Little Goffy

Could effective long kicks cover the same position need as the speedy outsider? Noticed that a couple of our inside mids have found some power off their boot that was a bit unexpected (see for example Brayshaw's clearance that also cleared the pack and found Oliver). Vandenberg has a solid boot on him too. Any others currently out but who might be able to add to that unpredictibility? 'Long kick' doesn't seem to be something that gets covered much in draft talk, but maybe it is one of the tricks that this year's Jason Taylor specials will have? Who's got an eye on the draft this year?

My first thought was just a simple 'nope', it doesn't seem credible at all. Certainly from our perspective, where winning only two of the final 6 rounds would feel like failure almost regardless of final ladder position. But hmm, currently 4 teams on 9 (or 9 1/2) wins, two of those teams in the 8, two out of it. Look at it this way - if Geelong win 3 games to finish on twelve and preserve their percentage, then the chasers North and Hawthorn would have to win 4 games out of 6 to climb over them. Mind you, only one of them would need to do it, obviously. Oh it gets better. It's Catch-22 time! Beat Geelong, then it is less likely we'll need the thirteenth win, but more likely we'll have it. Lose to Geelong, then it becomes basically certain we'd need that 13th win, but much harder to get there. Saturday night is just getting bigger and bigger. I swear I just saw my MFCSS physically manifest as a dark shadow along the back of the couch.

Can we get David Neitz to say Ben Brown is going to Gold Coast on big money to replace Lynch?

Well, the squggle auto-tipper has us grinding out way through the final six rounds with games against 5 fellow finalists, then hosting a home eliminatino final against geelong, then most likely playing Sydney in Sydney and West Coast in Perth for the the chance to play Richmond at the 'G. I'm just comforted to know we are set for the official all time most epic premiership run in AFL history.

Has anyone else become tired of 'GHMBA Stadium' yet? I've started slurring in in an attempt to make a sensisble sound, but all I've got so far is Goomba, as in the little mushroomy monster from Mario. So I'm convinced next week we are going to Goomba stadium. How could we possible lose, just have to jump on their heads.

Six weeks of 'finals' before we play finals. Can't think of a better way to prepare. With the number of 8-point games we have lined up, we should be in first with 100+ ladder points by the end of the season. Seriously, we'll be there if there's a reason for us to be there other than just a pat on the head. We'll be going down to Geelong to hunt a spot in the top 4, with the side benefit of putting ourselves 2 games and a mountain of percentage clear of a rival.

For anyone pulling out their hair over being higher ranked in quarters won than in ladder position, just remember that we won every quarter for almost four games in a row without a blemish. On the ladder you still only get one win for that, same as any team that won three quarters or even just won two but by a little more than their opponents won their two. It's a bit like in elections where the overall vote balance doesn't match the seat balance and final winner - three wins at 51% is better than two at 80% and one loss at 49%!

If we assembled a team just from our players taken after pick 30, it would surpass that group. What a spectacular turnaround. In fact - I'll back my words, here's the rival squad - Spargo (29) and Fritsch (31) Hannan (46) and T. Smith (R. 25) Wagner (R. 6) and J Smith (R. 41) Neal-Bullen (40) Stretch (42) O.McD (53) and Vandenberg (R. 2) Hunt (57) and Harmes (R. 2)

Important thing to remember is that at this moment, and for many years now, Melbourne supporters are the most likely of any club's supporters to take out a membership or to actually turn up to games. And that has held out even through some very... less-than-fun... times. To my mind the crucial thing to hold onto through any good times that do come, is the culture that says you're not just there for the fun, you're attached as a part of the club's community. You could even just call it standing up for the best of the classic values of Australian Football.

When Petracca is on fire, debating where he should play is a bit like debaing which seat an elephant gets at the cinema. Anywhere it wants and as many as it needs, who is going to argue? The way I see it, the challenge is how to get the most out of Petracca when he is merely human, and that isn't clear to me. Put another way - When you can take contested marks, sidestep, burst run, throw off tackles, and have inspired awareness of your surroundings, you're good anywhere. But if you're just not quite doing all of those things, you're not great anywhere. Of course, it'd be ridiculous to make him tag, not least because that would in turn expose what remains his one definite weakness, his running endurance. He needs one of those 'home truths' conversations where he gets sat down and told directly 'you can be amazing, but right now we can't trust you to sustain it, that's why you're neither a main starting midfielder or an established forward'. Then see how he responds.

Only 4 years? He's clearly gone.

Don't see Simon Goodwin laughin and looking that genuinely relaxed much. Don't see Demon's coaches in general doing that much in my time! Clearly we're doomed. Or about to break a record. Or something. Full moon, too.

Chris Dawes Cameron Pederson Mitch Clark Jeffrey Garlett Dom Tyson Chris Heffernan Harley Balic Thomas Bugg Patrick McKenna

The tests will come, at some point a team will match us or beat us in the contested posessions and keep enough pressure on us that the fast sabre-strikes into forward 50 break down almost as often as they get through, or slows us down enough that a disciplined defence gets back to force us a little wider to take shots from 35-50m instead of 0-15m. Then we'll know if we are ready to win finals. Remembering that even the super-Geelong team broke down at times, when the goals didn't flow, and the opposition rushed a bunch of tactical behinds... in a grand final. Hopefully the team holds onto a mentality of every week being a new test, a new chance to prove themselves to a different challenge, whether that means beating up a weaker opponent, barely clawing over the line against a strong opponent, bouncing back again from a slip-up, or simply to make a statement to fans with a shattering of Collingwood on Queen's Birthday. This weekend's special challenges - beating up and out-of-form but stil occasionally potent opposition, aiming for the consecutive quarters record, and just for good measure let's see if we can hunt the '600 points in 4 games' mark. Haa ha ha ha ha what am I talking about, what is this team? Freakshow.

Sigh. Guess we better suit up for another 25 goals.

It is interesting that people are celebrating his inside mid contribution when he has also been just so brilliant once the play spreads a bit. Most of his posessions against Adelaide were listed as uncontested, but you wouldn't say they were generally loose or soft posessions. He is looking like a master of an aspect of the game that we've had a weakness in - getting to the right spot at the right distance from the pack, anticipating the movement in order to receive the ball and then have time to do something useful with it. Clayton Oliver now has a target as good as his aim!

Also now only 8 games (I think) from playing his 100th as Captain. I can imagine him being thrilled to his bones by the idea that he could have his career best season and still not make top-3 in the best and fairest.

Just recapping. 18 consecutive quarters won brings us to second all time behind only the incredible Geelong of 2010. They managed 21 in a row. So, A clean sweep against the Dogs and we will hold the outright record. Something to aim for, but if we fall short then that's ok, we just have to try for it again! And again! And Again! Bwaa ha ha ha haaaaaa. It's a nice change from adding to the records for most consecutive lost quarters. 17 in 2007-2008, 16 in 2012-13, and 15 in 2011. Thank you, St Kilda and GWS for keeping us safe from ever holding the overall record. Just emphasizes that a new era really has begun.

Was noticably excellent even way back in her first media appearances. I vividly remember the contrast between her and Katie Brennan, and it kind of sums up Daisy's strengths - Brennan wasn't sure what she wanted to say, didn't say it clearly, and then didn't know when to stop. Daisy is just 'here's the information, stated clearly, you know hat to do with it'. That'd be her day job background showing through, I'd say. You don't waffle around during a birth.

He allocates the same amount of orgasmic straining to each team, so he has to ration it out for our goals.

Currently the two best contested posession teams in the game. The side with the highest 'for' total against the side with the second lowest 'against'. Playing to be a game and percentage clear inside the top 4, with the loser of the game become that 'nearest chaser' for the top 4 spot! I've had a remarkable flash of memory. Round 9 2006. Top of the ladder clash against West Coast, in Perth. We pushed them all the way in a ripper of a game that was only decided late in the final quarter. West Coast went on to win the premiership while Melbourne managed an elimination final win. Crucially, Melbourne finished one win outisde the top 4, after blowing two games in the same season against a Carlton team that only managed the priority-pick-approrpiate 4 wins for the whole year. This season, we've dropped the hammer on the bottom teams and particularly the Blues. We have a forward line to rival the Neitz-Yze-Robertson-Davey combo we were running in 2006, and the rest of our 22 has both quality and depth that the Daniher era could only dream of. The more I look back, the more I think Daniher was a genius. I'd actually see a win today as a kind of 'chapter change'. The tangible and umistakable start of a new era. I'm also expecting a terrific game.

I have mixed feeling about that. If someone puts you on a conveyor belt with a meat grinder at the end, then starts a routine of turning up the speed then giving you a little push each time you're just about to fall off the end, how grateful should you be? The transition to a modern commercialised game was necessary, but decades of AFL administrators approached it in a short-sighted, reactive way that was extremely oriented to advantage the big clubs while neglecting not only the smaller AFL-level clubs but also the overall strength of lower-level competitions, sapping the depth of talent in the game just as that depth of available professionals became more and more important. Melbourne's administrators weren't up to the challenge, but the severity of the challenge was a product of the AFL's 'decision-making process' being to have a beer with the clique of high-profile leaders of 'power' clubs. Maybe a pre-condtion of being considered for a priority pick should be that all Carlton supporters commit to never making the joke about having 16.4 premierships because they owned 20% of North in the 90s. Five years from now, will the AFL be telling St Kilda, Footscray or North 'oh sorry we can't afford to bail you out' after dribbling away literally hundreds of millions of dollars directly on the botched GWS/Gold Coast expansion, and imposing further hundreds of millions of dollars of losses for the other clubs playing games against these two cardboard towers? Again, I accept that expansion was necessary, but it must be acknowledge the whole thing was botched, and once again in a way that most disadvantages the smallest and 'politically' weakest clubs.

Agreed, the 'dark days' were over once we had two season each with better win tallies than we previous would've managed in three seasons combined. Now we're looking to make the good times roll in. The really, really good times.

Remembering of course that Melbourne's grand total priority pick 'haul' was pick 1 and pick 18. That's for a period of 9 years with a total of 45 wins. That's just 5 wins a year despite including the brief false dawn of the two 8-win seasons. So all but one of Carlton's recent seasons (2014, 4 wins) has been better than our average result over 9 years. But we all know this, and we all know that the notion that Carlton can't attract players is a fallacy given that half their list is recycled high draft picks. We also know they blatantly tanked and never got held to account for it, so they can get stuffed anyway. One final extra note - Brisbane have had a much worse run of results over the last five years anyway, and a lot of that can be put to player retention problems. Should the fact that their team is actually having a proper crack at it and not being quite so embarrassingly flaccid count against them, when percentage earned by trying to play games out is even now the only thing putting them ahead of Carlton? Jake Niall definitely gets a goose of the week award.

He should go to their huddle pre game and tell them who better be up for it.