Little Goffy

Is it just a glitch on the afl site stats, or am I right observing that we have only used 23 players (including JKH who was gone early and Harmes who didn't make it to half time) while Brisbane have used all 26 possible under JLT rules? Frost, Petty and Wagner were all out there for Casey earlier, weren't they?

Coincidentally, I've just come across some old footage of the 1996 AFL draft camp. You can even see the standard vertical jump tests starting from 27.25. But meanwhile, seriously, we've got two gun midfielders swearing off sugar except for the energy drinks and lollies associated with games. I doubt they'd do much more than a couple of eccys once a year, on a non-training weekend in November. But the Ben Cousins, Chris Mainwaring legacy has to be that we all learn the lesson that drug use is compartentalised. You can be the consummate professional football player, lawyer, statutory urban planner, parliamentary staffer, or whatever, but switch into the different environment and the 'other normal' has a party. Most drug users and even many outright addicts are 'high functioning', able to get on with life more or less normally, so long as their cash flow keeps up. To toss them in a ditch the moment there's a slip, especially when you're subjecting an individual to significant extra scrutiny, is absurd, and the most likely effect is to immediately send the user into a rapid downward spiral. Just to be clear, I'm under no illusions about the damage drugs do and I think the current approach to drugs in society is an idiotic near-random mix of 'too soft' and 'too hard' right alongside eachother, with 'not enough resources' the loudest message everywhere. And I guess it wasn't just for fun that I linked to a Prodigy performance.

Hmm, what's the rest of their tall defender group like? Hurley, Hartley, Ambrose, Francis. Only Hartley is is a 'true' tall among them, at 198cm, after that you're down to 193cm. Whether Hooker misses outright or is simply underdone, it is looking like a good day for having Gawn and Preuss rotating forward. Bodes well for two towers on field together, given that their rucks are Bellchambers (respectable enough but hardly intimidating, anyone got news on his progress from shoulder surgery?) and Zach Clarke who hasn't played an AFL game for two years.

The ultimate plan - a night grand final, played in Sydney, so that people are leaving the stadium as the lock-out laws come into effect. Flippant yes, but also does kind of bring up one of the problems with a night grand final. No families get to be part of the after-game celebrations, which would start at 11pm. Even watching at home, it'll be "ok, that's done, time for bed kids'. Good luck a) getting the kids to sleep and b) building intergenerational passion.

Every year they wheel out the 'we will be making a decision about this' story. Every year they 'respond to feedback' and keep the day grand final 'for now'. The whole thing is an exercise in undermining the perceived continuity and legitimacy of the day grand final, by creating a sense that it is a year-by-year decision. Put this together with enough cherry-picking of daft online polls, and soon enough it'll feel normal that this is a debatable topic rather than the open-and-shut 'everyone who really cares either way, prefers day' reality. They have already made their decision, they are just working on the tactics to out-maneuver public opinion. It's a lot like the rigged 'pilot programs' and railroaded 'consultation processes' that governments keep using for thought-bubble projects they long ago decided they wanted no matter what the evidence tells them. Odious scumbags.

Perfect example what we've managed to assemble in our midfield. Has some outstanding attributes (kicking, vision, facial hair regeneration rate) but in no way is limited to that. It is a rare and valuable thing, to have a player be described as silk but also be described as someone it is unpleasant to be tackled by.

Honestly I can't see how 'monkey see monkey do' has anything to do with a couple of guys arriving at an event? For that matter, been a while since that was any kind of a commonly used phrase. If you think it through, the only way someone could come up with 'Monkey see monkey do' as something to comment on that picture is if they were really, really searching for a way to insert monkey into a comment. I do wish the reaction had been a little more on the 'what a loser, how tedious, bugger off, you're not normal anymore you creep' tone, rather than the 'omg so hurtful' tone. Success in this comes when Indigenous people's feeling when this cr4p happens is 'I'm normal and welcome here, you're not, just bugger off you insect'.

Round 1 had a pattern of delivering some of the most miserable moments during our most miserable period, so I'm still a little wary of it. But... on the one hand I'm much more confident in our team's ability, and on the other hand I'm much more confident that our team has the resilience to carry on with a strong season even if we do stuff up round 1. It is a bit like, I'm looking forward to round one as a big deal, but only because it is the start of the season, not because I feel like it is any particularly crucial, tone-setting game.

At the very least we should make enquiries and kick up rumours every single year for the rest of his career. At best we get a gun player, at worst we push up Freo's salary cap and give the Brayshaw family a little extra cash.

As much as I am impressed by Hogan and think he will give something extremely valuable to Freo, I don't think we'll miss him structurally a whole lot. May coming in means Gawn drifts forward more than back, which has been shown to be good for clunking a goal a game. The rest is easy to picture. We're looking at having a dynamic, unpredictable and intimidating forward line. Speculatively, the 'compulsory 6' at centre boucnes might look like; F: Hannan Weideman Preuss/Gawn HF: Petracca McDonald Melksham with Spargo, Vandenberg, Fritsch, and Neal-Bullen all ready to roll through. There's a good dose of contested marking, marking on a lead, goalsneaking, bullocking and forward-50 pressure in that. Not weak in any area at all. I think we'll have no trouble being the highest scoring team in the game again in 2019, and we'll do it while also having a fair bit stingier defence. All is well. No tears here.

It's a shame Lever will miss a bit at the start of the season, otherwise we'd be spruiking for 4 separate All-Australian prospects in our defence in 2019. Lever. May. Jetta. Hibberd. Meanwhile, when do we play Fremantle? Because you'd bank as a certainty that Hogan and May will line up on eachother. We've got nobody else who could match up on the likes of Hogan. Which I daresay is right on the whole point of why we got May.

Brayden Preuss right now...

Save it for the AFL broadcast tonight. Everyone is refusing to get their [censored] sorted until then.

I just figured it out - Jessie Hogan is allergic to finals. That's why he is pretending his foot is injured and that's why he wanted an 8-year contract with Fremantle. It all makes sense now.

Looks like we wont make it to 400. Meanwhile, I wonder... all this talk of how the whole of trade period and every other deal is being held up by Freo... even trades that don't seem to involve Freo a whole lot like the Beams and Shiel trades... Have we just quietly been working behind the scenes to shift the story and put pressure on Freo to pull their tiny finger out?

I must've missed the resolution of the Wingard / Burton kerfuffle.

You've just gone for the ultimate shoot-the-moon. Immense kudos if it makes the crater. Hell, I'm giving credit just for trying.

Once someone has expressed a desire to play for Fremantle under Lyon, does 'right mind' really bear consideration?

See, now that seems sensible enough. Doomed.

I had a reliable auditory hallucination that one of the issues other clubs perceive as a problem with Hogan is that he allegedly wanted to go to Fremantle. List managers and coaches just not prepared to take the risk trying to manage something they just can't understand. Rumours are he's had this condition for years and it has been interfering with his focus, but it has only become a serious problem recently. Please help raise awareness: Wanting to go to Fremantle, together we can find a cure.

Hogan is in the situation of someone who for years has never quite been able to let go of an ex, with that ex constantly trying to convince you to leave your partner. Finally you have the heart-to-heart with your partner, the 'I love you but I can't let go of my ex and I need to see this through' and then the ex says 'oh, no, not really, I was just saying that, I don't actually want to be with you for real, too much responsibility'. Now Hogan is left where? In the situation of begging his ex to take him, going back to his old partner who still loves him, or trying to start out all over again with someone else? Whatever the case, it is hard to imagine any of Hogan's family being happy about this. The harder Freo have pushed in the past, the more Hogan's family will be angry about the bizarre behaviour now.

Sitting out a year is the Fremantle way of playing football. Sylvia, McCarthy, Bennell... Lyon...

Hogan is not a free agent of any kind next year, he's just a dude without a contract. As has been explained on this thread about once every 7 pages.

One of the key reasons many biscuits really have lost favour and texture in the last 10-15 years is the replacement of proper butter or vegetable oils with cheaper palm oil. Best part is, palm oil can still be labeled as 'vegetable' oil. Which is funny anyway because the oil is from a fruit. That dull feeling in your mouth is basically the taste of dead orang-utans mixed with the tears of child labourers. Mmmmm-mmmm. Also, I hear Fremantle are now also offering a direct trade of their 500g of palm oil for our 1kg of full-cream butter. But who would even buy a biscuit from those dodgy buggers?

Hmm, I wonder if Hogan might just be thinking to himself 'hey, self, seems like every year there is a top player desperate to leave Fremantle, and they seem like a serious basket case on field, and seems like they routinely stuff prospective players around because their ego wont let them get sensible deals done... maybe Freo aren't going to be the best environment for me to become the best player and person I can be?'