Little Goffy

Also showing as 'P. Paxman' in the broadcast stats.

I'm thrilled at the karmic smack Freo got for their arrogant attitude to the trade, but I'm also quite sure that the mostly young and mostly very good Freo side (particularly the midfield) will rise up and be a serious challenger next season, and that they won't regret having Luke Jackson, either. So my conscience is clean. From this day forward, I wish all the second best to Fremantle.

Or are they moonboots of invisibility? Could be a hand piece of kit on match day.

A while back I joked that Jye Amiss was having the career Bailey Fritsch would have had if he had been 8cm taller. Josh Schache is doing exactly the same, except the comparison is being 8cm taller than Michael Newton!

Science has confirmed that Fritsch's hair is the universal constant of physics. Observing it is the only known way to gather information about the contents of a black hole. Just Google 'Black Hole Fine Hair'.

Five dogs is a lot to manage. Should've gone for the Viney option - one dog, but five times the size!

Fingers crossed because normally when a woman is appointed to a top corporate position it is a poisoned chalice with a vast collection of unresolved potentially catastrophic issues ready to boil over... wait... okay. At least in this case she isn't being blindsided. I've barely seen anything of her but the little fragments I've dug around since the announcement suggest she is capable and has a bit of relaxed charisma. Could be a very good selection. I'm just glad my worst thoughts weren't realised after seeing a headline saying 'Kane appointed...'

Good Matrix-dodge on the there-their-they're trap, though!

Yes, indeed, and how are they reacting to the Fritsch speculation?

I feel like he's a player who will clock up a whole lot of '4ths'. 4th in a Rising Star award, a collection of 4ths in Best and Fairests, a 4th Premiership medal, all that kind of thing.

Joel Smith will have an important moment for sure. James Jordon will step up as a late-game sub and provide a valuable boost when a game is tight. Couple of smothers, maybe a run-down tackle on Pendlebury at a crucial moment that results in a 12-point end-to-end turnaround. I believe in small heroes.

From the footage it seems like the MRP got this one right enough as far as Weitering's brief incidental contact. Definitely not acceptable but short of a suspension I would have thought. Meanwhile... Toby Green had a player in an arm lock by the throat and was using that lock to drag and twist the player around after play had clearly stopped. So for me the real story here is the verification that the 'Toby Greene good guy transformation' is a full whitewash.

Just because they claim to be rebuilding but also didn't have a single player in the 22-under-22 team doesn't mean there is anything wrong with their drafting and development. Just ask dodo. Escape is survival! Basically Essendon club politics is a Resident Evil spin-off.

Melbourne to make everyone's spidey-senses tingle by smacking Collingwood. Carlton over Adelaide. St Kilda and GWS to continue in a state of unobserved probabalistic uncertainty with neither being fully eliminated until the semi-final when someone finally looks and the wavefunction collapses. #quantumtipping Brisbane over Port.

As much as he is a quality player now, I think getting Parish would clog our pipeline of development for younger players. At the same time, I don't think he'd be able to take on the physical load the way Viney exemplifies and Oliver and Petracca also do so well, so wouldn't even be contributing to that 'protection' factor either. So from my perspective, Parish doesn't offer enough 'value over the alternative' to justify stalling the process of giving Rivers more time in the middle, for example.

It has really been a twist in my gut ever since watching Melksham having to hobble his way across the field while play continued right around him despite three stoppages in that time. The sheer loneliness of it was horrible. I've been thinking about it and reached the conclusion that Jake Melksham's career would actually be a really interesting documentary. He's been intimately involved in two of the most dramatic stories of the least decade of football - the Essendon horror show and the Demon's return to power, full of characters who can be interviewed while Melksham's honest and direct style would provide a really good central thread.

Truly creepy space but if it works it works, I guess. If a xenomorph chestburster emerges from the cheersquad at least we'll know whose cryosleep was interfered with.

I think the key part is that on any given weekend about 1/3rd of the system in Sydney is closed for track repairs, with the replacement buses being a nightmare for the drivers because Sydney's roads are all designed to push people onto the tollways, and getting to and from each station in turn requires all kinds of winding and weaving, including three-point turns across intersections! Although, one thing that is definitely in Sydney train's favour is that I've never picked up that strange smell of barn hay that I get from Melbourne trains. I'm told it is related to a cleaning product they use, but it is especially common on the South-East lines.

It really is a spectacular Sydney August day today. I had to move my feet along the couch by the window because they were starting to cook. Rainbow lorikeets staring in the window demanding attention. The occasional small dense cloud giving a little relief from the sun but nothing that would bring rain. The spring winds haven't kicked in yet. My magical good luck charm wife will be coming along - looks like we got literally the last adjacent seats in the house, up in the goal umpires' reserve (top deck, partially obstructed, exposed!) My only concern is that we are fairly close to the ledge and she has a habit of levitating when excited during games. Only the second game of football I've been able to get to in person this season - the other was round 1!

West Coast putting up a fight to honor the final game of... their entire list except Oscar Allen and Jayden Hunt.

I have a feeling something awful will happen in the Brisbane v Saints game this afternoon. Every other game today is either dreary beyond words or tainted beyond redemption. We could be looking at the worst single day of home-away season football in the AFL era.

Keeping an eye on the ride ladder... erm... live ladder. Late in the first quarter and we are currently getting pick 4! Woo hoo!

Harsh, Footywire, harsh.

Just because you drop seven players at the same time, including five of your best ten, doesn't mean you aren't taking the game seriously. So I'm told. Anyway, the changes were made before the betting odds were calculated, and that's what really matters. [Censored] I hate the AFL Palace.

Very happy and I played it beautifully; switched off at half time.