Little Goffy

In the Pickett screamer sense or in the 'melt your household pans in low-heat backyard kilns for use in industrial steel' sense? I was actually just thinking 'this would be a good game to secure mark and goal of the season. I suspect if we win it'll be because a few spectacular moments kept the scoreboard ticking over for us against the flow while our defense absorbed long periods of Freo time in forward half.

There's no drain on the gravy train.

Can we bring a banner, "Congratulations No.10 - Best Tank Ever" EDIT: Come to think of it, the Magpies could still drop into the bottom 4 below St kilda and Adelaide. In which case clearly they are tanking again to replace Pendles.

Maynard putting an elbow into the throat of an opponent and then diving for effect after a trivial contact. Got to credit his consistency.

It was actually Jack Viney who corrected the Cloudstrike global outage.

Just when we thought there couldn't be anything sweeter than Essendon having 9 goals in a row kicked against them, they come back, look in control, and finally choke in the last ten minutes. Not all art is beautiful, but it is still art.

My father-in-law has contributed a Vietnamese expression for the kind of defense these teams are offering; "soft as soaked noodles"

What do you get when an unstoppable force meets and immovable object? The opposite of this game.

AFL website: JONES SETS THE TONE WITH SWIFT DOUBLE I mean, it is kind of true - he set the tone in the sense that he's done nothing at all since then.

Yeah, you wouldn't mount that head on your wall. But still, think of it as we passed a hurdle requirement. Essendon routinely beat the weaker teams. Essendon routinely lose to the serious teams. Plus, looking at Essendon's fixture to come, they very realistically could drop out of the 8, so the win over them could be particularly valuable to make sure of that and we also get the credit for breaking their spirit.

Was Roy George part of an NGA or similar arrangement for us which now means something again thanks to someone prodding the knee of AFL HQ? If so, and with so many people quite excited about his potential, we might as well begin thinking of him as part of our development program already.

There used to be a food court in Canberra in between the Dept of Agriculture, the Attorney General's Department and the Dept of Environment. It was fine. Very normal. The fish and chip place tucked up the side of Treasury was always better if you could make the walk. My point? This Essendon crowd is managing such a limited murmur that it reminded me of that public service food court. It is like a bunch of small groups each making polite chat while munching their honey chicken with rice.

No matter how good a player is or isn't, my favourite feature will always be the strength of character it takes to grow and change. Pickett's growing maturity and game sense, Melksham's late-career 'patron saint of goal assists' shift, Tom McDonald's switch forward, then back, and finally the transition to having sheer calmness be his leading trait, and even Kade Chandler's relentless efforts to claw away and overcome his weaknesses. Looking a little further back, there's the excellent effort Nathan Jones went to, dropping weight and adding agility to extend his career and make himself a bit more versatile after a decade digging to the bottom of packs. But maybe Viney did the hardest thing - never mind overcoming rubbish injury runs - when he rebounded from being dropped from the co-captaincy by consciously adapting the way he interacted with and led his teammates. When you're as good as Viney is, and part of club nobility, it takes good character to be humble. Also, it is difficult to describe his literal and figurative hardness without resorting to memes. Touch wood we can see him play 300. There's no evident reason why not.

It appears even Microsoft is now focused on manufacturing bricks.

I am registered as an in-flight emotional support camel for tax purposes, so there is some pressure on to keep up appearances. To be fair, I've never done a pacific crossing and I'm also putting off a Europe trip until there's an available stopover location which isn't a major slave market or Perth.

There's some real 'optimist v pessimist' games to decide what is best for Melbourne. Geelong v Bulldogs Optimist says go Doggies, to clip Geelong back so we can pursue the top-4 or home final. Pessimist hopes Geelong pick off the dogs to keep them a step behind us in the scramble for the 8. Giants v Suns Optimist looks for the Giants to stumble and us to pass them, pessimist says GWS can keep it's slot so long as they suppress the chasing Suns. Hawks v Pies Pessimist says Hawks to win because their poor percentage means they are more likely to stay behind us. Optimist says Collingwood to win because it'll be so much fun for them to still be in contention right up until we crush their dreams in round 22. Sydney v Brisbane Pessimist doesn't really care about this one, but the optimist hopes Sydney wins and Errol Gulden gets suspended for 10 weeks. Fremantle v Melbourne The optimist thinks this one will be tricky but if we win it'll make the run home much easier and make all of our potential finals opponents a little nervous. The pessimist hopes we get thrashed so they can demand Goodwin be sacked.

Finals get more coverage, people are more interested, attendances are higher and ad revenue is higher. Obviously Solution. Cancel the Home & Away season and just have 22 more rounds of finals. Every one of which is a theme round.

I'm sure by now others have seen the articles describing Freo's 'nightmare' flight back to Perth from Launceston. Personally, I don't see how we could approach in fear of a team which can't go four hours without taking a [censored]. Especially after they already spent more than two hours [censored]ing the bed against Hawthorn. It occurs to me now that I've never used an aircraft toilet. Are they really that bad? Is it like the Indonesian truck stop drop toilets I decided to skip and wait until I made it to Surabaya? But, seriously, that bizarre article is a timely reminder that our opponents this week are only human, and we go in with every chance of victory.

A tear just came to my eye. I didn't know. I didn't know they were Australian. I'm so proud. For me, July 18th will be the new date for Australia Day.

Fingers crossed, because I'd love to see it. But I fear lugging around that chunky Gary Ayres Medal will slow him down. He is certainly not looking like he's struggling!

And what do we do if we have a choice of taking him or Dustin Martin?

To be clear - I haven't abandoned my oracular declaration that we will not lose another game this season and Melksham will finish his career in the greatest blaze of glory ever known. However... Gee, it's gonna be tough this weekend.

Extraordinary. Changing the draft rules just a few months before the draft. How unprofessional can this outfit get? Don't answer - I know there's always room for more.

Okay, but seriously. Gawn, May and Viney are our three crucial older players. Short of recruiting both De Konings and LDU as free agents in 2025, that's going to be a tricky one to solve in the near future. (with all due respect to the excellent renewal of McDonald and the triumphant return of superstar Melksham who is currently ranked 1st for goal assists, 12th for goals and 4th for marks inside 50 per game in the entire league) We seem to have a deficiency in the middle but that could be nothing more than Oliver's poor form and missing Petracca. 2025 may even be stronger in the middle thanks to the opportunities opened by this situation. The really unpredictable part of our list is the tall forward and defender stock. There are three 'ifs'; whether we retain Petty, and the progress of Jefferson and Adams. I'm not sure we haven't already done 80% of a rebuild already. Although the De Koning and LDU option sounds good to me anyway.

I want to see this reenacted by Taylor and Goodwin. "Even though it was little, you don't want anything stuck to your list. So I tanked a season to try to get the picks, when seven guys start screaming at me because now the tanking is slowing us down more than the lack of talent. What you've got to do; you've got to draft them in and let the culture lift them up, then draft more in, and lift them up, in a windmill motion. In and out until you've got it." "The selectors aren't choosing for a season, they are choosing for a premiership, and if you don't think that draft pick swaps shouldn't matter... and if you think that I am going to miss even one opportunity to pick up half a round of draft position, you are absolutely out of your mind. When it costs us nothing? When we give up nothing?"