Little Goffy

Just going to nod to the fact that Jack Viney is superbly committed to fair play while also being so damn hard. He isn't into the behind-the-play sniping or any of the rubbish stuff, he is just pure hardness. I do wish that promo voice-over guy would take some Coloxyl, though. It's just hrrrnnnnghh rrrgh nnnnnnngh from him every time.

I'll be raising an eyebrow to see if Geelong will carry on their decade-long tradition of making seemingly random last minute changes, given the present 'optics' of it. I neither infer nor imply anything, just find it amusing.

Hugh McCluggage is only 26 and would be a very handy acquisition without the draft cost. I guess Andrew McGrath as well but for some reason he just doesn't excite me. Next year is the big one for our needs, with De Konig and Xerri available as peak-age rucks and a few high quality tall defenders also around. Fingers crossed the right ones stay open. Oh, and of course, Andrew Brayshaw.

Mods, sure this warrants a 1-week ban at least. We can't have people on here saying such horrible things about each other. What if some kids saw it and thought it was okay to go around calling people Tom Morris in the playground?

That is one very full half empty glass from Roost! :D :D Love to see it.

Everyone who kicks a goal gets a hug from Nibbler, but who hugs Nibbler when he kicks a goal? Oops, time to re-watch the 3rd Quarter highlights, this time for the magic power-up Nibbler hug on the goal-line after Sparrow's goal. In hindsight that hug was the moment we secured the premiership. 8:14 in the following. Do you need an excuse, really?

Trying to find info on any evolution in the Port Adelaide gamestyle, Seems like Wines it taking more stoppages and spending less time forward which is hardly surprising or radical. Marshall is taking a ton of marks (10 and 9) and creating many more goal assists than previous seasons, but both Marshall and Dixon have barely 50/50 goal accuracy. Maybe playing further out and taking their marks and set shots from further out? Then again, maybe their forward stats are just skewed by the bizarre game against the Eagles. Finlayson 0.4, Dixon 3.3, Marshall 0.3, Bergman 0.3. Could and probably should have been a 100 point win despite letting West Coast score 70. Which brings up the next point - West Coast 70 and Richmond scoring 92 despite both games being dominated by Port suggests that Port are pretty leaky defensively, and all that despite no tall forward scoring more than one goal against them. Hard to get much of a read on them other than that, with just two games to look at and against what is basically the second-last and third-last teams (with only Collingwood below). Did I mention only Collingwood is below then. Because Collingwood is last - clearly 0-3 is lower than 0-2. Just recapping, Collingwood; the worst.

Well, that's six more than Petty had in the VFL before coming in! No, but seriously, the kid is just doing the right thing by the club and staying under the radar. Or maybe it is loading?

But, wait, the TV clubs have all had an extra round to earn votes in early. It is almost as if the main point of round zero was to push selected clubs to the top of the apparent ladder. Hrrrmm....

Lol. Based on coaches votes, the three best players in the Australian Football league were all top-pick selections taken under special concession rules for the Television-Zone clubs. Heeney; bid at pick 2, taken with pick 18 - a discrepancy so dramatic that the points system was introduced. Green; points-based matched bid inside the top 10, using leftover junk draft picks after the Giants had already used pick 4. Rowell; bonus No.1 pick given to Gold Coast because of how rubbish they chose to be. (Concessions given also included three other top-20 picks spread over the 2019-20 drafts)

I propose a system if exponential fines per game for these junk incidents which only detract from the game. We all know some little bumps and 'interactions' will happen over the course of a physical and directly competitive game like ours, but there's no value in letting clubs come out with instructions to rough people up to interfere with their game. $1 for one incident, $2 for the second, $4 for the third, then 8, 16 etc... The fines would be trivial and ignorable in any normal run of play, but if you end up with 20 individually trivial incidents you'd be looking at... a bit over a million dollars. That oughta shut it down real fast. Also Collingwood should be stripped of their 1958 premiership. Obviously. #sixpeat

Yep, Carlton are trilled to have snuck a couple of wins early with multiple absolute top-tier players out. The importance of Harry McKay being not only in form but also kicking straight (6.1 in two games) cannot be understated and the inclusion of Weitering, Walsh, Martin and Motlop will leave them with basically no weak part of the ground. Round nine should be a ripper - touch wood both teams are close to full strength by then and we can get an interesting grand final preview.

I understand where May is coming from but three broken ribs and a cracked vertebrae is a lot of trouble just to avoid going to Adelaide for two weeks. On a more serious note, I never would have thought this weird start to the fixture would work in our favour, but that round 6 bye is looking golden for us right now. Numerous players will be well helped by the pause to manage niggles, scrapes and itches as well as assess their progress from interrupted pre-seasons.

You have to cut people some slack. We've only just come back from our longest spell outside the top 4 since 2020. It's been a tough ride and the faith of many is understandably wavering. 🤪 Hard to know exactly how anxious we should be about this game given that so far Port have only knocked over winless West Coast and Richmond. My key concerns for this coming game are; Will the much less talented or fit Soldo follow the tactic of just roughing up Gawn, and will Gawn be worn down or will he add another 3-voter to his early Brownlow form. Will the Wines, Butters, Rozee, Horne-Francis midfield core be one too many for our own gun midfield to match? In particular, can we limit their goal-scoring contribution? And the obvious question of coming up against a fully stocked 3-tall structure (Dixon, Marshall, Finlayson, all 197cm+) with a defence missing it's first choices.

Okay, so aside from giving away the first ten scoring shots of the game, it has been a relatively even contest on the scoreboard. Key ball winners missing and a couple of talls playing in unfamiliar roles doesn't help, but there's been a lot of 'unreliability' that is not any kind of external factor.

yep, recognised the hair at the next centre bouce!

Was that Jefferson on Meek for that contest. 'On' used loosely, unfortunately.

I think I've been a bit lucky to only be home and watching after half time. Seen a bit of what everyone was talking about - the trash disposal, rushed decisions, and all that - but it also seems to be very marginally turning a bit our way. Maybe not in our favour, but at least not so one sided as the first half and the alarmingly bad first quarter.

See, now, I'm a more nuanced type. Qualitative not quantitative, y'know? What I need is something like those kids' puzzles where you have to match the animal from the left column to its home in the right column. bird, wombat, snail v shell, nest, burrow For example choose from Collingwood, Hawthorn, Essendon, Carlton, West Coast on the left column. Then add contempt, disgust, disdain, irritation, hostility in the right column.

He'll be nicknamed Bullwinkle soon if he isn't careful.

I've very curious to see how Langdon goes with the significant changes of personnel in related roles given all the movements of Brayshaw, Billings, Windsor and Hunter among others. So far this season he's been fine without rocking the stadium but something has felt good about it, and that was definitely a very good first quarter.

Quick pre-game 'nearest the pin"; howmany kicks will Sicily get/give?

For the second time in a month I've been given a soy latte. This one was merely unpleasant while the previous was also burnt and undrinkable on multiple levels. I plan to take it out psychicly on Hawthorn because they look like soy late squirts and their presence is just as unwelcome.

Nah. Gawn would have his own, much more successful, movie series. So would Brayshaw, actually. Hmm... Gus and Gawny the epic adventure series really could work. I think Shaun Burgoyne would be an standout candidate for an 'Aussie' branded Bond. Has that smooth presentation, tall lean build, a clearly Aussie (not merely Australian) accent, gives a little edge of Crocodile Bondee. He does like expensive watches, too.

Yep, I've seen/heard him explicitly thanked by the commentators for pieces of information. Lovely to hear 'Sir Swamp Thing' being announced.