Little Goffy

To be fair, he had no idea what he was saying at the time.

Today's Hawthorn v West Coast game will answer the ancient question; "Can an entire team be penalised for insufficient intent?"

Well, it wouldn't be the first time a Demon had been suspended for standing still while someone else ran into them.

6 Oliver - prevented us from being overwhelmed 5 May - undaunted in a rough night for our defenders 4 Petracca - far from a complete game but was the driver when we actually got going 3 Fritsch - crucial to the forward movements 2 Rivers - showed sustained energy and initiative when few did 1 Hunter - just to annoy the haters, who make no sense (also, there's not a lot to choose from)

In a heavy wet game metres gained is a crucial stat and we allowed Houston, Rozee, Williams and Butters to each make 500m+ gained, for almost 3km between the four of them. Meanwhile, Darcy Byrne-Jones laid more tackles inside 50 than our entire team. Our most obvious poor games from senior players were Langdon, Viney, Pickett and Brayshaw, but I also think Neal-Bullen was either terribly misused or completely failed to do his defensive pressure job on any of those ball movers mentioned. Port are known for their fast movement and ability to create 1v1s in attack at the risk of 1v1s on the rebound against them (as noted in the 'what they are saying at' thread) and combining that with the wet weather disturbing our intercept game, it was a double exposure which we didn't handle well at all, either as players or in tactical adaptation. As a side note - Clayton Oliver actually had another excellent game, leading clearances, tackles and contested possessions, and being amongst our best for score involvements, metres gained and, once again, the curious story of his intercept possessions. I don't know what people expect of him but he was without doubt among our best. And the 'Steven May kicking in long to the left' obsession people have is getting tiresome. It is well established that as a set-up it is the most effective kick-out routine in the AFL on the balance of points scored vs points conceded. Not much May, or the plan, can do to account for two rucks taking only two marks (none contested) in a game and not even being effective at bring it down to teammates.

BT pushed his way back to the grand poohbah of stupid with a 'good' run of form in that final quarter, peak with "Hunter should mark this" when he was camping under a high ball with two Port players closing in good time. Others might surpass him for just a moment, but for BT stupid is the boomerang that always comes back.

I'm predicting Ratten will be interim coach for 6 games, based solely on that being how long he covered in his acting seasons at each of Carlton and St Kilda. Ratten still has quite some work to do to also be the first person sacked at three different clubs while having a 50/50 or better win-loss ratio!

It means Port fans have invested a lot more time in getting around their site's censorship system than we have! My turn with the question; what is 'Doing a Sam Mitchell.'? Those stats on 'creating' both attacking 1v1s and defensive 1v1s are interesting. Seems like the long story short is 'we play loose football and see how we go'.

Sometimes genuine offence is caused when genuinely none is intended. On the other hand, sometimes people say and do things which they really should know better.

Inept cowards at AFL HQ refusing to deal properly with an issue because they couldn't find a way to control the outcomes. = Absolutely everyone touched by this is being put through a slow pulverization.

One of the easiest wind-ups in football is telling Carlton/Essendon supporters that their club is basically the same as the other one. It's beautiful because it is true.

I think the issue of tanking is largely dissolved by now. The anxiety about it was always a legacy of the priority pick system which rewarded having fewer than a specific number of wins and gave a massively disproportionate benefit. Once upon a time a difference of one additional win would cost you an additional top-3 pick in the draft. It was ludicrous. Now that the 'incentive' is just the incremental progress of the pick you already have, tanking is a very limited offer. The ex-public-servant in me also recoils at the eternal process of 'just one more tweak added to make it all work just right'. That way lies madness and we all see it. If I was looking for a solution, I'd point to the same thing which would solve almost all of Australian football's problems - a serious investment in the second-tier competitions. Anyway, I'd argue that any selection in the first handful of draft picks is as likely to match pick 1 as not. Consider some pick 1s vs their best top-5 peers. 2013: Boyd vs Kelly, Billings, Bontempelli 2014: McCartin vs Petracca, Brayshaw, De Goey 2015: Weitering vs Mills, Oliver, Parish 2016: McGrath vs Taranto, McCluggage, 2017: Rayner vs Brayshaw, Davies-Uniacke, Cerra 2018: Walsh vs Rankine, Rozee, 2xKing 2019: Rowell vs Anderson, Jackson, Ash Pick 1 is almost certainly a very good player, but is no more likely to be the best of the draft than any other pick at the top.

My wife is at this very moment considering how to write a personal apology letter to Steven May.

Don't forget Barassi! (Sorry sorry sorry. Ducking for cover... now)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_Aboriginal_mythological_figures From the selection available in Victoria I nominate 'Nargun', half-stone half-human evil spirit.

I can see this being fundamentally amicable, even if a little sad for a while.

Would you say they are 'all duck or no dinner'? Seems all us lefty republicans are okay with using the pronouns by which the day identifies itself. Besides, 'The second moonday in the month of the goddess Juno' is a bit of a mouthful. I mean, I'm not a Norse-Germanic pagan, but I can also cope with Tyrsday, Odinsday, Thorsday and Freyrsday. Although the confusion about Saturnsday always gets me with that ol' pantheon switcheroo. But, we digress. I seem to remember that once upon a time our whole purpose as a club was 'to maintain a condition of excellence that allowed us to compete for the premiership every year.' Sounds like the kind of thing people would snort at Goodwin for 'saying nothing again', but it is genuinely what we're operating on. Makes for a quietly tense year as we all wonder - who will find their momentum in September this year?

Bizarre tip - I'm watching AFL 360 at 1.5 speed. Robbo sounds normal and the other guys only slightly faster than regular speech. Just incredible to realise that Robbo speaks at literally 60-70% of a normal speaking pace.

5 is ridiculous for goal assists. The year Melksham won the league total he only averaged 1.5 per game. Except for one obscene outlier, the all-time (since the stat began) records for goal assists in a game include a few sevens and not many more sixes. Maybe some day Petracca could be the one to cleanse that outlier.

Which was the fashion in those days.

I stand by my observation on Oliver's changing game - another 5 intercept possessions including a couple of quite important ones from positioning himself in smart places. Also continues to build up his marks-per-game. All without sacrificing his core inside mid role - yet to have fewer than 5 clearances in a game. I maintain my belief that he may be on the cusp of being the all-time greatest midfielder. Anyone else think he looks a little taller lately, or is it just shorter shorts? Also, Trent Rivers... bubble bubble bubble something really good is brewing there. In fact, we have an extraordinary group of medium defenders at the moment and I think the increasing commitment of the midfield to supporting defence is in turn giving us more opportunities to use those half-backs as offensive weapons.

I'm a little disappointed that Frost (150 games) didn't get to join May for the coin toss. Of course, the risk is that if you gave him the coin he might try to bounce it twice and then land it on the side.

On the bright side, when was the last time both Sydney and Geelong were embarrassed by teams in the lower end of the ladder?

Well, it would be unseemly to have 20 pages of everyone just chanting 'Kill. Kill. Kill.'

I was going to post some interesting points, about our defenders and how they will get to play their preferred game, about the sheer weight of class, power and stamina in our midfield, that Sicily will be forced to play tight on Fritsch and that won't work anyway (like making Lever play close on Hawkins), about the probability of Van Rooyen dominating Frost and of our pressure game causing a whole bunch of their young players to be second-guessing and rushing directly into our turnover traps... But, in summary, I'll be watching this game expecting to see an impact crater when the dust settles at the Hawthorn footballish club. I'm going in hungry.