Little Goffy

Sack the coach!

That's a quality six. As a footballer, Lily Mithen is fast closing in on Daisy Pearce as a favourite player. Daisy is a better commentator though. I think Lily will be the benchmark among midfielders out of that first young crop who get to play most of their career professionally.

Tell you what, we've been left in no doubt about Goodwin's attacking game plan. Jetta in makes me happy, Hannan is a surprise good luck to the kid, may he kick goals with his first three kicks. Joel Smith is in for a serious introduction, likely to be the desperate drop-back tall trying to cover when the midfield cracks. And that's the game there - we've gone quite small in defence compared to the Saints forwards, just completely double-down on 'we will run and kill them all over the ground, and to hell with the occasional easy goal out the back'. Still mean's sometimes Jetta will be on Bruce, giving away a handy 17cm. Good luck to Nibbler and Weed. And good luck to Garlett's leg muscles collectively. Let's kick 25 goals and send the rest of the league into a cold sweat!

For me, it's Essendon and Carlton. These two clubs have been at a disproportionate share of our important moments in the last 20 years, right from the 2000 finals to the 2016 shock losses. I'll come back and edit this post later with a listing of the significant moments.

Yep. Most likely to go, and also go to other games. Most likely to take out a membership. Most likely to still turn up even during a rubbish season. This has all been backed up by 'the data' (surveys, attendences, membership tallies etc) for many years, nice that it is now getting some recognition. Will make knocking over the 'franchise' Giants in this years grand final all the sweeter!

But handy for F/S selectinos in future drafts.

It's an interesting one, Betts Rioli and Greene obviously aren't a like-for-like rating to Hogan, and all three are surely top-10 forwards. Franklin, Kennedy and Lynch were obviously the benchmark for tall forwards in 2016. I would hope that Hogan would solidly push into that top 10 this year, and I expect he'll be the best of a good crop of young key forwards coming through. What would make me happier would be to see Hogan become the Demons' first career-long consistent goalkicker. Even our very best have been up and down for various reasons. David Neitz - a 5-year run earning 323 goals from 2002-2006 is the best effort of the AFL era. Indeed, the best effort since Norm Smith, who bagged 354 from 1937 to 1941. That's right, Jesse Hogan offers Melbourne something the club didn't even have during 'the' glory days, you have to go all the way back to the 'other' glory days! That'd be enough for me.

I'm perfectly happy to know that Jones wasn't completely happy about the co-captain change. He's in it to lead the club out of the shadows and would be picturing the end goal as holding up the premiership cup. I wonder if there's a chance to break records for the longest stable co-captain arrangement ever? Also, funny that we've got co-captains now, after Roos has left.

Closest thing we've got to a direct comparison on form is each team's pre-season game against Carlton. Both St Kilda and ourselves scored more than 30 times against Carlton - St Kidla 18.14, Melbourne 17.14 Carlton failed to score effectively against either team, though their 4 goals 6 behinds against St Kilda was a special level of ineffectual. But in the end, something has to be said about the teams that Carlton fielded agaisnt the Demons and Saints. Or more specifically, the teams they didn't field. Of the 'best 22' Blues, Kreuzer, Gibbs, Docherty, Simpson, Murphy and Casboult, all played against the Demons but not the Saints. Leaving Matt Korcheck as Carlton's lead ruck, Liam Jones as their primary contested marking target, Nick Graham as their chief clearance winner, and Billie Smedts as their only running half-back to have ever played a game of AFL. Cripps was the only top Blue to play against Saints but not Demons, though he only played a half, for 38% total game time. Armfield also took the field against Saints and not Demons, for 68% game time. So maybe there isn't much of a direct comparison after all. Time to look at the rest of pre-season. St Kilda didn't score so freely in it's other games, despite both being at home, against Port and Sydney. Scoring just 8 goals and 10 goals. Against Port they went in with full strength, with only Montagna, who is not expected to play round 1, missing from a line up which included all of last year's stars and stalwarts, as well as all the new inclusions. Against Sydney it was a similar set up, and the Saints' tall forwards managed just two goals between the four of them, three if you include Sam Gilbert's little adventure. Fact is, St Kilda played at full strength throughout the pre-season competition, and didn't do anything of note except smash a Carlton team that was pretty ordinary even once it included it's top players, never mind when it was missing most of it's Best & Fairest group. By the way, last season St Kilda has 11 players play all, or all but one, game for the season, and a further 7 players play 17 games or more. From memory, the usual range for those numbers is about 6 'all' and 6 'most'. Demons last season for the 21+ and 17+ games played was 8 and 4, so about normal. Just food for thought.

Unfortunately yes, the % path to the grand final is not plausible, would take a ten-goals-each game from the Crows and Pies tomorrow. But, Pies are on a run of form, with three wins in a row, and Adelaide have lost two in a row, and the game is being played in Melbourne. On a side note, Melbourne are first or second for just about all the major stats categories, and for many of them all it would take would be one final bad game from each of Adelaide or the Bulldogs. Most notable, we are on 37 goals, with Carlton (33) and Adelaide (31) the chasers.

I choose not to settle down. I plan to be excited. Not childish woo-woo we're gonna win everything excited, but piece by piece excited about the possibilities, the good players and good play building up to something. You wont catch me pulling my hair out every time there's a missed kick or a slipped tackle, and wailing about how it's 'all the same as 2013, nothing has improved'.

Ahh, the old 'small clubs like the Demons don't make money for the game and should be shut down' argument. Also, 'the VFL, SANFL, WAFL and NEAFL should all be closed' argument. And the 'players should be paid based on their media profile' argument. And the 'why bother funding TAC Cup when hardly anyone watches' argument. And the 'what's the point of Auskick anyway' argument. Honestly, Petraccattack, you're making some pretty weird arguments to try to mask some pretty tedious personal issues about the status of women.

Enyaw is clearly trolling, I'm sure we can all see that. Most of all by pretending that people are demanding equal pay for AFLW, when absolutely nobody is. At this point, the most 'aggressive' and 'crazy' claims for pay come to about 5% of the men's salaries, with more emphasis on creating the development resources like equipment and coaches that would actually make it possible to excel. As for the 'they'll get the same pay once they have achieved the same', it's a bit like saying that women physicists in 1900 shouldn't be paid as much because they haven't won as many Nobel Prizes - nevermind that they weren't permitted to attend courses. The odd result was that only the most determined and talented women were able to get anywhere at all in physics, so those that did manage to break through ended up being massive over-achievers compared to the average bulk-produced male physicists. Possible lesson there? So my point overall - women AFL players should be paid enough to allow them to focus fully on achieving excellence - and they should have access to the support resources required to achieve excellence I know, it's outrageous. Such wild claims.

I'll be watching intently for a fast start. We always seem to take a while to get real momentum so getting things going early could make for a very big scoreline. I'd like to see us really fire up one of our top strengths - goals from the center bounce - and get a quick run of those early to break the spirit of Freo. On the flipside, the weakness I most want to see ironed out is the tendency to waste inside-50s, either from inaccuracy or simple not getting it effectively to a target player. If we had been even slightly better at this over the season, we would not have lost a single game. It was the defining failure of both our losses; - vs Giants, 1 goal 9 behinds from 29 inside-50s, against 3.2 from 13 inside 50s. - vs Lions, 1 goal 4 behinds from 30 inside-50s, against 4.1 from 19 inside 50s.

Was noticeable during the game, getting to the contest with intent and effect, saved a few shots on goal for sure. Didn't realise she was quite so young! Our future team has some good pillars to build from.

Swans have managed to get through a half of footy without letting St Kilda's tall forwards kick a single goal. Partiularly interesting as Sydney don't have a large contingent of tall defenders. I'm sure Goodwin is watching closely and taking notes.

They have their rivals, Brisbane the salary cap preferential treatment triple-premiership team. Just two triple-premierships in 60 years, and both are at least a little tainted. The only answer, of course, is to win a fresh set of our own, to restore dignity to the achievement.

A bit like GWS and Gold Coast, the AFLW competition was set up on the run without as much forethought as would have been advisable, making one huge leap from 'dispersed groups of wandering tribes' to 'Post-Industrial globalised civilization' in very little time. But the will is there, the commitment is there, and as the practical resources begin to flow, the skill and fitness will build. Probably the biggest change by this time next year will be the improvement in 'clean hands' - core ball-handling skills which as a weakness at the moment are creating a lot of pauses and interruptions and ungainly looking play.

Yep, it's "Us win, Crows lose, and we're into a grand final". Meanwhile, the Crows have been getting a golden run from the umpires all season, it's actually starting to look suspicious. Anyway, Fremantle at Casey next week. Win that and we get to cheer for Collingwood on sunday, thankfully knowing that it'll do no good for them anyway.

Sometimes I find myself wondering just how different a game it will be even as soon as next season. There'll be twice as many players to pick from, a full year of development and ambition, clubs will now know the value they can get from it, the investment will be much greater... the games will likely open up a lot more as the share of terrible kicks and mishandlings gets cut back. More immediately, I'm just hoping that the second half will be unrecognisably improved for us, compared to the first!

Believe it or not, Rance had 94% time on ground! So he was out there somewhere... It's always been the story with Richmond, if they lose a couple of top players it's over. Y'know they've had almost the same top-10 B&F since 2011? Here's a trivia question for you - From 2015 to 2016, Richmond had just one name change in their B&F, and that was due to injury. So, who went out and who came in?

Terrific human being and a better coach than he had a chance to show. I'm sure his legacy lives on on the many people who he influenced to be a better version of themselves.

I, also, am interested in finding out which of their players are actually downhill skiers! (yeah, I'm a proper wit) But seriously, it will be interesting to see who has had their limitations covered by the luxury of being able to play roles specific to their strengths, while the group of serious, determined stars kept the wheels turning. Or maybe i would be more accurate to say the stars kept the wheels in the right places - Hodge, Mitchell, Lewis, Roughead, Burgoyne, and Gibson would have to be any coaches dream group, when it comes to keeping a game plan in order and keeping less experienced or alert players 'on task'. 2 of those six are now gone and the other 4 are all 30+, and while they have several other quality players, none are at that level of leadership quality.

It's probably only a small crack, but it's definitely another crack. Honestly, it would be really good if the Hawthorn Football club slid into an era of bitter recriminations and failure for a couple of decades. Remembering just how many of their fans are both soft and arrogant.

What frustrates me is how often we get beaten as a result of giving away bursts of goals, which is clearly a problem of lapses in the zone defence and in overall play. 4 unanswered goals in 20 minutes by West Coast ended up being the difference, almost the exact margin. So many 'dead stops', failing to score, letting goals through. It's the Demon madness. It's easy to find a host of examples from last season, even if you just go by quarters, and even if you skip the less extreme cases. Round 3 - an 8 goal to 2 first quarter and 7 goal to 3 3rd quarter cost us the loss to North in a see-sawing game (well, Tasmanian wind and all) Round 6 - 8 goals to 3 third quarter and St Kilda have done that thing St Kilda keep doing to us. Round 10 - 6 goal to 1 final quarter turned a close game into a solid thumping by Port, up in Darwin Rnd 11 - failed to score a goal in the final quarter after being level with them at 3/4 time. rnd 13 - Sydney double their goal tally, kicking 6 goals to 1, turning a dreary low-scoring slog into another of our biggest losses for the year rnd 17 - 5 goals to nothing 2nd quarter sets up St Kilda for another solid win over us. rnd 18 - We're six points ahead at 3/4 time, and kick exactly 2 points in the final quarter. rnd 23 - We actually stemmed the bleeding a bit in the middle two quarters, but 8 goals against us in the first and TEN in the final quarter sure ruined the day for everyone. There's a few other results where, even when we won, our opponents kicked a full half of their final score in a single quarter. I'm not too worried about the specific result of the final game of the pre-season. It's the pattern that bugs me. Even this preseason, the Bulldogs wiped out our previous 45 minutes of work with a 15 minute burst of 4 goals late in the second quarter. Right, I've got that off my chest.