Little Goffy

I knew a guy who was connected, had a top lawyer through family in the Serbian Mafia. He reckoned he had been let off for a 'first offense' driving about six times. I wonder if Ablett's perfect record might be a little similar. Judd's record was remarkably clean, two time brownlow and all that, considering he was actually a pretty dirty player all things considered.

Step by step, one small delusion at a time. Seriously, anything is possible if you keep each delusion small. Remember last week when Sam Frost was a match-saver? And this week when what-the-exploding-kitten-was-that happened in the last minute? Clearly delusional, but small, so they slip through the net.

Don't forget Phil Davis. Though this also supports Moonshadow's comment that they have mostly used high draft picks to get these players. Seems to be something in particular that Adelaide a good at recruiting for/developing, and if there is a particular person responsibly in the coaching staff then we should be throwing sacks of money and love at them to help us make the most of the Lever-May-Hibberd competent interceptor combination. Well, 'combo' might be stretching it since we seem to be averaging less than one on the field at a time! But, y'know, since our whole defensive gameplan seems to rely on having tall/mid-tall defenders capable of reading the play and being in the right place to slow or repel opposition rebounds, it would be good to a) have them on the park and b) getting the best possible coaching support.

Well, seems to me the outs need to be Hibberd (inj) and Lewis (inj or form, choose), while Keilty clearly takes a rest. Garlett... hmm. Let's see what we have available. Preuss is obviously in, replacing Keilty. Definitely a gain. Tim Smith had a good day at Casey and I'd argue that we could use any marking/contesting help we can get out West. Looks like Nibbler will be 'fresh to go' for a day of run run run. What troubles me is we have no apparent half-back replacements for Hibberd or Lewis, unless Kolodjasnij suddenly gets a miraculous all-clear.

I'm just going to add myself to the Salem love party here. Not many characteristics earn a player more respect than showing consistency when your team is being highly unreliable. As others have ntoed, he also has a 'completeness' as a footballer that would make it perfectly reasonable to wish for three or four of him on your list, without any worry about team balance or positions.

If anyone cares to reflect on Jones' loyalty in tough times, consider this - Robert Flower: 272 Games, 88 wins, no draws, 184 losses Nathan Jones: 272 Games, 86 wins, 3 draws, 183 losses. Another side note, since his debut he has missed a total of 11 games.

Explain to me, how a team can be smashing the clearances, almost double the tackles, have 50 more disposals and 20 more inside 50s, and the game can still be tight. Silver lining... umm... if we get our kicking together (or at least choose to kick) and learn to stick some marks (or at least go for them a bit more) then things could transform rapidly... Edit: Oh, yes, also, kick for goal a bit better.

Pushing rope out there, seriously. Maybe they are saving all their skills for the final quarter? Or it could be like an election tribute - a sort of round-by-round gerrymander where for each game they do just enough to barely, unimpressively win, and yet on a general support of 51% come away with every seat in parliament... Or not.

Anyone get the feeling that the cultural institution of football itself is losing this game?

Would like to see the tackles add up a bit more for the rest of the game. Interesting that we're still winning the clearances even though Max isn't dominating the hitouts. Still, main thing is, it looks like we have actually turned up to play.

Best thing about that is, if Carlton aren't in for a painful day, then with the way expecations are going, Collingwood will have to be in for a long painful day instead. The perceived mismatch is so great that there is almost a zero-sum game for supporter angst - every moment of relief for Carlton adds an equal amount of frustration for Collingwood.

Nah, he's always inexplicably super-dooper happy. Don't know why, something good in the water maybe?

Actually... that could be awesome. Oooooooh set them up so all the phones on one side of the car are video calling all the phones on the other side. Invisible Car, invented. You're welcome.

Air injection!? Are you mad? Isn;t that supposed to be the absolute most painful wait to die, and comes complete with the possibility of living on with a bunch of organ failures and brain clots? Hang on... why do I know this? What is wrong with me? As for football... I'm a little worried about Viney, a little sorry for Nibbler who at least kept at it all day, and a little excited because I just have this feeling like something is going to click. Not in a 'stars dominate' way, but with that layer of players like Fritsch, Stretch and Hunt, for whom their better form is actually very effective but their weaker form is a real vulnerability. Funnily enough, Nibbler would be in that group, except he's allegedly going to be at Casey!

When even the 'Nosy Vicar' of the AFL, Damien Barrett, says an behaviour incident is being blown out of proportion, you know there's not much to see.

Sometimes you don't have to kill the zombies, you can just go somewhere safe and wait for them to decay on their own.

Win, all is well, carry on. Lose, and the only thing to watch for is Peter Wright's audition as our new FF/ruck support.

Starting to think that Dylan Shiel might be a Canaanite. Meanwhile... Scott on Ablett: "His health is just so good at the moment, it's more his health than his form. The reason that we think he's going to play this week is that he's bouncing around the corridors feeling really good." Presumably while he bounced around the corridors he had an outstreched hand at face height of the nearest person, and then follows through with an elbow to the side/back of their head, y'know, to help slow momentum. All day at Kardinia - 'Ow! Gaz!' ... 'Sorry mate, accident' ... 'Ow! Gaz!' ... 'Sorry mate, accident' ... 'Ow! Gaz!' ... 'Sorry mate, accident' ... 'Ow! Gaz!' ... 'Sorry mate, accident' ...

I had a trade-crash on Isaac Smith a couple of years back, thought he was a perfect fit for what we were missing. He's still going at 30years, at about 85%-90% of what he was at peak at 27. For that he has a lot of my respect, but I don't think the reward is there to try to get him when at any moment he could drop another 10-15%... and then another... Where oh where will we find our 'knife'? It is driving me quietly crazy.

After the just plain embarrassing way the Casey v Bulldogs game thread was overrun by yet another round of the "Oscar McDonald belongs in an Indonesian drop-toilet" show, I thought it might be helpful to create a thread specifically for people who really, really need to just hang cr4p on a player. Any player, doesn't matter. If there's not already an entire thread dedicated to flinging turds at that particular player, then please, bring it here. For the many of us who are overseas, interstate, or whatever, who would actually like some information about how games are progressing, the tedious back-and-forth that keeps happening and can take over whole pages on match day is just a nuisance and brings down the whole point of the site. So here it is, a nice safe firing range where you can put up a picture of your personal obsession worst player ever, and ping away without having to worry that you are bringing down the mood of f'n everyone around you, because in this thread, it is all the amateur snipers together.

Seemed to be growing nicely into the forward role. Is a hunter, not sitting still too often, and has an attitude to stay involved and be aware of teamwork. That said, it'll be interesting to see how we end up slotting in all or most of Lever, May, Smith, VandenBerg and Hannan. Joel being the most flexible might end up being squeezed into wherever there is need.

Made slightly sweeter by the fact that the 3rd has been easily Hawthorn's best quarter all season. Before this weekend they were something like +50 points in third quarters.

Was an occasionally adequate player for us, with significant deficiencies. Is somewhat more often adequate at the Pies, with his deficiencies better controlled. But honestly, I'd care more about how Colin Garland feels about the club. Edit: Point of Trivia, even though we basically gained nothing in the 'trade' of Dunn to Collingwood, the player we now have instead of him is Mitch Hannan. So, I think we've come out ahead anyway.

In that highlights video, there are a couple of Petracca 'bookends' that I found interesting, especially considering he had mostly a quiet day - not a game that will have his doubters going quiet, that is for sure. Early on, at about the 35 second mark, there's a moment where you can see that he has worked out what is going to happen next and just runs to the right spot and collects the easy intercept which sets up Brayshaw's goal. That is the kind of awareness that makes him sometimes look like a star could appear any day now. Right at the end (start playing from 18:20, right after Frost's huge double-effort) there was a string of contests on that half back flank where twice in rapid succession Petracca's body strength made the difference, particular that second shoulder-to-shoulder hit close to the ground. He then got up and acted super-quickly. Reminds me of a feeling I got in the final third of last season. Whenever the commentators were losing their proverbial minds and the commentary was in that kind of over-agitated 'this, now this, and this and oh my now this and it is all happening'... that was when we were playing well. When the game is not calm, when there is madness on the field for everyone, it seems like we are usually the ones coming out ahead. But when the game is more or less 'calmer', we are getting cut up. A series of effective kicks... mark.. kick.. just doesn't bring out that kind of frantic mood. It is definitely true for Petracca, he is a much better player when the mood is wild. I think it is also very true for the team as a whole.

Bwa ha! That's twice in one week Petracca has been there at the last gasp. Hur hur hur.