Little Goffy

Another thing they are saying is '$50 for an obstructed view seat in the nose-bleeds ought to keep the riff-raff out.' Fun fact - you can't actually see Sydney from the bridge.

Coincidentally I had a truly superb coffee from a little place in Ashfield just yesterday. On the one hand it was a great moment of actually tasting the coffee and getting that really satisfying feeling... on the other hand... it made me realise how bland even the 'fancy' places tend to be here. There was more difference between this excellent coffee and a 'normal' Sydney cafe coffee, than there is between a normal cafe coffee and my zero care instant coffee while staring at dirty dishes in the morning! Anyway, if anyone travelling up feels like a non-CBD experience at a tiny local cafe, 'Ashfield Apothecery' genuinely cares about what it does. Also, Sydney can get stuffed.

Doesn't Fritsch get a look in? That magnificent coif is certainly not just a simple brown.

The perfect way to start a 4-game winning streak, I say.

Looking forward to this one. Extraordinary to think that Melksham has played the fifth most games out of all players from his draft, and is one of only 12 who have made it to the 200 game milestone. (Now including Gawn) Not bad for a perennial whipping-boy. My Essendon-supporting ex hated him so passionately it made other pub patrons drop to awkward silences. Also strange to think back that we had our eye on him with 2009 pick 11, before Essendon took him at 10. I wonder how he would have gone instead of Gysberts?

I saw that and thought there was an error on the website. Was going to ask about it, so thanks for sharing first! Probably means I'll have to sit this one out; would be too miserable sitting alone! A shame, there was even a possibility of rounding up a bunch of Vietnamese in-laws. If they could bring their video-call-to-grandad voice it would make the crowd sound like a solid 60,000.

That was excellent.

Yes please. Would love to have Dodoro drive some kind of obscene 'hard bargain' using their future first pick, based on the hubris that Essendon will climb the ladder in 2024, only to watch them bottom out completely and hand us a top-4 pick. The only trouble is, I'm not sure there's much on Essendon's list we would be making a priority play for. So, all I can think of is the world's most arrogant pick-swap where Essendon think they've sold us pick 9 for a fortune and we get a specific player we've targeted. A second pick inside the top-10 looks like a particularly good place to be in this draft. Anyway, in 2024 I'll be looking forward to Fremantle pushing back into finals again. I think they've got the cattle, a great group of young players with good leaders amongst them. Jackson will be worth the price they paid for him because in that team he'll be a crucial piece of the puzzle and a proverbial marquee player. For us, there's just not the salary cap space to keep someone who gives such a spectacle when on song!

Hmm... very loosely group by role / part of the field. McDonald, Brown, Fritsch, Petty, Dunstan, Jordan, Harmes, Spargo, Woewodin Grundy Hibberd, I think we've had our depth severely tested for tall/marking forwards, but other than that there's not a lot missing. Right at this moment I think it is Melksham who has kept us in the hunt by giving us a contested target against all odds. Melksham is basically the bioluminescent algae story from Apollo 13.

I looked at Marcus Bontempelli, the Western Bulldogs total, and the % that works out to. In short, Bontempelli was one tenth of the Bulldogs team, for every on-field action except marks, rebound 50s and hit-outs. Contested ball, loose ball, pressure acts, tackles, spoils, score involvements, goals, metres gained, clearances... everything. I'm not sure I've ever seen an individual having to carry a team to this extent.

I'm going to say it is 50% coincidence (Pickett's lowest-rated games this season have been against Hawthorn, Richmond and St Kilda) and 50% that the best teams have tighter defensive systems and work hard to get back, reducing the opportunities for small forwards. Obviously small forward is a very tough gig come finals time, but they can turn games with barely a touch. Charlie Cameron had just five disposals in Brisbane's semi-final win over us last season but his three goals probably made the difference in the game because he frequently put our defensive structure out of place. Anyway, Pickett has had some pockets of poor form and a few games where he has been almost invisible, but he's doing alright for current form with 11 goals and 7 goals assists in his previous 6 games. He's also continuing to bring a ton of pressure, including midfielder-level tackle counts. (Per game) He's behind only Fritsch for goals and behind only Petracca for goal assists, while this season every second disposal of Pickett's is a score involvement. He's doing his job and doing it well.

I've lost patience with the Swans. A club kept relevant solely by obscene draft concessions and wild free agency exploitation of what was always a rubbery cost-of-living-allowance, and now only playing finals because of an absolute howler of a goal umpiring decision. It's not quite that I hate them... the feeling is like having the smell of badly burnt raisin toast lingering in your house for days. But really... Heeney, Mills, Blakey, Campbell and Gulden... it would be hard to find a game this season where those five didn't earn at least half the Swan's coaches votes. I want to see us going into finals with heads up and eyes on the prize, and I want Sydney going in with a reminder that they shouldn't be there.

I honestly think the umpires might be straight-up fatigued. The strain of dealing with 'interpretations' and wave after wave of rule-of-the-week and fluctuating levels of enforcement instructions would burn anyone out. I think the additional field umpire has also backfired in this regard, because it requires an additional umpire every game to go through that surge of continuous mental and emotional load. If I were an umpire, I'd be talking about industrial action to demand reasonable working conditions. It is a legally recognised form of workplace harassment to assign tasks to someone without appropriate support or realistic prospect of adequate performance. A time has to come where the AFL cannot be run in detail by the whims of the marketing department.

6. Lever - for his superb final quarter which settled the game in our favour. 5. Melksham - contest after contest after contest. 4. Viney - I always favour the workers. Plus, he produced a masterclass in wearing tackles and still getting the ball moving. 3. Rivers - positive energy 2. Petracca - worked himself back into it 1. Langdon - acknowledgement for doing his job really well and being important when we were not doing so well as a team Many others deserve respectful nods because we were frequently forced to play outside of our comfort zones and responded pretty well.

It is quite a moment when a team has lost 20 games in a row and it is a shock that they are in last place!

Sicily would need one after been a grubby [____] for almost a decade. Very good, sure, but grubby.

I wonder if the Scott brothers compared excuse notes?

Loved the one where the Hawthorn player dropped it so quickly that it became a 'holding the man' against Gawn. If one rule isn't enforced, the effect of the other rules change dramatically. Meanwhile, I have never seen Oliver that angry at any time for any reason. Does anyone have a clue what was going on?

Nevermind Adelaide - one of either the Western Bulldogs or GWS will miss out on finals because Sydney was given a win in a clear error that didn't even follow basic procedure.

It's not as as if like Adelaide or wanted then to play finals, but the umpires in the last 5 minutes of that Swans-Adelaide game had a clear preference. Tom Papley sore is of interest for us. Personally I hope half the Swans' list is out with dysentery for next week. I'm now officially sick of them.

Perhaps Grundy, 15 and 24 (instead of 34) for Mclean and 12 is more realistic? Or maybe I'm just dreaming.

I saw mentioned in an article that Sydney may be looking at Grundy, but that would all Would love a classic ruck circus with Hayden Mclean (a more forward-ruck option) coming to us given he's behind Amarty and Logan as a forward at Sydney. A lot depends on Tom Hickey. If he retires then the Grundy-to-Sydney move would be high priority for them. If not, I don't see how Grundy+Hickey+Ladhams works, even if we got McLean in the trade. The trade value assessment would be very complex. Speculating; Grundy, 15 and 34 for Mclean and 12

They must be really, really sure someone is offering a very good package to get that number 1 pick off them! It was as recently as 2021 where they missed out on finals by one game, after six consecutive years of finals including a premiership. The sheer depth of the drop-off is quite impressive. Still, that premiership... it was built on the most obvious tanking since the Kreuzer Cup. If I recall correctly, 2007 to 2011 went; Top 4. Bottom 4. Bottom 4. Bottom 4. Top 4. Executed to perfection. Starting with Judd out for young star key forward Josh Kennedy, and pick 3. Tanking got them Nic Naitanui, Brad Shephard & Andrew Gaff at the point end, plus Luke Shuey and Jack Darling with their priority picks. The good news is, this time around they do look genuinely rubbish, and they haven't had a successful draft since 2017 so not looking like any magical sudden turnaround this time.

6. Brayshaw 5. Petracca 4. Viney - forgiven for the volume of clangers because he frankly half the time it was supernatural that he even got the ball in the situations he was in. 3. Oliver - bit underdone, eh. 2. Rivers - one of few who really gained ground in useful ways 1. May - Broke even with the current best forward in the game. There'd be some honourable mentions, but I really have to give my own -1 to Salem, who's [censored] pop-up handballs were more likely to get a teammate injured than get a counter-attack going, and whose kicking was all over the place. Multiple players had some good moments but simply weren't in it often enough.

75% of Clayton Oliver is Tom Green.