Little Goffy

Important to wait until the very last minute of the very last game before claiming top spot! 😁 Tonight I'll be watching Pies-Cats just to see if there's still a silly chance of it happening. Pies are only two games ahead of us so if they drop this one then the hunt is on for real. I'm clinging to a dream where Essendon pip them in the final round and cost Collingwood top spot, but then the Bombers still miss out on finals.

Absolute gun for sure. Quite possible that I only find him irritating because without him we would all be able to safely bid farewell to Richmond for another decade or so! :D

Okay, so, I have a lot of sympathy for Carlton supporters. Some, not all, I should clarify. But knowing them as well as I do, and having by proxy followed Carlton's progress closely for many years now... Carlton supporters insisting that they are going to be the team which will definitely bring a four-quarter effort and that it is up to the other side to keep up is just pure ironic comedy gold.

With Oliver; Stoppages won - low rank Scores from stoppages - high rank So it is quite simple. Our tactics are to either win a stoppage decisively or to nullify the effectiveness of opposition clearance - causing rushed disposals to feed our vast collection of intercepting defenders, and intercepting midfielder Oliver! There's a reason the Demons are number one for both 1%ers and intercept possessions.

I think at this stage the Queen might need a run in the twos for a while. But, back on topic! Oliver had his role dramatically changed earlier this season to be a much more rounded midfielder with an exceptional intercept possession game. Considering how many effective clearances he sets in motion and how many contested possessions he gets, his intercept count was extraordinary. A genuinely never-seen-before midfielder. That the Footy Classified mob reduced his absence to 'derr how many centre bounces are they winning' is hardly surprising but also pretty shamefully shallow on their part. I'd actually argue that our game style had to adapt to losing Oliver by focusing more on directly winning clearances because without him we couldn't rely as much on regaining the ball in general midfield play. Still, full credit to Viney for shouldering the load and for Brayshaw for once again transforming himself to meet the team's needs - from 11 clearances and 19 tackles in the entire season up to round 9, to then averaging about five of each since then.

Dammit, this is harder than I thought. My first choices are eliminated on technicalities. Toby Greene appears to have pulled his finger out and done that thing some men do in their 20s - finish adolescence! Tom Papley; yes he has a face that makes all his goal celebrations look as agro and annoying as an Australian fast bowler (Glen McGrath the only known exception), but it turns out that he's actually a pretyt mild mannered decent person. Walker is simply too annoying - I'd still dislike him even if he played for us. Martin, Dangerfield and Hawkins would be the shortlist except they are all past their peak. Ah, I've got a nominee - far from the most annoying player but has a real irritation X factor. Shai Bolton. Honorable mention to 'Izakermanis' Rankine who I think is on the cusp of a breakout in both form and annoyance.

Jye Amiss?

First Melksham now Lever, our bank of quality biology keeps growing.

Some teams just don't know how to death ride. 🤣

And IIIIIIIIIIIII--eeeee-IIIIIIIII-eeeee-IIIIIII will aaaaaalwayyysss looooove youuuuuuuu-ooooo-ooooo... I hope he is able to get back on the field, but even if retirement becomes the only option, he will still be a very good looking friendly young man with a habit of self-development, a pile of money and at least one magic moment.

Love your optimism about top spot and I've also got an eye on tickets for the game up here - seriously starved of meaningful football in this city. Any clear info would be helpful!

Your commitment to negativity in all six posts on the forum so far is impressive.

This season's Bowey? But seriously, this sucks for Petty and is very rough for us, for the reasons we all are well aware of. Very glad we've got Melksham offering such uncannily effective contests, and very glad we have Fritsch coming back soon.

Extra credit for those who took responsibility as workhorses. 6 Gawn 5 Petracca 4 Viney 3 Brayshaw 2 Neal-Bullen 1 Hunter

I was trying to figure out the exact line it would take for North's percentage to drop below West Coast and it really shocked me as an illustration of just how bad both teams have been this season - I punched in some round numbers just to get a rough idea... we could beat North 170 to 45 (making their for-against 1350 and 2100) and it would only knock about 3 percentage points off. And despite that, as always, respect the opposition because the margin from best to worst at this level is always small. Nobody is allowed an off day at the Olympics. Lol... just ask Colliwobbles about it.

It was against Port, so clearly no need to get your head checked.

I for one would be very happy to see Port drop into a little hole of misery over this. We've seen players get suspended for multiple weeks for 'failing to protect' their opponent in a contest due to the contact being head high. I think it is being executed terribly but the principal of protecting the head is very sound. As for the suddenly very likely prospect of us finishing in 2nd place, I would have previously been disappointed to miss out on the Melbourne-Collingwood qualifying final at the MCG, but now Port Adelaide have a big moral target on them and I want it to be my club which delivers the exclamation point that makes this incident remembered as costing Port any chance to regain momentum in season 2023. Take 2nd from them. Play them in the 2nd-v-3rd Qualifying final at the MCG. Send a message with an emphatic victory.

Unfortunately, North have nobody else to blame but themselves. They make their players unhappy. They make their coaches unhappy. They are crippled by an old boys network full of folksy wisdom about 'young people these days'. I really feel for the fans and for the slice of genuine professionals inside the club who I'm sure are clinging on trying to do things the right way against constant pushback. However, let's remember they they've still got four more years of misery to push through before their pain can be fairly compared to what we went through as a club. On our timeline, we hadn't even started the Neeld era yet.

I had let it go. I hadn't seen anything special from Petty all year when he was playing forward. The attitude was there, his trademark alertness and second efforts were there, but he didn't show any signs that he was going to have any great scoring power. I never stopped thinking he was a champion player but I really felt he was too important as an elite defender to be making use of him as an average up-the-ground forward. Then he goes and kicks 1/3rd of his entire career's goals in one game and looks absolutely potent in every aspect of being a close-to-goal key target and spends the whole game clearly having a lot of fun. So... now we've got Van Rooyen, Petracca, Melksham and Petty each offering a different shaped contested marking target up forward. I suspect when Fritta comes back in he'll be heavily used for the link going inside 50, which he spent a bug chunk of time doing earlier this season, so I'm comfortable that his finals-eve return won't mess with the system. F: Melksham Petty Pickett HF: Petracca Van Rooyen Fritsch Plus Chandler named on the bench. That's a genuinely multi-faceted forward line with a proper pirate crew vibe.

I have a running joke with my wife based on the way Gawn sometimes just starts doing everything and rips open a game. Variations on 'Oops, he's forgotten he's a ruck again'. I think his first loose-ball-get on the run on Sunday was about mid-way through the third quarter, followed not long after that by a handball receive and inside 50 kick. Once the switch is flicked, there's just no keeping up. The effort required by opposition rucks to just try to be anywhere near him blows them up completely. After that they have no chance of recovering as fast as Max can, so Gawn spends the rest of the game physically and psychologically dominating. I suspect it is the same kind of overwhelming surge of effort on a team level which broke the Bulldogs in the grand final - not only beating them in the moment during the third quarter, but pushing them past their recovery rhythm and leaving them heavy-legged for the rest of the game. Gawn is the living example of how Melbourne win!

I fear they may have spotted us.

Your wtf basket belongs to you and you can do whatever you want with it or in it. Also, I have no idea how to interpret this feedback.

Cheese, you say? Early 1990s you say? Just for a change of pace, I present to you the greatest musical cheese moment in all of computer gaming history. If you know it, you will be moved deeply by the memory. If you don't... just put it in your wtf basket and move on.

4.3 to 1 point in the final quarter and still losing to the abjectly bad last placed team. Gonna be a long flight home across the Nullabor for the Kangaroos. Now I'm trying to figure out if percentage could matter at the bottom of the ladder. Hmm... West Coast have scored 150 fewer points than North and conceded almost 300 more. It would take a few almighty beltings for North to drop that much. I for one endorse the Demon's heading down to Launceston and making the wooden spoon race interesting.

Full credit to the radio commentator on 'AFL Nation' for making West Coast v North sound like an epic contest setting the clouds on fire.