Little Goffy

6 minutes ago, picket fence said:

Except for 21 Goodwins coaching was very very ordinary! Cost us at least another 1 perhaps 2 Premierships!

Get a grip

1 hour ago, BoBo said:

Would you describe it more as Kangaphant or Eleroo?

Depends if it us a forward facing pouch or rearward wombat-style.

Meanwhile the weather has shifted to favour ducks, so I guess Walker is in for a good half.

Carlton do seem to be stemming the bleeding in the third, but that coukd be a combination of the aquatic environment and some evener-upper free kicks.

What do you get if you cross a kangaroo with an elephant?

A diagram of both these teams' defence.

On 02/04/2026 at 22:23, Dee Vinci said:

Possibly. But I wager yes. But we can all agree Carlton were not last week towards the end.

Achshually that was the related quantum paradox of function collapse.

2 hours ago, Engorged Onion said:

Do you mean not drafting them?

In which case you may not have a premiership. Pretty sure you/we all were lauding Petracca, Oliver and Viney during that period of time despite their shortcomings... thank god for Ben Brown's long arms...

I think it is important to remember that Christian Salem was also a crucial part of that premiership and there are people mindlessly slagging off at him every week even though he's still a Demon.

In fact, pretty much everyone in that '21 team has their own cluster of K-Drama style anti-fans.

3 hours ago, John Crow Batty said:

Still better than what I've got stuck in my head after scrolling through this thread.

Bit I do-do-do-do-doot-do-do wish all the best to Mummy Sharp, Daddy Sharp and even Grandma Sharp.

9 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

You're overlooking a very important difference.

It's quite common for women, having just had a baby, to say that they'd like to have another one.

No man in history, having just been kicked in the nuts, has ever said they wouldn't mind another.

I present to you a Mr Michael Voss.

I think we have a clue about the contents of his half-time addresses.

I wonder how the equation changes if you had a baby every time you got kicked in the nuts. Like a mobile game - tap twice to respawn.

And because I will mention my little creature at every opportunity - when I pass him to his mum after time apart he invariably gives her a big gooey 'kiss' (attempts to eat parts of her face), but do the reverse and he always goes for the excited flailing arms and legs until he manages to get his fingers up my nose and a solid kick to the crotch. It is basically the self defence routine from Miss Congeniality.

Has always had both an exclamation mark and a question mark next to his name, but is producing quite a period with his recent dash and slash game. I wouldn't brace too hard to get him until the asterisk is removed regarding his consistency, and we have a clear quotation on his price.

A teacher with 200+ games of VFL experience?

Where have I heard that and 'back to back premierships' before?

I'll give him a fair run at it, while nursing my disappointment that we couldn't find the appropriate immortal telepathic entity which our women's team deserves.

There's a character test involved in this game.

Because we've got wins on the board, because we now know we're playing good football, because we go into the game as strong favourites, and because there's a general sense that getting the win itself is of great importance against contemptible Essendon.

Got to keep the focus on how we play and continuing to grow, and not be thinking too much about the result.

In the perfect world, our players would look up at the scoreboard for the first time at the end of the game and think, "oh,yeah, it did feel like we were going well". 😁

45 minutes ago, bluey said:

Certainly receives a pass from me.

Presumavly he ran 60m and zagged of his opponent at the right moment to be in position for it.

Sharp has stepped up really well to be solid AFL grade at a time when our depth could have been horrifically exposed.

One of several who have found that little bit more to start 2026.

If this keeps up we'll be in a great position to target role players looking to refresh their careers and complete our succesion process.

Geebus Crusts, get a grip.

There was a time when publishers thought they were going to go mad because all those newfangled home computers with their word processors and spell checks meant suddenly every hack lacking self-awareness could write what looked to themselves like a 300 page 'real novel' and demand editors read it in full.

There's been orders of magnitide 'progress' on the anyone-can-do-it scale to get to this point.

7 minutes ago, Fanatique Demon said:

I can’t see Laurie keeping his spot.

Yeah, without putting too much stock on statistics, sometimes they do tell you something; no score involvements, no 1%ers, no intercept possessions.

No impact offensively or defensively.

Unfortunately we didn't win the first quarter against Gold Coast, but my little one's record is still;

8 wins from 9 quarters watched, and a 100% win rate for all games watched even for a short period.

What a gun.

Next week's game won't be broadcast free-to-air up here, so I'm already getting a little nervous about the result.

Okay, but on a serious statistical note, we have lost only 5 quarters so far this season, of which three were 1st quarters. That's a thing.

I've got this game on mute so I can't hear the screaming and whimpering.

Auto-subtitles are great.

"You won't get dirty touches, but you can have an impact on the balls"

7 minutes ago, dees189227 said:

The journo went online & apologised. He meant to say jake melksham.

I can only assume it was a query about the late knock Melksham got?

4 goals, and next week would be his 250th game, played against his old club, at the traditional home ground of, um, Adelaide oval. Or, wait, is it Norwood?

Y'd think he'd play, eh.

I regret to inform everyone that Jack Pickett is not any relation to our current Picketts. You can kind of tell if you look closely because he doesn't have that little Pickett family moustache. Very promising tall forward who if I recall correctly has been absolutely cruelled by an early major injury?

But it also looks likely (touch wood) that somewhere along the way in '26 we will be able to figure out which of our multiple currently reserve forwards are capable of stepping up, so maybe another Pickett isn't the answer.

I do think we should send our pair of Picketts to visit him for a quick fun photo op.

Personally my big interest of those touted as early in the 2026 is

Xavier Ladbrook. 200cm utility. I heart 200cm utilities. I'll get a t-shirt made. A long one with lots of useful pockets. Obviously we'd be looking at him primarily as a defender, but to have a versatile and genuinely good tall is always a good thing. Will be great when we lure Dan Curtin back to Victoria.

Anyway, it seems like there's a great stock of talls, dominated by forward-rucks but also a few 'game smart' key defenders who surely are top of our shopping list.

Two picks in the teens in the 2026 draft feel like just what Dr Taylor ordered.

As always, I like to reward players who beat the expectations

6 Gawn. Greatness does greatness.

5 Steele. Sometimes you can tell who has been a longstanding captain of a struggling club.

4 Pickett. Opposition is always on the back foot.

3 Sparrow. Workhorse. Effective workhorse. Beginning to believe?

2 Melksham. Opposition is often on the back foot.

1 Chandler. Becoming a consistent high-pressure menace. Loved the bear-crawl moment.

Really want to give extra nods to the likes of Sharp, who is turning a career around, Tholstrup who is getting his career started, and the multiple players who stuggled a bit at times but kept at it to be overall winners on the day (Salem, Petty, Turner, LPickett)

Ahhh, the traditional Melbourne v Essendon game in Adelaide.

Because someone has to play Gold Coast at the 'G, don't they.

I'll be keeping a half-eye on tonight's Dogs-Bummers game and wondering what suits us best;

Option 1 - A completely soul-crushed Essendon hanging onto their coach for no reason except it is unseemly to sack a coach this early in the season, and if the dam cracks they might have to sack everyone.

Option 2 - A progressively wilting Essendon that just knows every week is going to be another substantial loss so all that matters is avoiding personal humiliations.

Option 3 - A wildly delusional Essendon that thinks because they offered a bit of fight when the Dogs were having a nap after half time that means they are actually on the right track.

Okay, @WheeloRatings and any other stats people or someone who follows SirSwampThing, what is the longest streak for having 20+ disposals and 20+ hitouts.

'Who is the greatest ruckman ever' is going to replace 'what city are you in' and 'what year is it' in the paramedic head injury checklist questions.

Not only did we give ourselves a little draft value gift today, but the on-field bickering and cranky-pants is EXCATLY the kind of flat-track bully implosion we want to see from Gold Coast.

All it takes now is a little spiral of Hardwick overdoing the hardness at his collection of top picks who would already have a subtle but pervasive imposter syndrome going on, knowing that everyone really does think they are nepo babies.

Fun fact - in the 1812 overture there is a seemingly overly long cycle of strings progressing all the way down the scales just before the final triumphal turn. That is the French army retreating, retreating, retreating, retreating, and diminishing all the way from Borodino to Paris.

Not quite as dramatic would be the "pick 18 becoming pick 12" overture.

I too appreciate Blake Howes.

Looks like we have a few players who without going fully into the frantic attack style are capable of staying calm and steady and acting decisively within all that noise and chaos. Priceless.

10 minutes ago, joeboy said:

Thanks buddy

I bet you were getting anxious there would be consensus.

I particularly liked Petty 'in right places' - he didn't have many decisive wins but he was turning up and making things hard work for Gold Coast in a way no other team has managed to do this season.

Pickett probably the only one I disagree with, in so much as explicitly saying 'without dominating' implies some measure of failure. Pickett was getting himself involved everywhere and making things very difficult while also setting the example of willingness to take risks and not blink when it didn't work out each time.

6 minutes ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

Who does Maxy take to the cleaners next week?

According to Essendon's team sheet it is a Mr Withdrawal, Late Withdrawal. Will be assisted by 15-game defender-turned-ruck Lachie Blakiston.

Max's dominance in the hitouts-clearances today, against a ruck whose game is all about the hitouts, was beyond words. Was that his biggest personal game since he mauled Geelong in the final?

So many players to make a comment about but I definitely am not the one to condense it to three words!

Who is this 'Tom Sparrow' and is he related in some way to the one I recall from the first two rounds and previous five years?

I still don't know exactly what the statistic is claiming to measure, but at this point I'm willing to believe it.

7 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

Anyone missing Oliver and Petracca in the middle?

Maybe Gold Coast?

But seriously, our kids are doing great things against an absolutely star midfield, with Windsor particularly catching my attention.

Steele was clearly a legitimate captain and St Kilda are bonkers for first not letting him play his best game and second letting him go play his best game somewhere else. Thanks Ross, always a pleasure doing business with you.

Max Gawn is simply bagging and binning another notional rival for the All-Australian selection. Witts has nothing on the stat sheet but hitouts and yet Gawn has even been smashing him there when it comes to effect. Some of it has been sublime.

And my baby son can still say he's never 'watched' a losing half of football. Might be due for a nap shortly so the pressure will be on the Demons to carry on without their secret weapon.