Little Goffy

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.

Must have read the article during the week about how he was our best 'mid' going inside 50. Just trying to take the pressure off teammates. Captain's clangers.

Pre-game, the AFL website clearly saw something they liked about our Weideman.

I actually fully agree; I've seriously respected Ratten ever since he got the best out of our midfield waaaaaay back in a past era, and with a Carlton-supporting brother I'm very aware of how much he got out of a Blue's unit that was not as good as (ahem) Malthouse convinced the Blue's board it was. I would have preferred Ratten as the Roos successor and I think St Kilda are over-achieving with him at the helm at the moment. Although, I must confess I have long believed St Kilda has been right on the edge of being a total basket case and that Richardson did well to get even the couple of respectable seasons out of him that he did. Stagnated for 18 months is about as neat a summary of Goodwin/Melbourne as you can get. I hope I didn't come across as mocking the original comment - I was just having a laugh and enjoying the spectacle of what a fickle and unpredictable game our game can be, at it's best.

So did Fremantle, it seems. And I must say, Ratten is so overrated. We should be trying to recruit this Justin Longmuir guy. OMG how long was he available for and we missed him? {cuts wrists}

Going back to the Hawks game for a moment - their team out there for 3 goals in a game had an average age of 27 - more than a year older even than the team Collingwood sent out, and the Pies themselves are one of the oldest teams running around at present. I'm already dreaming of a win over Gold Coast followed by a thumping of Hawthorn to declare our return. I really hate Hawthorn. I really do.

Theory - Goodwin's ambition is to create a team so used to playing on and operating under massive amounts of self-inflicted pressure that they eventually start operating naturally at that level and become a completely unstoppable force - a level of tempo up to compare with going VFL to AFL, and then proceed to win a string of premierships to rival the Great One himself. I mean, that run in mid 2018 - if that is a taste of what the 'Goodwin plan working' looks like, I'm okay with that... If...

Wherever is left? But seriously, anywhere with an appropriate sized playing field and a secure health situation will be acceptable. If some fluke brings the situation to one where a crowd is possible then wherever can offer the best atmosphere, NOT necessarily the largest numbers. It'll be corporates and raffle winners and few others and they'll be going bananas after 14 days quarantine. Come to think of it, they might need to plan for that for any clubs playing finals. What a travel package that would be.

Jetta and Oscar completely change our defensive set-up, releasing May and Lever to be much more counter-attacking and in particular it should benefit Lever who can now be the smart interceptor and third-man up he is best at, without crapping his shorts all day about what hole is opening up behind him. In Jetta's case, I think his presence as a proper responsible adult will help things enormously. Weideman in will help T Mac operate with at least a little less than a 100% blanket on him, and doubles the chance of a tall person being under the fall of the ball from one of our random kicks forward. Bennell in is just an obvious one, even before what apparently was a very busy and effective scratch match effort. As far as I can see it, all four changes improve out structure and the outs, while being a little tough on a couple, are not diminishing our structure at all. I approve of these decisions, now I wait...

It is something that has been observed in the past, but also, a general rise in professionalism and leadership/culture is also quite common in the long term after a fairly short bleary-eyed period!

Am I mistaken - the trade was 2019 picks 26 and 50, plus 2020 first rounder, for pick 8 (which eventually became Pickett) The trade was sensible at the time and the 2020 draft is a total pot-luck mess. Also, we're just a few rounds in to the weirdest season ever. Yep, it's kick the Demons week, that's all to this story.

For a moment I thought it was Manly to Bankstown, which is almost a guide tour of every traffic snarl Sydney has to offer. Manly to Bankstown you still have to negotiate The Spit, North Sydney and Epping Road across Lane Cove, but after that you're on freeways most of the way. If it's 50km, the first 10km will take longer than the next 40! So, I think we can expect a lot of slow first quarters and fast finishes during this hub time.

I thought it was a bit rough making Langdon and Tomlinson stay on the wings.

https://www.icms.edu.au/contact-us/our-campuses/northern-beaches-campus My theory. Facilities all there and if it turns our season around get to make Hogwarts jokes forever. Right by the headland and you could even get down to Collins beach next to the Police College for recovery swims without too much concern of public interaction.

Melksham is supposed to be one of our key creative and clever players bringing the ball inside 50. Today he kicked two goals and a behind... and yet had one of the worst individual games possible. That was, apparently, all of his disposals. He also gave away at least one goal with a dumb free kick against. I gave him the benefit of the doubt last week, thinking he had been a bit unlucky, but the only gain from hsi performance this week is that we definitely have someone to drop when we bring in the second tall forward we so despetately need to make McDonald a little less predictable and to allow Fritsch to do what he is best at instead of being 'the' forward target.

Manly, hmm, I wonder if they'll be securely isolated up at that bizarre colonial folly building that got turned into a business management school near North head? Would be secure and convenient and they'd even be able to get to a little beach. Would actually be an ideal location, given it was already a premium boarding school and is almost certainly unused at present. In fact, it is probably the only suitable location I can think of out in Manly. Even the old quarantine huts wouldn't be secure enough, ironically. If so, I think we've been very lucky under the circumstances.

WLLLWLWWWLLLLWWWLLLL A very streaky record against Richmond. I choose to believe the tide is turning. I think our two 'gun' tall defenders are steadily improving, I think our radically different forward line solution is literal centimeters from beginning to work properly, and I think our clearance effectiveness will be helped by playing together in consecutive weeks for the first time at AFL level since last season! In fact, I'm going to rest my thoughts on that - this will be the first time this season that the team has played together in consecutive weeks, and we've implemented a whole lot of changes that need to be worked through. Calling it not - incremental improvement for the next five weeks and then brutal unstoppable dominance after that.

Mumford vs Nankervis Lycett/Vardy vs Grundy Jacobs v Nankervis Roughead/Boyd v Naismith/Tippet McEvoy v Naitanui Pike/Tippet v McEvoy/Hale Hale/Bailey v Sandilands Hale/Roughead vs Pike/Mumford Jolly v Ottens/West Jolly v McEvoy There is no definitive pattern there for what type of ruck 'wins premierships' or even tends to make it grand finals. Some of the winners there had dog days, others were among their teams best in a loss. My only concern with the ruck and with Gawn's contribution is that the communication is missing a beat and the hitouts which should be giving us great quality as well as quantity of clearances are instead giving us mixed results because players don't know where each other are going to be. On this particular matter, I'm willing to put some blame to the shutdown and not being able to train together, and I'm willing to watch the team play together and re-connect in the coming weeks. As for how this relates to the 'Goodwin boosting' thread... I would argue that this, and the dropped marks up forward, and the fact that we do not yet have a player with more than two contested marks for the season, are all things which Goodwin himself has only limited control over and our season is far too new and unclear at this point to be scratching at his scalp over a 3 point loss!