Little Goffy

Getting little butterflies in the belly, flittering around and whispering 'this could be something'. Crowd noise is still favouring Demons. Phenomenal.

Port have caught the hype about Maxxy Gawn, they all want to say hello. Lobbe, Trengove, Westhoff, Ebert, Wines all with hitouts for Port in the first quarter. It's an interesting tactic and has worked for them so far, but I'd speculate that it'll cost them over the course of the game, to have so many players 'Gawn-conscious'. Plus, how long can even quintuple-teaming keep Gawn down, really?

Geez, listening to the crowd noise then, being Adelaide, I thought Bugg had missed. Some noisy Demons over there. Good work!

Well, the MMM commentators are finding a sort of balance... by noting all the good South Australians playing for the Demons. At least it's friendly, I guess.

Yep, exactly. North's percentage dropped from 113 to 108.5. Leaving the gap to us (102.5) at just 6 percentage points. So, for shorthand, a neat 100 points worth of for/against difference will do the job. With 2 more losses for them and 3 wins for us, average margins of just 20 points per game will sort out percentage. Basically, it's just the wins to think about now.

If anyone has reached their The Age limit for the month, remember you can just switch to 'incognito mode' (on chrome, or the equivalent on any other browser) and The Age's website wont be able to recognise you. Or you can find their counter cookie in your internet history files and delete it. State. Of. The. Art.

Only to keep Russel Robertson out of the forward pocket. Grr.

How many other people are just now checking GCDee's profile just to see if he has form as a troll?

Something funny I noticed when I was looking at the charts in the article about "How Roos finally turned the Demons around". Our current run is our longest stretch of consecutive 'improved seasons' since the 1940s. Win count 1942-46 - 5, 7, 7(%), 8, and finally 13 (and a grand final appearance). The only other run of 4 in a row is 1923-26, going 3,4,12,14 and culminating in a premiership. It gets better for Mr Roos. That 1940s run is shared between Percy Beams and 'Checker' Hughes, who each coached a couple of those season, and the 1920s run is shared between Rattray, Wilson and finally Chadwick. Meaning that Paul Roos holds the Melbourne Football Club record for consecutive seasons of improvement as coach.

At least we can be sure it'll be appropriately diabolical.

Some have said they want Brisbane to have their request refused out of spite. I actually want Brisbane to get a priority pick, also out of spite. Watch all the good it does them. Watch them keep on sooking and losing respect. Voss going into meltdown because "We didn't have any help when we were down"... in 2013. When their massive slump amounted to just two season with less than 10 wins.

Interesting. So you're saying it was kind of an acceptance of there being a contest on the way out of 50, with the trade-off being a bit of unpredictability. Accepting that our skills aren't up to doing 'pinpoint' over and over, might as well control the fall.

I'm always keen on that 'second best' category, when it comes to value. Used to describe it as 'give me Sidebottom over Pendlebury and Stephen Hill over Fyfe'. Right now I'd describe it as Smith before Rioli. As for overrated - I'm not completed sold on the value of Hurley, though I totally respect that he is a high level footballer. I just think the price would be higher than the value. I'd be very wary of just about any player being offloaded by Roachmond or Fleamantle. I'm quietly glad that we didn't pay through the nose to get the likes of Treloar, Adams and Greenwood (eat it, Collingwood), or Higgins, Dal Santo and Waite (good players, sure, but oh look... how unpredictably that turned out). I do wonder if at some point once the excitement fades, Mark Blicavs might actually be the player we could get the most value out of. Solves the relief ruck dilemma without stealing a spot from the young forwards. Has been in poor form recently, though it might take another year for his trade and salary value to diminish. As a creditable role-player rather than a 'star', what a perfect fit he could be.

Remember that Melbourne across ten years of misery gained only two priority picks in total. Pick 1 and Pick 17 - Tom Scully and Sam Blease. And let's be honest, you could've thrown in Dustin Martin and Nic Naitanui and we still would've been a basket case. And they can moan about not having any top picks out there all they like - the reason is they used them to trade in Dayne Beams, Allen Christensen, Ryan Bastinac, Brendan Fevola and Travis Johnston. They all have a huge collection of early-second-round picks out there. (Coincidentally, another sample in my argument for trying to go 'high-low' in drafts) Of course, they've had some injury problems this season which make it look even worse than it is, but right now at a club level you could give Brisbane the first four picks in the draft and it would only put a gauze over the gaping stomach wound.

Max Gawn is the best ruckman in the competition by a fair margin. (I know you all already know that, I'm being Captain Obvious, but sometimes it is fun to say it out loud)

Even giving away a free would've been effective in the circumstances. Three seconds is a long time in football, especially at CHF with an open 50. But I'll cut the kid some slack (both Brayshaw and Oscar), and call it a 'teachable moment'.

Forgive me We're gonna finally be fine

If only we could find someone with all the hardness, but slightly tempered and focused to better suit the evolved game? Any volunteers?

The inconsistency is maddening. And it might say something that every other club's supporters will comment that Hawthorn are getting a 'good run' from umpires, even if you aren't specifcially talking about Hawthorn, it gets brought up as "yeah, and what about how they always go easy on Hawthorn, it's an embarrassment". Anyway, my mind was set way back when Spider Everitt, behind play, used his forearm to hold Simon Godfrey to the ground. Innocuous enough... except he was 'holding him down' at the throat! No free, no review, no penalty, of course. It really does go back that far.

Gotta feel for Pederson, made a good contribution, but no, he is not ahead of Hogan. I'm a little worried about Garlett. And Garlett should be worried about Kennedy and Kennedy-Harris! I would think there might be a change or two out of the group of mids, half-forward and half-backs who between them include a lot of potentially tired kids, a few more players who have have injury interruptions, and so on. I think selection pretty much comes down to energy levels and bruises this week. There's none 'demanding' to be dropped and several earning a place coming up. Good times!

Probably keep - Surely Trengove is a keeper? It'd be pretty dumb to hold onto a player through their rehab, give them a few games where they showed they are still competent, and then dump them before they've had a real preseason with the group. Keeping him makes practical sense as well as avoiding that sour feeling. Kennedy-Harris has slowed his development dramatically since his early exciting start, but I'd imagine he's had enough bad luck and shown enough good glimpses to justify another season. Neal-Bullen we'd be mad to delist. Great depth at a low price, and looks constantly on the edge of stepping up and being a serious AFL contributor. No 'risk' or cost involved in keeping him, and there is real chance of a big upside. Pederson. Look below at the first line of the 'exits' - I see four senior players Pederson is ahead of, and stays ahead of given he can cover any of their roles and as a bonus is the only one who can also support in the ruck. He's the most versatile and most reliable of the lot. Probably farewell - Awkward times for Lumumba, Dunn, Garland, Dawes and Grimes. I wouldn't say any of them are out-and-out failures, but they all have limitations (which have driven a few Demonlanders mad... madder) and they have all been overtaken by others. Terlich and Michie are presumably both done at AFL level, despite being quite respectable at Casey. But there's the rub - three years ago both those guys, and all of the players mentioned above, would have been in our starting 22 out of a fully fit list. Newton I'm sad about - I thought he could have been a genuine attacking mid, but he just hasn't ever put it all together. Though he's young enough to be given some more time, I think as a club we're best served by trying a new kid. So, I've got 8 players on the probable exit list. Some might be worth a little bit in trade, at least enough to do a shuffle of academy cash-in picks which might get us one pick late in the first round. I like the idea of 'high-low' in drafts; early to get something we need, late for turnover of bottom-price 'possibles'. Scanning the draft prospect list, it seems there's two 'suitable for needs' tall half-backs, Witherden and Rotham, both tipped for late in the first round. Several of those likely to leave will be on decent pay, so our salary cap will open up a bit, to either secure the players we need to keep or to grab a loose player that fits our needs. The rest can be a collection of late draft 'interesting' picks for McCartney to see what he can do with. We'll go into the 2017 season with a deep midfield, a variety of talls both forward and back, more speed than we've had in many many years, and the game's best ruckman. Touch wood.

Can I imagine the ultimate fantasy where we win out last three, North lose their last three, we slip in by the barest of % decided in the last quart of the last game... Meanwhile, Hawthorn falter a little more, only winning one of their remaining three games, and all four of Sydney, GWS, Gelong and Adelaide go ahead of them on percentage. Which would mean, Melbourne (8th) would play Hawthorn (5th) in an elimination final. Total fantasy land, but if I was writing the script that's how it would go.

Yep. 2005 all over again. The situation is giving me ideas about next years season slogan - "No more if only"

I wonder if the Weideman family is quietly pleased that their kid, in his first game, played a real part in helping to defend Collingwood's 4-peat legacy, putting a nice little fracture in Hawthorn's late season run. Grandfather, grandson, something to smile about together. They might even reconcile with the Demons over it.

I've got four words for that. Mathe Matical Possi Bility. And for tonight - Come on Doggies, lets see a big, character-filled smashing! Boyd to kick 7! Percentage matters!