Little Goffy

Seems like Port are determine to get things out of the Tiger's reach as soon as possible.

Seems odd that the AFL would protect the stars from being held to account for breaking the rules, but then NOT protect the stars from being negated on field by opponents breaking the rules. Where is the win here? D-U-O-A. My acronym of the week. Starts with 'Disappeared Up...'.

There's the three I think could drop out of the eight. Our main rival to climb into the eight is of course the Bulldogs. (Because Essendon will implode at some point and Gold Coast will inevitably finish a respectable, promising 10th-ish ready to pick up their folllow-up set of priority picks). We need to pick up two wins, or, one win plus the 'game in hand' win, in comparison to just one of those three teams. We directly play against the two most vulnerable teams currently in the eight. Strangely, the only remaining 'scalp' we can aim to take is St Kilda. Other than that we are playing low-ladder teams and a string of proverbial 8-point games. Heh, even stranger, it is realistic to expect to make the eight based on only a minor improvement to our current form.

Except for Gawn, none of the mooted 'outs' are a structural problem. Viney out just lets Brayshaw and Harmes spend more time on the ball. VanDenBerg and Nibbler are not hard to find alternatives for. Lockhart is more specialised but also coverable, especially given Jetta should be fresh. One of the structural things our game has been missing this year is tackles and pressure inside forward 50. I'd presume that was the reason for including Nibbler on Wednesday, but he didn't show a whole lot and obviously is now unavailable while he serves Shaun Burgoyne's suspension. So I'm definitely a fan of getting Pickett in and maybe even Jordan to add a bit of ground-level pressure to create some goals and just make it that little bit harder for opponents to pick and choose how they counterattack.

Well, that's junk, eh. Obvious bias. Stain on the game.

Papley and Butler both turning it on in the same evening really puts a spotlight on what we're missing up forward. It's something missing from the games of Hannan, Fritsch and our other mid-sized forwards. On the one hand we can realistically hope to get some of that mysterious occult power from Pickett as well as the unknowable future of Jackson, but we really need to bring a bit of spontaneous hunting into the game of the mid-sizers.

And a couple of hours later, "Must get Dan Butler".

Watched the second half with my magnificent spouse. Me: "Ugh, so many of these Collingwood players look like little [blank]s." Her: "Oh, don't be so harsh, they're not Hawthorn." She also lip-synced Buckley talking to the 3/4 time huddle, including "You're not Coles, you're not Woolies." Her theory being that the Collingwood players had those range-activated thingies that make your shopping trolley stop when you get too far away from their start point. Some people just really commit to embracing Australian culture, y'know? Sigh, she even really, really hates West Coast supporters. ?

20% reduced game time is the clear 'gross' factor. Don't think there's much more to take from it as far as raw km run. More info on time spent sprinting vs jogging and walking would be interesting to add. Possibly may be exacerbating the 'surplus midfielder' problem that is affecting the likes of Brayshaw and Harmes so much. Not much need for a rotation group if your primaries can play most of the minutes.

Very pleased to see both Oliver and Brayshaw grow as the game sweated on. Really happy for Jackson and Weid to bag a few. Nice to get a win with both the zuperztarz Gawn and Petracca being a bit quiet for much of the night. Langdon and Tomlinson are currently combining for what we were hoping to get from either one of them. Overall, seems like we only really focused in the final quarter, but it also just might be that we got our conditioning right this season and Burgess may yet be worth more than every penny he cost.

Christian Petracca and a couple of first round draft picks should change that...

Slaon and B Crouch still out, with Ben Keays and Chayce Jones the named followers and M Crouch in the centre. With all due respect to them, that should not be a contest over the length of a game. The missing Crouch and Sloane are also both in Adelaide's top 4 for inside 50s. Their leading tackler is their ruckman Meanwhile, two of their named forwards have never kicked a goal, and Himmelberg has just one this season. Lynch bags a goal every second game or so. The only area that they win on paper is their defence, with Doedee, Talia and Laird providing a core that must be kept honest. Seriously, they are thin on every line and their 0-9 run is not an accident. I'm so anxious about this game now. Every reason I see for us to romp it in, I become more nervous.

Not only reached the milestone at 32, but also did them both at once. Clearly has Phillips covered.

I've carefully evaluated the data from our recent games against the Crows and can confirm that the losing team's score will be divisible by 11. This is a peer-reviewable valid discovery. At probability of 1/11 x 1/11 x 1/11 the chances of it being just a fluke are about 0.07%, or one in 1,400. Clear scientific validity. Finally I have mastered "P-value hacking." I can now get my accreditation as an epidemiologist.

Might as well put together a quick best 22. Yesssss, goooood, let the hate flow through youuu. FF: T Hawkins C Curnow Parfitt HF: Rankine Darling S Motlop M: Murphy Wines Constable HB: Parish Grimes Cerra B: Z Williams Gardiner Byrne-Jones FOLL: Kelly Cotchin Wallis INT: Acres, Dunstan, Georgiades, J Hill Emerg: Hartung, C Beams, B Sinclair, B Reid, B [censored], Tippett,

I'm absolutely in the 'if any doubt, rest Gawn'. I think it would do him and the midfield good, too. Good for him because he could spend a game watching live and thinking through what is going on in a way that isn't possible when just reviewing the tapes - grasping better what is going on and what he needs to tweak. Good for the midfield because it should help shake off the taint of complacency that is in their game - too often they expect things to go their way from the tap and even the greatest ruckman won't give much better than a 60/40 win rate consistently., let alone a true hitout to advantage. If it forces the midfield to play more accountably and to be ready with defensive spread, it could be an important moment in out season. Also... if we lose to Adelaide, with or without Gawn, we're in serious crapbuckets. North just belted them, with some of their most important players our to injury or dropped for career-worst form. Rest Gawn if there's the slightest question on him. If there's still any doubt, feel at peace to lay him over until it is time to face off against Grundy.

Just making a little note here - NOT AFL QUALITY. Oscar and Tom McDonald, Hibberd, Hannan, Tomlinson, Weideman, Fritsch, Hore, Jetta, Smith, a few older guys and a bunch of kids. I'm going to give you an over-under of 50% on the ten I've named there and see how it pans out by, say, end of 2021.

First up, either of Murphy or Heppell can point to periods of at least five consecutive years where their form would place them in our current best 4. More to my point, their mixed capability would allow them to contribute as much what we are currently getting from two players - eg. Murphy would outpoint Langdon and Bennell combined and Heppell would match Brayhsaw and Melksham combined. Right now we are limited tactically by the limited range of our main midfielders. A high-quality well-rounded player, not necessarily superstar, would make a huge difference to our situation.

Discussion was of type of player. Obviously. Silly Billy.

Aside from the rare situation where you have a player who is very much suited to a specific role only, I get very wary about talk of 'inside' and 'outside' as separate things. In an individual player there might be a difference in their strengths and weaknesses but excessive talk of recruiting specifically for inside our out always makes my eye twitch and think of Terry Wallace, who was the grand priest of 'inside only and outside only' players. If I had one dream draft pick right now for our team, or a magic wand to wave over one player and 'complete' them, it would be to add someone like Dyson Heppell, Marc Murphy, or, obviously, Pendlebury.

Lol, is that you, Elegt?

If this was a serious thread about drafting during Taylor's time at the club we could have all kind of interesting discussions about attempting to make the most of diverse speculative third round picks, the routine decision to trade second rounders for mature players to get some stability into the team, and the contentious decisions to bank our early picks on getting some allegedly first-rate key defenders into the club for a tilt at a premiership while we still have Gawn at full strength. Overall, I'd say each layer of decisions has been a sensible strategy and it is unfortunate that many of those late speculative selections have had mixed and unreliable results. But this takes us back to the old 'selection vs development' argument. There are a lot of players who have shown something significant for at least a while and even whole seasons, but then plateaued or stagnated, or just been injured. Hunt, Harmes, Vandenberg, Nibbler, O.Mc, Smith, Hannan, Fritsch, Hore. All worthy AFL level when in good form, but all have seen long spells of poor form, and not a single pick above 40 in that set.

Based on the link provided, he made a speech requiring PREMIUM COMMAND FORM. Sounds good, but can the players put it into action?

Another moment to hope the players don't have the attitude of some supporters, I guess. We're less than halfway into the season, with a game in hand, and we're two games out of the eight Yet to play the entire bottom four, but have played the entire top four (and obviously don't have to play anyone twice) The Port game was a debacle, but if anyone needs reminding what a haywire and volatile season this is, aside from needing their head checked they can take a quick look at the Bulldogs, West Coast or Collingwood. Our next two games are against the bottom two teams. They are must win games but they are 'should win' games too. Then Collingwood for what is likely the proverbial 8-point game. Speaking of 8-point games, we are still to play all of Collingwood, Western Sydney, Bulldogs, Bombers and Saints. For all the misery yesterday, if you think that was the best we can deliver you're just being melodramatic. Destiny in our own hands. Far, far too early to write off the season, even if it wasn't a weird one.