Little Goffy

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].

I had a quick dig in their Corporate Social Responsibility section and while it is mostly a bit light-on for details (e.g. about ethical investment options) they do have a community partner we can work with http://www.raise.org.au/ A youth mentoring organisation which would definitely have some overlap with the work of the Reach Foundation. There may be an opportunity to get some healthy collaboration going on that level, which would make the sponsorship a bit more 'intimate'. Also noticed this while poking around the Zurich website. Zurich boosts market presence in Victoria and Tasmania But setting all this material and practical stuff aside... How good is it that we have a major sponsor that is definitely an arm of the illuminati?

Well, you're going to want to have good insurance for the car, aren't you? Zurich is big on life insurance, I wonder what their actuaries will make of MFCSS?

Can anyone help me clear this up once and for all - Is Charlie Spargo in any way related to former board member, vice-president, acting president, acting CEO and Foundation Heroes organiser Peter Spargo?

I really thought this was just a format for kids and casual players. I still do.

Who else, hmm... Patrick Cripps. And he didn't even win the Rising Star in his year. Jaegar 'Omear, Dyson Heppell, Joel Selwood, Cyril Rioli, Oliver Wines, Marcus Bontempelli. It is definitely true that most young players, no matter how talented, only really dominate by their third or fourth year these days. But I'm not sure that is any different to how it was a decade or even twenty years ago.

Fair call, but to his credit his kicking for goal has improved over time, to the point of being exceptionally accurate in 2017 (20 goals, 6 behinds in 10 games) Continuing with the 'pro' argument, just for discussion's sake, I actually think then when he's been in form Hogan has stood out from the group of excellent young key forwards in part because his 'accumulated small contributions' added up. He has a great work rate when his head is up. The contested marks point is also interesting - in his first season, 2015, he average 2.3/game to be just barely shy of leading the league, behind only Hawkins and Lynch. I'll be happy if Hogan just progresses at a respectable mature rate from here, even if he doesn't rip the world apart with his bare hands. But it is still a possibility that he'll be a true champion, and that possibility is exciting.

The omens are good. Managed to get through many years of being the main hard body and also hardest worker in the midfield, and get through most of it playing almost every game. Ultra-professional preparation and recovery works in his favour, too. Has actually spent less time in the collision packs in the last year or two, which is presumably a pattern for the future and will add to his years in the game. Also positive is that his game has never relied on speed, even when away from packs. Has definite nous and alertness that lets him get involved and be in the right places. My tip is he'll get past 300 games, with a real chance the timing will be set by pulling a Crawford and announcing retirement while holding the premiership cup.

I agree with many others about the importance and likelihood of Brayshaw and Salem lifting a level. Two very smart footballers who can make things happen and just need the proverbial clean run at it. I've full of anticipation for the 2018 seasons of Hogan and Petracca, as I'm sure everyone is. And I'm really keen to see Nibbler and Stretch mature and each force themselves into stable spots in the 22. BUT If I'm making a tip for the true stunner, the big breakout that has everyone talking, I have to go for Mitch Hannan. I think the time off to reflect on his initial success and to identify the next steps will do wonders for his confidence, the extra preseason of fitness will greatly help him get more involved more often, as will the extra pre-season of training for his role. Add to that, in my opinion he will benefit greatly from the forward line restructuring with the departure of Watts, with extra involvement, responsibility, and space. I think he will really thrive as the fourth 'resident' in a forward line settled around the Hogan, McDonald, Garlett core. Mitch Hannan, playing as a versatile medium forward, 30+ goals and a really good all-round contribution.

Apparently earlier today I was in a 'sel-harm' mood and instead of calling lifeline I went through with it and watched the last quarter of the final game against Collingwood. Jack Watts absolutely stank it up that quarter. From failing to cover his opponent (cost a goal) to spectating and then failing to lay an effective tackle or smother in the goalsquare (cost a goal), to spectating and then arriving too late to affect a contest just outside the square (cost a point, luckily) to fluffing a forward run, to a whole string of really poor body language, it was terrible. I don't have a personal problem with Jack Watts the way some people seem to, but rewatching his last quarter for us has left me with a much better understanding of why he had to be moved on. Wishing him all the best (up to a certain point) at Port, and also confident we made the best decision possible at the time.

I get so tired of economists, I really do. Economic statisticians in particular. There are a number of little fluffy statements that should be read as 'please note massive caveat on data and circular interpretation'. For example " While Melbourne did better with its lower picks, those players generally aren’t as important for team performance as players selected with higher picks. " Terrible charts, badly labelled, inconsistent formats being presented as if they are a like for like comparison. Conclusions thrown in as inserted sentences well before the discussion of the actual evidence. This is embarrassing to read. Anyway, to the substance. Richmond's 2005 and 2007 drafts were among the worst of any club, ever. Their 2010 draft was made respectable only by picking up Houli in the pre-season instead of a trade, unless you're a real fan of Reece Conca. 2011 produced only one player, Brandon Ellis. As discussed in a number of other threads, Richmond's premiership hinged on an amazing surge of recruitment in just the last few years, with close to half their premiership team arriving since 2012. Anyway... back to griping about economic statisticians. What the hell is going on with that first chart? Every year only has two data points, except for 2009... oh... oh my. Oh boy oh boy. I have a hunch... let me just check a few things... yep. capslock time PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AT UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE HAS INCLUDED ONLY PLAYERS STILL IN THE RICHMOND TEAM FIVE YEARS LATER AS DATA POINTS WHEN ASSESSING DRAFT PERFORMANCE Basically, all failures have been excluded from the sample, in a 'study' that claims to assess success or failure.

Taken out of context, one might be annoyed by Collin's dud effort about Goodwin. But you have to see it in the context of every one of his efforts was dull witted, so Melbourne hardly got hit. The only thing I'm annoyed about is people get paid to churn out this drivel.

I think a few people here are remarkably confident that no incident ever happened, and quite possibly that no actual woman ever existed, either.

Lol I see your point. Bali police stations are definitely a safe and effective place to report hard-to-prosecute sexual crimes, especially if reporting it may also involve implicating people in other unlawful activity which the Bali police would of course take no interest in. Plus, there's the certainty they offer that their respect for privacy is a solid seal and that absolutely nothing involving a high-profile Australian would ever be leaked. It is genuinely possible that whoever the person who made the complaint is, they had enough awareness to know that dealing with it in Bali would immediately create a media spectacle that would do no good for anyone. The complainant is probably aware that there is little hope for a formal prosecution, and yet they still haven't gone public to seek revenge-shaming 'justice'. That is all we know about them at this point and it suggests we should be respecting them even more than the assumption of respect that they deserve automatically.

One thing is for sure, no club has won a premiership after going through minor distractions in the pre-christmas training block.

Isn't that Hunt's main job, to create space with his run? If he needs it given to him, I say drop him to Casey.

What I'm disappointed about is that the players also rejected the grueling 72 hour cello playing camp, knocked back a week of manual rice planting, and even refused to be pushed out of their comfort zone by not wearing sunscreen. SOFT! Seriously, why are police even delivering programs with sleep deprivation as a component? There is never, ever a reason to inflict sleep deprivation on someone unless you actually need to test how they respond to sleep deprivation. Sleep cycles are not something that just switch on and off and that kind of silly machismo stuff can leave players disrupted for weeks. We all know already that many AFL players have all kinds of trouble setting stable sleep during the season. Training under sleep deprivation is as useful as getting them to train with the flu. I'm with the players on this, the camp is a bad call, I just hope that no relationships have been damaged in the process of replacing it with actual football-related training.

The AFL official fantasy is for some reason always a few seasons behind the Supercoach system run through the Herald Sun, but the concept is basically the same. I have up on the AFL Fantasy comp a couple of years back when they still hadn't updated to include disposal effiency or contested posessions or any of that. Maybe it has improved since then, but I'm not ready to commit to joining two different systems for the same amusement. Anyway, the runthrough for people unfamiliar. You get a salary cap. To buy players. Their value is set, and gradually changes, according to how many points they earn through their actions on field. Basic scoring is for kicks, marks, handballs, goals, tackles and all that, but the system is tinkered with each year depending on how sophisticated the available stats are. For example, a long effective kick is worth more than a short effective kick, and a contested possession is worth more than an uncontested, and so on. The points system still favours players who get a lot of the ball - that's why top defenders are the likes of Docherty and Hibberd, and why midfielders dominate the prices. It used to be much worse on that, but still today you wont see many low-possession players get into the high prices. Take Lever - there will be some games where he scores massively thanks to a string of contested or intercept marks, but some weeks he'll just be killing contests or even 'worse' covering an opponent so well that the ball just doesn't come near them. The main 'strategy' part of the game is selecting players who will score better than their current value. So, if you pikced up Clarence Oliver for cheap at the start of last season, you were laughing. You can also trade players, the common example is starting the season with a few new draftees who have very low price - even some ordinary games will see them go up in price. You then dump them, bring in a new kid at basement price, and use the spare money to replace one of your other players with a star. Of course, there's a limit on the number of trades you can make each round and in total. Probably the best thing about Supercoach for me is it adds a ritual in the pre-season when you are organising your starting team. You check your way through players and have a think about how you think things will go for them, are they on the up, or too risky, and so on. A nice process for thinking about the season ahead. It is also a perfect moment for indulging in optimism. For example, I'd be putting all of Gawn, Hogan, Viney, McDonald, Hannan, Hunt, Salem, Petracca, Brayshaw, and Smith on a watchlist of players who realistically could go up in value a lot in 2018. And that's a freaky load, especially when it doesn't include any new top draft picks.

Obviously just the 'ceremonial' article that has to come out every time a recognisable player changes clubs, can't see anything much to it although it does open up all kinds of cheap whipping for Watts - I think I'll go for the "what he means to say is, there are more players here who can carry me to a premiership". But, this has all left me wondering, just philosophically, which is 'closer' to success? a) a team featuring a significant collection of stars, but where many seem to have reached their limit. b) a team featuring a significant collection of potential stars, some of whom will realise their potential and some who wont. It gets a little more complicated doing the direct, real comparison of Port and Melbourne, since both teams made such important changes in the trade period. What will Motlop and Watts do in a team already filled with 'mercurial' 'creative' 'inconsistent' players? Will Rockliff make a dramatic difference in their midfield or will it turn out his time at Brisbane was a bit like Moloney was back at Melbourne, having a excessive apparent impact because he forced the clearance group to work around him? Of course, in contrast, we know exactly what effect Lever will have at Melbourne. Our defence will reshuffle so that every player back there can now play to all their strengths without being over-exposed for their weaknesses (Oscar's job simplified, Nev not being outsized so often, Hibberd and Hunt getting even more opportunities for fast breaks from intercept marks), with the result of at least three All-Australian selections. I will say one thing - Port should be a seriously entertaining team to watch in 2018, complete with the excitement of having no idea how they will go in any given game or quarter! On the other hand, Melbourne might not be so constantly exciting, but I'll be fine with that on the days where we just completely control games.

I'm really happy for him, his 2017 went better than probably even he had hoped for, let alone expected. He's not a star and wont even be that good, but I expect he will be a good contributor for a long time. A player type I really like because there's not so much fanfare and they form the less obvious core of a team's culture. Plus, they contribute more value than the salary cap space they take up! I little bit neater with the disposals and he' becomes genuine high quality, and given his attitude and progress over time it is a reasonable thing to hope for.

"Only one stat matter, games won" Tell that to Adelaide. And I mean that in more than just the 'ha ha they lost the final' sense. Their premiership years of 97/98 each featured just 13 wins in the home and away season. They've equaled or passed that mark ten times since then, including two minor premierships. St Kilda might also point out they had a 20-2 home and away record in 2009... and only lost 1 final. And now Nick Reiwoldt is just a regular retired great, instead of being the greatest hero in St Kilda's history. Even Geelong might pull a stool over and pour a beer to tell you about the 1990s, or indeed, the one that got away, when they won 23 games and only lost two for the whole of 2009... and now instead of them, Hawthorn is considered the greatest team of this century. I suppose I am just echoing a point that Paul Roos made an awful lot of times - there's no point climbing up the ladder a bit if you haven't laid the foundations of a team ethos that will win under pressure and will follow the plan first, last and always. Again, Geelong will tell you the difference between getting good wins and looking impressive (to, say 2006) and forming a hardened culture that is determined to do the things it takes to really win when it counts.

Strangely enough we're not statistically any older than the 2017 list, but that list included a number of veteran player who never really took the field (Lumumba, Garland, Spencer, come to mind). Based on this article from the AFL website, in December 2016, our figures were; Age: 23 yrs, 233days (so approx 100 days difference) Games: 58 (meaning we've actually gone down by this measure very slightly) I do think that this is also one of the situations where simple averages are very low value. For example, Vince and Lewis together have played 500 games, or 20% of our total. Either one of them retiring would have put us on the bottom of the experience ladder. But the same could be said for many clubs. You can do something similar with age, though not as dramatic because the count ranges from 18 to 35, not zero to 400! But with age there is also the question of how to interpret mature rookies like Smith (26) and Maynard (26) and and late bloomers like VanDenBerg (25) and Wagner (23). Again it will be a subtlety affecting many clubs. If I were writing an article comparing age and experience of AFL teams, I'd look at 'players who should be in their prime' (100 games +) and players for whom age is beginning to work against them (say, 28+). You could then throw in a look at the next generation, by assessing 'players with less than 100 games who are already confirmed AFL-quality', and finally just a quick count of 'untested kids in the system' Those four points together would give you an idea of what is actually going on at each club. The averages are pretty meaningless.

I think "both and all of 'em" covers it.

A rare 'actual journalist' in football, and I respect her for that. BUT There's always going to be an element of distaste for the way she would build up some really serious vendettas, making things her personal crusade. Gotta take the good with the bad, at least she's not one of the mass of dribbling idiots who contribute absolutely nothing to the 'football discourse'. Even disagreeing with Wilson, at least there's something there to bother disagreeing with.

Demons Top-4 Finish. Build on 'good' first 2/3rds of the year and then a win streak going into finals, a bit like 2000, actually. Multiple All-Australian selections in defence, with Lever, Hibberd and Jetta all making the 40-player squad. Describing our group of midfielders/forwards as "difficult to match up on" becomes one of the top cliches of the season. Hogan on the one hand proves himself the team player doing hard work to create links and disrupt defences, but on the other hand there are a few occassions, just here and there, where he takes personal control and smashes games off his own boot. Weidemann will be in and out of the team in bursts until late in the season when things will start to click. Wont set the world on fire but will be a competent tall forward. Our new recruits will mostly be at Casey (bold prediction I know) but a couple will get a really promising taste of AFL in their first year. "Melbourne's Depth is becoming amazing" will be another cliche we hear a lot. Non-MFC; Lever and Gibbs will be the 'recruits of the year' from trades, Port will continue to levitate in the 'also attended finals' category without really scaring anyone. Overall, the top end of the ladder hosts a set of really exciting teams and the dominant game style is shaped by rigorous defence combined with a scattering of stars that break games open. There are going to be a LOT of clubs just doing 'ok' without really mattering.