Little Goffy

The coaches weren't kidding when they said our team had to be all about versatility. At this rate, Weideman will be our only forward who is just a forward. It is kind of funny though - we spent almost a decade trying to find a replacement for Neitz, we finally get someone capable of being the potent target in attack, and we begin rotating them through the midfield!

Funnily enough, I had my first shift at a new job on the day of the 2000 prelim. Must have been something in the air back then. I blame the GST. (Accurately, in fact - it was the reason this place needed extra staff!) Probably the onyl really strange thing to my name is from the late 2005 must-win game against the Bulldogs. I needed a bit of help from a friend to get out of the ground. Totally sober, I'd just injured my gut yelling so much, so was a bit doubled over. Pretty sure security had come over to our section to 'check on' me during that last quarter, since I was tanding on a chair for a fair bit of it. But they wandered off happily enough because they could see I wasn't being obnoxious or drunk. At the end of the 2005 season, on the monday after the disasterous Geelong game, I just wandered down to the junction oval for no particular reason, and just sat around. Funnily enough, and not really unexpected I guess, many players were coming in and out in groups for recovery and end of season debriefs and that sort of thing. IT was a strange, low-key atmosphere. Not miserable at all, there was an air of disappointment mixed with optimism for 2006.

The skill is to do it while facing the other way.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks Hannan is 'one to watch' for 2018. Not a mega-breakout like Oliver, and wont become prolific in a stats and supercoach sense, but with Watts' departure opening up more 'space' around the forward and half forward area, and two hard working tall marking targets to work with, he can be a priceless extra dimension. That versatile, unpredictable medium-tall forward who can make a contribution in any situation, from offering a lead to a surprise leap to persistent hunting to a mad scamble at the top of the square. Great player to have. Those quick snaps are great fun too.

Got to respect O'Dea for being in the team of the week again despite not being the super-standout player either week. She simply delivers a really high standard every time.

The timing is the only thing that is anoying me about this. Puts us on the spot to adjust, late in the preseason. But I'm sure the handover within the club will be managed well, team-based planning, all that. For me, I'm just chalking up another mark on the 'signs the AFL HQ are a complete shambles' board.

Lever will probably make the decisive difference between winning and losing a couple of games this season. He'll be a strong contributor in many more. That's how valuable he can be, as the best young player in the game at a role that is perhaps the most critical single position in our game plan. He's an absolutely core part of putting us in genuine premiership contention.

Our women's team will crush all before it this year. Our leadership is so superior to any other women's team that the value of experience for all our players will be maximised, as will the habits of the game plan and working as a team. Throw in that it seems we are the fittest AFLW team, and our advantage will just keep growing over the short season. At this point, it would require some combination of bad luck and shameful overconfidence for our women's team to not win this year's premiership. And after last years slip-ups surely they wouldn't get complacent? Surely... As for the men's team. Well, the issue is what is between their ears, not what is between their hips. The talent is there to achieve absolutely anything. But the big variable, the big uncertainty, is just not possible to scutinise from the outside. T'is inscrutable and intangible I say! It simply cannot be scruted or tanged.

After being really frustrated by the excessive hurrying and lack of patience in the game against GWS, it was noticable that the Demons were a lot more poised and willing to look up and see their options against Adelaide. Paxman was the clear leader on that count and I daresay inspired the standard for the team.

I think North's confusion was because they thought it only applied to players who might soon be recruited to their club, and since no players have been willing to go to North lately they just figured there couldn't be a problem.

There are moments where we look a serious step above the general standard. Frustrating that we seem to get pegged back in the overall grind, but I enjoy the feeling like we could any moment now become an unstoppable superpower.

Was that the cleanest goal ever in women's football? Genuine long kick from defence to the middle, worked out to the forward/wing, the a burst of speed to beat a defender and a neat kick through for goal. Some more of that would be good. Newman put on a few pretty valuable bursts of speed last week, too.

Anyone else having all kinds of trouble with the vision from the AFL website? Sound coming through fine, but the video is stopped almost as much as it is going.

The thing about Carlton's percentage is that in two games they only slightly passed what we managed in one game. Absurdly, they've only had three goals scored against them. So even one small loss would put their percentage back in the pack, and if, for example, we beat them by a couple of goals in a high scoring game, their percentage collapses. All you can say about Carlton at the moment is that they are good at stifling their opponents. While that is something it would be good to see us doing a bit better, I'm quite happy for us to keep piling on the goals. Eventually we'll crack a game and just dominate both ways, and that will set records and also set us up with a monstrous percentage. Think the 11.4 vs 2.4 against Fremantle last season. Still, what matters is winning, any which way we can. Those two games we let slip in wet weather in 2017 should keep the player's fire burning.

Is it strange that to me Mel Hickey just really 'looks like a footballer', more than most around her? (hits google) Here's an old image from 2016 that makes the point for me; there she is, the only one in the shot with the poise, the concentration, and even the visible hardness that you'd associate with AFL. Cover over the rest of it and just have Hickey, and what you'd be looking at is a standard AFL promo image.

On the congestion issue, I would guess that you could almost build an imaginary equation to explain it. Obviously in any game of footy congestion happens whenever the ball gets stuck in one space long enough for extra players (the peloton?) to arrive. So, the 'trouble' is that in the women's game the player's willingnes to work hard to get to contests has reached a standard above a balance with player's ability to quickly grab and dispose of the ball. The two main skill deficiencies in the women's game seem to be a) collecting a loose ball from the ground b) quick, effective handballs to a teammate to open up into space. Both are skills that take a lot of practice. And then some more practice. And some more practice after that. They are also skills that basically don't turn up in any other sport that players might be switching across from. Not in netball, soccer, basketball, long distance running, or even ultimate frisbee. So it makes sense that they are the skills coming through most slowly for new players. And unfortunately I expect it will continue to be a slow process improving those particular skills. On the one hand, it'll take years to really pick up, while we wait for all those Auskick girls to have spent ten years with a Sherrin in their hands all day. On the other hand, there's definitely no biological reason limiting women's ability to collect a loose ground ball or to execute an effective handball. So, for the fans, when you see that error, at least you'll know that it will eventually clear up. And if you happen to know any fit young women or girls (it'd be granddaughters for most on this sight, yes? ) make sure you do chaotic handball drills with them every time you see them.

Sigh. Any average grade men's suburban side is full of players who, cpmared to women footballers, had an extra decade of access to coaching, training and playing opportunities by the time they were 20. Even for code-hoppers the available development resources in their previous sport is radically different in almost all cases. You're comparing people who have had a lifetime of enocuragement, coaching, support and often pay, to people who have persevered despite being laughed at for even showing an interest, or at best cut off from access to development programs by the time they reach puberty. It's just a tedious false comparison, and I'm sure you already know about these differences, you're not generally an idiot, even if you're a bit wild with the punctation sometimes. So, when you ignore obvious facts in order to mock people because of their sex... well, look yourself in the mirror and at least promosie you won't ever complain about people being annoyed that you're sexist, ok?

It is basicaly a casual pick up game with a few friends of radically different skill. And what all such pick up games need is a lot of specific rules, a competitive framework, lots of hype, commercial linkages and, more than anything, they need to be a distraction from the main game. Definitely a winner, this one. Personally, this is the least interested I've ever been in anything where the Demons ran out supposedly representing their club. I'd rather watch our team play soccer for an hour, just to see how they go at it.

I'll be in again. Same name, different team name. Coach name: Chris Team name: Inflorescent Carcasses

Yep, I'd be happy to see runners disappear at the top level. Would place a small extra premium on players with real leadership and game awareness, which I think would add to the game. Would also make it that tiny bit harder for coaches to micromanage play, which in turn makes for a less predictable game and would actually see players mature more and have to show more initiative as they wont be able to just wait for a message to come out.

Sydney has had two recent minor premierships followed by 'coming second' in the grand final. Funnily enough, they've done that five other times in their history, too. Port Adelaide took three tries before getting there in 2004. Brisbane never finished minor premiers in their triple. Overall, it looks like there's roughly a three-way split for final result for minor premiers; 1/3rd win the premiership, 1/3rd come runner up, and 1/3rd don't make the grand final. With the power of statistics and imprecise grammar, I could thus 'accurately' say "winning the minor premiership means you are less likely to win the premiership than another team".

Hmm, that's an interesting one yeah. Trying to think of some rationales. Main one would be that people don't see the Demons as a team which will win constantly all season, but they do see us as being capable of putting a surge of form together to win through the finals. Those odds would suggest 'they' think we are about 50/50 to make the finals, and if we make the finals, we're about 50/50 to be top 4, and if we are in the top 4 we're about 50/50 to make the grand final, and if we make the grand final, we're about 50/50 to win the premiership. One coin toss at a time?

Absolutely, I think it should be a major goal of the club and a motivation for getting us into a financial position where we can do it. Frankly, there's a case for saying that the dreary unimaginative mindset of relying on poker machine revenue is part of why our financial position stagnated as the game changed and commercialised. It is the ultimate expression of taking supporters for granted.

Ah, yep, ya got me, good one mate. Definitely, saying it is unethical to join in a predatory industry which actively promotes bad decisions by the dumb/irresponsible/gullible is the same as saying nobody should be held accountable for their own bad decisions. Or do you really believe that the weak are mere prey? Come to think of it, I wouldn't put that past you.

Worth noting that the crime is credit card fraud/identity theft and the rest is just seedy details. It does seem that a particularly large part of the 'really dumb and obviously going to get caught in the end' category of embezzlement, workplace theft, and credit fraud is related to people desperately and urgently seeking wads of money to feed addictions. Some might even say that it is bit unethical to promote these addictions, but they would be howled down for being nanny state fascist global government snowflakes, or something. Plus, obviously it is a gross intrusion to mention this stuff in a thread that is supposed to be about how some guy is a bit of a [censored].