Little Goffy

And IIIIIIIIIIIII--eeeee-IIIIIIIII-eeeee-IIIIIII will aaaaaalwayyysss looooove youuuuuuuu-ooooo-ooooo...

I hope he is able to get back on the field, but even if retirement becomes the only option, he will still be a very good looking friendly young man with a habit of self-development, a pile of money and at least one magic moment.

Love your optimism about top spot and I've also got an eye on tickets for the game up here - seriously starved of meaningful football in this city.

Any clear info would be helpful!

15 minutes ago, Gillies said:

Why is everyone so convinced frittata is coming back soon? He’s got a potential season ending injury. Foot injuries are notorious for healing 

Your commitment to negativity in all six posts on the forum so far is impressive.

1 hour ago, adonski said:

Enter the wizard, Jeffo!!

This season's Bowey?

But seriously, this sucks for Petty and is very rough for us, for the reasons we all are well aware of.

Very glad we've got Melksham offering such uncannily effective contests, and very glad we have Fritsch coming back soon.

Extra credit for those who took responsibility as workhorses.

6 Gawn

5 Petracca

4 Viney

3 Brayshaw

2 Neal-Bullen

1 Hunter

I was trying to figure out the exact line it would take for North's percentage to drop below West Coast and it really shocked me as an illustration of just how bad both teams have been this season - I punched in some round numbers just to get a rough idea... we could beat North 170 to 45 (making their for-against 1350 and 2100) and it would only knock about 3 percentage points off.

And despite that, as always, respect the opposition because the margin from best to worst at this level is always small. Nobody is allowed an off day at the Olympics.

Lol... just ask Colliwobbles about it.

On 8/2/2023 at 5:22 PM, wisedog said:

Of course! Although at this point we’re just determining how spectacularly wrong someone can be.

I would also add that Tom McDonald has achieved it twice in his career.

The fact I couldn’t remember that Pickett did it only two years ago is concerning. I think I might need a ct scan.

It was against Port, so clearly no need to get your head checked.

I for one would be very happy to see Port drop into a little hole of misery over this.

We've seen players get suspended for multiple weeks for 'failing to protect' their opponent in a contest due to the contact being head high. I think it is being executed terribly but the principal of protecting the head is very sound.

As for the suddenly very likely prospect of us finishing in 2nd place, I would have previously been disappointed to miss out on the Melbourne-Collingwood qualifying final at the MCG, but now Port Adelaide have a big moral target on them and I want it to be my club which delivers the exclamation point that makes this incident remembered as costing Port any chance to regain momentum in season 2023.

Take 2nd from them. Play them in the 2nd-v-3rd Qualifying final at the MCG. Send a message with an emphatic victory.

Unfortunately, North have nobody else to blame but themselves.

They make their players unhappy.

They make their coaches unhappy.

They are crippled by an old boys network full of folksy wisdom about 'young people these days'.

I really feel for the fans and for the slice of genuine professionals inside the club who I'm sure are clinging on trying to do things the right way against constant pushback.

However, let's remember they they've still got four more years of misery to push through before their pain can be fairly compared to what we went through as a club.

On our timeline, we hadn't even started the Neeld era yet.

I had let it go. I hadn't seen anything special from Petty all year when he was playing forward. The attitude was there, his trademark alertness and second efforts were there, but he didn't show any signs that he was going to have any great scoring power. I never stopped thinking he was a champion player but I really felt he was too important as an elite defender to be making use of him as an average up-the-ground forward.

Then he goes and kicks 1/3rd of his entire career's goals in one game and looks absolutely potent in every aspect of being a close-to-goal key target and spends the whole game clearly having a lot of fun.

So... now we've got Van Rooyen, Petracca, Melksham and Petty each offering a different shaped contested marking target up forward.

I suspect when Fritta comes back in he'll be heavily used for the link going inside 50, which he spent a bug chunk of time doing earlier this season, so I'm comfortable that his finals-eve return won't mess with the system.

F:     Melksham   Petty   Pickett

HF:  Petracca   Van Rooyen  Fritsch 

Plus Chandler named on the bench.

That's a genuinely multi-faceted forward line with a proper pirate crew vibe.

I have a running joke with my wife based on the way Gawn sometimes just starts doing everything and rips open a game. 

Variations on 'Oops, he's forgotten he's a ruck again'. 

I think his first loose-ball-get on the run on Sunday was about mid-way through the third quarter, followed not long after that by a handball receive and inside 50 kick.

Once the switch is flicked, there's just no keeping up. The effort required by opposition rucks to just try to be anywhere near him blows them up completely. After that they have no chance of recovering as fast as Max can, so Gawn spends the rest of the game physically and psychologically dominating.

I suspect it is the same kind of overwhelming surge of effort on a team level which broke the Bulldogs in the grand final - not only beating them in the moment during the third quarter, but pushing them past their recovery rhythm and leaving them heavy-legged for the rest of the game.

Gawn is the living example of how Melbourne win!

15 hours ago, Dee Zephyr said:

Happy to just keep flying under the radar. 

I fear they may have spotted us.

2 minutes ago, Skuit said:

Can I put it in my wtf basket and also roll around in said basket?

Your wtf basket belongs to you and you can do whatever you want with it or in it.

Also, I have no idea how to interpret this feedback.

Cheese, you say? Early 1990s you say?

Just for a change of pace, I present to you the greatest musical cheese moment in all of computer gaming history.

If you know it, you will be moved deeply by the memory. If you don't... just put it in your wtf basket and move on.

4.3 to 1 point in the final quarter and still losing to the abjectly bad last placed team.

Gonna be a long flight home across the Nullabor for the Kangaroos.

Now I'm trying to figure out if percentage could matter at the bottom of the ladder.

Hmm... West Coast have scored 150 fewer points than North and conceded almost 300 more. It would take a few almighty beltings for North to drop that much.

I for one endorse the Demon's heading down to Launceston and making the wooden spoon race interesting.

Full credit to the radio commentator on 'AFL Nation' for making West Coast v North sound like an epic contest setting the clouds on fire.

1 minute ago, YearOfTheDees said:

North making West Coast look good at the moment, they better not pull a game out of their [censored] next week.

I mean, rebounds happen and all that, but there's only so far you can stretch the elastic.

I think early in the game, especially the second quarter, there were too many moments where we thought too much about how cool we'd look while doing the fancy stuff. Really good mental reset to get our focus back. Aside from a collection of excellent performances, that's the big thing I'm taking from the game.

Jake Bowey still make me so very happy. Every time he gets it, our situation improves a little.

22 minutes ago, dl4e said:

I had a nightmare earlier in the year that they would beat us with a goal in the last minute. I awoke with a cold sweat. Sometimes a dream can have the opposite meaning which I hope is true. 

I had a nightmare just the other night where my son and I were barricading ourselves into our two-storey house to keep out wandering zombies.

I don't have a son and I live in an apartment, but the zombies have me worried.

This game can't start soon enough.

On 7/25/2023 at 1:10 PM, radar said:

Hmm, I do wonder how many of those scenarios are actually 'a long term coach left the club in a mess because they kept making decisions to keep their position tenable each year and eventually it all caught up with the club and left them in the [censored zone], causing multiple coaches to be burned through before any restoration began.

Kevin Sheedy and Leigh Matthews at least had a collection of premierships, but then at North you've got Brad Scott clinging on for almost a decade and being unmistakably responsible for wrecking the list and the culture.

Fun fact - Brad Scott's first season at North was an exact 50% win rate. He currently has exactly 50% in his first season at Essendon.

He also has an exact 50% win-loss rate in finals(4 -4), and if Essendon lose next week he'll have an exact 111-111 win-loss count from his 222 home-away games as coach!

Just now, binman said:

I didn't watch the cats dockers game, so not sure how poorly cats played. 

But i can't see the cats losing twice in a row at home, particularly because port will struggle to come up after two weeks of intense footy and have to travel.

On rhe travel, interstate teams must hate playing at kp because they have to fly into tulla and then get in a bus for what, 75 mins, down to Geelong?

Tasmania will just get a ferry.

1 minute ago, BDA said:

Buddy is a spent force. It’s actually better for us if he plays

Might be true now that he's pinged a hamstring, but his previous three games netted seven goals and four goal assists. Very handy spent force!

Good round of football, this.

Such a wild set of results that nobody can really make a clear claim to understand what it all means.

Fun that the biggest upsets - Gold Coast vs Brisbane and Adelaide vs Port - are also the only two games with any margin to speak of.

Hey, if 13th and 14th can beat 2nd and 3rd, maybe even West Coast are a chance to miraculously bridge the gap between them and second last?

But seriously, there could not have been a better time to be reminded to never take any team lightly. Plus, 2nd is now in the mix so it is time to get serious.

Meanwhile, Franklin subbed off with a hamstring. Didn't look like much, but there's not much left in the season either.

2 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

He's spent time up forward for his whole career.

Which just makes all the more impressive and reassuring that he's finally learned to do it well in his 30s!