Little Goffy

On the bright side, the sets get completely destroyed in pretty much every Marvel movie ever made.

Did you hear the board sacked Norm Smith, and then had to reinstate him a week later after an internal revolt? Club has never been the same.

That's been my growing thought, too - players don't get to decide when an umpire needs protection. In this case the player was interfering with an umpire while the umpire was approaching a situation that required umpire attention. A loose scuffle like the one going on then is obviously a top candidate for fines, suspensions and free kicks to be handed out. So it wasn't really just a touch, it was genuinely obstructing an umpire from doing their duties.

We have three losses, to 1st, 3rd and 5th. That kind of suggests we are in the right spot on the ladder. But I still feel like there's more to be gained. Despite our three recent wins being against out of form teams, there have been genuine signs that we are functioning better structurally. If this 'soft' period has given us a chance to play ourselves into form, then hurrah and carry on! The real danger is that the team will start getting thirsty for a bit of bathwater...

That list has a tall forward, a tall back, a ruck, and five midfielders. And of the midfielers, no two are alike. I can't bring myself to speculate on any given one of them being 'the best', because I'm just so thrilled to have such a strong group coming through, and it will be the unpredictable and dynamic unit they form that gets me jumping around.

"What did you say about my son?"

Priceless for anyone looking to assemble highlights packages. "And now, by popular demand, every Clayton Oliver handball of the 2018 season"... this could take a while. Might want to do a kind of 4-part split screen to get through them. Hmm, I just looked up the record to see if Oliver was a chance to crack it. He actual holds it, at 482, which is just 2 ahead of Mithell and Crouch who also both set in 2017. So, I guess the challenge is to crack 500. What's that... about 23 a game? (not counting finals). Totally possible.

Oliver's handball volume doesn't bother me at all because he is also a perfectly acceptable kick, and most importantly, he isn't afraid to kick when the moment calls for it. His handballs are a great strength, and usually that comes with a caveat about using handball because the kicking is weak. It just doesn't apply in this case. This is not a Mark Jamar situation!

I dislike paying big money for players unless they are really, really structurally useful. There's definitely an argument for Gaff to provide the blade in a midfield full of hammers, but I'm not convinced it is completely necessary, not to the level of cash it would take to prevent Wet Toast from matching. And we simply don't have the draft picks to make the trade happen. On another level, all talk of having separate 'inside' and 'outside' midfield responsibilities always makes me nervous, remembering how that mindset so profoundly shaped Terry Wallace's Richmond. Isn't our team mantra something about flexibility?

He was ok, a contributor to a midfield that was on top for most of the game. I wouldn't say he was great today and people are certainly right that he tries to do more, or more impressive, things than he is really capable of at the moment. His clangers are happening between his ears and I can't help wondering if he's still a little haunted by, on the one hand, being one of the first Giant 'rejects', and on the other hand that amazing finish to a season he had in his first (or second?) season with us.

Seeing Brayshaw so involved and playing smart football the way he does was a real pleasure in an overall very enjoyable afternoon. I'd love to say I told you so but I have to be honest and say I am always taking the sides of players who I think are being written off unfairly and I doubt I've got a high % in my favour over the years... but hey, this year it seems to be working out for me!

To quote from an old favourite show of mine: "Tim Watson's only crime is being Tim Watson. It is also his punishment." As other's pointed out, he barracked for the Saints today and will go home disappointed. And that is the pattern of his life for more about a decade now.

Commentators on radio just described the Essendon-Hawks scoreline (Essendon now 23 behind) as "respectable but it's still sort of not". This is sweet sweet fruit - teams repeatedly not respecting Essendon to the point of taking their foot off the pedal, all while giving Essendon an illusion of competitiveness to the superficial look back on the season. May they rot slowly and all over.

Alas, Champion Data are yet to work out how to measure spunk, so Viney's position in the Emirites Coathanger Virgin Schtick AFL Player Preposition Rating is woefully below where it should be.

I'm not too fussed about it, though it is definitely daft. Fact is, Collingwood are getting the condescending pat on the head for trying while we are getting the 'come on you can do better'. Kind of how the football world should be.

I am more concerned about a great deal of wasted effort. Lots of player making a very good contribution in effort but what's the point if you have no idea where you should send the ball. A ball flying 40m doesn't even work up a sweat, and there's no better way to rest than watcing someone mark-kick-goal. But constantly grappling and scrapping and pointless bombs meaning every time we run forward we have to run back again, that takes a toll, a phyiscal one as well as the mental one. Our total failure to deal with Richmond's excellent whole-team defensive positioning meant we were spending a LOT of time running to keep up, while they were there ready at the spots we were so obviously about to kick to.

Well, not so much truth hurts as knee-jerk hurts, if you're standint oo close to the person who knee-jerks.

I think it is particularly effective in that all three are just 'not quite normal' in how they go about it, and in different ways, too.

By all the pagan deities of football, I swear it wasn't just you. There's something profound going on there. The one time, the ONE time I don't take a moment to mock Bugg for his terrible kicking, what happens? Uncanny, like deep down he knew the exact moment he had earned the let-off, so he knew he had to fluff the kick to keep his identity secure.

All between the ears. I feel like we might come out in the proper 'hunting' mood where we lift for opponents we are inspired by. Which is ok, since last week we didn't have the traditional lapse against an opponent we 'should' beat. Hunt the best, professionally dispose of the others, that'd keep me happy. Most important thing to see - a bit of steely determination to hold the line when things turn against us. I do feel like we can win, which is nice.

Fair enough. My disllike/disrespect for King is obviously a touch flippant and King isn't a moron - I daresay I'm mostly annoyed by the whole scheme of what he's paid to do is to mostly state the obvious. But wait! Why am I stepping back!? This is the 21st century after all! David King's undermining of Neeld's coaching legitimacy was the crack that ruined our young teams cohesion! Neeld was forcing through a new level of professionalism and commitment that the lazy and casual players at the club were looking to avoid, and they used King's media role as a backchannel to put the pressure back on the coach instead of them! Our entire 'second failure' period is actually the Fault of David King personally! (in need of a sarcasm font for that bit, I always like backwards italics as an option, please return to normal program)

King's ability to see what other can't and provide insight that is ahead of the moment is amazing. Or not. I guess sometimes he does see things other people don't, in so far as he sees things which aren't there!

McCartin: "Drafted Riewoldt, got Koschitzke". This thread is starting to feel like we drafted Schadenfreude.

For a moment they had progress from youth at the same time as getting sterling service from the veterans. Their 2013 crop of Billings, Dunstan, Acres and Weller were reaching maturity and giving an impression of a wave of respectable footballers came through at the same time as their game-shaping champs in Riewoldt and Montanga were still doing well. Unfortunately, just as the veterans were no longer available, the supply of good kids coming in thinned right out. It's been sparse, not outright dead but sparse, at the draft for St Kilda for the last few years. You have to feel for those 22-24 year olds in the team who now find they are shouldering the responsibility, instead of exploring their potential. It is all too familiar, but a shudder going right through me when I think... it could be even worse for the Saints than it was for us. The simplest comparison would be Jack Steven to Nathan Jones. Steven is only a couple of years younger than Jones and he is now -entering- the worst of it while Jones is (touch wood) coming out of it. Anyway, we appear to have assembled a serious team of serious footballers who believe in eachother and what they are doing. What's the opposite of a shudder?

For a young gun kid to cope adequately with a hard tag all day, and nail a few goals as well, is a really big step. Learning to deal with tags without having to go through too much of the experience of being successfully shut down would be a big confidence boost that lasts a career. Also, I've kind of given up on TV commentary, I run the radio through the laptop if I'm watching a game on TV. That way I even have a choice of about three or four commentators. None exceptional but all better than the TV hoopla-razzle-dazzle-[censored]fest. I'm also really happy for Picket Fence, who finally got to see the club draft a player with the exact specifications he has longed for over many years, AND then see that player be an absolute gun right from the start.