Little Goffy

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.

Hmm, I can see how it could have just been one of those little toung-in-cheek moments. Yep, ok, I'll put it out for anyone to see - I overreacted. If there was ever a moment to have a laugh about Oscar's disposal, just after a last gasp win is it.

pfft, even after a desperate one-goal season-on-the-line win you want to snipe? For what it is worth (and I know Oscar had a few hairy moments as always), O. McDonald. 8 kicks, 6 marks (1 contested), 100% disposal efficiency, 0 clangers, and 10 one-percenters. He did his job. Nothing special or super, but he did his job. Story of the win really - a bunch of players who have been in seriously bad form were able to come out and at least do 'enough'. Best examples would be Nibbler, Hunt, Stertch and O.Mc himself. Meanwhile, a couple of players seemed to actually find some of their better form, led by Harmes and Hibberd obviously.

Delusion number 1, check. See you all next week, I think I'm going to have a nice lie down!

If I were Melksham, just for a laugh I'd be making a little compilation video of himself slotting goals from outside 50, and just quietly posting it to instagram with a wink at the umpire who called him to play on with barely a minute left. Maybe even add an extra one from exactly the spot he was on.