Little Goffy

Gee, WJ, a bit of the sulky pills today? Seriously, you couldn't see an angle in a 50-50 contest between one team at the start of a rebuild and another that was supposed to be at the end. I'll have to do one of my own, instead of just complaining, I guess. Back in a few hours...

I had the same thought, but more as an intellectual excersize than a real trade option. The similarities were very apparent in round 3, where both players were well under what they even normally manage to deliver, let alone the hopes we or the Tigers fans have had for them. At least Tambling had a new daughter for an (pretty fair) excuse. Sylvia drives me mad. I think that given he had a full preseason and given he's going to have plenty of opportunity... If he doesn't step up significantly in the next 19 weeks, the only thing that would keep him at the club is the hope of getting a better draft pick for him, from the Gold Coast in 2010. But, having said that, 19 weeks is a long time in football, just ask the other Colin on our list, who this time last year was considered GAWN.

This week's game is fifty fifty. No kidding. We have been exposed by bursts continuous pressure and bursts of highly effective attacking play from opponents. Richmond wont be able to hurt us enough in their periods of ascendancy to seal the game. But we can't pretend they are going to be a pushover either. Like I said, it's a fifty-fifty game. The side sotry is - if we can do about 20 points better on the margin than freo can manage against the rampant saints at telstra dome (with freo coming off a 33 degree came, travelling, with one day less break), then even if we lose to the Tigers we'll still not be last on the ladder.

A couple of times when Morton has shown some pretty fine close-in evasion skills, coupled with an uncanny ability to work free even when someone is supposed to be on him, his role as an attacking winger and reasonable flow of goals... I never got to se Robbie Flower at the time, but everything I'm told and all the footage I've seen makes me think that is the style of play we should be hoping for from Morton. Except taller. I can dream.

Yeah, I'll put in a tentative word of support here. If he comes good then a major hole in our list is at least partially filled. Certainly there's no point hoping he'll fail just because he gave us all the #$%s with what looked like a lack of intent last year. As we saw last year with Garland and Warnock, sometimes those tall guys just all of a sudden make sense of their own bodies and it all starts working that much better.

The next best thing to a win would be to see that good first half performance we've been putting up, then the fade, and then a fighback in the last that brings it to the wire. A show of some resolve and the capacity to clamp down on a possible blowout, that would be a great sign.

I'm hoping for a high scoring but reasonably close contest, to get our percentage up, but I don't expect a win. Shame of shames, I haven't even tipped us. But given that the Demons are 50% of the tips I've missed so far this year, I can be cut some slack I think. Right now we are off the bottom of the ladder by less than 1 percentage point, and just 2% behind freo as well. Freo play Adelaide at Subiaco, so go Adelaide... (erk) And surely we can count on the Dogs to dispose of Richmond. After that, we play the Tigers for the right to not hold up the ladder, and if we win that game the crisis at Tigerland might just be enough to drop them in a psychological hole they won't dig out of. At this stage Fremantle are our other big competitor for the spoon. If Pavlich doesn't pick up some form soon, they may have such a poor season we might not even come last even if we only have the mgic 'four or less wins'. That's the reality, unless we manage to pump up our own performance over the course of the year and come home with seven or eight wins.

We have three very distinct age categories at our club - a handful of veterans, a handful of 'peak years' 25 year olds, and a host of very young players. From the Veterans, the question obviously is, how many years do they have left, and is there a risk of decline? I'd be confident that Green will still be going around for a few years yet, but I'm less sure of the others in that group, and couldn't recommend them as captain right now. That said, I'm not yet ready to assume that McDonald is playing his last season. We'll see. From the mid-age group tere are a few strong players with a lot of passion and determination, but as has been pointed out there are an awful lot of injury issues here as well. Rivers, Moloney, Davey and Mclean are all quality players when fit and have all shown real commitment to the club as well. I would be shocked if we didn't have all four in the leadership group from next year and on, and I would expect that our next captain will come from this group. We all have seen them for ourselves and accumulated our opinions, so I wont elaborate further. Miller deserves a mention as a dedicated player, trainer and club man, but can go missing too often I think. Meanwhile, I think we can take the lead from Yze Magic who, despite being a firm believer in the impending arrival of Colin Sylvia, doesn't have him as a captaincy nomination. A few All-Australian seasons from Colin would be a satisfactory return on our faith, yes? Of the young guys, a couple have been marked from birth as leaders. The mark is easily recognised - it is "Jack". Jack Grimes was widely touted as an excellent player and a responsible, calm and moderating influence on the playing groups around him. Emma Quayle's "The Draft" makes several mentions of him in this context, basically noting him as the best leader in the group that toured South Africa, alongside Trent Cotchin. Some may remeber that he was Captain of the Northern Knights when it seemed to be chockers full of potential number one draft picks, so obivously some rate him. It also doesn't hurt that he grew up as a massive Demons fan, like Brent Moloney from the mid-age group. Jack Watts. Aside from an unprecedented combination of results at draft camp (sprint, agility, leap, height, peripheral awareness, ability to make babies stop crying), and a best-of-carnival award for the under 18s championships, it is just about impossble to go a week without seeing some article somewhere that tells us all about what a charismatic, unpretentious, warm, and dedidcated guy Jack Watts is. Which is nice. But perhaps the element of these articles that gives the fans a little rush of adrenaline is the regular commentary on his absolute determination to be the absolute best he possibly can be. His leadership potential might be summed up with the comment 'he's like Nathan Buckley, but not a #$%'. BUT, may I request that some form of voluntary code be introduced where we never again actually declare a very young player as a 'future captain' - when people started saying it about Miller, his form collapsed and only slowly recovered over years. When people said it about Mclean, his form/body collapsed for a couple of seasons as well. It's a genuine kiss of death, so can we stick to thinking of 'who would be our best choice as captain starting this year/next year only.

The idea with all the tam rules, which irk many and sometimes even (endlessly patient) me, is to develop a habit of being aware of what eachother are supposed to be doing, and to have a means of accounting for whether people are in the positions they are expected to be in and doing the things they are expected to do. Sometimes it is limiting, definately, but the 'natural game' has to be balanced by a 'team brain' and that collective brain has to be taught. The really painful part is that we are playing team rules designed to suit a superhero CHF when the poor kid is still only learning to cope that that his secret identity is out.

Oops. Well, please feel free to revise my earleir comment to "writing players off before their 50th game". I see how that is a major difference, yeah. Doesn't change my point - a player needs to be genuinely poor before they deserve to be written off this early in an inteerupted career. Bartram has been an effective tagger and has excellent fitness, courage and determination. His disposal isn't any worse than much of the team, and he is often in positions of intense pressure because that is the place he is expected to be - these aren't soft kick-marks we're talking about, he's generally on the opposition's most dangerous small forward/midfielder. I'd have no problem if someone said 'probably needs a run at Casey until he can improve his confidence and disposal a bit, but to write him off? Bleah.

Yeah, what he said. I though Davey had a good game, I still would like to see him more in the forward line, but also recognise that we need to have a range of players who can run through the midfield and that developing that capability in Davey is a worthwhile goal.

Yeah, obivously 'would have been top 15 if not for X' is a good reason to pass on someone at pick 64. Just like you, I love writing guys off after less than 30 games, it makes all my own inadequacies a little easier to ignore. But I think you may have 'twisted' it once too often there.

31 disposals, 5 tackles. Unfortunately, one (1) of those disposals didn't hit a team-mate. Stats obviously don't tell a whole story and there certainly was a bit of chipping, but it supports my initial impression that Davey was routinely in the right place at the right time, positioning himself to recieve and then effectively getting it to another player. Several times he managed some quite beautiful pieces of play. Among our best.

I'm just going to put in a little plug for Mark Jamar here. He's actually one of our top tacklers, and the number one tackler amongst ruckmen in the AFL, and usually works hard to negate the opposition ruckman. Given that the last two games have been significantly swung by opposition ruckmen, I think it's a good moment to give him a nod of respect on that and to look forward to having him back soon. It's also a funny feeling to have as many injuries as we did most of last year, but to know that almost all of them only have one or two weeks left on the mend. And to be easily on the way to breaking our membership records even when we haven't yet turned our fortunes around on the field.

Jurrah was taken with the first pick it was possible for him to be taken with, as he had nominated in time for the National draft and was only available in the pre-season/rookie drafts, where he was taken with pick 1. He was also a somewhat 'left field' selection from a very low-profile playign career - as is well documented, there will be a need for him to develop physically and adjust to the tactics and rythms of AFL football. BUT Nobody anywhere has cast any doubt on his ability to play the game. I guess we'll know a little more later this afternoon and each week after that, but to say 'chances are he will be a dud' is just a bit rude to the guy, don't you think?

On the satruday training session before Round 1 he joined several of the match-simulation drills, even got a bit airborne a few times with no signs of discomfort. Then did full-pace 200m and 400m runs. He was definately going full speed and looked seriously, seriously keen. It was a refreshing sight and I everything he did near where I was watching, he did with a real sense of urgency and importance, he even looked keen as he walked back to line up for his next run through. There's been some kind of change in his body shape, too. I'm not sure exactly what, put he seemed more athletic than I remember. I left that training session really looking forward to seeing him back on the park.

Is it just to obvious? We're Back

Actually, since it's the 'Jeff Kennett is a bastard cup', I'd like to revise my prediction upwards by about seven million. I'd completely forgoten about that - this game is the Inaugural Jeff Kennett is a Bastard Cup, something that we can all get behind, even those of us who thought he was 'the right bastard at the right time' can still acknowledge he is a bastard.

Number of wins: 9 Average losing margin: 20 points Average winning margin: 12 points B&F top 3: 1. Green 2. Mclean 3. Bate! Leading goal-kicker: Bate, 47 goals All Australian representatives: Green, Mclean Top votes at the Brownlow: McLean Best first year player: Bail (will get the most game time) Breakthrough year (first-year players do not count): Obiovusly from above, Bate, but the other will be Dunn. Disappointment of the year: Grimes missing the majority of the season through injury Biggest area of improvement: Forward pressure, some progress on clearances (esp around the ground) Surprise packet of 2009: Jordie Mckenzie. But also, Robbo, who will rub our noses in it for forgetting him. Headline of the year: Demons tear apart top four (after knocking Blues and then Saints down in rnd 21/22) Best win of the year: Round 21, Carlton, to deny them a top four finish, after which they exit in an insipid elimination final. Worst loss of the year: North Melbourne at the dome in round 19. Final membership numbers: And some extra for fun: Debuts: 9 in order: Spencer, Bail, Cheney, Bennell, Strauss, Meesen, Watts, Blease, Jurrah Delistings: Just 4. Meesen (contracted or not), Wheatley, Newton, Cheney (redrafted as rookie) If Newton is lucky he'll get traded (for a token pick) to a club in even more need of a forward prospect than us at the end of this year, e.g. Sydney, Adelaide, Essendon. We're holding trade stock for 2010 Gold Coast entry, and we have so many players who it would be unfair to dispose of before they've had a proper go, 2009 will be a pretty stable year. Robbo, Whelan and McDonald will all be fighting fit for another year anyway.

We've become a self of our former shadow!

I'll tip 36,912. I'm bringing a few extra though, so might be more like 36,917.

If not the club, then Demonland could introduce a 'Kaspersky Award' for best defender each week, or better still, anytime a defender holds their direct opponent to zero goals. Nothing gets past Kaspersky.

But that's the trouble - Russian names are never as hard as everyone expects them to be, so eveyone ends up second guessing themselves. It took years for people to stop calling Marat Safin "Saffeen".

Thank YOU! Come to think of it... my work could use a consolidation of IT security systems - post merger. And they really should have the best, since they do a lot of work with very confidential material. I'll get onto it, perhaps alongside spruiking Mates of Melbourne as a business-to-business networking environment, since they are also a business services company.

Impressive, Casey seems to have everything underway before we have time to properly complain about anything - the moment someone mentions it, "yep, that'll be getting done next tuesday". So... Geez I wish Casey Fields would hurry up and get a [foolproof premiership winning plan] installed, it really sucks that they haven't got one.