson... well, he's just stopped kicking it at all. His five total kicks for the last three games combined is less than his average per game prior to that.

In hindsight, it is becoming easy to see why Goodwin and the selection committee persisted with Melksham for so long. 'Good Melksham' is precisely what we are missing - if that version of him was available for trade we would jump at it as top priority. No wonder we were so desperate to try to play him back into form. Meanwhile, I actually feel like we're going to have a bit more salary cap space to play with than is generally expected over the next two to four years. Multiple mature, mid-priced players will be retiring this year and next. Several more mature players who haven't been able to crack the best-22 will also be facing reduced contracts or a polite exit. A couple of players will definitely not be getting deals in the same range as their previous (McDonald and Brayshaw both re-signed on four year deals at their absolute peak form of 2018) and a number of our other best-22 players with contracts coming up are more the role-player types (Spargo, Petty and Hunt) who won't be looking at runaway salaries even in good form. Fritsch is a tricky one to price but his inconsistency and the fact he doesn't 'shape' the forward line around him means he won't be in the top brackets. For trading in, there's not much that really sits in our sweet spot. Doesn't seem to be a 'good Melksham' out there for us! I dislike trading for 'premiums' like Kelly and Cerra, and then the available players swing all the way to the other end with players you try to reconstruct as something new at a new club, like Guelfi, Constable or even attempt a Mark Williams confidence transplant for Sam Petrevski-Seton. We've got little draft value to offer - currently we have two picks in the early 30s on hand. That kind of rules out anything dramatic like a hail Mary play to add Dylan Stephens to our wingers club.

Ugh. I hate it when people just grab a few stats that have changed and say 'these stats have changed' and think their job is done. Phoning it in, Twomey. Just phoning it in. Imagine if someone who had access to all the detailed stats and play recordings really put some effort into the content they generated.

Well, for what it is worth, we are now a mathematical impossibility to miss finals. Actually, I'm pretty sure we were last week after Freo and the Saints lost, but definitely lock it in now. It's kind of a funny feeling, considering most of the last 15 years we would consider it a good year if we were even still a mathematical chance of making the finals this late in the season! Top 2 is difficult but not complex - win at least one more game than either the Cats or Bulldogs, and at least the same number as Port. Dropping out of the top 4 would require one of Sydney or Brisbane to win two games more than we do in the remaining four rounds, as well as Port gaining one win on us. We can't really drop below 6th (home elimination final) unless we lose every game and West Coast wins every game.