Little Goffy

Nibbler, Brayshaw and even Harmes were fit bodies who turned up when needed. Different qualities, but all low-key achievers who oppositions had to take seriously. When you combine their loss with a fitness dip from our first-rate midfielders Petracca and Oliver, you get a LOT of time and space not covered. Viney and a couple of other veterans trying to cover the responsibility and then running out of steam late in quarters and games is a symptom which then cascades to even more time and space needing to be covered by younger and less experienced players. Even the so far incremental return of Spargo adds to that issue; he never got the stats but gee he was good at being in places that force the opposition to either go around when attacking, or to cover the risk when defending. I feel a bit like we need to just accept the fact that we cannot cover the ground in full until the kids get fitter and the veterans regain full fitness. We need to adapt our strategy to simply not require so much running. Allow great big open spaces in our attacking half with highly isolated forwards, and instead of all rushing into attack we let small 'assault' teams try to cut a path. We preserve our fatigue, and set up our counter to the rebound, while watching the other team collectively run an additional kilometre each way as they try to affect an attack which, one way or another, will be over before they arrive. Stay-at-home forwards create a permanent menace which the whole opposition must react to. Assault detachments move to create dominance in just one place in just one time, only long enough to get the ball through the big sticks. Not one more square meter or one more second is needed.

It isn't really about contracts but I found myself intrigued by the way Oliver's 'headline' stats are barely a slice off his epic 2021, and yet the perception - which I agree with - has been that his impact has been a long way short of that level. So, I did some stats digging. Here's the rub, compared to 2021; His total possessions are only down two a game, and those two missing are contested. Curiously, his tackle count and clearances numbers are basically the same. His disposal efficiency is also basically unchanged and there's actually been a meaningful drop in his turnover count. But the impact is gone. Metres gained has dropped from 420 to 290, Inside 50s down from 5.2 to 3.0 and score involvements are down from 7.2 to 5.4, and he hasn't had a goal assist yet this season. Meanwhile the once uniquely useful part of his game, the intercept possessions, is just gone. Was 4.3, is now 1.8. Interestingly, even the umpires are seeing him differently, with both frees for AND against now half what they were in 2021. Fantasy Football nerds will understand the meaning of his 'Fantasy' score being relatively stable while his 'Supercoach' score has dropped by 25%. Supercoach cares about the impact rather than just accrual. His time on ground has also dropped from what was a very, very high number for midfielders of 88%, to a more regular 80%. Not such a major drop but notable that he's out there less while also, apparently, getting around less when out there.

Yeah, this is a weird one. Being fair, Beveridge is due some credit for being able to take his players into a mental space where they could excel in 2016 despite the absolute carnage of club politics going on in the previous seasons. However, since then the Bulldogs have managed just one season in which they won a final and, bizarrely, have never finished in the top 4. Seems like Beveridge either gets the team going hard at the right time of year, or has them just kind of plodding along at a level frankly beneath their capabilities. There seems to be a pair of exit doors at the Bulldogs - one for players leaving because they aren't happy with the culture of the club or are looking for more respect (most notably Dunkley, but I'd argue Daniel and Macrae both fit this) and one for players who take the seemingly unaccountable culture too far or who fall out with the 'group' (Hunter, Smith, Stringer, and it increasingly looks like Ugle-Hagan). Losing Caleb Daniel, Jackson Macrae and Bailey Smith in one season, for a couple of okay draft picks and Matt Kennedy, is a disaster. All three are now in form comparable to the best of their career, and two of them were vice-captains! Anyway, long story story; Bulldogs have underperformed compared to their list, and recently their list has leaked quality players for apparently cultural reasons. Under Beveridge, they don't have a season-on-season expectation of contending.

Interesting. isitai.com and quillbot.com both come up with less than 1% chance of AI. A ran a couple of random old notes of my own through, and they all agreed that I am human. The more I look back over it, the more it has that tone of 'tell the AI writer the pieces of information you want to share, and it will put it into an email'. My wife used to use AI writing apps as a kind of second pair of eyes just in case she hit a second-language blind spot when grinding out dozens of information-for-client emails a day. But to be absolutely blunt, if the club is using AI for this kind of communication, then the people responsible should be sacked and I should replace them myself. It would also explain why there is no actual mention of the Melbourne Football Club until the 'go Dees' sign off. Yeah, I'm doing it. I'm actually going to apply to work for the club. I'll use my writing abilities (I can bang out fresh copy at almost typing speed) as the wedge to get me in, and then secretly start doing anthropology in the storerooms.

Confession - I'm watching the Western Sydney v St Kilda game solely because I want to see how Hogan goes. Do not confuse this with actually caring about either team. I saw the St Kilda vintage gear and immediately thought about what the GWS retro outfit might be. Perhaps a memo?

I have a horrible feeling that with club-political support of people who will always assume anything Goodwin says is wrong, players got the nice soft and love-filled pre-season they wanted, against the wishes of the coach, and they didn't feel they needed to rigorously follow new instructions, and are now finding out what that means for the actual season. Meanwhile, the honorable and loved but underqualified Jones was appointed to midfield coach as a crowd-pleaser by an administration which was more concerned about settling the mood among supporters than making purposeful football decisions. Jones has been sent into a personal and professional spit bucket, our midfield system is suffering for it, and both Jones and the players are stuck in this awful situation of caring deeply but knowing it isn't working.

Multiple years of white-anting culminate in a coup so demonstrably based on vendettas and vain emotional fulfillment that it proceeded without even a plan for a successor or any articulated new agenda. The white anters - This is the previous leadership's fault for allowing themselves to be white-anted. Everyone who didn't support the white-anting is responsible for the white-anting. I was actually thinking about a somewhat similar thread with a title like; We are not in this together. Some people have undermined every action taken and every message the club has presented, for years, perhaps decades, because they'd rather be lords of the dungheap than see the club thrive under leaders they dislike.

A few games now where the result might have looked respectable if not for some junk time giveaway goals and late game fades after being at least vaguely in touch for periods. But, see, there's the thing. They don't look like respectable results because they weren't. I still don't believe in mid-season sackings but there's clearly a deep malaise at the club. We're five good players short, but the hardest thing to face is that those five players are on our list and even on the field, they just aren't being good players at the moment. And whatever 'system' we imagine we're using is just broken. I'm not sure the 2007 Geelong list could make it work.

Sigh. It is all looking too familiar. Scrappily keep ourselves clinging on in the general play but completely failing to take the opportunities when we manage to send it forward. Gradually falling behind... and then... The shoulders drop and there's a 15 minute period where we give away multiple goals. Sometimes the cycle repeats twice in a single game, sometime the slump period just runs out the rest of the game like against Geelong. It is almost the exact opposite of our 2021 experience - grinding away with a slight steady advantage, until the opponent can't keep up and we shatter them at some stage of the second half.

Also being fair,the comments themselves were of substance and articulate, so I guess you were just the right amount of wound up but walked through the wrong door!

Wrong thread buddy. About half a page of the wrong thread, too! Or should that be half a spool?

I'm not saying the umpiring has been strange at times this round, but I do feel like the officiator's cellar shouldn't be opened until after the game because the 3/4 time tipple is clearly having an impact. Anyway, nice to see that Maynard will certainly get rubbed out for a few weeks for that completely unwarranted elbow directly to the face of an opponent after the ball had already moved on.

Excellent. Just one question, though; At Australian Alliteration Academy, are all adequate applications accepted after arbitrary automated assessment?

Hmm, in 2023 to upgrade our Tholstrup pick from 14 (pre-acad etc) to 11, we gave up two picks, 27 and 35. From the entire draft pool still available from those picks, there's only a handful of players to have played ten games so far. Shaun Mannagh pick 36, Joel Freijah 45, Hugo Garcia 50, Harvey Thomas 59, Lawson Humpries at 63, and the one that might sting a bit is Calsher Dear at pick 56. It is kind of funny that Darcy Wilson, who we had an interest in, ended up sliding all the way to the pick we originally held. But in the same draft I wonder would we want to wager Wilson when we wrapped Windsor as winger alweady? Wreaks of weckless wecwuiting. Still, it does look like that draft dramatically dropped away in quality from as early as pick 15, which has been a pattern for a few years now. Even when you discount the fact that only 60ish picks are being used compared to 70-80 each year just a decade ago, the mid to late draft value has been iffy. Long story short - I don't think we missed out on any lurking Chad Warner.

Stewart available for one round in between issues. Dangerfield not being suspended for yet another elbow to the throat, and then confounding our defence. Such is life. Just Geelong's captain and vice-captain playing probably their best individual games for the season. Wouldn't have minded if Coniglio had been managed sore for round 1 instead of being played as a permanent forward, given he has only played in half the Giant's games. He was a matchwinner against us for sure. But aside from lamenting the cruelty of the footy gods, it looks like as a team we have a major problem with veteran strong-bodied mids being sent forward. Touk Miller kicked three as the Gold Coast mids romped through for about ten goals between them. The North game is about the only one not defined by midfielders kicking goals against us, and even then, well, plenty of mids and mid-sized players kicked goals against us, it was just incidental on top of everyone else kicking goals against us that day.

Imagine how calmly we could approach the rest of the season if we could just close ranks on this being the healthiest approach. Imagine the other conversations we, and the club internally, could have if we were able to set aside the bombardment. Reminds me of the times in my life when I've sat down to try to get some important work done and got up an hour later with still a blank screen or page in front of me because the entire time was consumed trying to digest the sheer varieties of entirely useless pressures and stresses that had been layered over the task.

You'd think, with that name, he'd have a wide part through the red.

Time for a free agency party to end all free agency parties. LDU and Worpel and Hewett and Bontempelli all in one go. Class, grunt, depth and away we go. I'd suggest Sam Draper as a backup ruck/forward option but he's just... so... annoying. On the other hand, if he switched to us and did well, the irritation for Essendon supporters would be exquisite.

I'll be a little bit surprised if we lose, actually. And obviously disappointed. Ever spot we climb on the ladder downgrades Essendon's draft pick, and that is an important task. Plus, win this one and we get a bit of momentum and sneak a win over Fremantle and then we can knock off Richmond and the Eagles and we'll have an even win-loss record by round 8 and have a mandate to just get obnoxiously violent at Hawthorn and get the big upset despite incurring a few suspensions and boooyaaa we're back. Wheeeeeeeeeee! Wheeeeeeee! (that sound is me riding the unicycle which is our current bandwagon)

Collapse in depth of effort, perhaps? Roost... people get banned for lesser insults than that. To be safe from further such moments, I'll adjust to the Full Metal Jacket version of "wipe that [censored] grin off your face, Pyle/Lloyd."

Seems strange for the calls to drop Fritsch to be intensifying when he actually turned in a respectable game on the weekend. Unfortunate that he missed his shots because other than that he clocked 17 disposals, a couple of goal assists, three contested marks and third highest in the team for metres gained. Even managed a bit of chasing and corralling. He's had a dog of a start to the season but he did at least show some genuine involvement - enough to argue that the worm is turning. In fact, I'd quietly suggest that our forward line is getting it together as much as possible given the collapse in depth of our midfield. As for the quality of Lloyd's comments - I'll never know what I really think of him because I just get annoyed at the sight of him. Reminds me of the now ancient movie 'Dave', where the president meets his double and tells him "You're a very handsome man, but wipe that grin off your face. You look like a schmuck."

We're lucky the Whyalla foundries don't have a playing field.

Credit to RookieMeCentral, their draft profile is another of those which exactly pins him down even several years later. https://central.rookieme.com/afl/player/james-worpel/ Would be of interest if we do lose or seek to move inside mid stock. Even if both Petracca and Oliver stay, I cannot see how we would choose to retain Sparrow unless he really begins to show something. Personally I'm losing patience as there are other players who would have begged for the level of opportunity and consistent time in the firsts, which he has received and yet not progressed beyond a barely adequate support act. Worpel was injured and subbed off barely halfway through his first game of the season, and still had more impact in that game than Sparrow's averages this year or last. As always, not 'at any price', but to fill a role to a reliable AFL standard, as a free agent on a realistic salary, it would be a yes from me.

Bitterly disappointed to not have been sent my package of Quietus as a member benefit. Although, I guess for fans of the No T$ No B$ thread, Plan D is more appropriate since it is banana flavoured. Anyway, people are losing sight of the bigger picture. This start to the season is a beautiful start, a great start, it is a start that will make us strong and soon we will dominate every other club. There will be no more losses, we will win over every club, or maybe some draws, but definitely no losses.

Nobody ever asks for help from the anthropologists. We spend so much time picking apart the dysfunctions of gurus and self-promoters that it is practically impossible for us to get momentum for a public relations campaign. Our leading slogan would be something like "Let us explain why you probably shouldn't trust us". But, in all seriousness, be prepared to fear the first club which gives a quiet anthropologist a cupboard under the stairs to live in, a notebook, and a daily ration of bread and coffee. "Uh, guys, so, um, yeah, so, like, here's a little list of a bunch of things that you're doing entirely as status-affirming rituals which just suck up time and energy for a zero-sum result, and here's a list of things you could be doing instead which are specific to achieving your actual purpose as an organisation in harmony with each individual's sense of self."