Little Goffy

Yoikes, it is no wonder Simon Goodwin struggles to embed a game plan when the goalposts keep getting shuffled around. One moment Brisbane are missing key players, the next it is the replacements. Coleman, Doedee and McCarthy may well be in our 22, but they wouldn't be pushing our Petracca, Oliver and Brayshaw to do it. Anyway, it is a side argument. You believe that Simon Goodwin is the problem, I believe we've been hit hard by circumstance and have managed to load up on new talent during the storm.

Sigh. You just know the moment anyone says 'I'm optimistic that if we can get our best players back on the field we'll be back in contention' someone with a Goodwin-shaped axe to grind will announce that Brisbane had just returned from the Somme when they won the premiership. I'll sum it up. Oscar McInerney was the only missing Brisbane player who had polled a top-5 best and fairest finish at any club in the previous four seasons. Meanwhile the Demons we're trying to make do without two routine contenders for the Brownlow medal as well as one of our most important leaders, on top of a normal injury mix. Anyway, 2024 featured not only injuries but more simply a very poor season from about half a dozen of our best players. It was a huge drop in performance. If most of them return from injury and regain some form, then 2024 will be defined by the swell that produces alongside multiple highly rated kids that our misfortune and wisdom has allowed us to draft and to get games into. There is a possibility that we will absolutely stop the competition into dust in 2025. But the range of possibilities for us includes everything from barely competitive to absolutely dominant. It's a weird one. Just please leave the axe at the door.

I understood the compelling need to have that tall forward target in 2024, and if it had worked even a little better it could have turned a few games and we may even have played finals. But I've long seen Petty as a potential All-Australian level defender, and our medium-long term succession in defence is actually more of a concern than our longer term forward line. It was worth trying, it didn't really work, and Petty in defence is a much more effective player than Petty up forward. Also, Picket Fence, don't go thinking you're sneaky - I can see you over there quietly loading coal into the Jefferson steam train ;)

Yes please. Name built for our social media team to compile highlights on the wing... Hopefully he doesn't go to the devils.

Can former public servants join? After all, a lawyer is just an adversarial bureaucrat. (ducks for cover)

They are one of only two teams to win three World Cups (the other being South Africa). Since world rankings were introduced in 2003, the All Blacks have held the #1 spot 80% of the time. They have won 10 of 16 Tri-Nations tournaments; six of seven Rugby Championships; and retained the Bledisloe Cup for 17 years. I got a big bag of churlish to hand out for anyone who wants to compare that to 1 premiership in 14 seasons on an easy wicket.

Alas, numbers go up.

And all that pain right before the 'franchise' teams came in and blew a hole in any further rebuilding efforts. I take some comfort that we weren't the only club to stink up that draft. It is hilarious that after four picks in the first round, we gained a heritage-grade champion with pick 34. Also kind of funny that with Gawn and Melksham (who we originally hoped to get at 11) we have two of the six players still playing from that draft. Fremantle can relate to that - taking injury-cruelled Morabito at 4 but then getting exactly the player that they hoped Morabito would become at pick 20. Port Adelaide managed Butcher, Moore and Pittard at 8,9 and 16. Ouch. But when I look back at that draft era I can't help but feel a smirking pity for Carlton, whose drafting pain was spread in small doses year after year and prevented them from assembling a full team around what should have been an incredible champion core. Pretty much from the moment they traded Kennedy and pick 3 for Judd, it all went wrong. 2008 - Pick 6, Chris Yarran 2009 - Pick 12, Kane Lucas 2010 - (compromised draft) Pick 18, Matthew Watson 2011 - (Compromised draft) pick 22, Josh Bootsma 2012 - Pick 11, Troy Menzel 2013 - Pick 13, Patrick Cripps 2014 - Pick 19, Blaine Boekhurst 2015 - Finally a jackpot, with Weitering, McKay and Curnow 2016 - Pick 6, Sam Petrevski-Seton 2017 - Pick 3, Paddy Dow & Pick 10, Lachie O'Brien (Special mention to De Koning at 30) Ten drafts, a total of 13 first round picks, just 4 of them have been successful at AFL level, with three of those from a single draft. Honestly, their drafting hasn't improved much since. Finally got a swell of okay kids in the last couple of seasons and the difference shows, but no doubt a decade of very weak drafting is a significant reason behind the Blues never quite becoming a top threat despite having several absolutely first-rate champions.

Might as well say 'and other clubs can access free agency' or 'other clubs have trades'. Sydney has exactly the same access to f/s selections as every other club. Tom Mitchell was one of their best when they [] the bed against the Bulldogs in 2016. In addition to that they have been able to recruit, using disposable late picks; Braeden Campbell (2020), Errol Gulden (2020), Nick Blakey (2018), Callum Mills (2015), Isaac Heeney (2014) 2024 Swans best and fairest 1. Heeney, 2 Gulden, 5, Blakey, 2023 Swans best and fairest 1. Gulden, 2 Blakey, 8 Mills 2022 Swans Best and fairest 1. Mills, 5 Heeney, 7 Gulden Without the academy free kicks Sydney would have spent the last eight or so years being competitive but not a serious threat. Certainly their last grand final appearance would have been 2016, and even that season got a major boost from the fast-starting Heeney and Mills.

His win rate is less than 1 game per season better than Goodwin and for finals they are equal. Goodwin has only ever coached one finals blow-out, in his first ever finals campaign with a young team with barely a player who had finals experience. Longmire has literally never coached a team with less finals experience than the Demon's have now! Anyway, Longmire is a very good coach who fell short of greatness despite everything in his favour. I'm really just throwing down the gauntlet to any of the Goodwin-hating numbnuts out there who also want to pump Longmire's tyres.

Oh to be a club that doesn't leak. This has probably been a conversation with Dean Cox for a couple of months. You can guarantee Cox would have been having significant input into trade and draft conversations with this transition in mind. I have mixed feelings about Longmire's legacy. Zero doubt he is a very good coach, but I cringe when people describe him as great or one of the best. In the end, with a lot of favours going his way (coaching a club in solid form with ideal facilities and established culture, significant home ground advantage, which had already played finals almost continuously for 15 years, and which wasn't subject to the 'natural cycle' thanks to academy pick top-ups) his coaching record is roughly on par with Simon Goodwin.

For Shame! For Shame! May all your elevator rides be shared with Stewart Dew in a bad mood. Personally I thought the answer was going to be something to do with either profession outside football or some kind of animal mascot connected to the name. Ooh - in all cases there's a different common way to spell at lease one of their names?

Season ending podcast sounds like a nasty injury. "Yeah, obviously we're all very disappointed after it seemed like such an innocuous incident at the time, but he overextended his wit and it really blew up on monday so we're taking a precautionary approach. We're hoping that with a sustained program of social rehabilitation we'll have him back on simple conversations in about four to six weeks, and then begin working on his banter in time for round 1."

Only 6 from NSW, with one from Queanbeyan and one each from Moama from Albury, is an absolute stinker of a result too. Between that and the 4 from Queensland it means the AFL recruited just 7 players from above the Barassi line. That's $200m well spent. Also wondering if there might be a few Tassie kids who crossed to Victoria for exposure in their final pre-draft season to boost exposure, and that might mask their origins?

Saying he 'could do with a stern talking to' is hardly whipping him to death, though, is it? I love Fritsch and he is easily my wife's favourite player, but he had a very poor 2024 - particularly in the second half of the year - and the general problems in the team made his limitations very visible. He was down on every stat by about 20% and normally you'd hope that someone going through a slump would look to get back to basics and do the team things (and the other cliches) to work their way through it, but he couldn't manage it. He really looked like he had no preseason and a permanent head cold all season. Fingers crossed we get premium Fritsch back for 2025, because off his own boot and as a creative presence it would make a goal a game difference compared to 2024.

Chandler probably the lead candidate as he has the work rate and the role would help smooth his uneven performance. Sparrow might work and, like Chandler, the role would help keep him involved usefully at the times he isn't gathering the ball so much, but that would need some adjustments to his body (less crash, more dash) which might be counter-productive if we have him penciled in as a long term heavy body in the packs. Tholstrup has a real chance of developing into a potent weapon (I keep thinking a taller Paul Chapman) but in the contemporary game the starting point for a good mid-sized forward is harassment and pursuit. That'll take continuing fitness over multiple pre-seasons, but overall I can certainly see him contributing to our forward harrassment and even being a defensive forward when the need arises, though not in the Nibbler sense of all-day responsibility. Spargo knows how to be in positions which stop the ball from coming near him. A statistic-destroying skill but a valuable contribution, especially when he can also be so smart on the occasions he does get the ball. However, everything is at best 'monitor' with Spargo until he gets a clean injury run and finds some confidence. A collection of players (Bowey, Woewodin, Howes, Sharp, Brown, Hore) who aren't firmly wedded to a current position or even firmly in the 22 might each be given time to prove their team-first mettle across half-forward and that may turn up a nugget, but all have reasons to doubt, as well. Of course, I'm also 100% in favour of a whole-team ethic on these things. One of the reasons I have so much respect for TMac is he always delivered the pressure acts, and it is also a solid part of Van Rooyen's game. Fritsch could do with a stern talking to on this. Water finds the hole.

It is going to be weird watching our first pick (natural 36) go up and down wildly as academy bids add one selection to the early draft and then the picks being cashed in for points take other selections away. We could move as high as 40 and then back down to 30 in the space of an hour.

Wait and watch for the 2029 rule change that allows all impact injury payments to be completed outside the cap.

This ought to get Demonstone's juices flowing. Maybe a team entirely of players who have written for The Age?

These AI prompt image generators are getting scarily accurate. Feel like this is a strange selection but clearly we're on a years-long mission to find some forward mongrel to complement tough-but-smooth Van Rooyen and a couple of the lighter bodies we have coming through. Turner, Kentfield, Johnson and Sestan, hmm, I feel like we should be grabbing Cameron Mooney as a specialist 'forwards who know they aren't the best in the team but who will make sure you know they're playing' coach.

Well now that's got good omens written all over it.

Social maths is never so simple. Indigenous people are a much higher share of the 'Australian football' population. Even in the formal kids program, Auskick, 6.5% of the kids noted on their registration that they were Indigenous. So we're already looking at an expected five or so draftees per season and 50+ players on lists before you even begin looking at the disparity of participation in informal play or the effects of whole community relationships to Australian football. The Rioli family is not a statistically significant share of the Australian population! Given the timelines the article discusses, if there's a question to be answered it is simply "Has there been a negative shift in Indigenous participation in elite pathways since the Covid period?" If the previous connections were thinned out during the disruptions, such as culturally specific programs being cut during Covid and not yet restored, or community coaching programs in general haven't kept pace with the private school programs, then that would explain the current mild decline and would also point to a risk of continuing problems.

Lots of people will be pretty pleased with how that worked out. I suspect most disappointment will be with St Kilda's Battle compensation taking Alix Tauru from us. I'm going to hope that it works out a bit like getting Van Rooyen after missing out on Mac Andrew.

I've been struggling to find an analogy. Lindsay was easy because something twigged in me that said 'Kade Simpson', but Langford I can't quite pin a comparison. Earlier in the thread a couple of people noted an Angus Brayshaw look at times, and that caught my attention as well, particularly with a few occasions he ran hard back with the flight of the ball to take a defensive mark on the wing. Langford does look like a very 'complete' footballer, in a way that got me so excited about Gus back in his draft and early days. I remember thinking about how Petracca was 'one day' going to be a player who ripped games open, but that I still preferred Brayshaw for that feeling of completeness.

Possible that we have transformed our play around the ground in two drafts; Windsor, Tholstrup, Langford and Lindsay. Really looking forward to seeing them have a bit of fun while still shielded a bit by the powerful bodies of Viney, Trac and Oliver.