Little Goffy

One of the things I loved about the game against the Hawks was seeing Pickett getting frequently involved and getting to good places in support, whether or not he was rewarded or even got a stat out of it. It shows a little in the 'goal of the week mini-video on the main Demonland page at the moment - he was weaving in and out of the action ready dragging players with him and even closing in on the hot spot as the goal was being kicked. But the moment for me that really shone (and made me feel like we were definitely going to win) was a passage of play I think late in the third quarter where through sheer manic attack and slapping and bundling along Pickett was largely responsible for moving the ball forward about fifty meters despite Hawks outnumbering Demons for the length of the scramble. He must have physically touched the ball five times in ten seconds but statistically wouldn't have had a 'touch' to his name. Sums up why I think we've got a winner in this kid and why I'm going to enjoy watching him for years. Can I make a special request to anyone with editing skills for a mini-video of that ridiculous passage? Might be hard to find because it didn't result in a goal or anything special as an outcome, except Hawthorn once again were knocked back up the ground, out of an attacking position, and left with no options except to kick long to Gawn! It is also the perfect reminder that Pickett's stats are completely ignorable - he's doing his thing and it is definitely not bureaucratic!

I've been annoying my wife to hell with complaints about how Gawn is so often winning hitouts but the communication with the rest of the clearance team usnt quite happening. A decisively won hitout will drop just a pace or two too far ahead or a fraction of a second behind and the mid coming through has to reach or twist or stall for just a moment - still getting the ball, still getting the hitout to advantage stat, even still getting the clearance, but it just isn't quite as decisive. Seems another one if those things you have to play together to really improve, and I'm hopeful that we'll soon see a bit more of the bonus game changing double-goals that defined 2018 (goal, centre bounce, goal). It would also give Oliver that little extra moment to steady and deliver a clean kick or handball. Not necessarily brilliant but the proverbial 'high percentage option' that keeps the ball moving effectively. That's plenty when your work is done in a pack all day.

In case it hasn't been noted by anyone else... Sam Weideman is currently No.2 behind only Charlie Dixon for contested marks per game. AND Sam Wiedeman is currently number one in the AFL for marks inside 50 per game. AND Sam Weideman is also equal first for goals per game. On a non-Sam note, Fritsch is 3rd for marks inside 50 per game, but his aren't as noticeable because his job seems to be to provide the wide lead and then assess - kick it to someone in a better spot (which is does pretty well) or take the shot. Everyone should take regular moments to remind themselves of that role when they see Fritta's poor-looking accuracy - he's typically taking the shots from 45 out on the boundary.

Wow. How many people with decision-making power must have interacted with that along the way without stopping and thinking 'hang on a minute?' I'm going to scratch my nails down the window and say 'At least now it is being reported like it is a problem'. And relating it to the topic - "She's not an elderly lady with dementia, she's just an ***" "He's not a skillful half-forward completing an amazing comeback nobody thought possible, he's just an ***" Hopefully when Harley is a crabby 86 and has dementia, it'll be different.

Fun Fact. Essendon have four wins. Three of them are against; Kangaroos (17th) Swans (16th) and Freo (14th) and next week they play Adelaide (18th). Meanwhile, Hawthorn, at 13th, is the lowest ranked team we've played against and next week we have Brisbane. Our destinies are somewhat woven together because of the missed game, but it should be fun watching Essendon slide as the season goes ahead while we have a whole bunch of difficult teams we wont need to see again until finals. Definitely looking forward the re-match, too.

And then back in again, if it is Frost rebouding! Records could be broken! Meanwhile, truly superb weather up here in Sydney. Just a few wispy high clouds and a sky that is the palest blue that it gets. Soft sun, not too hot and no real chill either. The proverbial perfect day for football. The tactic which has brought Melbourne undone repearedly this season is opposition teams calmly, patiently chipping the ball around to work their way up the ground and take the heat out of out intense play-on style. Hawthorn have been trying to use that tactic all season but it hasn't been up to scratch for them. If we're wise enough, alert enough and disciplined enough to keep closing in on them to exploit the little mistakes then we will get multiple goals from those turnovers and the effect of the 'chip chip' will be to actually increase pressure and panic on them, rather than decrease it. About six hours from now we should be knocking on the door to the eight with positive percentage, a game in hand and rediscovered momentum. And that warm glow reserved for knowing you've just broken Hawthorn's season for the second time in three years!

That last half-dozen games in 2014... sigh. Looked like a break-out from a young dynamic mid capable on the inside and the outside, laying tackles, getting clearances, marking around the ground, kicking goals - he was providing us with a complete, well-rounded midfielder. Something which even now we don't quite have one of. Tyson's end of season surge followed by stagnation makes me irrationally nervous about Fristch doing the same after his amazing finish to last season. Touching wood and all that.

Y'know, it just occurred to me that Luke Jackson might be the player to finally complete the magic puzzle that I've always wanted to see - a player who gets at least one of every single stat in a single game. I've kept an eye on the likes of Franklin and Naitanui over the years but I don't think either ever did it all in one game.

Scorebored ? flattering North... Meanwhile, anyone else getting a bit of an Akermanis-ish vibe about Rankine? He's got the game, the body shape, the dumb hair, and the wet trouser commentators!

Well, Gawn is ten days older than May, so really the best thing would have been to trade Gawn and that way we could have had both Kings.

Essendon's percentage dropping by more 15 and going back down under 100, and likely dropping out of the eight, is always a welcome part of any round of football. It's a note on the sheet abotu how long scoring this season has been, too. Our percentage may look pretty rough at 87% but that is still only a 40 point margin. Geelong's spot on the ladder is largely the product of their one good smashing... of Hawthorn. Looking forward to us taking out turn!

Apologies for piggy-backing on your excellent contribution - I'll just toss in a micro-example that I've kept for myself as a kind of touchstone. Amongst the general mess of abuse I (we all?) cop at random times in life, I have actually been quite viciously and even menacingly racially abused on a train. Thing is - it was by an obviously crazy person and I could walk away in full confidence that it was a freak occurance and that if things had spiraled out of control I would have all manner of institutions backing me up and could realistically assume the sympathy and assistance of the next person I meet the moment I'm clear of the scene. And in that thought lies the difference. The clarification for me was about having the humility to recognise that even though that was seriously alarming and unpleasant, the depth of it is nothing like what people have to navigate when they can't be confident of that institutional and social support. I'm of the 'unlikely to eliminate racism in my lifetime' perspective, but I see the goal of reconciliation (as the most pressing example) as being to reach the point where the experience of racism for Indigenous Australians is much the same as mine. "That was a crazy person, and that was upsetting, but I don't really have to think about it any more now that the moment is over."

Maybe even Captain Hindsight-based-on-speculation-about-worst-case-scenario? If Pickett progreses the way he looks like he will and Melbourne lift themselves up once they have had some time playing together at full speed, and the 2020 draft proves to be a total lottery with no exposed form to judge on, then the trade for the Pickett-Pick was one of the most brilliant ever made.

If we were on the the HS pet clubs, all those failed inside 50s would be called 'shots on goal that were controversially touched before going through'. Innovation in journalism award in the bag.

Alas, I do believe he managed 1.6 and and oof or two against us once upon a time. Bank on that being his new normal if he came here. Confirmed- round 6, 2017. 13 marks including 4 contested and 4 inside fifty, for 1 goal 6 behinds, his personal worst accuracy even before noting the outright misses. He was at his absolute best that day in every way except one. It was beautiful football - Possibly the greatest football moment ever provided by an Essendon player because it also made Essendon supporters miserable.

I'm just going to quietly nudge in here - that I've always believed in Oscar, in a realistic way, going back years. Gooooo team Oscar!

He's not in great form right now but it is all far from the first time he's been at a crossroads. It's wait and see for me, and definitely no career eulogy required just yet.

Since we're talking a bit about the wonderful world of mega-companies and online communication - anyone else remember back in the dawn of the internet, when AOL was found to knowingly not be closing child abuse video sharing networks because, hey, they were paying huge subscription fees for all that data. Set the tone of the internet to this day, unfortunately, and the legacy lives on strong.

Tom's eye will be fine provided he didn't watch the Sydney-Richmond game. I've actually had my eyeball given a good scratch once when a freak'n lunatic magpie lark (pee-wee) decided my face was it's enemy. Didn't feel much, went ahead to attend a uni lecture, but started noticing people were giving me funny looks. Went to wash it out in the bathrooms and after one double-take glance in the mirror I sprinted down the the medical centre where they jumped me right ahead of the queue - basically I had an outer eye completely layered with blood, deep pure red everywhere that should be white, and bulging. I shouldn't say sprinted - I actually moved with haste but not so much exertion because I honestly was worried my eyeball would burst if my pulse lifted. Strangely, it never affected my vision, I didn't feel much pain, and was completely fine in a couple of days. I had to get a bunch of booster shots on account of the rabid pee-wee - I don't know if the same applies to Gold Coast players.

It's an intriguing closely matched see-saw arm wrestle of a tussle. Sydney won the second quarter by a goal, Richmond won the third quarter by a goal, and now Sydney are winning the final quarter by a goal! I think we should be impressed by the Tiger's discipline to not put the cue in the rack after been a full twelve point in front at quarter time. If you run out of Frank Zappa, my wife is currently watching a Korean celebrity/reality TV show where they compete to invent new dishes for kids - the winning recipe idea gets an official launch with proceeds going to charity. Each episode of 'Funstaurant' is about 40 minutes, I think, so you can catch a goal in the game, watch the show, and be back in time for the next goal.

I've got it on TV while I get sunday-stuff done at home, just heard the commentators say at half time 'every score this game has been from a turnover'. If that is 1st vs 7th, we're definitely in with a shot this year!

We'll never completely get rid of [censored] like that but we can reach a point where everyone else knows that that kind of behaviour puts the people who do it on the outside. Noting the 'trolling' comments - yep, there's a fair chance this same person makes fat girl jokes at parties and thinks mussie-wuzzie is a hilarious way to refer to a colleague. I'm looking forward to the day where nobody in society is left with any doubt about it being 'Just that troll guy over there who is a jerk who nobody likes', and there are no lingering worries about your HR manager or football coach or doctor. We're going to get there because every year more and more people are sick of it. Just look at Demonland compared to ten or even five years ago. Even when people are irritated by the regular bursts of 'political correctness going mad' that happen, the same people are also much, much more accepting of the changing line of what is decent and acceptable. Harley had a good game, his skills made a difference to the result, and he finished the game surrounded by teammates thrilled to share his personal moment of joy. The drip-stain champion on the internet defines the moment only as much as society lets him, and that amount is becoming less every day.

I think there's a glitch on the AFL site. I keep opening the 'live games' tab and the Giants v Power game comes up. At least as a courtesy to the rest of us they could rename it 'currently occurring' because 'live' implies some kind of pulse and volition. Meanwhile, only two other games to wait on and we're a good chance of being the highest scoring team of the round. If the results of those two games go right we'll be out of the bottom four despite having a game in hand.

Right, it is the day after and the sun is shining. OMac did really well and definitely improved Lever/May's role, not to mention helped limit the damage a few times when those two 'higher risk play' types um... 'incurred their risk'. Weideman I am just thrilled for. Don't no why I feel like the kid is such a good human, but I do. Couple of valuable goals, filled his role very well, and just to mess with everyone's heads, he now is the club leader for contested marks and goals per game! Goodwin, to me, seemed a fair bit more animated and involved, as if he's finally given himself permission to do more than just 'trust in the plan'. Maybe he sat down and read some Sun Tzu and finally realised that a plan is not a strategy! It was good to see and perhaps it marks a moment of development. Fingers crossed.

The Demons in the crowd did a great job and should be given their share of credit for the win. The radio online was picking up their hollering and howling all game, and it set a tone. Having Goodwin down on the bench being animated and giving constant instructions late in the last quarter was a moment on par with finding out that the Easter Island heads have bodies.