Little Goffy

*Chances are, you're about to lose.

I think a quiet conversation with Goodwin over a soothing cup of tea to just reflect on the way that as accumulating injuries and bad form wrecked our forward line he turned more and more to the emotionally comforting option rather than the ruthless call. He turned to his personally loved and trusted players and while it worked a treat with Melksham, once that option was cruelly taken away he never should have even looked in McDonald's direction. It was decision-making under really terrible stress and very few could have done better. Just this season one champion coach 'retired' under stress and another took three months off due to basically a stress-related breakdown. It's easy to see how that can happen when our own coach has watched things get worse and worse on a near weekly basis. So, I'd schedule a lot of calm reflection and care for Goodwin and coax a reset on the old mantra of controlling the things we can control.

I rarely get to go to games, being stuck up here in Sydney, and whenever I do, part of me imagines that the other Demons around are also somewhere on this site. Sitting way up in the back for the game against Sydney a few weeks ago, my wife and I were set up behind a row of people who had a real atmosphere of sophisticated knowledge of the game combined with maximum commitment to being smart-[bleep]s. A real country football vibe that was so refreshing compared to having to listen to channel 7. Also, seen that day; a HUGE DUDE who could probably crush a cat's skull with one hand - looked a bit like if Liev Schreiber got real and hardened up. But then, he was being a proper gentleman all game, and as the crowd was filing out my wife was getting into a full adorable asian-girl dance mode for the second (third?) playing of the club song and this giant dude just started joining as he went past. I love my club, I love its community, and Demonland punches well above it's weight for building that community. As I said, thanks to Demonland, even from a distance every Demon in the crowd feels like they might be in on the same jokes.

Toby Greene the player most likely to punch/kick/bite Maynard in the throat, so that's a good match-up for next week. I could live with a Brisbane/GWS grand final. Whatever is further from a Carlton/Collingwood match up. Jusy mopping up the media [censored] would cost the Victorian government more than the Commonwealth Games. Edit: I'm surprised that was censored, but concede it was grotty. I leave it to everyone's imagination.

A long time ago and still relatively new to football, I attended a club function and got to shake hands and make a little small talk with Mr Barassi, who seemed like a man pre-set to be mildly amused by everything. It was only a week later when I told a Carlton-supporting friend and she absolutely lost her basket in shock that I quite grasped the significance of this pleasant granddad! Ron Barassi is surely the ultimate example of the truly great not needing to tell anyone they are great. Always will be.

Trade ideal - a solid-bodied, competitive forward who can contribute some ruck support and allow our younger and/or smaller talls to develop with a bit of protection. Draft ideal - a couple of smart and capable tall defenders and a couple of energetic playmakers. (E.g. Curtin, O'Sullivan, Moir, Brown) New forward line coach. Also, better lawyers. Seriously, the way the tribunal is going, the legal teams should be included in the footy dept soft cap.

Hmm, if we hadn't finished top 4, and only lost one game to be knocked out, would that still count? West Coast - knocked out of elimination finals by 6, 8 and 7 goals in 2002-2004 before then playing in consecutive grand finals and winning a premiership. Port Adelaide - 2001 knocked out winless, then 2002 and 2003 won only semi-finals for a 4L 2w record. Then won the premiership in 2004. Richmond - 2013/14/15 knocked out in elimination final each time, including once against a team that didn't even finish top 8! Were a definite laughing stock with an old stale list. Reset in 2016, recruited aggressively to supplement their mature list, and played in the next 4 grand finals for three premierships. Essendon - Top of the ladder on a seven game winning streak, coincidentally, massively choked and lost by a point against Carlton in 1999, then came back and had the best single season in the AFL era in 2000. Also, just for fun, please remember that Essendon have now lost six consecutive elimination finals with an average losing margin over ten goals. Not sure if that is relevent but it always cheers me up. Geelong - in a four-year run from 2016-2019 they finished 2nd, 2nd, 8th and 1st on the ladder, yet never won more than one final in a season and clearly were far too old to go on. Hawthorn - Unexpectedly won a premiership in 2008 then slumped horribly, missing finals, then knocked out in an elimination final in 2010 before 2011 coming into the 2011 prelim final the long way via a semi-final. Led at every change before choking out by giving up the lead in a five goal to 2 final quarter when the opponent had only kicked five goals in the entire game to that point. Hawthorn then played the next four grand finals for three premierships. Brisbane - 2019/20/21 Brisbane entered finals in the top 4, including twice earning home finals, and played six finals for a total of one win. Now, Brisbane are the only example from this set who has not gone on (yet) to win either one or three premierships in the following years, and it includes a full range of age profiles. We finished this season in a miserable way, with injuries and poor form stacked in the particular area of the ground where we were weakest to begin. Along the way, these last 8 days have done real damage to my entire 'relationship' with Australian football. But there's no reason to believe Melbourne won't be up in the contenders again in 2024 and with just as much a shot as any other top-4 side. Meanwhile, I'm glad our women's team is stomping everything in sight because I don't know if I'll even be bothering to watch the rest of the men's finals. It's all just damp ash.

Okay. So, I know we made a lot of mistakes but the fact is we were robbed. I'm not going to itemize it but geebus there were a lot of obviously slanted calls. That said, Tom McDonald has to retire.

People should stop worrying about the Kozzie bump - tribunal will just award him Patrick Cripps' Brownlow Medal.

These two smucks singing the national anthem literally just rocked up at the gate pretending they were booked. Whoever it was supposed to be is currently in an argument with security at Gate 5.

I'll give him a break to the extent that I accept he is merely a mediocre journo with a [censored] attitude who has been given a second chance at a dream job ahead of about 500,000 people who could do it better with more honour. Come to think of it, that rating actually still puts him in the top half of AFL commentators!

I think between the sling tackle and the fake 'bracing' actions actually turning your body into a battering ram, we can dramatically lower concussions. Competing for marks, including speccies, causes very few injuries. Legitimate tackles cause very few injuries. Legitimate spoils cause very few injuries. Hell, even legitimate bumps (as opposed to sniping) cause very few injuries. In any situation other than when you turn your body into a point-focused weighted projectile (the physics of the tungsten rod or depleted uranium armour penetrating rounds are fascinating and illumating!) the injuries caused are dramtically less frequent and less severe.

When the ALFW round preview has you tipped as 50 point winners, something is up. Basically they are saying that our winning margin will be more than what six teams have even managed to score in total for the first two rounds. North currently have a better percentage than us because they've almost entirely prevented anyone from scoring against them, but that doesn't change the fact that we have given away the third fewest points against us while also scoring 50% more than any other team. I think we're in with a chance, here.

Yeah, ah, I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that if Aaron Naughton was available we'd play him, y'know? On our list we have 13 players at least 194cm... May, Lever, McDonald, Schache, Grundy and Gawn. Brown (test?), Petty (inj), Van Rooyen (susp), Turner (kid, but has been given a recent run), Jefferson (kid), Adams (kid), Verral (ruck kid). Except for Grundy, every tall we've got who can realistically be expected to put in an AFL-level performance is on the field for us tonight. Van Rooyen, Howes (191cm), Jefferson, Adams, Verral, and Turner have all been grabbed in the last two drafts. Before that we invested pick 3 in a 200cm utility. We just picked up both Grundy and Schache in the last trade period, grabbed Ben Brown just a few years ago, and the two biggest traded in names on our list are May and Lever, both of whom we allegedly paid overs for at the time! We have a hole in our ship and if Goodwin is able to plug it and pump the water out enough to get us to the premiership, he's a freak'n genius. Which he might indeed be.

Yep, I've done the full swing in mood. Feeling like if we can take out Carlton we're better than 50/50 for the flag. That's partly because I think Carlton are actually in the very top level at this stage of their momentum, and partly because if we manage to get our forward issues worked out enough to get past Carlton, then we'll have a plan in place for dealing with the rest.

6w, 2l with Tomlinson in the team. I like him and hope he plays, although it might depend on how we feel about Carlton's decision to go small with their forward line.

Well, now, overturned chairs aren't going to be very comfortable but it is an in-principle victory, and inevitable given the original decision didn't have a leg to stand on. Did the discussion go all the way to the chairperson?

Looking at it from another angle. The following is a true statement; Since Craig McCrae took over at Collingwood, there is a ~5% chance per game that Brayden Maynard knocks someone unconscious in some form of 'spoiling attempt'. Maynard is only 26, so we can look forward to another four or five of these at least.

None too soon. The scale of crowd violence at AFLW games is out of hand and I for one applaud the removal of the one specific portable lightweight and useful item which has been driving the rolling fracas. Would've thought frisbees were more of a concern at this time.

He reminds me of the people on the yacht in the 1988 bicentennial documentary. Utterly full of themselves, meritless and deeply proud of the fact that they have acquired so much while not having any merits, and entirely lacking self-awareness.

12 months ago the talk about Ashton Moir was 'possible number 1' and all the top pick hype about freakish athleticism and good kicking off both feet. Clearly something has gone wrong this season and he's now barely scraping into top 30 lists, if that. On the face of it, a 188cm, skilled and unpredictable forward/half forward would seem like a great selection in the 20s for us, but clearly there's a lot to know. Anyone have insight into what stalled for Moir and how he might go in future?

A subpoena regarding backroom communications related to the decision would be a gold mine, I suspect.

My concern is that if everyone played like Brayden Maynard there wouldn't be anyone left to play. Fact is, he knocks someone unconscious almost exactly once 1 per 100 one-percenters. Maybe he thinks that's why they are called that? There are 30 players who have had more than 100 1%ers this season, and another 80 with at least 50 1%ers. So that's 70 hospitalisations caused by barely a 100 players. Even the lowest-ranked players for one-percenters would be knocking someone out once every five seasons. If everyone played like Brayden Maynard, one in three AFL players would be knocked out and hospitalised with concussion each season.

Okay, so in the wild world of quantum draft picks, I have a fantasy that has come back now that Curtin seems to have slipped ever so slightly down the order and might make it to our first pick. Add a little bit of ducking and weaving to get a second early pick and aim for a complete restock of our talls. Curtin at approximate pick 5, then O'Sullivan at around 9. Both, but particularly Curtin, have been noted as versatile and able to play forward, which helps both our options and theirs, and makes for a very interesting mix with these two and Petty as our long term core of talls. (Kalana White being named All-Australian under-16s center-half-back a couple of months ago - and already 197cm! - also helps with my succession anxiety) Adding a little bit of run with Brown Jr. as a fairly cheap father-son is a handy bonus, and I suspect we'll have at least one more pick on top of those three which should come before the F/S selection if we're smart.

2022 https://www.sen.com.au/news/2022/03/08/maynards-appeal-swiftly-rejected-by-afl-tribunal/ Maynard’s attempt to spoil GWS’ Daniel Lloyd in a pratice match was not looked upon favourably ... careless conduct, high impact and high contact and offered him a two-game suspension. Lloyd was briefly knocked unconscious by the spoil and was diagnosed with a concussion in the aftermath.