Little Goffy

In a recent light interview Goodwin was asked who the best two players he'd played with were, and said Ricciuto and McLeod. So, clearly, that's who Langford and Lindsay should be compared to. 🤪

Quick recap. Collingwood have traded their 2025 first round pick to Gold Coast. If they're cooked, they're very, very cooked.

Watch the minute of play at about 8 minutes(of play) from the end. The run-down tackle on Membrey in the goal-square, followed by an end to end goal for GWS. Story of the day. Collingwood will make noises about fatigue (lol) and their kicking (their own fault - failure to get to good positions or create space and time for clean shots) but in the end GWS have been too fast, too skillful, and too energetic. Could have been even worse but a couple of GWS tall forwards got the jitters with a few marks they should have taken.

Callum Brown with two goals, 1 behind, and one Maynard in the face. Good day out.

Yeah, it's lovely in Sydney today. Gentle breeze, not hot, and the humidity is in the clouds, not sticking to everything at ground level. Getting a little bit of Weideman vibes. Almost feels like Cadman's 2024 would be what we would have seen from Weideman if he'd had a full season in the firsts to learn the level. U suppose the key similarity is the lack of high impact moments to compensate for the long periods uninvolved. He actually looks like he's been lightly seared on both sides to lock in the flavour. Big fake tan sponsorship about to drop at Collingwood.

Well, you know how there used to be a theory that some of the bigger dinosaurs had a second brain located in their [censored]? Sadly it got demoted (a bit like Pluto) for being too small and non-functional. Speaking of... always nice to see Maynard having a stinker. Especially liked him copping an accidental bump from a teammate because he'd thrown himself down trying to draw a fake free.

I'm always happy when Bedford does something good. That was a nice classic long popped-up-for-a-contest kick there. He's just in that space, like James Jordon, where he kind of had to leave us for the sake of his career so it would be petulant to hate him, and he has been good enough to deserve having that career, but not so great that I feel bitter that we lost them or fear it will come back to bite us.

Nah, I choose to believe that Collingwood are just disappearing into a hole. Now, we're not a fast team by any means, but at least we often work hard to cover important space and we've got a few kids coming up with a bit of speed. Collingwood are in danger of being ripped open by some of the fast-attacking teams like GWS and Hawthorn. But, also, yes, round 1 v GWS is going to be a big test to start the season because they are clearly a dangerous unit capable of attacking in ways which bypass our best defensive traits.

"On second thought, let us not go to Camelot, for 'tis a silly place." Feels like Jon Ralph is just condensing the usual process of making a new claim every week so that at the end of the year he can load up all the ones which turned out. Not very good for generating new click-throughs - he'll have to write a whole new article now. Anyone else remember Rene Rivkin? Turns out he was the prototype for the modern football journalist. As for the actual Pickett situation, I'm less and less concerned. Two-year future pick trading improves the prospects for a fair deal, and we would also be able to extract some value even from lesser picks to cash in for Kalani White. Still hope he stays, but confident it'll work out okay for us if he feels the need to go.

My read of the game was that both sides had long 'tails' of players who didn't contribute a whole lot. Sydney has the factor of missing a couple of absolutely top players and a couple more best-22. Hawthorn missing a couple but their overall injury might even be the shortest in the league right now. It wasn't an especially tightly played game for the most part. Certainly not 'finals like' in round 1! Interestingly, neither team which took the field last night were particularly young. It'll be interesting to see how they progress over the season - will they find growth in their depth or will sore veterans and overworked kids fall away badly later in the year. My mental note for both these teams is something like 'At some point the eventual premiers will need to overcome a challenge from these teams, but they are not, in themselves, premiership contenders.'

Or they could hold it in Geelong. No Collingwood.

Feel like Hawthorn got a reprieve there with the change of weather. If a team works hard defensively and earns a turnover, Hawthorn can be exposed on the rebound if you go hard right away. Nick Blakey telling the story with 6 intercepts and almost 700m gained at 3/4 time, and a lot of both those stats were built after the Swans began to get their harassment act together.

True poetry and much appreciated.

Last two games between Sydney and Hawthorn, Sydney won by ~70 and ~50 points, if I recall correctly. It seems at this stage that Hawthorn strategy of wearing their most Brisbane-like possible away strip, for zero apparent reason, is successfully spooking the Swans. I wonder how being dressed as Mr Hanky will play on their socials?

I'm just keeping a mental log. Think of each tedious repetition of the company lines as another tick on the countdown to bloody revolution. Honestly, Sydney this last week has been significantly different weather every 6 hours. Not whimsically so like Melbourne weather, but in deep mood swings that settle and then swing around all over. I think you're missing a 'was', unfortunately.

I was going to ask if you were taking the... but then, clearly you would be avoiding such things at present.

What happened to the thread about media hypocrisy and all that? Because ol' mate Barrett has excelled himself by proceeding directly from giving Hawthorn a [censored] for how much they 'don't care what anyone thinks' and how every club should follow their example - "The attitude is stunningly compelling and powerfully effective." to Melbourne; "seems a tad fake and even forced. Seems to be a lot of recreation of history, too. Oh well, it’s been a well-coordinated media strategy" Am I the only one who looks at Hawthorn's obsessive social media attention seeking and sees... obsessive social media attention seeking? Anyway, I was always going to watch tonight for the sake of getting a little warm-up dose of football, but I really think for the first time in my life I'm actually going to be wishing injuries upon a team. It's not like hating Collingwood or even Essendon, where the fault lies with the some mix of the club leaders, the coteries, the fan culture, and some particularly annoying individuals. At Hawthorn the players really have bought in to the whole 'precocious little [censored]' fantasy with a terrible case of main character syndrome. Hmm, let's not say injuries, even now I can't do it. Let's just hope that seven of their players get pinged for recreational pee-in-a-cup results on the same weekend and all have to sit out the next two years while they wait for AFL lawyers to bother submitting paperwork.

I did enjoy the beaming look on his face as he began talking about Clayton Oliver. I think a good idea for in-house videos like this would be to make it rapid-fire - 'ten words or fewer challenge'. It would structurally guide Goodwin or any other coach or player answering the questions to abandon their media training and just fire off their thoughts. In a safe and selectively editable context like a club video they can let loose a bit.

Are you the front end or the back end?

I'm thinking the first ten or seconds of 'killing in the name of'. Hmm, it's not the opening of the song but the beat drop for 'Ecstasy of Gold' from The Good the Bad and the Ugly gets up there. In fact, that'd do for a run out song with the cresendo of bells rolling to the siren... Oh, wait, you want an over-the-top opening to a piece of music, you need to head to central Europe. Hrdza - Stephan would absolutely ruin all warm up routines. But seriously - in the end there is no contest in the high-energy enthusiasm start of a song; Personally I think the club should drop a line to Bear McCreary for a custom job.

Annual low-key game. For just one game each season, they don't set off fireworks, play junk noise in every pause in play, flick the lights on and off light a neurotic five year old, or have idiotic yelling about 'make some noiiiiiiiise' at any time during the day.

I really want to believe that the 'AFL commissioner' line was a different captain using the anonymity to take the [censored] out of Patrick Dangerfield. Personally I reckon Gawn would have to be the 'stay-at-home Dad'. I think the 'favourite footy commentator' responses are telling - and I'm saying that from a pyschology of survey responses perspective. Pretty clear that the way people answered was not so much by identifying a favourite as by putting down the name of the first commentator they could think of who didn't irritate them.

Now that would be some 5-D multi-timeline Diplomacy. Certainly makes sense to build a resume and connections.

I have a bad feeling Jackson has already been invited to house-sit for Bailey Smith. And I know he'll sign on the moment I mention this, but how about a clean sweep of trading for Jackson and grabbing Brayshaw in Free Agency. Next step is surely to start pumping out the gossip about Freo's culture. Possibly a falling out over the length of Shai Bolton's Wikipedia page. Seriously, there's more on Shai Bolton than Alexander Humboldt. I can definitely see that clashing with humble achiever Brayshaw.

Lol, I can see the Jackson for Pickett swap, and then in about four years when Pickett's kids are a bit older and things more stable and Freo are plunging off the face of the earth, we bring him back as well, in exchange for another homesick young Westralian, and the cycle continues. So long as Freo are paying the lumpy parts of the contracts and we get the father-son selections, it is hilarious. Who am I thinking of, Trent Croad, was it? Never change, Freo, never change.