Little Goffy

Depends how carefully you crush them. Oooh, a reduction sauce might work; "Different components of the liquid will evaporate at slightly different temperatures, and the goal of reduction is to drive away those with lowest points of evaporation... simmering allows impurities to collect at the top and be skimmed off periodically..." Could try a consomme but there aren't enough egg whites on this earth.

It's a tough game and Dunstan has not been lucky. Never once played an uninterrupted season. Congratulations on 121 games, and all the best for the future.

Always liked him. He will play a lot more AFL level football and I wish him the best, up to the traditional limit! I appreciate the courtesy of Twomey referring to him as Melbourne Premiership Player.

I bet Collingwood wishes they'd understood this in last year's preliminary final. Oooooh, that felt gooooooooood.

There's another thread about Jack Riewoldt and Tom Hawkins up at the moment. Coincidentally, both of them have been given more dodgy get-out-of-jail-free cards than Van Rooyen has had total incidents of any kind. Meanwhile, Pickett's bump which slipped up and (rightly, yes) earned him a week suspension was on a guy who delivered a jumping face-high unnecessary and forceful elbow to the face of an unexpecting opponent, and then went on to be awarded the Brownlow medal. Come to think of it... more than half of the last ten Brownlow medallists have specific records of throwing elbows in faces, among other things. Chicken wings and bowling-ball grips come to mind, too. So, no, we aren't playing too rough. No.

I tried to take my own look at the publicly available efficiency and turnover stats. Very incomplete data particularly because 'disposal efficiency' counts the long bomb to a contest (I think anything over 40m?) as an effective disposal. That's why all of the lowest-rated players are forwards. So, after acknowledging the great Oscar McInernery as Mr 50%, I turned over to turnovers. Sure enough, there's Viney in 2nd, Oliver in 4th and Petracca at 15th. And Gulden in 3rd, and Taranto, Worpel, Rozee, Green, Serong, Parish, Acres, Bontempelli, Warner, Rich, Sheezel and Anderson. Certain players have a job to do and their success is measured in the difference between 40% and 60%, not 60% to 80%. That said... certain other players also have jobs to do and one of those is to make sure that Viney has better options than having to try to do too much with his limited kick. I think this season Hunter and Langdon have both been 'AFL standard' but only to an adequate level, not the champion level that our style needs in order to get good clean movement in the counter-attacks we rely on. Far too often what should be a swift run and clear-eyed kick along the wing becomes a tussle close to the boundary. It's the perfect recipe for a turnover; Inside mid... runs a long way to reach a contest... gets the ball under pressure... disposes in a hurry... close to the boundary... with the opposition set up in place... and a shortage of key forwards... [X]

Yep, this one was touched and seemed clear enough on the second viewing. But what fascinated me was the high resolution and high frames-per-second footage available in general play in the middle of the ground compared to the 1980s censorship blur that is available for goal-line decisions. Every department at AFLHQ is amateurish except the marketing department which is obnoxious.

I like Tomlinson and am 100% convinced that both May and Lever do better when there's a third dedicated tall defender available. Hibberd's retirement and Petty's apparent progress as a forward both suggest there will be more space available for a rugged defender. 10 1%ers, just one turnover, a solid contributor in the semi-final, and actually a remarkably consistent solid citizen when you consider how sporadic his inclusion has been. Would be very happy to see him on the field for us in 2024 building some continuity and unity of mind with the defensive group, and see the results.

*Chances are, you're about to lose.

I think a quiet conversation with Goodwin over a soothing cup of tea to just reflect on the way that as accumulating injuries and bad form wrecked our forward line he turned more and more to the emotionally comforting option rather than the ruthless call. He turned to his personally loved and trusted players and while it worked a treat with Melksham, once that option was cruelly taken away he never should have even looked in McDonald's direction. It was decision-making under really terrible stress and very few could have done better. Just this season one champion coach 'retired' under stress and another took three months off due to basically a stress-related breakdown. It's easy to see how that can happen when our own coach has watched things get worse and worse on a near weekly basis. So, I'd schedule a lot of calm reflection and care for Goodwin and coax a reset on the old mantra of controlling the things we can control.

I rarely get to go to games, being stuck up here in Sydney, and whenever I do, part of me imagines that the other Demons around are also somewhere on this site. Sitting way up in the back for the game against Sydney a few weeks ago, my wife and I were set up behind a row of people who had a real atmosphere of sophisticated knowledge of the game combined with maximum commitment to being smart-[bleep]s. A real country football vibe that was so refreshing compared to having to listen to channel 7. Also, seen that day; a HUGE DUDE who could probably crush a cat's skull with one hand - looked a bit like if Liev Schreiber got real and hardened up. But then, he was being a proper gentleman all game, and as the crowd was filing out my wife was getting into a full adorable asian-girl dance mode for the second (third?) playing of the club song and this giant dude just started joining as he went past. I love my club, I love its community, and Demonland punches well above it's weight for building that community. As I said, thanks to Demonland, even from a distance every Demon in the crowd feels like they might be in on the same jokes.

Toby Greene the player most likely to punch/kick/bite Maynard in the throat, so that's a good match-up for next week. I could live with a Brisbane/GWS grand final. Whatever is further from a Carlton/Collingwood match up. Jusy mopping up the media [censored] would cost the Victorian government more than the Commonwealth Games. Edit: I'm surprised that was censored, but concede it was grotty. I leave it to everyone's imagination.

A long time ago and still relatively new to football, I attended a club function and got to shake hands and make a little small talk with Mr Barassi, who seemed like a man pre-set to be mildly amused by everything. It was only a week later when I told a Carlton-supporting friend and she absolutely lost her basket in shock that I quite grasped the significance of this pleasant granddad! Ron Barassi is surely the ultimate example of the truly great not needing to tell anyone they are great. Always will be.

Trade ideal - a solid-bodied, competitive forward who can contribute some ruck support and allow our younger and/or smaller talls to develop with a bit of protection. Draft ideal - a couple of smart and capable tall defenders and a couple of energetic playmakers. (E.g. Curtin, O'Sullivan, Moir, Brown) New forward line coach. Also, better lawyers. Seriously, the way the tribunal is going, the legal teams should be included in the footy dept soft cap.

Hmm, if we hadn't finished top 4, and only lost one game to be knocked out, would that still count? West Coast - knocked out of elimination finals by 6, 8 and 7 goals in 2002-2004 before then playing in consecutive grand finals and winning a premiership. Port Adelaide - 2001 knocked out winless, then 2002 and 2003 won only semi-finals for a 4L 2w record. Then won the premiership in 2004. Richmond - 2013/14/15 knocked out in elimination final each time, including once against a team that didn't even finish top 8! Were a definite laughing stock with an old stale list. Reset in 2016, recruited aggressively to supplement their mature list, and played in the next 4 grand finals for three premierships. Essendon - Top of the ladder on a seven game winning streak, coincidentally, massively choked and lost by a point against Carlton in 1999, then came back and had the best single season in the AFL era in 2000. Also, just for fun, please remember that Essendon have now lost six consecutive elimination finals with an average losing margin over ten goals. Not sure if that is relevent but it always cheers me up. Geelong - in a four-year run from 2016-2019 they finished 2nd, 2nd, 8th and 1st on the ladder, yet never won more than one final in a season and clearly were far too old to go on. Hawthorn - Unexpectedly won a premiership in 2008 then slumped horribly, missing finals, then knocked out in an elimination final in 2010 before 2011 coming into the 2011 prelim final the long way via a semi-final. Led at every change before choking out by giving up the lead in a five goal to 2 final quarter when the opponent had only kicked five goals in the entire game to that point. Hawthorn then played the next four grand finals for three premierships. Brisbane - 2019/20/21 Brisbane entered finals in the top 4, including twice earning home finals, and played six finals for a total of one win. Now, Brisbane are the only example from this set who has not gone on (yet) to win either one or three premierships in the following years, and it includes a full range of age profiles. We finished this season in a miserable way, with injuries and poor form stacked in the particular area of the ground where we were weakest to begin. Along the way, these last 8 days have done real damage to my entire 'relationship' with Australian football. But there's no reason to believe Melbourne won't be up in the contenders again in 2024 and with just as much a shot as any other top-4 side. Meanwhile, I'm glad our women's team is stomping everything in sight because I don't know if I'll even be bothering to watch the rest of the men's finals. It's all just damp ash.

Okay. So, I know we made a lot of mistakes but the fact is we were robbed. I'm not going to itemize it but geebus there were a lot of obviously slanted calls. That said, Tom McDonald has to retire.

People should stop worrying about the Kozzie bump - tribunal will just award him Patrick Cripps' Brownlow Medal.

These two smucks singing the national anthem literally just rocked up at the gate pretending they were booked. Whoever it was supposed to be is currently in an argument with security at Gate 5.

I'll give him a break to the extent that I accept he is merely a mediocre journo with a [censored] attitude who has been given a second chance at a dream job ahead of about 500,000 people who could do it better with more honour. Come to think of it, that rating actually still puts him in the top half of AFL commentators!

I think between the sling tackle and the fake 'bracing' actions actually turning your body into a battering ram, we can dramatically lower concussions. Competing for marks, including speccies, causes very few injuries. Legitimate tackles cause very few injuries. Legitimate spoils cause very few injuries. Hell, even legitimate bumps (as opposed to sniping) cause very few injuries. In any situation other than when you turn your body into a point-focused weighted projectile (the physics of the tungsten rod or depleted uranium armour penetrating rounds are fascinating and illumating!) the injuries caused are dramtically less frequent and less severe.

When the ALFW round preview has you tipped as 50 point winners, something is up. Basically they are saying that our winning margin will be more than what six teams have even managed to score in total for the first two rounds. North currently have a better percentage than us because they've almost entirely prevented anyone from scoring against them, but that doesn't change the fact that we have given away the third fewest points against us while also scoring 50% more than any other team. I think we're in with a chance, here.

Yeah, ah, I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that if Aaron Naughton was available we'd play him, y'know? On our list we have 13 players at least 194cm... May, Lever, McDonald, Schache, Grundy and Gawn. Brown (test?), Petty (inj), Van Rooyen (susp), Turner (kid, but has been given a recent run), Jefferson (kid), Adams (kid), Verral (ruck kid). Except for Grundy, every tall we've got who can realistically be expected to put in an AFL-level performance is on the field for us tonight. Van Rooyen, Howes (191cm), Jefferson, Adams, Verral, and Turner have all been grabbed in the last two drafts. Before that we invested pick 3 in a 200cm utility. We just picked up both Grundy and Schache in the last trade period, grabbed Ben Brown just a few years ago, and the two biggest traded in names on our list are May and Lever, both of whom we allegedly paid overs for at the time! We have a hole in our ship and if Goodwin is able to plug it and pump the water out enough to get us to the premiership, he's a freak'n genius. Which he might indeed be.

Yep, I've done the full swing in mood. Feeling like if we can take out Carlton we're better than 50/50 for the flag. That's partly because I think Carlton are actually in the very top level at this stage of their momentum, and partly because if we manage to get our forward issues worked out enough to get past Carlton, then we'll have a plan in place for dealing with the rest.

6w, 2l with Tomlinson in the team. I like him and hope he plays, although it might depend on how we feel about Carlton's decision to go small with their forward line.

Well, now, overturned chairs aren't going to be very comfortable but it is an in-principle victory, and inevitable given the original decision didn't have a leg to stand on. Did the discussion go all the way to the chairperson?