Little Goffy

Agreed. With Jason Taylor steadily churning out quality players everywhere except over 193cm, we really need to make that investment. Fullarton hasn't had a chance yet and I instinctively like him as a prospect, but we can't keep churning through other club's surplus. Taylor, Weitering and Harris Andrews are all free agents at end of 2025, for what it is worth. ;)

I did some digging on their other recent outgoing player trades. Lewis Jetta, Tom Mitchell, Gary Rohan, Nic Newman, Darcy Cameron, Zak Jones, Aliir Aliir, Dylan Stephens. A lot of those were traded for absolute peanuts in return, too. Dawson for a future end of round 1 pick. Nic Newman for a pick that the Swans didn't even use. Aliir Aliir for pick 34. Darcy Cameron for pick 56 which was then packaged with Zak Jones to get 32. Ex-Sydney players seems to be a lucrative trade area for the receiving club both in cost-effectiveness and total value. Sydney might be doing okay from trading Dylan Stephens (plus pick 25) for North's 2024 first round pick. Yikes.

binman, good to see you visit but I think you had better stay focused. You have just a couple more days to eliminate the ums. Have you considered developing a stutter, that usually helps.

We'll all be pleased to know that Tim Miller has done a neat 180 for tone on Pickett.. "The 22-year-old jumped off the ground and made glancing contact with his opponent’s head during the Demons’ 15-point win at Adelaide Oval on Thursday night. Soligo finished the game and on Friday played down the incident." Presumably someone had a word with him. Considering he's never had a job except at The Roar but his 'dress for the job you want' profile picture makes him look like the host of a Young Liberals cocktail party debate night, you'd suspect he was quite ready to duck for cover.

That evaluation is so unreasonable and personally vindictive is raises an eyebrow towards racism. The only other possibility is that he's still in a sulky about the Dog's getting annihilated in the grand final that he's still coming after Melbourne as if we must be bad people because we did something that made him feel the sads. EDIT: Here is the same person discussing Peter Wright's full-force impact on the back of the head of a player who was backing into a mark; To begin with, let’s call it what it was – a collision, and not a hit, nor a bump, and especially not a snipe. It’s the sort of incident that, up until recently, was seen as an occupational hazard of one of the world’s most brutal, fast-paced sports. Those times have changed, and it’s no longer safe to wave such collisions away without attempting to stamp them out of the game, especially when they result in a serious injury as Wright’s did, with Cunningham suffering a serious concussion. But it’s worth noting, if for nothing else than to defend Wright’s character, that the only thing he did wrong was, in the split second it took to make the decision, brace for contact rather than continuing to fly for the mark and risking his own wellbeing.

Quoting just to give credit for the precision call.

Jack Lukosius today has provided the perfect textbook example of what 'disposal efficiency' is and is not. The key is that a disposal is still counted as effective if it travels beyond a certain distance (I think 40m?) to a contest. As I'm looking at the stats now, Lukosius has 22 disposals, going at 81% efficiency, for a total of 680 metres gained (!!) but also seven turnovers. So, with a third of his disposals being outright turnovers he's still got close to the best DE% on the field because he is banging it on average more than 30m forward every time he gets it!

Correlation does not indicate causation, but when it is this clear there's certainly a basis for further research. I'm sure he is referring to boomer's round, the new themed fixture. In round 19 all games will be on a saturday afternoon, each club will have a special uniform with long socks, the 6-6-6 rule will be enforced at every stoppage, and all players will be obliged to 'kick the bloody thing'.

Strange, I've been actively noting that Langdon is playing quite well. Useful connections, and blocking space defensively. I thought he was very important at limiting the Port dynamic midfield.

There are many strong parallel but I don't think North are going to be triple-premiers any time soon!

Have you seen the standard of seriousness of Australia's national television lately? Sometimes I think the networks are being run by a secret cabal of Netflix agents.

I just switched over to tonight's game. Conversation went; "Who's playing?" "Ah, Port and Essendon." "Is that that BT guy commentating again?" "Hmm, yeah." "Don't they have anyone else?"

Gawn has managed double-figures Brownlow votes six times, including 20 in 2018. So it is possible. By the numbers this season you could realistically make the case that he is playing his best football. The only stat that he's down on is contested marks but that can be changed with one clunking game. His stubborn refusal to kick his 100th goal might be a problem. Every once in a while it blows my mind to reflect on how good Max is. He has been monstrously dominant in three games already this season and very, very good in another, but by the numbers this is all just normal. Anyway, currently on 99 goals, 97 behinds. Which will hit the ton first and will we all be storming the pitch? :D

The in form version of Chandler (such as the first 8 rounds last season and his start so far this season) is as good as any small forward you'd choose to compare him to. As DEEFence noted, he does seem fitter and more able to stay involved in games or at least provide the defensive cover running even when he isn't getting stats, which will help his consistency significantly. I think Chandler's 50th game (currently 37) will be a nice little one for the milestones thread because he really looks to be making that transition to established AFL player.

I do not like the Adelaide Crows. It isn't so much that I hate them or that they have a high priority in my thoughts. I just don't like them. Losing to them would feel like watching a slack colleague get an efficiency award for finally doing the basic thing they've been putting off for six months which caused you a whole lot of extra trouble. I dislike them on the level of a debate about who is supposed to order printer ink. Let's just get it done so we don't have to think about them again until next year.

Let them take/promote extra players post-draft from the WAFL to top up their list and add a bit of depth. Personally I think that is a much better system than the academies anyway - we should never be risking the creation of dominant super-teams. Instead focus on minimising the non-competitive bottom-out process while also giving a little extra significance to the state level leagues. Meanwhile, does anyone really doubt that the Eagles tanked post-Judd to get Naitanui and Shuey and then again in 2010 to get Gaff and Darling? Chroistos on a bicycle, they got the same number of priority picks as we did.

Which I can assure you is textbook body-on-body positioning every time. ;)

My brother is a Carlton supporter and when we were chatting about the weekend's football - as much as he was pleased to have a ten goal win - he had real concerns for some of the decisions made in that game. He particularly noted a couple that went against Toby Pink (either paid against him, or not paid for him) which he felt were just appalling. For a tall defender in their third game with very limited support to be coming up against Curnow & McKay is hard enough, but to then have a string of very bad umpiring decisions go against you turns it into a serious test of character. It simply shouldn't be happening. One of my deep concerns about our game is that the AFL is happy to 'run down the asset' and not do the fundamental maintenance of investing properly in umpiring, junior development, second-tier leagues, and so forth. The particularly visible and risible umpiring decisions affect the game in much the same way as having a couple of utterly non-competitive teams, or having a wildly compromised draft. There's only so many times people can think 'nah, I'll sit this one out and just check the results' before it becomes habit.

Do you get bonus points if you tip all the away teams for a round?

Booooooo. I still believe one day he will play a game where he has a stat in every conceivable column.

Fun fact time! Nibbler has only polled Brownlow votes once before and it was some years ago. Even better, it was a remarkable 3 votes in a game where he and Angus Brayshaw had three goals apiece in a beautiful 15-goal margin splattering destruction in Alice Springs which many of us will recall fondly as the peak of the time we were pushing for the most consecutive quarters won, ever. At the time we had only three players on the field with as much experience as Nibbler has now. The opponent? Adelaide! Got another one in you, Nibbler?

Clayton Oliver closing in on 5,000 disposals (current 4838). Going at >50% contested, too. I suspected that Christian Petracca was closing in on the all-time record for score involvements but then I had a dig around and found that 'they' actually didn't record the stat systematically until exactly when Petracca was drafted. It is basically his personal statistic and everyone else is just visiting. Sorry, Gary. Oooh, fun thing I just discovered - Jack Viney got his 1000th clearance just last week! And Gawn is right on the cusp of a major milestone - his 1st bounce in AFL! Be ready, it could happen at any moment.

Towerview Store, Benalla. There's your value burger. You know it is a legit fish'n'chip place because the tradies all detour to go there. Also, if a burger is promoted doesn't that make it an alderman?

Yeah, I don't get the disdain for him. He's already a solid player in an awkward role and growing into it steadily.

The trade cost would be too much. Freo would expect two good first-round picks at least.