Little Goffy

I'm struggling to follow the logic of the Frawley compo pick coming at the highest category. Most likely a mid/end first round, which are both increment options under the system. As for priority pick, well, obviously we 'deserve' it. Seven years of disaster and just pick 1 and pick 17 to show for it in terms of priority picks. But the absence of transparency, and the football-politics of it, mean that we won't get anything because it would be a 'bad look'. I can imagine we might, possibly, with luck, get an end of first round priority pick. Which would be interesting, possibly leaving us with Pick 19 (Frawley compo) Pick 20 (Priority Pick) Pick 22 (second round pick) Interesting position to be in.

Wow, thinking that a gameday drinker late night unprofessional boofhead who abandons his team mates would be good for the club. I'm impressed. Garlett I'm less certain of, but I don't see the risk-reward coming out in our favour if we did select him. Neither are 'cultural assets'. And neither would make an important difference on the field.

Sure, let's explode the tone of the finals run. That'd be terrific entertainment. In the interests of keeping this AFL season fun and outright wacky, we really ought to win this game.

Nope. Nope nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. Nope.

Saw her get worked up about the topic on Footy Classified. In recent times I've been gradually gaining more respect for Wilson, but then every once in a while she still vomits on the walls with this kind of cheap and pointless sniping based on a personal obsession. Melbourne tanked. Melbourne also, both before and after that, have had the most sustained run of abject failure of any modern club, including even the demoralised, binge drinking, amateur-hour sideshow that was Carlton in the early 2000s. Also tanking in that time were, Carlton (2007, et al)- screwed up their drafting, possibly even worse than we did (amazing!), just don't have the cattle, but also still look occasionally dangerous. Hawthorn (2005) - made top choices with their top picks. Also benefited from lucrative over-value trades. Plus, they already had multiple stars on their list when they tanked... hmm. Collingwood (2005) - The draft picks from their tank year (an amazing sudden drop in form followed by an amazing rise in form... it's.. amazing) West Coast (2009) - less well known, is that West Coast attempted a Priority Pick tank in 2009. Prior to the infamous Melbourne-Richmond game, West Coast had clearly tossed in games against both those opponents, which, tragically, was what made the Richmond-Melbourne game so 'important to lose'. Unluckily for West Coast, they came up against a Knights-coached Essendon just hitting their traditional late season implosion. In an amazing turnaround, the Eagles were so inspired by breaking through to five wins that they then won three of their four remaining games, with the only loss being against Neil Craig's Crowbots as they made a late-season attack on the top-four. But we all know all of this. Why doesn't Wilson? doesn't she even know about footywire.com/afl ? And yes, I am annoyed by Roos' bringing it up. It's a cop-out, an excuse for failure... unless... unless he is quietly making war on a few leftover rotten eggs within the club. That would be interesting.

A thought rattling around in my head; is it really fair of Roos to say the players are just 'waiting to be beaten' when he is enforcing a game plan that patently rejects trying to kick a winning score? You can call it rope-a-dope or trying to stop the game getting away from them early, but fundamentally it is an attitude of 'let's try not to fall behind too far'.

Even the slightest possibility that the players didn't back up Pederson after the hit because they 'didn't like him all that much' is deeply disturbing. Do these people have no grasp of anything football is supposed to stand for, or anything that success as a team requires. There have been players throughout AFL/VFL/pre-VFL history who outright hated eachother, refused to even speak to eachother unless necessary, but who could still each commit to back the other up on the field.

It's like we are a poor man's North Melbourne. They do better against the top teams and stuff up against the weak opponents. The difference being, they actually get wins, where we just differ in the % impact of the losses. I'd say that now we've lost to the Dogs, Saints, Giants and Lions, we have an odd record of only beating teams above us on the ladder, but that is kind of spurious; all the teams we play are above us on the ladder.

Appalling goal accuracy and a final-quarter implosion. What are we, Essendon?

Baiiil! Gee that guy is useless.

Bate v Koutafides. Pendlebury v Gysberts. Mitchell v Valenti. Morton v Fyfe. Height and weight profiles definitely do not decide a player's future. Select on skill, athleticism, awareness, work ethic, all these things. With a little luck you'll end up with a good mix of bodies to keep the variety of options open.

And Michael Newton 'gave' the club 7 years.

It always amazes me when people think they can outsmart the bookies. Yes, Tom Waterhouse is a schmuck who we all feel smarter than... or wait, maybe he just presents himself as the schmuck front-man for an organisation that actually has a huge database of information you an I could never hope to reach, and a range of experts carefully examining every factor pooped out by banks of computers with advanced analytics programs. But I'm sure it's appropriate to feel confident that you understand the odds better than brat-boy Tom, and that nice Jaime girl from the Tab, the one with all the teeth, who is just letting you know the odds in between pulling beers.

Kapow! Bang! Wham! Smack! Nice work.

I think you'll find that she really is "totes legit buff as". She's fairly short, about the same height and weight as Jay Kennedy-Harris, which is incredible considering her sport and the total absence of skinfolds. But I imagine with a couple of pre-seasons done she could add a few kilos, reshape a bit to suit footy, and offer a really good small forward option. Worth a rookie list spot.

Thinking about Brayshaw, would North be interested in packaging something/someone with their first pick to get our first pick, thus ensuring they collect him? Would be a nice combination of sentiment and suitability. Adding to that, North must be one of several clubs who would be very interested in using an early pick to collect one the the multiple tall forward targets that are hovering in the top-5 range. We may have several suitors for that first pick, and I agree with a few others that it if Petracca will be gone by our choice then the value of that pick goes down for us. One the other hand, there look to be multiple good prospects - midfielders and effective rebounders - that would suit our needs around the 10-20 mark. Ellis, De Goey, Marchbank, Duggan, Laverde, Blakely, - a lot of these profiles suit, and we'd only need one to slip. Even the previously much-touted Hugh Goddard is floating in predicted position.

Oh, let's go for the full sweep. A Cat (Thompson &/or Ling) A Swan (Roos) A Hawk (Ratten) And a Magpie (erm... hmmm... let's not, we tried that already)

If anyone is interested, she has a website, including some interesting blogging. Not a huge site or a whole pile of content, but a bit of insight into the exceptionally disciplined and focused person she is. Don't worry about her acceleration, or injury. When Jess gets drafted she will switch her training program to develop the required strengths, and she has already shown she can manage injury through one of the most grueling training programs there can be,particularly when it comes to coping with niggles. Can't remember what sport she was in before switching to marathon, triathlon maybe? Like Nathan Jones, and with the same work ethic and consciousness of improvement.

Two bye rounds is a ridiculous imposition... Unless you care about quality of games in finals, longevity of players, interruptions to seasons from injury, and all that politically correct stuff...

*The Demon Ritual* Celebrated each year at approximately the spring equinox. Stand in a circle and intone the following lines; That Petracca guy and the big Wright fella would be a pretty awesome way to boost the list and really address some of our long-term deficiencies. And there's a host of medium and tall defenders capable of effectively playing the rebounding defender role we desperately need, conveniently spread from the middle of the first round into the second round. And the Stretch kid looks to be going alright. What a bargain he'll be!

Honestly, I'd be quietly gutted. It already plays on my mind that recently some 'totally wrecked' clubs (St Kilda and Brisbane) have had not just wins but wins by big margins. It's more than just an issue of finishing last. If those teams below us start to look like they are turning a corner and lifting again, that just leaves just us, again, as the only dud team. Hard to get excited about the idea that Melbourne spent 2014 learning how to tread water.

Gibbs is a top level AFL midfielder. Deal with it. Kruezer, however, well... something went wrong there.

A few weeks ago NITV put on a replay of the St Kilda-Collingwood 'Nicky Winmar game'. I watched out of curiosity and it quickly became apparent that the amount of time players had was vastly greater than today's game. Vast open spaces in front of them, only one opponent nearby, endless opportunities to lead into space to receive the long kick. It was interesting but I kept finding myself thinking 'aargh, how did you fail to turn all that space and time into an effective inside 50?'. A 'modern' team would cut through an early 90s team like an asteroid through butter, not just defensively but also offensively. And not just because of fitness. The teamwork of the modern game, the demand for alert and versatile players, and the premium placed on both patience and intelligent risk-taking, it's all phenomenal.

A few weeks ago NITV put on a replay of the St Kilda-Collingwood 'Nicky Winmar game'. I watched out of curiosity and it quickly became apparent that the amount of time players had was vastly greater than today's game. Vast open spaces in front of them, only one opponent nearby, endless opportunities to lead into space to receive the long kick. It was interesting but I kept finding myself thinking 'aargh, how did you fail to turn all that space and time into an effective inside 50?'. A 'modern' team would cut through an early 90s team like an asteroid through butter, not just defensively but also offensively. And not just because of fitness. The teamwork of the modern game, the demand for alert and versatile players, and the premium placed on both patience and intelligent risk-taking, it's all phenomenal.

It would be interesting, and a step in favour of transparency, if there was more public information on the operations of the umpiring department at AFL. I'd love to know; - how much detail is available for umpire review; is there an umpire's version of champion data? Is there a dedicated observer/statistician at every game? - similarly, does the umpriing department have consistent, evidence-based methods for tracking performance over time and identifying specific problem areas? - how do umpires get their feedback? - what structures are there, or could/should there be, to create a protective wall between media, football politics, knee-jerk administrators and the umpiring department? Until that last one is sorted, the rest is academic. Umpiring needs to be as protected from football politics as ballot boxes are from party politics. In both 'law' and 'convention' it needs to be established that "one does not lightly meddle in the affairs of the adjudicators". My suggestions for re-establishing this culture; - end the practice of wiring umpires for sound to public media. - 'official' umpiring reporting should discuss only the round as a whole, and not focus on specific incidents no matter how many people are annoyed. - the rules of the game committee should not be a permanent body. It should convene in the form of a conference and be over quickly, to prevent the cycle of "we have to justify our existence". It should also be a MUCH more open and accessible conference than the little clique that forms at present, and the agenda and proceedings should be public. - rule changes should be authentically piloted, as opposed to the 'decision made, now lets do a pilot' system. Technical issues and confusion should be removed before the rule enters the premiership season - the number of rules, particularly on safe play, needs to be greatly reduced. A lot of the documents about AFL rules, especially on safe play, are pointlessly detailed. Consider that most of the safe play rules could be summed up as simply "no head, no feet, no intent to harm". Most of the dodgy decisions made by the MRP and tribunal are the result of usually well-meaning people trying to bureaucratically define a 'comprehensive and detailed' categorisation of offenses. This actually reduced transparency and diffuses responsible decision making, and creates a battle-ground where lawyers are the weapons. - keep Brian Taylor away from any telecommunications device. (part of all good AFL strategy) I think one subtle thing people need to remember is that the purpose of umpiring in AFL is not to correctly and comprehensively adjudicate on every little matter; the goal is to ensure a sufficient overall standard of fair play.