Little Goffy

Yikes, calm it down. You're not 'wrong', but you're not that right.

6 Gawn 5 Langford 4 May 3 Salem 2 Fritsch 1 Pickett Difficult one. Many were good, but many came in and out of the game or had some very visible clangers.

Bang lol bang lol bang lol? Geebus, Langford has got something. Gawn putting punctuation on his All Australian selection. Been good seeing Van Rooyen effect some contests.

It is a complicated question because when you consider players who might have been considering greener pastures or who the club might feel are at their plateau in the current environment, all of them might also get the same fresh kick from new coach and significant changes to the whole coaching panel. Of the younger players with at least a few seasons in the system already, all of McVee, Rivers, Sparrow, Van Rooyen and Petty would be reassessing both sides of the equation. I suspect (feeling only) that Turner, Bowey and Chandler would all feel pretty confident about their future at Melbourne both in the sense of making good personal progress and being valuable to the club. There's also a bunch of older players who really need to examine what they want from the final 2 to 5 years of their career. To me, Langdon and Fritsch just 'feel like' part of the club's personality now. Max kind of goes without saying, Viney is never going to get a better contract or be more appreciated anywhere else. Salem looks like the most likely to assess that his future is to provide the quality 'completion' to another list, rather than always falling a little short of the expectations here. His epic 2021 kind of put a weight on his shoulders where 'Salem, yeah, I guess he was alright today' feels like a disappointment every week. That leaves the tall defender veterans. I'd assume McDonald and May will see out there careers with us and that includes at least 2026. Lever... something hasn't been going right for him for a while. He's another who will be assessing what the effect of the new coach will be on his performance and role. If the new coach arrival insists that he has to adapt his role away from his 'preferred' game, then Lever might make the valid choice to find a club which needs his particular way. That's a long post and I've not mentioned either the twin elephants in the room or the mice, but I won't pretend to know how things will pan out with either set. I guess my list to watch most closely would be Salem, Lever and then the McVee-Rivers-Sparrow group. This will be an unpopular opinion but in purely ruthless list management terms all of them are replaceable.

All three could be quality players with valuable characteristics that can make our team much less predictable. This might be a more significant announcement than the low-profile would suggest.

Whatwhatsaywhat, I appreciate the exemplary restraint and civility you have brought to Demonland there. Nietaphart, surely you mean we have enough -old- backmen. Anyway, McGovern has performed to AFL standard sometimes. I think we're just about all agreed that is not a sufficient use of a list spot, especially if it obstructs the development path of the next generation of tall defenders coming through. For example, while he builds his body Kalani White will likely spend a lot of time at Casey mastering the positioning and rhythms of the intercepting defender. Given that McGovern is like a stockier, slower Lever there would be a clear jam of roles.

One of the alleged knocks on Buckley was that he didn't appreciate or connect very well with the flawed and second tier players. I'll speculate that one of the advantages for coaches like Clarkson, Sheedy, Fagan and Hardwick is that they understand the value of not only the not-perfect contributors, but also the stars and silky types who can do things they never could. I'd also argue Bruce understood it even in his playing days. Knew his limitations and knew which teammate to connect with. Although looking back the Daniher years were not wildly blessed with smooth operators or outright top rated players.

I for one love the AFL's commitment to growing the game in Sydney by showing us Essendon St Kilda and not this silly little top-4 game between two contenders with question marks over them, with wild momentum swings close scores and blah blah blah...

Is there any link to a stream of the game?

Junk game best forgotten as quickly as possible. Specific disappointment with Pickett. Ten disposals, one goal, not looking very interested. Hopefully hitting the '20 disposals and 2 goals per game' mark for the first time of any player in 15 seasons will perk him up a little next week. He'd need 25 disposals and 2 goals to get there. Let's see what is left of Collingwood to bite into.

Already time to start looking for the interesting details inside the game. So here's mine; Max Gawn has a curious pattern of gathering a large number of hitouts in the first quarter, particularly in the first 20 minutes or so, and then it tapers to a more reasonable pace for the rest of the game. I suspect that if his first quarters were his overall rate, he'd be averaging close to 60 hitouts per game. What strikes me about that is that it is clearly not a matter of fatigue as his other stats tend to pick up the pace later in the game - the around the ground intercepts, marks, and general involvement all push hard. So here's a challenge for the detailed stats experts - is this a genuine pattern or just a coincidence of a few games I noticed it in? And how does it play out on things like his @WheeloRatings figures? Does Gawn in hitout-mode outrank Gawn in around-the-ground mode?

That couldn't possibly go wrong.

These last few rounds seems to be becoming a competitive level of [censoreding]-the-bed. Tragically, Freo's effort against Brisbane mean it is no longer realistic to try to knock Collingwood out of the 8. But there is a fair prospect of making them play away from home for all finals if we can drop them to 7th-8th. Just makes handing some misery to Hawthorn all the more important. Meanwhile, there's no real clue on Geelong's form. You can only beat who you're matched against, but in the second half of the season they have only beaten one team (the perennially flaky Suns) from the top-8, lost their other two contests, and then just accumulated beat-ups against much lower rated teams.

Fact is, if Buckley comes to us then from day one he will have exactly as many premierships with us as with Collingwood. He could well be with us for a decade, and by the end of that time Collingwood will be 'the old club he played for that never quite reached success despite every advantage', while Melbourne will be where he won the 2028, 2030 and 2031 premierships. The story will be that he never really found happiness until he separated himself from that awful club. This isn't Collingwood 'giving' us something, this is us taking an opportunity to redeem a soul.

I hadn't even thought of him in leadership terms until I opened this thread. Chewing on it now... He has shwon some good character qualities. Actual on-field contribution is improving steadily. Two more years we'd have a reasonable idea of his ceiling and how well his maturity progresses to being the calm head and communicator in the urgent moments. The swingman aspect of his game is a bonus touch. So... if all went well then two years from now we would be looking at a non-DH version of James Sicily, which would be outstanding. Personally I don't see it being likely he'll reach quite those heights, but I think we can be confident he'll be a good contributor to reaffirming standards and behaviours for years to come.

Pre-spleening he was explicitly kept to lower minutes and less midfield time in the first half and early in quarters, and then thrown into the clearances muchmore as other mids tired. The idea, which worked so well so often, was that any given opponent trying to match up on Petracca's strength would be completely overwhelmed if Trac also had significantly fresher legs. The result was of course our trademark strings of high quality clearances and even repeat centre clearance goals which seized momentum in games kept tight by our brutal defence. Bang bang bang was not an accident. Obviously with the big hit to fitness caused by good guy Moore's 'reckless severe impact' effort Petracca hasn't been able to replicate that this season. It is still reasonable to hope he'll be back to being a genuine weapon after a proper pre-season.

Fair enough. I tipped to the smart{@} side for a cheap smirk. It would seem just from the old stats that he was one of those unfortunate young players who got stuck being subbed in and out and getting just a few chances here and there.

Couldn't get a regular game and was cut from the list at the Eagles... Now looks like a solid AFL level contributor with attributes that add unpredictability to our mix both in the contests and up forward. I suspect he would also be another person not keen on getting Adam Simpson as coach!

If you can't win, you might as well have the next best thing - an entertaining close loss against a serious opponent, which keeps the possibility of knocking either Hawthorn or Collingwood out of finals in your remaining games.

I was just flicking through the list of free agents and was curious to see Harry Shoenberg. I have vague recollections of a positive feeling about him years ago, when he was still in the rising star eligible group. Kicked some goals, got involved in score chains, turned up around the ground, did a bit of everything and all to a respectable standard for a kid. Since that second year he has gone backwards every season. Very strange. Anyone know more about what went wrong and what value he might have left?

I only know the result of last night's game because my brother texted me with the observation that by the final round game against us Collingwood could be playing to retain their spot in the 8. All it would take is for - The Giants to win their three games against Kangaroos, Suns and Saints. The Bulldogs to beat us, West Coast, and Fremantle both at Docklands. The Suns only need to win two of their remaining four and hold onto their percentage. That's Carlton, Essendon, Port and GWS. Hawthorn play us and the Lions. A win and 4%, or two wins, obviously, would get them over the Pies. Fremantle is the trickiest one. They play Port, Brisbane (in Perth) and the Bulldogs. Since Bulldogs must win all theirs, Freo would have to get the other two wins done. Five paths need to meet, but they each range from 'very likely' to 'realistically possible'. Then it is just up to Adelaide and ourselves to complete the set for a truly historic Colliwobble.

I have a soft spot for Spargo. You can see him thinking through the play and looking for good options, and he often succeeds in identifying them. He's held back a lot by the physical side; there's not one aspect where he is even above average. I'd be sad to lose him but this is not a Nibbler 'underrated stalwart' situation.

My 29-day-old has been upset all day ever since I told him. I'm accepting of the events that have transpired, but as anyone who reads my rants will know, my deepest fear is a club turgid with factional bile, where every new decision is instantly contested as much for the 'side' which made it as for the merits of the decision. I am also conscious of my own urge to 'get involved' somehow... which is exactly the honorable intent that has driven so many perfectly earnest supporters into conflict. In the end, whoever the new coach is, I'll be doing my best to stay humble and patient and give them time to make their mark. After all, one must remember that I have been granted a personal prophecy of a Demon 2028 premiership. Third year of new coach with a nicely mixed list to work with seems about right.

Essendon supporter saying it's about time? Just thank them for the gift. https://www.tickcounter.com/countup/312748/days-since-essendon-won-a-final

I would like to give some respect to the Demon's most successful coach of almost a lifetime. 111 wins, 1 draw, 90 losses. 202 games behind only Smith, Hughes and Daniher. 55% overall win rate which puts him just ahead of Northey and Ivor Warne-Smith, and behind only fellow premiership coaches Hughes, Chadwick and Norm Smith. His tenure will be remembered for an extraordinary list of near misses in so many different ways. The tragic 2023 finals where we lost two games by a total of 9 points between them, and also lost one of our most esteemed leaders in a moment for which the injustice tainted many supporter's love of the game. The extraordinary one-straight-kick percentage gap which coast the Demons a finals spot in 2017. And so many of the little 'moments' that just didn't drop our way. But for all that, the legacy will always be late season surge of 2021, where for a magic long moment the plan all came together. Journeyman tall forwards under injury clouds came good and played their role. Star midfielders with inconsistent disposal found their groove at the same time. The defensive efforts worked like a terrifying hive-mind, giving away just 56 points per game in finals and for four rounds leading to them. And finally, the most dominant 45 minutes of grand final football in the history of the game, when destiny was seized and the chapter was turned on a half-century of perennial disappointment. Many called for change, and we all will be feeling a nervous optimism for a refreshed club, but let's not mix the enthusiasm for a new start with any bitterness in reflection. Let's do it right and speak of Goodwin as the drought-breaking premiership coach who will be a loved part of the club for many years to come. Best wishes, coach.