Little Goffy

I'm a bit torn. On the one hand, the Western Sydney honchos, from the Demetriou legacy down, can all cop a hiding as far as I'm concerned. The height of arrogance to think they can spend $100m of "AFL collective" money without having a decent strategy in place and with such a slip-shod set of rules. On the other hand, I've got no reason to have any objection to the players (almost all) and the coaches up there, and if GWS doesn't at least reach a level of consistent, respectable and watchable football then it will be a drain on the rest of the league for many, many years to come. My ideal storyline is that GWS falters in the short term, lose some more draft picks, undergo a complete 'rescue strategy' endorses by the other AFL clubs in a particularly crank mood. That strategy would involve an in-depth development of second and even third-tier competitions in Sydney, abandonment of the ridiculous Canberra diversion, and a NSW reserves structure resembling a greatly extended rookie list, improving the available depth for both Western Sydney and Sydney. Because yes, decades on, even the Swans would quickly become a liability if they weren't consistently competitive. The absence of an effective strategy for game development in NSW was an embarrassment before, but now that the AFL is over-committed to subsidising it at the top level, it progresses to 'debacle' status. That said, I'm really happy the kids at the Giants gave Hawthorn a bit of a shake. They didn't ask and don't deserve to be miserable every week!

Indeed. I don't know how this place will get by without insights like "He's a spud". Thanks for your input darling, have another beer.

I think before the seasons we were all anticipating (with breath held) a real change in performance and all those football 'non-negotiables'. And maybe three wins half way through the season would have been considered the goal, too. But after the failure against St Kilda in round 1 and what felt like a shaky start for a couple more rounds, expectations were in a spin. Now, we appear to be playing genuinely credible, respectable football. And our 3 wins by mid season have come mostly in games we would not have anticipated it from. I keep referring to St Kilda to describe the season - since round 1, they've tailed off, while we keep strengthening. I'm not quite 'excited all day'. But I am quietly pleased and looking forward to the future.

i wonder if Essendon's offer to pay the player's legal fees would also cover the legal costs for players who sue the club? ASADA is an under-resourced shambles and anyone who thinks the public service is over-staffed and over-resourced should stop and think of the tiny team there trying to handle huge, complex, high-stakes cases all while being pilloried in the media and under political pressure from ministers in two different Commonwealth governments and plenty of interested state governments. As someone else mentioned earlier in the thread, ASADA's funding is being cut significantly in this budget. Remember it. Just like everyone needs to remember that organisations like the child protection agency are routinely the first area cut by new governments trying to 'stop the bloated waste'. All I'm saying is, if you vote for those cuts, you don't get to complain about failures. You get to raise your hand and say 'sorry, my fault'. Come to think of it, I wonder how ASADA's total budget for handling the Essendon saga compares to Hird's salary for sitting quietly out of the way?

I'd be more than happy to see him just playing at Casey next year. Less pressure, more time to do what he needs to do to keep himself healthy. All depends on if it works for him. As a side note, it would be a meaningful gesture to all those hand-wringing supporters on the brink of spouting bizarre hate because the man dared to have an illness. The betrayal!

Sun's improvement has been impressive but ease up. So far this season they have beaten precisely the bottom six teams, plus the up-and-down North Melbourne. How they go for these coming six rounds will tell us a lot more. Adelaide (Adelaide) Sydney (home) West Coast (Perth) Geelong (home) Hawthorn (Tassie) Collingwood (home) If they are still in the top four at the end of that, then we're watching a true rising superteam. On the other hand, they could easily finish that stretch without a win and not even in the top 8. By the end of that

Tanking? Well, one way or another I'm pretty sure that effort was 'bringing the game into disrepute'. I support, in principle, the expansion of AFL in Sydney, but gee, they've made a mess of it. Total lack of strategy. Massive hubris. All the good 'I've been the CEO forever so everyone will do it the way I just invented" traits.

Jack Riewoldt. 5 marks, of which all five are inside forward 50m. None of them contested. Debacle. What the? He has a running bounce to his name?

They never had a chance. If there's one certainty in football, it is that Jack Riewoltd will kick goals just as soon as it doesn't matter anymore. That said... oh Giants... that's just getting embarrassing. Maybe they will have to bring in Andrew Demetriou to run the place, since so far he's the only person who has 'won' them anything. Sigh, I spent a couple of months up in Sydney recently and I have to say the atmosphere at Giants games was cheerful enough. Small but happy crowds who were quite cheerfully aware that any win was an upset and that for now it was just about enjoying the potential and individual performances. And of course, the win over Sydney had them well excited. But this... as we all know, massive losses when you're expecting to see improvement and competitiveness really suck the fun out. And the Giants will only have crowds at all for as long as it is seen as fun.

Trying to add to the list of 'at the crossroads' - Fitzpatrick seems to be stagnating a bit at the moment. We've seen that he can show much better form, but if we don't see it much for the remainder of the year, well, there aren't likely to be any times in future where there are more opportunities at Melbourne for his type than what are available now. Neville Jetta ® is obviously on his last chance to show he can deliver AFL standard in more than bursts. Michael Evans, I really like him, but he just seems to be a bit short of AFL level. Other than these three and the many already mentioned, I think the remainder of the 'questionable' players have either shown enough to warrant a little more perseverance, or are simply so young it would be a bit odd to cut them unless they had genuine problems that simply puts a line through their name.

I think there's a really strong resemblance between Cross coming to us from the Dogs and Junior being 'lost' and reappearing at the Giants. Similar types of players and, by all accounts, similar quality of human being. And yes, absolutely it would make sense for Cross to evolve into a part of the coaching group. We'll see what happens in time, I guess.

I really loving this season. Teams are up and down week by week and the ladder 'range' over which surprise wins are happening is more than it has been in years. I have no idea how we are really going overall, but I went into last week's game thinking we were a shotto win, and I'll go into this week's game thinking the same. And the disappointment of round 1 is being steadily eased each week, as it feels like St Kilda have gone backwards since then while we have made progress.

Wesley College, Glen Waverly.

Just goes to show, AFL clubs need to be more careful and maybe give a second thought to taking people with backgrounds like his. It is just too big a risk to take.

I got a little thrill to see Blease getting some pretty good numbers - I almost don't care how the details went, especially in what sounds like an incredibly soggy field. We all know Blease's biggest problem has been to get consistently involved in play. anything that helps make that feel normal for him, anything that makes him feel like he can get it if he keeps going after it, is a big boost.

It's funny, with the new government there are no positions advertised between 'temp' and Senior Executive Service level. So it becomes easy to notice things like ASADA doing a top-end recruiting drive... You'd think they could have done that 12 months ago, or maybe they are replacing all their burn-outs from being under-resourced to deal with all this. What a mess. Part of the fine tradition of ministers and over-eagedrDepartmental Secretaries looking to grab a headline or two and in the process dumping their staff in the unfunded poo for a year or two. Staff get out of the area as fast as they can, making the whole job even harder for the remaining few, and the unfortunate newbies who had no idea what they were getting themselves into. This whole debacle will one day be prime meat for the Australian National Audit Office - "Australia's leaders in deadpan comedy".

The head high contact, and therefore the injury as well, were not made as a result of Viney's bump but as a result of the 'pile up' effect as Georgio also came into the contest. Neither Viney nor Glass-jaw were in motion of their own at the time!

Mitch Thorp for Hawthorn. C-c-c-c-c-COMBO BREAKER!

Bruce the Goose (ahh, does anyone else remember the 200 Olympics drinking game?) made a great contribution to the commentary world by creating a new term during the Essendon-Collingwood game. "Aggressivising"

The thought occurs to me, if Essendon had been punished for the 'bringing the game into disrepute' charge by having it's ANZAC Day fixture removed, there would have been a lot more stink and outrage, and it would have sent a much more potent message, than the twiddling with draft picks and fines.

If wishes were horses people who had their horse appropriated by the nobility wouldn't be beggars!

In his later time at Collingwood they were playing him as the second ruck as well as forward. It seriously messed him up, to put it simply. Part of his motivation for coming to Melbourne was the promise of being a true forward again - perhaps ironically, there were concerns that the ill-suited mixed role was giving his body a very rough time.

Nooooooo! I thought there was some kind of rule about declaring teenagers as 'future captains'? Jack Trengove, Brock Mclean Brad Miller Scott Thompson Any other recent ones I've missed?

Hmm... have you considered supporting Richmond?

I finishes the game with mixed feelings, aware that we have definitely improved since last year (well, duh), aware that we were looking like a much more effective team... but also aware that there were still critical lapses - marks not quite held, handballs and kicks just that little bit (fatally) too loose, and still player who fade in and out of contests or who just don't quite automatically make the efforts required. But there was a thought that occurred to me after the game. 'This isn't forever'. A lot of times in the last couple of years, it felt like 'this is us, yep, bring on the draft, this is all that's going on for us this year and it is miserable'. I never imagined that the ultimate football cliche would be such a comfort, but I caught myself thinking 'well, that's today's game, let's reload and see how we go, see what can improve next week, it can be a different effort and a different result any given week'. Who would've thought being able to say 'I'm looking at this one week at a time' would feel like an achievement?