Little Goffy

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.

I mean, rebounds happen and all that, but there's only so far you can stretch the elastic.

I think early in the game, especially the second quarter, there were too many moments where we thought too much about how cool we'd look while doing the fancy stuff. Really good mental reset to get our focus back. Aside from a collection of excellent performances, that's the big thing I'm taking from the game. Jake Bowey still make me so very happy. Every time he gets it, our situation improves a little.

I had a nightmare just the other night where my son and I were barricading ourselves into our two-storey house to keep out wandering zombies. I don't have a son and I live in an apartment, but the zombies have me worried. This game can't start soon enough.

Hmm, I do wonder how many of those scenarios are actually 'a long term coach left the club in a mess because they kept making decisions to keep their position tenable each year and eventually it all caught up with the club and left them in the [censored zone], causing multiple coaches to be burned through before any restoration began. Kevin Sheedy and Leigh Matthews at least had a collection of premierships, but then at North you've got Brad Scott clinging on for almost a decade and being unmistakably responsible for wrecking the list and the culture. Fun fact - Brad Scott's first season at North was an exact 50% win rate. He currently has exactly 50% in his first season at Essendon. He also has an exact 50% win-loss rate in finals(4 -4), and if Essendon lose next week he'll have an exact 111-111 win-loss count from his 222 home-away games as coach!

Tasmania will just get a ferry.

Might be true now that he's pinged a hamstring, but his previous three games netted seven goals and four goal assists. Very handy spent force!

Good round of football, this. Such a wild set of results that nobody can really make a clear claim to understand what it all means. Fun that the biggest upsets - Gold Coast vs Brisbane and Adelaide vs Port - are also the only two games with any margin to speak of. Hey, if 13th and 14th can beat 2nd and 3rd, maybe even West Coast are a chance to miraculously bridge the gap between them and second last? But seriously, there could not have been a better time to be reminded to never take any team lightly. Plus, 2nd is now in the mix so it is time to get serious.

Meanwhile, Franklin subbed off with a hamstring. Didn't look like much, but there's not much left in the season either.

Which just makes all the more impressive and reassuring that he's finally learned to do it well in his 30s!

Checks list... COME OOOOOON YOU CROWS!

Basically the Gold Coast club motto. Except this time... they might yet hold on! Is there a way to slip them a note to convince them that percentage matters?

She did say she was concussed. Or did you forget that!? Oh no, it's contagious!

Yep, Blues are now our only remaining proverbial 8-point game. Win that one and it becomes near-impossible for us to miss top-4. All teams chasing for our top-4 spot now need to pick up at least two wins compared to us, thanks to our percentage. That stays true even if the Saints win tomorrow. Beat Richmond on Sunday and obviously that makes the gap three wins, with just four more rounds to go. Aaaand as I type this Gold Coast are ahead of Brisbane... which would very much bring 3rd into play... and with Port now hitting a solid bollard even 2nd isn't out of possibility if they can fluff it against the Crows tonight, too!

I'm getting a strange premonition that the Blues' run will be a bit like our 2018 - break into finals with a bit of form, win an elimination final over a roughly-equal team due for a letdown, have a special night out in a semi-final beating a vulnerable top-4 team, and then get absolutely splattered in a prelim. Coming up against any of Saints, Cats or Giants, the Blues would certainly feel they had the upper hand at the moment. Given that they've now beaten Collingwood as well as giving Port a thorough whack, anything is possible. Collingwood out in straight sets to Melbourne then Carlton... oh, the humanity!

What's going on in the Geelong - Freo game? Not free-to-air where I am, and I just flicked through stats and noticed 15 hit-outs already - on target for about 150 for the game! Is that that much of a slog down there?

Pick 4 is, objectively, the best draft pick this century. In fact, the unsuccessful pick 4s are almost entirely limited to Barry Prendergast selections! Actually, on further investigation pick 5 may actually have pick 4 just slightly beaten thanks to the incredibly early run of McVeigh, Franklin and Pendlebury, and overall consistency with almost no 'misses', and those misses are GWS anyway. So I'll be able to remain calm if Freo put in a little bit of a late season spark and somehow climb to 5th-last! We should try to trade up to get both 4 and 5 because I don't think there's ever been a draft without at least one of them going on to be absolute pinnacle-level champions.

If there's non-alcoholic whiskey, why aren't there alcoholic bananas yet? Come on, Science, we're relying on you!

McKay is a gun but we don't need the super premium option. We need a job done and it can be done by someone on less than half the salary McKay claims and about a quarter of the trade value. Our draft hand this year (which I suspect will once again be partially played into next year) is the key to turning a peak into a dynasty and it would take a truly exceptional opportunity to convince me that tossing it in would be worth it.

That scene with the crowd of boofheads at the race (10:30) enrages me every time. A bunch of them where smiling and enjoying themselves - genuinely just revelling in the chance to form a pack to be abusive to a stranger. In contrast, it is interesting and a little bit beautiful to see genuine hard-nut Viney at this level of also being a genuine clear thinker about the importance of managing your emotional balance.