Little Goffy

Traditional demands it. What St Kilda does in a game, Essendon does over a season.

I know everyone else is irritated by an Essendon win for their own reasons, but I have to live with the knowledge of just how insatiably [censored] by bomber ex is right now. Many years pass but some memories stay. 🤣 So glad there's a Demons game coming up to keep my mind off it!

2023 - he missed two games, for one win, one loss 2022 - he missed two games, both losses, and we also lost the game he was subbed out of. 2021 - he missed two games, both were wins, and we also won both games he was subbed out. Long story short, if we win without May we win in September!

It was originally a typo by an overly-excited Adelaide fan on a forum maaaaany years ago. The mocking snowballed and was helped along by Conan the Barbarian's deity being Crom. At seven goals a game, not sure too many Crom fans will be getting too excited just at the moment. Will be interesting to see how the showdown goes between Port's leaky defence and Crom's inability to score.

Well, the battle to be our end of 2025 free agent ruck recruit remains interesting; Xerri; 13 disposals at 84%, 32 hitouts, 8 tackles, 10 clearances, but only 24 metres gained. De Konig; 13 disposals at 84%, 31 hitous, 5 tackles, 4 clearances, 1 goal assist, 6 score involvements At this stage I'd give it to Xerri given that a lot of the difference can be attributed to a ruck free kick differential of 8 in De Konig's favour, and as a Melbourne player he would not get that kind of service.

Honestly, from what I can piece together without live coverage (ahhhh, Sydney life), it is a little embarrassing for Carlton to only be four/five goals up. I stand by my theory that Carlton continue to be in weak form to start the season and that has been balanced by very, very good personal form from Harry McKay. 3 goals and 4 contested marks in each game, and already 3 goals and 3 contested marks to half time against North. Voss and the Carlton planners would be absolutely thrilled to be clocking wins. That said... every Carlton opponent so far has remained winless this season. The Blues would want to get things working properly before they come up against opponents that aren't either in mental disarray, managing an awkward rebuild, or outright led by teenagers.

Like many, I can't get to the 200 in Adelaide so I will have to wait for the 300. Considering he appears to be climbing back to career-best form and consistency, I feel confident. It is only 4 seasons.

Just choose your meme, really.

Starting from the 2017 draft, I don't think there's been any club which has been more 'pick value efficient' in their drafting for even one draft in that time. Maybe 2020 - we only had three picks including Laurie himself. It has been an incredible run that clearly requires both good drafting and good development programs. It doesn't automatically mean Laurie will join the trend, but it is enough for me to think our development team has a plan for how to get the most out of Laurie. Something I find interesting is that he has only ever played one full game and was only on the ground for 64% of that one. Clearly there's still a question mark on his ability to run out whole games. Could the whole situation be as simple as the club believes he needs another preseason or two in order to fulfill his potential?

Just going to nod to the fact that Jack Viney is superbly committed to fair play while also being so damn hard. He isn't into the behind-the-play sniping or any of the rubbish stuff, he is just pure hardness. I do wish that promo voice-over guy would take some Coloxyl, though. It's just hrrrnnnnghh rrrgh nnnnnnngh from him every time.

I'll be raising an eyebrow to see if Geelong will carry on their decade-long tradition of making seemingly random last minute changes, given the present 'optics' of it. I neither infer nor imply anything, just find it amusing.

Hugh McCluggage is only 26 and would be a very handy acquisition without the draft cost. I guess Andrew McGrath as well but for some reason he just doesn't excite me. Next year is the big one for our needs, with De Konig and Xerri available as peak-age rucks and a few high quality tall defenders also around. Fingers crossed the right ones stay open. Oh, and of course, Andrew Brayshaw.

Mods, sure this warrants a 1-week ban at least. We can't have people on here saying such horrible things about each other. What if some kids saw it and thought it was okay to go around calling people Tom Morris in the playground?

That is one very full half empty glass from Roost! :D :D Love to see it.

Everyone who kicks a goal gets a hug from Nibbler, but who hugs Nibbler when he kicks a goal? Oops, time to re-watch the 3rd Quarter highlights, this time for the magic power-up Nibbler hug on the goal-line after Sparrow's goal. In hindsight that hug was the moment we secured the premiership. 8:14 in the following. Do you need an excuse, really?

Trying to find info on any evolution in the Port Adelaide gamestyle, Seems like Wines it taking more stoppages and spending less time forward which is hardly surprising or radical. Marshall is taking a ton of marks (10 and 9) and creating many more goal assists than previous seasons, but both Marshall and Dixon have barely 50/50 goal accuracy. Maybe playing further out and taking their marks and set shots from further out? Then again, maybe their forward stats are just skewed by the bizarre game against the Eagles. Finlayson 0.4, Dixon 3.3, Marshall 0.3, Bergman 0.3. Could and probably should have been a 100 point win despite letting West Coast score 70. Which brings up the next point - West Coast 70 and Richmond scoring 92 despite both games being dominated by Port suggests that Port are pretty leaky defensively, and all that despite no tall forward scoring more than one goal against them. Hard to get much of a read on them other than that, with just two games to look at and against what is basically the second-last and third-last teams (with only Collingwood below). Did I mention only Collingwood is below then. Because Collingwood is last - clearly 0-3 is lower than 0-2. Just recapping, Collingwood; the worst.

Well, that's six more than Petty had in the VFL before coming in! No, but seriously, the kid is just doing the right thing by the club and staying under the radar. Or maybe it is loading?

But, wait, the TV clubs have all had an extra round to earn votes in early. It is almost as if the main point of round zero was to push selected clubs to the top of the apparent ladder. Hrrrmm....

Lol. Based on coaches votes, the three best players in the Australian Football league were all top-pick selections taken under special concession rules for the Television-Zone clubs. Heeney; bid at pick 2, taken with pick 18 - a discrepancy so dramatic that the points system was introduced. Green; points-based matched bid inside the top 10, using leftover junk draft picks after the Giants had already used pick 4. Rowell; bonus No.1 pick given to Gold Coast because of how rubbish they chose to be. (Concessions given also included three other top-20 picks spread over the 2019-20 drafts)

I propose a system if exponential fines per game for these junk incidents which only detract from the game. We all know some little bumps and 'interactions' will happen over the course of a physical and directly competitive game like ours, but there's no value in letting clubs come out with instructions to rough people up to interfere with their game. $1 for one incident, $2 for the second, $4 for the third, then 8, 16 etc... The fines would be trivial and ignorable in any normal run of play, but if you end up with 20 individually trivial incidents you'd be looking at... a bit over a million dollars. That oughta shut it down real fast. Also Collingwood should be stripped of their 1958 premiership. Obviously. #sixpeat

Yep, Carlton are trilled to have snuck a couple of wins early with multiple absolute top-tier players out. The importance of Harry McKay being not only in form but also kicking straight (6.1 in two games) cannot be understated and the inclusion of Weitering, Walsh, Martin and Motlop will leave them with basically no weak part of the ground. Round nine should be a ripper - touch wood both teams are close to full strength by then and we can get an interesting grand final preview.

I understand where May is coming from but three broken ribs and a cracked vertebrae is a lot of trouble just to avoid going to Adelaide for two weeks. On a more serious note, I never would have thought this weird start to the fixture would work in our favour, but that round 6 bye is looking golden for us right now. Numerous players will be well helped by the pause to manage niggles, scrapes and itches as well as assess their progress from interrupted pre-seasons.

You have to cut people some slack. We've only just come back from our longest spell outside the top 4 since 2020. It's been a tough ride and the faith of many is understandably wavering. 🤪 Hard to know exactly how anxious we should be about this game given that so far Port have only knocked over winless West Coast and Richmond. My key concerns for this coming game are; Will the much less talented or fit Soldo follow the tactic of just roughing up Gawn, and will Gawn be worn down or will he add another 3-voter to his early Brownlow form. Will the Wines, Butters, Rozee, Horne-Francis midfield core be one too many for our own gun midfield to match? In particular, can we limit their goal-scoring contribution? And the obvious question of coming up against a fully stocked 3-tall structure (Dixon, Marshall, Finlayson, all 197cm+) with a defence missing it's first choices.

Okay, so aside from giving away the first ten scoring shots of the game, it has been a relatively even contest on the scoreboard. Key ball winners missing and a couple of talls playing in unfamiliar roles doesn't help, but there's been a lot of 'unreliability' that is not any kind of external factor.

yep, recognised the hair at the next centre bouce!