Little Goffy

Here's something lighter to distract ourselves with. My sister-in-law (from Vietnam) has been practising her English with me in afternoon video calls recently, and, would you believe it, somehow, mysteriously and to the whole world's surprise, I ended up raving about how Australian football is the greatest sport in the world and all that. It was actually really refreshing because in a second-language conversation like that you're never going to start talking about all the garbage meta-game and politics and irritating rule tweaks - it was a conversation about the purest joy of our insane game. I recommend the experience. Anyway. The point. She did a really good job of pretending to be interested so I promised I'd share some material that would help her understand what the hell this game is, how it goes and why it is so glorious. So, this thread is a call out to share links and whatever else you've got that can be offered to support the claim that Australian football is the greatest. Or, at least, help someone grasp what it is. Anyway, the obvious thing to include is of course the moment Australian football achieved perfection.

A new coach would need a couple of seasons to focus our recruiting first on getting a stock of tall forwards who can begin developing their bodies, and then on acquiring mobile, smart decision-makers and good kicks, ideally an inside mid with an attacking mindset capable of also playing forward, and then begin transforming our game plan into a more aggressive corridor approach which would expose us to high risk while players adapted, and possibly see us hit with some very bad results when the cogs jam and morale drops. Ultimately, this coache's challenge would be to sustain the unity of the players and hopefully get the new kids up to reliable AFL standard and the new style firmly embedded before the current group of veterans fades too much. I shall call this mysterious new coach, Monis Wingood. Hopefully the new tenure will buy him some time to bring about the transformation without having cabal's of restless fans angling for his head.

I only twigged today about how perverse it is for certain people in the media to be having a go at Goodwin because his comment might be seen as exposing Gawn to certain people in the media having a go at him. I actually heard a property develop once say that buyers were to blame for building defects because if they hadn't bought from the plan then the property developers wouldn't be able to get away with making off-contract variations so easily.

Uh oh.

Whittling away, whittling away. Another five posts and you'll just be saying "I'm not wrong" over and over. Chaplin is a highly regarded assistant coach who mobilised a potent young offensive unit which punched above its weight the last time he coached the sector, and then masterminded one of the best, premiership-winning, whole team defensive systems of the modern era. If that is an 'utter rubbish' 'joke' to you, well... that's fine.

I see what you're doing Werridee. You made a fool of yourself claiming that coaches had to have played a role in order to coach it. When someone decisively refuted that by posting the current list of forward line coaches, which showed only about a 1/4 of them to have forward line player backgrounds, you made frankly silly claims about the ones with 'forward player to forward coach' being superior. Now that claim has also been entirely debunked you're shifting attention onto just one player and rewriting the timeline of Fritsch's form slump, and doing so in an inflammatory way in the hope of getting a rise out of @Ghostwriter which you can then escalate and send the conversation on a new and rowdy path in the hope nobody will remember the string of demonstrably wrong claims you've made. All because at some point you decided the most emotionally satisfying way to cope with the distress of a bad game of football was to commence a vendetta against one person. Troy Chaplin is one of the highest rated assistant coaches in the game, and his resume already includes teaching a young and disheartened team to become a dynamic attacking force.

In a city full of dirty cops, the officer who won't take a bribe will be mistrusted. Sports betting, poker machines, sexuality bigotry, and general misogyny - we're basically the closest the AFL has to a cleanskin on these things now, and it is not a mirror they like to look into. At both a tangible and metaphorical level - if you choose to love Maynard, you can only resolve the cognitive dissonance by insisting Brayshaw isn't worthy of care.

Full credit to Adrian Hickmott, Carlton utility who was often used forward but never kicked 30 goals in a season, he has the small-medium squad at Hawthorn purring along. Says it all really. Xavier Clarke was strait up not a forward. He kicked 49 goals total in 106 games, with season bests of 12 and 10. Says it all really. Gold Coast is the most underperforming team to ever exist and has hosted a parade of top pick forwards who have either left in pursuit of better opportunity (Rankine, Lukosious) or been so one-dimensional that it undermines the value of their primary role (King, Ainswerth). Says it all really. Meanwhile, Stuart Dew only became Brisbane's forward coach in 2025. For their premiership, the Brisbane forwards were coached by a guy named Murray Davis, who never played at AFL level and who, coincidentally, had recently been moved to the forward line after being defensive coach for an extended period. Says it all really. And to witness art in life, here's what the Brisbane supporters had to say about that, roughly this time last year when Brisbane started the season very poorly and were on their way to being 2-5 and smacked by 54 points in round 7. Says it all really. Did I mention somewhere else about my pet peeve of people who make big announcements of how certain they are that they're right, but who simply haven't done the work?

I'm getting more of a Jonathan Frakes vibe from some people.

I think the lack of awareness was particularly visible at times. Very clearly several players having to re-learn their habits when it comes to propping up and taking their time on the mark vs getting things moving right away. Fast movement in dangerous areas might be the new priority, but it is a high risk act even for the best and different players will adapt at different speeds to learning when to go and when to hold for a moment. For a lot of the game against North it looked like their whole squad had been practicing side-steps and evasive turns all pre-season. We were clearly wrong-footed many, many times, which turned what should have been coralling or pressure acts by us into breakaways by them. The dashing mistakes I can live with as part of a transitioning game style, and I certainly want the likes of Windsor, Lindsay and Tholstrup 'growing up' in an environment where having to make that judgement call is an expectation. The missteps defensively trouble me a lot more because that isn't a new skill or behaviour. It also effectively invalidates a forward press effort in much the same way that poor spacing would invalidate the 'cluster' or zone strategies, and it results in an absolute ton of unrewarded running for the whole team.

Oh, bugger, I responded to your post. I guess that means you're still being oppressed. Oh well. Funnily enough, that's the only thing I can be bothered responding to, just for the laugh.

Fighting for finals? You're talking about the two games immediately after first losing to Freo by 50, and then to the Dogs by 50, and we hadn't beaten anyone outside the bottom 4 since round 8, and the club was in open turmoil on multiple fronts. Now, I'm an insane optimist when it comes to football - or at the very least a person who rationally chooses to not submit to doomgroaning - and while I would have been there if I lived in Melbourne, but for sensible people it was quite clear by round 20 that mid-winter night games against top-4 sides was a low percentage play for a family outing. Our season was thoroughly cooked, and the game was on TV anyway. Same as happens with other clubs, except Demons actually turn up more. Anyway. Richmond. 2022. 13 win season, made finals. Round 13, Thursday night, MCG, Port Adelaide, 21,700 Round 19, Friday night, Marvel, Fremantle, 23,500 I mean, are you just trying to wear me out?

As a general rule, if people are puffing their chest out and announcing how great their uninformed opinion is, I'm going to belittle them. I've got very little time for people who think they're too good to do the work.

Okay, so the vibe I'm getting is that Tom Campbell (verified cousin of Bruce Campbell vs the evil dead) is someone a lot of people want to see out there, and all I want to know is; Can we get Cam Pederson to present the jumper? Because the spirit must be passed on!

I stand by my statement. Let me persuade you and you will be set free! Richmond got 19k vs the Giants late last year and their game against the Saints at Marvel barely cracked 21k. That is not propping up anything. The reality is we're awesome supporters and Collingwood in particular can go sit neatly on a star picket. When Collingwood has a poor season; 2016. Round 11, Sunday afternoon, Port at the G, 28,500 Round 14, friday night, Dockers at the 'g, 20,300 Round 19, saturday afternoon, Eagles at the 'G, 34,900 Rnd 22, saturday night, Suns at Marvel, 17, 600 2017. Round 10, sunday arvo, Lions at the 'G, 32,700 Round 14, saturday arvo, port at the G, 35,900 Round 18, sunday arvo, Eagles at Marvel, 22,900 Round 19, sunday arvo, Crows at the 'G, 33,300 Round 20, saturday night, Kangaroos at Marvel, 33,400 Those numbers are barely 5,000 a game better than ours and some are true shockers. From allegedly four times the total support? The AFL cares about keeping Collingwood happy and successful because they know that Collingwood's support base is cottage cheese soufflé soft and if it isn't fluffed up constantly, it'll collapse. Same principle as 'needing' to keep the teams above the Barassi line 'competitive' at all times, and for that matter also why the United States became trapped into playing along with the utterly dysfunctional South Vietnamese regime. The AFL can safely treat us with contempt precisely because we do turn up, we do buy memberships, and we are, collectively, hard-core steely-eyed [censoreds]. WE ARE THE HARDEST SUPPORTER BASE IN THE AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE. Their boos mean nothing to us. We've seen what makes them cheer.

Starting to think Werridee is a parody account. Or maybe an agent provocateur sent to entrap dissidents. Engage sarcasm mode; IF ONLY WE COULD FIND AND RE-ENGAGE THE LINE COACH WHO LAID THE GROUNDWORK FOR OUR POWERFUL OFFENSIVE GAME BACK BEFORE WE LOST HOGAN AND SHIFTED OUR FOCUS TO DEFENCE. ffs people. I'm ready to start rants that would get bleeped out on Shoresy, nevermind [censored] on Demonland.

Scrolling casually down I had mistaken your predominantly white profile image for Ghostwriter's predominantly white image and then when I saw this I almost [censored] on my couch. Okay. Okay. The world hasn't gone that far inside-out. Anyway, I think our current list management is aiming to have the swell of young players rise as quickly as possible while looking to get the most of the late career of a few serious champions. 2025 would be a pretty optimistic hope for anything magnificent, I fear, but we can get ourselves back in the conversation and then 2026-28 becomes a potential window for the veterans and youngsters to overlap for a big push. That's my understanding of the list management as well as the game plan transition. The kids are the heart of the attacking style and will be 'raised' with that even if it hurts like being dragged over barbed wire a few times in 2025. And yet, I still think we'll make finals in 2025, strangely enough. After all, it was round 2 last year Hawthorn got spanked by about 10 goals on the way to a 0-5 start, before they found the joy and the kids started to click.

Okay. I'm going to say it. I suspect that the only thing keeping this club from ripping itself apart at the seams is the unity of the players and Goodwin. I suspect it is Neal Daniher level stuff going on with the effort to keep the off-field silly buggers, white-anting and astroturfing as much as possible out of the heads of the players. Either way, I can only hope that the most active and ardent supporters of the club, many of whom are to be found on this site, can recognise that it is time to be the good teammate and not be spitting kerosene on the pockets of hot ash permanently embedded in our club.

An interesting claim given we averaged 7th highest for attendances in 2024, and our two designated 'blockbusters' were both in the top 20 largest crowds for the season. Getting tired of people with vendettas just making [censored] up to suit their bile.

The people claiming we're stuck on the old game plan are driving me nuts. Against North we had half a dozen goals directly against us due to errors made through overzealous or misjudged attempts to hurry the ball through the middle or play on aggressively from defence. Players caught from behind, running themselves into trouble, being too ambitious with a kick, handballs off to a run-past while still unsteady landing after a mark. It all happened. The errors at high speed up the middle exposed our defence and prevented us from getting the priceless fast inside 50s. Multiple scores missed out on, and multiple scores against us, and very high fatigue (physically and psychologically) from having to sprint both ways without reward or comfort. It's not rocket science. The effort to fundamentally change the gameplan was on full display and on Sunday the team struggled to complete it all day and then imploded in the final quarter. It's a tale as old as time, and often told by impending premiership teams, too.

Just replying to show appreciation for a calm opinion. I do wonder if there's some quiet, unappreciated genius out there somewhere where a club isn't performing. The Paul Roos scenario?

The white ant thread.

Easily our best on ground. I mean, seriously, he leads us for marks inside 50, goals, score involvement and metres gained, is behind only tall defenders for 1%ers, going at 75% disposal efficiency. Has been our only clear winner on the ground.

I can't shake the worry that playing so many games as a sub can have undesirable effects on a kid's progress and confidence. Fingers crossed that he gets to leave a memorable mark when he does come on.

West Coast's old guard a a few unknown kids really putting in a bold first half in what could have been a 186 contender. Y'know what, good for them. Now that Fagan's got a long-earned premiership I'm happy for Brisbane to wobble a little here and there. Interesting that Reid just having an okayish game and West Coast doing well anyway. Could be an important moment for the club.