Little Goffy

Absolutely shameful that he's been relegated to 'Footy Feed: Dees shock call, Thomas sacked, new Swan impresses.' But I'm not too worried because his legacy will only grow because the love for him is deep.

King's Birthday will be a serious thing but I fully expect round 24 to be one to remember. By then we will have worked our way through a difficult season, and that final round game against Collingwood will very likely influence both club's position in the top 4. By all the pagan deities and ancestral spirits, we must purge that corrupting foulness.

Nah, they'd be too worried about Maynard getting injured by them.

Monthly reminder time: Since Craig McRae become coach of Collingwood, Brayden Maynard has hospitalised with a head injury at least one opponent every season. And Angus Brayshaw is one of the most honourable men in Australian sports. This is real 'evil vs good' stuff.

I am looking forward to the decision to sue the AFL. The discovery process will be epic. "As plaintiff it is our contention that a sustained culture of selective accountability and punishments, driven by inappropriate considerations of internal politics, social and personal connections and commercial interests prioritised ahead of consistent justice, have played a key role in the failure of the Australian Football League to provide a safe workplace. We contend that this incident and the related premature conclusion of a career is not only a liable result of this executive failure, but that communications related to this specific case will provide evidence of the alleged mis-governance and selective application of rules with regard to the tribunal processes which excused the behaviour on spurious grounds and which delivered a demonstrably insufficient prosecution argument unfit for. As such, the below schedule of relevant persons of influence within the AFL, Collingwood football club, and associated parties are hereby given notice that they shall be required to retain, preserve and to provide to the court all communications made in relation to the tribunal case." Justice must be served.

My all-time favourite player taken out of the game by condoned thuggery. The sadness and anger is beyond words. Brayshaw will be all right because he is a champion human being as well as footballer, but he deserved so much more luck than he had.

Dunstan, Jordon, Harmes, Grundy and Hibberd. I respect each of those players but it is hardly the bottom falling out. Weideman in his prime and we have a premiership! Though it was indeed a very, very brief prime.

I wonder what happens if you give AI the prompt '15 minutes of my life I won't get back'? Wait... I got it; you get the 'loading circle' going around. That's it. That's the image. Time lost = 100 minus IQ.

The impending hole in our list is also an impending space in our salary cap - why not fill one hole with the other? (aside from being a terrible analogy from a physics perspective). Unless both De Konings seriously boom they would each be a bit cheaper than Gawn and May, respectively. Another way of seeing it is as the final balancing of the ledger for losing Jackson.

It is not secret that the Demons are in near-future need of a ruckman and a defender as successors to Gawn and May. I present to you the brothers De Koning; Tom De Koning, Ruck, 201cm, 102kg, 24yrs, restricted free agent out of contract in 2025. Sam De Koning, Defender, 204cm, 97kg, 22yrs, out of contract in 2025. Carlton would be hard pressed for salary cap space by 2025 and Geelong will just be hard pressed. Am I crazy or could this be the big sentimental play that reopens our premiership window from 2026 on?

We are full of vim and vigor! Overflowing with Elan! Or maybe it is time to go hard; "We have great confidence in our prospects for the coming season, and I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Gawn when I lay my vengeance upon thee."

Those are Travis Johnstone v Carlton numbers!

At Carlton they say "1 to 4" because they believe they have finally added depth and a coherent team ethic to support the core of serious stars. At Collingwood they say the same but mostly because they get anxious trying to count any higher than that.

B: Adam Tomlinson, Steven May, Trent Rivers HB: Judd McVee, Jake Lever, Jake Bowey C: Caleb Windsor, Clayton Oliver, Ed Langdon HF: Harrison Petty, Bayley Fritsch, Alex Neal-Bullen F: Shane McAdam, Jacob van Rooyen, Kysaiah Pickett Foll: Max Gawn, Jack Viney, Christian Petracca I/C: Bailey Laurie, Angus Brayshaw, Christian Salem, Tom Sparrow, Charlie Spargo (sub) Emerg: Jack Billings, Taj Woewodin, Kade Chandler, Lachie Hunter Of the on-field group named, I'd argue only Windsor, Tomlinson, Spargo and Laurie would have question marks about whether they can deliver a standard of football that can win AFL finals, andexcept for Tomlinson there are multiple replacements for type waiting (Woey, Chandler, Hunter, Billings, some more kids and maybe even Melksham late in the season) I'll state the obvious that the quality is there, although we could do with one more high quality key position player for whichever end Petty isn't playing at, and of course the back-up ruck question. I'm ready for the season to start. We know what's going on, we know the weak points and the potential to utterly dominate if it clicks.

Presumably that's Thurin son of Thrain, King under the Mountain and deliverer of Erebor alongside the wizard Gawndalf?

I do find the use of 'well documented' referring to Oliver's issues interesting. They are not at all well documented. There is no clear public insight into what his 'issues' are and there has only been enormous waves of speculation. Ask yourself; do I actually have any real knowledge of Clayton Oliver's personal circumstances? It irks me that there's this atmosphere of 'we all know about Clayton, mm-hmm.' I mean, at this stage the only thing we really know is that he has been an absolute professional with training standards while away from the group and has come back in excellent condition and full touch, ready to win a Brownlow in 2024. The 'Bailey Laurie watch' part of the article confuses me as he was canned on here in the match sim thread and multiple clear examples were given... could it be the AFL website people might be mistaken about him "impressing in Sunday's match simulation with his strength inside the contest and clean ball use."

Pickett is a brilliant forward with the body strength and nous to be a powerful point of difference to disrupt opposition centre bounce planning. Particularly if there's been a spell where the ball hasn't been coming his way and he is a little fresh, he can step in and really boost the chances of chaos favouring us. It is very similar to the tactic of playing Petracca forward for extended periods in the first half and then introducing him to the stoppage mix in the second half when opponents are already a little run down. If you're a tired mere mortal lining up at a centre bounce next to a much fresher opponent who happens to be one of the most powerful players in the game, you are already half beaten. Not a coincidence that Petracca's CBA are under 50% but his scoring from those appears disproportionate. So, the numbers for those two look about appropriate to me - Petracca 50%ish, Pickett 25%ish. Interesting to see Sparrow taking 75%. Clearly being developed to the role. As for Nibbler - his job is to contain the effectiveness of opponent clearances and provide blocks and support for our 'guns' to do their thing. We've worked hard at limiting the damage opponents can do to us from stoppages and especially centre bouces, because those breakaways do expose the vulnerability of our very aggressive defence, especially with the 6/6/6 rule. It's why Oliver added to his game an astonishingly high number of intercepts for a midfielder. Returning to the original point about Pickett - I think a fair analogy would be to the way we attempted to turn Harmes into a 'damaging midfielder' because he had demonstrated a string of games where he was being damaging on the payback while primarily playing as a stopper. Pickett will continue to be damaging as an option in stoppages and centre bounces, but if we get too sweaty and excited about that and try to hard to make it his main role, not only won't we get that damage, we will also lose a lot of his value of a goal-kicker and pressure forward.

Philosophical conundrum. If a career ends before it begins, did it ever exist?

How can you be reminded of something that never happened?

Thanks everyone for the rapid reaction on Oliver. Seems like for a moment I was more winded than he was.

Emergency urgent details for those without broadcast.

From the AFL website, I think they are jumping the gun on 2025 free agency here. Sigh. ... Tom McDonald, Lachie Hunter, Shane McAdam (all calf injuries), Andy Brayshaw (illness), Charlie Spargo (Achilles soreness), Harrison Petty (toe), Ben Brown (knee), Daniel Turner (femur), Taj Woewodin (concussion) and Andy Moniz-Wakefiled (thigh) all missing.

Edit: I misread a post and responded to it with confusion. The post was about Laurie so it seems I may have been channeling his play today.

What do you expect for lousy billion dollars a year?

*Free (two first round picks, with at least one in the top ten) It isn't so much about us getting value, as making sure the Crows continue to suffer forever.