Little Goffy

Fill the AFL with people who have been smart players and made effective use of their talents the way Shultz has, and I'd be a happy spectator every week. Lots of respect for him, but not a place on the Demon's list.

North's old forward line - Harvey - 38 years, 21 games this year Petrie - 33 years, 21 games Waite - 33 years, 14 games Thomas - 28 yeas, 20 games North's old midfield - Dal Santo - 32 years, 20 games this year Goldstein - 28 years, 20 games Wells - 31 years, 17 games Gibson - 30 years, 21 games Swallow - 29 years, 20 games Higgins - 28 years, 7 games North's old defence - Firrito - 32 years, 20 games this year Thompson - 30 years, 19 games With 22x22 'player-games' in a season and one round to go, those players aged over 28 at North have played 220 out of a team total of 462. Not even mentioning Hanse, Nahas, or Ray. If you throw them in as loose change, then more than half North's fielded team has been 28 or older this season. Meanwhile, Ben Brown might be the only player under 25 in North's B&F top 10. In summary -

North Melbourne list manager from two years ago; "Have you got three years to spare? Let's bring in some really high quality mature players to bring us into that top-6 group! As Free Agents, they wont even cost us anything." North have only taken 11 draft picks in total across the last three drafts, despite also trading out Greenwood, Currie and Bastinac. Before that, they drafted reasonably well and had a good group of young players coming through. They tried to bank it all together while Goldstein and some other mature high quality players were still at their peak. Now they are likely to crash and crash hard, Melbourne 2007 style. It is not a path I'm keen to go down, and I think if we do recruit Harvey, he becomes the 'story' of our 2016 season, overshadowing too much of the real progress and changes we need to see happening.

Wow... seems outright idiotic to announce now. All 4 have played the whole season and done their jobs. Gonna be awkward when those four are the only ones who stand up in their final. I wonder how much of their top-10 B&F are being shown the door at once, too? Crash time, North.

Things the AFL amazingly wont see coming - In order to maximise the number of 'valid' draft picks held, clubs with academies will delist a higher number of players on the fringe, to then be relisted as rookies or with the junk draft picks which open up once the existing picks are cashed in. Yay!

Neville Jetta really has been outstanding. Amazing judgement of the ball in flight and timing of spoils against much taller opponents. Has been reading the play very well too, building up more and more intercept marking as a part of his game. Never been any doubt on his toughness and refusal to submit, that's for sure. I'd say he's a chance, but I don't know much about who his competition would be, as a 'true' small defender.

Awkwardly, Bernie Vince was a key 'offender' in the immature decisions and lack of awareness on sunday. But at least in general we can see the problem and can have some confidence in the coaching group to work on it. My big obsession over the off season will be wanting to see the club drilling players on forming spontaneous small units working together. I hate the sight of one player going 'ooh, I'll take this on' and others around them just thinking 'ooh, he's taking it on, good luck to him!'.

I think if a deal came down to "Hibberd and Melksham for two second-round picks", I'd take it. Hibberd a much more valuable player, both in quality and position. I'd be quite content if it took an earlier second rounder gained through the 'academy points package deal' process to get Hibberd. Let's be honest, our drafting this year and maybe another is about running the turnover for any 'discount gems'. We have depth across midfield, forward line and even tall defenders. Basically, with Hibber adding an extra piece of consistency and class in defence, we're fine for 'ok, AFL-level' players for now. It is going to take a year or two to find out where the real deficiencies are in this young group (other than learning to run in supportive packs... sigh).

Must be my lucky week for Bomber's. Wasn't especially interested in Hurley (the value thing, for me, as always), while Hibberd is serious class and pretty solid defensively too. What is best about him from out perspective, I think, is that he is extremely consistent. Don't want to give Inside Football too much credibility, but a look at his 'rating' numbers over the past few seasons at least points to someone who is rarely a 'losing position' on the field. http://www.aflplayerratings.com.au/Ratings/Player/114542/Michael-HIBBERD

Though I have doubts about his inclusion, it is a bit much to be calling Michie a 'spud'. That's a term best reserved for senior public servants. "Head of Census and change management at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Chris Libreri, is a spud", that would be fair.

You'r thinking Habsburgs (or Hapsburgs, if you swing that way). There's a scale of 'relatedness' for assessing the viability of gene pools. Biologists use it in situations where a species is near extinction and a genetic viability issue comes up due to the bottlenecked populations. It goes from zero to 1. Where zero is a theoretical 'no relation' and one is 'all breeding pairs are immediate siblings. Applied to the geneology of European Royalty, the Habsburg's managed a score of 0.54, by the time they were forcibly disbanded. And were they crazy, malformed, disease-prone, imbecilic, weak-limbed, anaemic, chinless freaks? ... Ok, point taken. Although there are an awful lot of high-performance sportswomen among the player's sisters at present...

Nope. High Risk plus VERY high price. Don't get me wrong, great player and all, but I don't think good value for us. That said, I'd hardly complain.

It's kind of interesting how much recent history is wrapped up in thee last two games. Particularly late-season. From the Kruezer cup against Cartlon to the Geelong draw, and the 2005 win over Geelong by less than a goal that snapped our losing run and got us back on the road to finals. There's much more but I wont dig at the moment. For this weekend, I choose to focus my thought's on Russel Robertson's big day out against Carlton, the 'last AFL game' at Princes Park.

Also - probably don't give out any more details on Demonland, or we'll all be calling the police saying we lost 3x$100 notes

Return to police, give them the details of where it was found and what date/time. If anyone has reported it missing, they can give correct amount and details, they get it. If nobody claims it, it goes back to you. All good.

Don't forget Scully, Trengove, Gysberts and Tapscott! A whole midfield group all in one draft! Sensational! A versatile group which really complemented Morton, Grimes and Maric. Let's all agree to see this as a testament to times changing. Please let times be changing. Please.

Brayshaw, Petracca, Viney, Oliver, Tyson... all already proving themselves as high quality midfielders. But it is what happens when you put them together that is really deadly.

Now leading us for running bounces, no surprise there!

He'll be ok, Oscar still managed a couple of spectacular wonky kicks, which totally cancels out all of those 23 disposals, 9 marks (2 contested) etc... etc.. Plus, not a single Port player over Aaron Young's 188cm kicked a goal, which would suggest our tall defenders had an ok day. Lobbe was their only tall to get a contested mark. Anyway, surely we're all friends today - a 40 point away win over a mid-table rival, despite several players being a bit off and the system stalling for about a quarter. Are we becoming a team that still wins on off days? That would be wild stuff.

Well, can't say I'll be seeking out the replay of that quarter.

I really hate our mid-game shakes. I really do.

This quarter is reminding me of the West Coast game, as far as we're getting it, getting it forward, but not making it count. Except this time we're five goals in front when the trouble starts. Disappointing quarter.

MOBILE PHONE HACK REVEALS Text message from Paul Roos to John Longmuir during the half-time break of St.Kilda v Sydney - "Yeah, Longsy, we're rolling here, better knock St Kilda out for us" Reply - "Sure thing Roosy, gimme 5 minutes."

Hogan, Watts, Jones and Viney all (comparatively, for them) quiet so far. We're six goals up. Team game good.

Our traditional bit of shakiness late in the second. I'm less nervous than other times, but would be really happy to see this nipped in the bud.