Little Goffy

Meh. Every club has its Karen's, yknow. Can you imagine the moment any club tells them to pull their heads in because the only effect they're having is to make literally everything worse? Or started cancelling memberships of people who abuse players and coaches. I'm picturing something like a relationship breakup where the spurned partner stalks their ex and constantly harasses them to get that feeling of power over them and to 'prove' that they are the one in control. In the end, it's that basic lack of maturity, "I am having bad feelings, so I will have a tantrum and hurt people until someone else makes the bad feelings go away".

Four top-15 picks in two seasons. Only taking fringe and opportunistic mature players on very low money in trades, and filling out our list with speculative VFL tone-setters and role players who take no salary cap space. Relying on kids as our forward targets as we get games into them. And people think we aren't already in a rebuild? I'm sure the club's goal was to stay continuously competitive and have the veterans and new wave overlap enough to create a super-peak capable of grabbing another premiership, but right now, with several veterans below their par, some visible low morale, and an unfortunate string of quality outs among the kids, it isn't looking like it at all. Best case scenario, all the problem points are corrected over the course of the season and we come storming home into finals. Worst case scenario, we are absolutely pooooooooped. Like, adding an 8th form to the Birstol stool chart, pooped.

That is an absolutely on-point rant from Snapper. Sums up the entire rot at Carlton for a decade. As for Hawthorn fans, pretty sure lube and tissues come with the membership pack. For anyone watching Hawks-Giants, is there a massive wind at UTAS tonight or was it just a really weird first half?

Yeah, he hasn't had much time to show it yet but at this point Lindsay is looking like absolute gold. Initiative, awareness, skill, speed, calmness, and not at all soft either considering he's still lightly built. Could still be a good decision to get him regardless of what this year's first ends up being. At this stage we can just all breathe a sigh of relief that we didn't saddle ourselves with 27yr old Houston and his contract for a top pick!

I can only hope it'll be a rebuild like the ones Brisbane and Hawthorn had last season. We actually have the cattle, but something has clearly been taken from our spirit. Hard to find once it is lost, but once found again, rebounds hard.

Bunch of mature players need to be left alone with their thoughts for the week to decide if they're serious or not and to remember who they are. Far, far below the skill and energy they are well known to be capable of. I'd be interested to know, in the wild politics of late last season, who got what they wanted which has now created this level of confusion and ambivalence on the field?

As they say, good delivery is all about knowing when to push forward with the momentum and knowing when to take the pressure off. Hopefully the labour doesn't result in the nightmare rip from hole to hole like today's game has. In a related note, the strange creature living in my wife's belly got more kicks during this game than most of the Demons did. Contrast couldn't be sharper because little one really lifted after half time.

So, what you're saying is, having high quality kicks and decision makers available to play their role would have no effect on whether less reliable kicks and decision makers end up in the positions where we want good kicking and decision making. Mate, there's discussion to be had but take a breath before just snarking.

I'm going to go out on a limb at 3/4 time against Gold Coast and suggest that not having a single score or mark inside 50 from anyone over 190cm (except a behind from Gawn) might be a problem. Looking a little more closely, we don't even have any score involvements from tall forwards. Gawn has 4, May and McDonald 2 each. That's it for over 190cm. Ah, a quick correction - the Chandler goal means Van Rooyen now has 2 score involvements. Yes, I feel like this may be an issue.

Horrible sensation that those few minutes of looking a little better, followed by punishment on the scoreboard, could crack the dam. Only other possibility is we get some rage going. (not in the eat-your-babies way Demonland gets rage going)

We finally show a little bit of a spark and the umpires put an f'n bell jar over it.

ffs Just tape my mouth shut.

Feeling good about this one. I can't afford Kayo/Fox footy so I can't watch the game. Pretty sure that means we win. I'm particularly expecting a whole lot of those small moments of effort and cleverness which turn a game but will never feature in the highlights tapes. Today has a Xavier Lindsay vibe.

Sun Tzu also expressed the same sentiment. He was actually quite the footy fan. Real quote, not kidding, and I can provide evidence to support this if challenged; "The side which gains the most points wins"

Hit the post. Possibly with both the ball and then myself. In fact, yeah, my two options would be hit the post or slip during the kick and not even make the distance.

They also have a few players with a Master o farts. But no Ph.Ds. Guess why? They can't spell it.

Will be fun to see who is left by round 19 against the giants. But, hey, you never know, the Bombers have been on the cusp of a big upswing for about 13 years...

That'd be a basherer degree, yah?

Really hard to know what to expect from Gold Coast. They've had such a strange preparation. First they had their opening round game postponed. Then they traveled to Perth only to have their opponents forfeit on arrival. And now they're coming off a bye.

Okay, full credit to Bailey Scott, astrophysics is pretty tricky stuff. I gave it a try but all my comets smacked into Jupiter and my contract didn't get renewed. Good to see anthropology isn't dead, too. I think I might have to like this Lawson Humpries kid; "Uni isn't necessarily hard, but it's something I might not want to do all the time, and it's good I have to still do it and force myself to do something I might not want to. We're pretty lucky as AFL players, we have a pretty good run, so it's important to do other things." With Humpries' Anthropology and then Barass being the only one studying Philopsophy, I wonder if there is some special link between the humanities and defenders? I guess it does take a certain deeper perspective.

These days they like to use 'developed' and 'developing' nations. They don't have a term for 'going backwards at a rate of knots' nations. Another popular one is 'NICs'; Newly industrialised countries, which is a blanket term for countries which have added industrial capacity by underbidding developed country industry thanks to shooting anyone who asks for a pay rise and not minding if their is heavy metals waste in the mains water. Basically 'growing GDP, no civil society'. An old one from 'Yes, Prime Minister', is of course TLPACs. 'Tin-pot little African country'. Never caught on in the mainstream, for some reason.

Yep, on a PC, a pretty compact laptop. I don't actually think there is any design or format problem and I'm pretty sure I'll adjust within days. Nothing more to my comment than wanting a couple of extra cms in the middle where the main action is. (That's what she said.)

Everything has gone vertical. Freaking me out. I'm going to make one practical suggestion, which I understand might be an absolute shirt-sew to adjust, but having a slightly wider text space in the threads would reduce scrolling a bit. If the centre panel can be widened just a little, or maybe the profile images in posts adjusted so there isn't as much blank space along the left side. But these are quibbles and tweaks. I thought it was a nice update. It was a nice update, I thought. I bet it looks super snazzy on mobile.

That or getting Essendon's soft frees. Either would get the job done! So far Port have been a little bit lucky that Essendon are the footballing equivalent of a tepid bath.

I had this game flickering in the background and thought I was basically impartial, but then Port kicked a goal after Essendon had held the ball in their forward line for most of the game for just two behinds, and I swear the laugh that came out of me was somewhere between Nelson from the Simpsons and Emperor Palpatine. Guess I'm not quite impartial.