Little Goffy

I've suddenly realised why it all took so long - 'Casey Mayor Geoff Ablett'. We all know how hard it is to get a signature from G. Ablett.

Is it worth pointing out that it's June, in Melbourne... We should ty to shift the date, to say, late April. Be aweseom if we added a few blockbusters in september, too. That'd give us a decent chance of good weather.

Interesting seeing Dunn and Bartram being the named onballers. Between them they will have to take responsibility for getting the ball and clearing it, as well as their habitual stopping roles. No-one else to do it.

Yep, on the one hand it's a shame he misses, on the other hand, it lightens the load for him just a little as her closes in on hideous exam time. As a developing player, and with the mature head he's got on his shoulders, he'll hardly take it personally or even as a backward step. I was startled to seem him dropped, but as pointed out, it's an appropriate call, this week.

You've written off Petterd after how many games? At what age? With what injury interruptions? And Jones will only ever be average? You also missed Bate completely. Let's try this another way, where do we need decent players over the next two years? I've dropped due to age or form (but who knows, one or two might turns things around)... Bruce, Robertson, McDonald, Whelan, Wheatley, Bell, Dunn, Newton F: Wonaeamirri Bate Maric HF: Sylvia Watts Green C: Morton Moloney Davey HB: Grimes Garland Blease FB: Cheney Warnock Frawley Foll: Jamar Mclean Jones With the interchange coming from: Johnson, Strauss, Bennell, Bartram, Martin, Rivers, Miller, Buckley, Petterd. And then of course there's various levels of speculation on... Meesen, Spencer, Bail, Jetta, McNamara, Jurrah. I guess all I'm saying is, we have a football team here, a lot of it is very young, and it's frankly bizarre to be talking of 'condemned to mediocrity' when almost half of our team each given week has less than 50 games to their name with a few more barely past that.

There are also people who trawl the internet looking at other people's personal pages and leaving abusive comments. It's only an issue if Watts never plays another game.

Jacks Aces. We've got two of them out there after all. You realise this is actuallty the perfect game for Jack Grimes to go berserk out there. He's had a bit of time to find his feet, been very good already. And he's been waiting most of his life for a chance to personally thump Collingwood, like a true Demon. Jack Grimes to get this week's Rising Star Nomination, while Watts does a few nice things in a solid debut with a couple of promising contested marks that keep us all drooling for the future. Is that too much to ask?

In a further thought, West Coast play eight of their remaining games against current bottom eight teams.

Yep, that's the way it is. If Richmond also finish with the 4 wins or less, they get their pick at the end of the first round, since it would only be their first (consecutive) year at the bottom. For what it's worth, I don't think West Coast is likely to win just the one more game for the rest of the season, They've already beaten Port and the Dogs at Subiaco as well as us, and have only been smashed once (by St. Kilda at the Dome) so far. It pains we to say it, but West Coast, right this minute, are a better team than us, substantially because they have a few key stars holding them together while the kids develop, which we simply don't... yet. Regardless, I'm hardly about to sweat on the difference between pick one and two versus pick one and three. It would make winning five a bit more painful; assuming we pass them and also Richmond, We could start at pick 4!

Well, funnily enough, there's Nick Riewoldt. Was 18/19 in his first year, as opposed to Watt's 17/18. Played six games, kicked two goals, laid a total of three tackles, and averaged less than ten disposals. Of course, then he got 11 brownlow votes in his second year on the way to picking up the Rising Star award. Speaking of Rising Star winners, Jared Rivers collected a whopping 5 disposals in the three games of his debut season, total. Moral of the story? Sit down and shut up. The kid got 20+ disposals as a HFF/Winger, at 197cm, working from an interrupted training schedule. Can't be all bad.

Jamar has always taken contested marks, not as many as yesterday, but he'll take one or two a game routinely. He's also routinely among our top tacklers! Consistent racks up a few every game I'm thrilled that Jamar has had an undeniably great game. He puts in a huge amount of work and gets far too much crap from people expecting him to be Dean Cox or Matthew Kruezer or something.

On a positive note, at three quarter time we became eligible for the Federal Governmen stimulus money... I watched Bennell pretty closely today and finally got an answer to my nagging doubt about him - his disposals tend not to find teammates as often as would be ideal. I've concluded that the reason for this is that he tends to get the ball at times when really it shouldn't have been possible.

There's a theme to my thoughts about 'we should have drafted x over y' discussions. Like the Rioli v Morton debate, the Watts v Natanui, Rich etc. debate is one of close margins between apples and oranges. It's not, as I've said before, like we're looking at a Fiora/Pavlich or Tambling/Franklin comparison. Those oranges are definately a cut above the apples.

Haven't heard about the foxtel piece, can anyone fill me in? Great report, and I particularly liked the understatement on these mysterious skilled midfielder and marking forward prospects.

Our involvement with the VWFL at staff and administration level will do a lot to improve that potential sponsor engagement which obvously was a long, long way from acceptable standards, as shown by your experience. It's hard to build professinalism when resources are so limited and so thinly spread. Both the alignment with the other Melbourne clubs and the China experiment should have worked, but then CEO Steve Harris is a [censored] who doesn't follow through on his 'big picture' declarations, or sytematically analyse the appropriate strategy, so they didn't. (Yes, I'm not a fan of Harris). I'd expect better from Stynes, Connolly and Schwab.

I marketing terms, those 1000+ women playing in Victoria would be 'champions', they would be advocates for the game and for whichever club (that would be us) gave them real support. Being able to say 'Yeah, the players from the Demons come around to take us through some skills sessions once in a while, and for extra training before state tournaments' would give a real boost to the sense of legitimacy and significance which womens footbll has for the participants and for anyone they talk to. Essentially, what we're doing is sending a message that we're taking women's football seriously. That will be really appreciated, will help the women's league gain new players, supporters, and sponsors, and something for which we will be remembered - particularly if the women's league really starts to grow over the next couple of years. Which, by the way, is something that was already on the cards - they are starting to get much better organised. Actually, noting that our involvement will also be at staff level, this means that the key decision-makers in the WVFL will be highly aware of and sympathetic to the Demons for some years. And of course talk of a player emerging from the WVFL to AFL ranks is obivously very long term. But in ten years time, with a couple of premierships under our belt, a long period of late draft picks and guys like Blease and Watts getting a bit long in the tooth, it might be handy having dibs on one or two bonus decent quality players. We may even get some form of scholarship player arrangement like the NSW scholarships. But yeah, all things going well, we would probably be talking ten years before the development pathway was properly in place and the club/fan culture was ready to cope with such controversial actions as allowing people with ovaries into the AFL. Another thing to look forward to - the Victorian women's state representatives joining in running Auskick clinics with the Demons. Now THAT makes for good role models. Nothin make sme happier than seeing people I'm associated with doing the right thing, creating a great win-win situation, and reaping the rewards simply because they had the initiative to do it when other's lagged behind.

The article says 1000 adult players, in the formal VWFL. Then the juniors. Marketing wise, we just smashed our way into the young, athletic, women's market, and will gain general positive support from a much wider population as well. Leadership wise, we just gave women's football and women's inclusion in football a significant boost that will see it become a stronger and stronger part of our game over the years. Culture wise, we just established an ongoing relationship between our players and women athletes in a cooperative environment working on the same tasks and goals. And that will be very important when, many years from now... On field wise, we just got first dibs on AFL's first 'Lauren Jackson' (playing HFF I would think)

It's another one of those things which worked out well for all involved. Brisbane would be happy overall with Johnstone's performance and what he offers, though he has had some poor patches. We ought to be thrilled at the potential Grimes is showing. And Travis has had a fresh start which seems to have done him good. Apparently no razors available in Queensland, though.

Whatever.

Some years ago, when we were pushing for top four still, there was talk of bringing in Fevola or Whitnall. At the time I was more in favour of Whintall, because Fevola is a #$^S. It's still touch and go between the two! Anyhow, I crossed the idea off immediately when it became apparent that the contemplated trade involved Brad Green going. On that, I rest my crystal ball.

When a 'good bloke' with four kids goes out drinking every night for a month... yeah, that's for real. Could easily hae crashed out, burnt a few key relationships and not really gotten it back together. Ended up like Carey. It's interesting that he's willingly put it in the open. I guess it's better than having it gossiped about later. Possibly also a cathartic process. Might even be doing it as a kind of public service announcement - sometimes you fall off, you've got to get back on. I like that the Demons have been part of getting things back right for a champion of the game. I also can't help wondering if this is another part of the 'out-in-the-open' club culture which is so actively being developed, and which I have huge respect for. It takes guts, that's for sure.

It might not even be footy related. After Travis Cloke was attacked up on the Gold Coast, the hopelessly drunk guy who did it ended up going for a drive, crashed and died (as I understand it) People who do these things might just also be dumb/crazy enough to think that somehow he is a related target.

Guys, this isn't exactly a Fiora v Palich or Tambling v Franklin issue, is it. Morton is an excellent young player, offering first rate football as a teenager, depsite being a tall with a still very skinny frame. The possibilites are immense. And if we'd had Rioli, would Wonaeamirri have gotten as much of a chance from the rookie list? Particularly important given his injury issues in his second year. Rioli is also a gem and filled the role he was targeted for perfectly. I think it has and will work out beautifully for all parties concerned.

Gotta remember that looks wise, according to the 'experts' I'm acquainted with, Miller is just about on a level with his spectacular wife Pia. I also hear from more vague sources that they are both lovely people. So the rest of you can 'suffa in ya jocks'. Looking forward to seeing Brock on. I wonder if he's got a specific topic to bring up and that's why he's been put on.

Carlton were 4/7 at the middle of the year then lost 11 games straight, including more than a couple against bottom four teams. They were talking up 'their' number one pick months ahead of the draft and even ahead of the end of the season. We are 1/7 after eight rounds in a season with only a couple of teams noticably off the pace. We're playing a host of kids and players who are coming back off in some cases years out of the game, so we are highly likely to simply get worn out. Our draw gets a little easier and we do seem to be improving, but we'd be about 50/50 in anyones best guess to make it to five wins playing and 'list managing' with full competitive effort. Anyone who accuses us of deliberately tanking will lose all possible respect from me. It's not like we'll get to round 22 and be think 'oh gee, we'd better go soft and make sure we don't beat St. Kilda'.