Little Goffy

The main similarity between Noble & Neeld is of course that it will never be known if they could have been an effective coach if only they had been at a functional club. North have been screwed ever since their 'war chest' seasons where they dumped their still-performing veterans and banked up salary cap to attract... um... was it Jared Polec? Missing Cunnington and with Ziebell clearly overwhelmed, by my reckoning that leaves just Luke McDonald and Todd Goldstein as mature players who can provide guidance and consistency to the group. No offense to Hall, Greenwood, Anderson, Walker and Corr, but they aren't that kind of leader. Meanwhile, Horne-Francis has an idea of what might be best for him, and it isn't following in the footsteps of Jack Grimes and Jack Trengove, burdened with carrying both the hopes and the midfield of his club. Throw in the fact that half the clubs in the competition are in search of competitive tall forwards and defenders, and there is a real danger they could lose one or both of Nick Larkey and Ben McKay. If they lose one, add an entire season to their rebuild duration. If they lose both, North have no structure left anywhere on the ground. It has been 11 rounds since North came within seven goals of an opponent, and their only win for the season was this; The Kangaroos have narrowly survived an almighty scare from a desperately undermanned West Coast outfit, holding on for a 15-point victory thanks to six goals from Nick Larkey on a chaotic day at Marvel Stadium. Despite being forced to make a whopping 14 changes to their Round 1 side — a VFL/AFL record — the depleted Eagles remained within striking distance of David Noble’s side for the entire game. I don't see how North recover from their current situation. This is ruining my morning coffee.

There is no way it helps winning to be treating opponents with less dignity or decency. If our players' habit is to help each other up and then sometimes it just happens to be an opponent nearest in the mud pack, so be it. I'd rather an occasional cross-team bit of friendliness than have that habit diminished at all.

Geelong have strung together six wins in a row, but the highest ranked of those opponents is Richmond, in seventh now, who they only just scraped past. Their whole midfield/medium-sized player pool is quality without being exceptional. Yes, even Dangerfield and Selwood are now just quality without being exceptional. That will make for an interesting coaching challenge - our 'best' centre clearance midfield ought to shred theirs, but then their second rotation will be basically the same quality as their first. I have a feeling we will see some brutal momentum turns when Petracca is brought into the middle at the same time as the other prime movers are sent in after a refresh. Missing Stewart and now apparently Kolodjashnij as well not only shrinks their defence, it really reduced their intercept marks. On both counts that'll suit us as we will have more forward-50s actually stay in our forward 50, and when they do come out it'll be a little less clean and will often play literally into the hands of our harass-and-intercept game. Their forward line is more of a problem because we won't have so much luxury to move off opponents when they have the two potent talls up there. Stengle also worries me as just the kind of small forward who has always, always caused us trouble. I also think we might see our own forwards break loose a bit. For all that Ben Brown has struggled for form, I think he goes a step faster than anyone they have who is tall enough to go with him. I also think Fritsch will beat any given opponent they might send to him; when it isn't by mobility, it'll be out-contesting or by sheer cleverness. Got to admit, I really would like to make Geelong our bunny team, now and forever.

Hardly surprising that Angus can do that when the highlights from the Freo game make very clear that his brother can teleport.

We can all be thankful that he is attending the Nathan Jones Academy of Gradually Getting Better Looking As You Age.

Exactly. If Weideman can be an adequate role-player to ease some of the grind time in the ruck, while playing a more open 3rd tall/link lead style mostly outside the f50, I think that allows us to use our ruck beasts up forward with really good effect. Hell, rotated cleverly we could see both Gawn and Jackson playing close to 100% game time because even standing still 20m from goal they would still demand the best opposition defender.

Yep. The argument for 'Jackson is the absolute perfect fit for the Demon's needs now and for the next ten years' is unmissable. Unfortunately, he is also a very good fit for just about any club's needs, and our offer has to compete with whichever other club decides they want him the most. It'll all come down to where he feels he will be happiest, because let's face it, $100k isn't such a big number when it is your eighth 100k instead of your first.

The way I see it, our problem is that a key forward capable of giving reliable contests, taking marks or bringing it to ground usefully, is a very expensive player. But... what if you had a forward who was only ever getting to the edge of selection as a key target, but it turns out they might go alright as a ruck support who then gives leads all over the ground, rather than under the close checking inside 50? And what if you had two absolutely premium quality players currently in your ruck but who both can compete very well up forward, filling the need structurally and also delivering great football? There's a wonderful expression, 'If there are four cats to chase, it is the grenadiers who are demanded.' The point of course being that not all tasks should require the most elite forces at all times, and overuse wears them out to the point of ineffectiveness. I'm sure I'm not the only one who will be watching Sam Weideman very, very closely during this period where he will be taking on a fair load of ruck work. If he can deliver as a solid role player who frees up the Gawn/Jackson 'grenadiers' to be available more often at the crucial points, then our forward line is about to become much more dangerous. It also has very good implications for managing salary cap!

Ahh, David King. His main comment on the 2019 draft was to question Melbourne's selection of each of Jackson and Pickett as being 'not what the club really needs' and overpaying for both. I don't like it when people are paid well to do things which I (and many others) could do better with little effort.

Coaches pet. Goodwin has never coached a Demon game without including Oliver. Maybe never will.

https://afltables.com/afl/stats/alltime/misc_players.html A win this weekend would mean Pickett goes ahead of Selwood as the 'most winningest' player in the AFL (with more than 50 games as the cut-off).

Has literally signed on to be our games record holder. Realistic career targets to chase; First player to crack 10,000 career possessions. All time records for contested possessions, clearances and Brownlow votes. Get after it, Clarrie!

Oh Dear. Well, I'm not the first and won't be the last! I wonder if there might even be a repeat of the 'D Cordner' (Denis & Don, of course) situation with the Brownlow votes one day.

Well, we just had a ten goal win over the ladder leaders and there were really only a couple of players who exceeded what we might reasonably expect of them on a weekly basis. Sorry Gawny. I think Freo are looking for a new ruck if you'd consider moving west.

He's a valuable player, particularly in setting the pressure tone as a tall forward, and in giving options as a leading forward up the ground. There's a noticable lift in output from all our forwards when he is in form. I struggle to see how it all comes together given the seriousness of the injury and the timing of the return, but who knows. In the meantime, well, at least we find out for sure about Serious Sam. You know, he's never been held goalless in a final?

It is just plain fun to think that we have the best 'true' medium forward in the game. Only Heeney would be a direct competitor but that thought just makes me dream of what Fritsch would be like in a fully functional forward line... oh... wait... that wasn't a dream... that was 12 goals in 3 finals! Anyway, just for gloating's sake; top selections from the 2017 draft, reordered roughly as I might pick em, but very casually. Angus Brayshaw Aaron Naughton Bailey Fritsch Zac Bailey, Cameron Rayner, Adem Cerra Tim Kelly, Liam Ryan, James Worpel, Charlie Ballard Spargo and Petty also respectable mentions. Demonland needs a Jason Taylor emoji.

Ben Brown?

Search process.; Step 1. Select 'Player rankings; contested marks per game'. Step 2. Limit selection to 'tall forwards'. Step 3. Check availability, repeat. Repeat. Results after a lot of cleaning of too expensive, too old, too rucky, or just d-heads. Ben McKay, North Melbourne. Is a defender only, and not yet really proven. But should we ask the 'switch' question? Fun fact: this season Ben McKay has more contested marks per game than his brother. J Hogan. That'd just be too awkward. Peter Wright. Oh, that's odd. Didn't he used to be a bit of a lanky potato? Would seem to fit our needs. Bonus points, losing him would basically end Essendon structurally. Jake Riccardi. 14 goals three behinds in last 6 games, and hasn't been goalless in that time. Good signs but hard to know real value. Hayden McLean. Is he basically what you would get if you put Weideman in a team with a more powerful forward line than ours but which also needs more ruck support? Darcy Fogarty. Is either in form or very much not in form. 9 games this season. In the most recent 4 he has kicked 12.2 and gave 4 goal assists, but in the first five he kicked 2.3 and one goal assist. Plus, you'd expect the Crows have plans for him for when boofhead retires.

It is interesting to note that despite unfortunately never playing a game for us, nobody has ever called Majak Daw a 'list clogger.' I think that reflects well on him.

Kysaiah Pickett could show no further improvement for his entire career and still never be out of the best 22 of a premiership-contending side. Also, he's still just 21, and definitely showing signs of continuous improvement.

Oh, well, if it is Tom Browne reporting it, then that settles the matter. 🤣

Career best form since the Eagles game. By the numbers he has been a top 5 midfielder since then, but there has also been a quality to those numbers. Getting a few quick evasive steps in, keeping his feet in tackles that take the opponent off their feet, and a mental state of continuous hunting. Looks like poor Clayton has yet another team mate who will be 'stealing' Brownlow votes off him.

I do like this thing that happens whenever Bailey Fritsch kicks a goal midway through the third quarter. Note of credit to Sam Weideman; he actually took a lot of ruck contests tonight and made a pretty good fist of it, as well as competing pretty well in general. He basically provided the extra option for Jackson in the way that Jackson provides it for Gawn. It got the most out of Jackson and seemed to also get a good level of engagement from Weideman as well. It may even be a consideration for when Gawn is available again; the seeming madness of having two rucks and a ruck-forward, made possible by the fact that both rucks have clearly completely forgotten they are rucks and just run around doing all kinds of non-ruck things all day!

Don't want to freak anyone out, but McStay has about the same numbers as Sam Weideman except with a couple of extra link kicks up the ground. He'd be an improvement, for sure, but only an incremental one and I don't think recruiting him would make a major difference for us. That said, if Weideman decides to move on for a fresh start in a trade, and we then get McStay as a free agent, we would effectively be getting a little upgrade while also picking up Weideman's trade value. Ha! Use that to push ourselves up the draft order and we can pick up one of the very promising key forwards in the draft, and wha-bam we've got ourselves a short-term role filled and a long-term prospect in one go.

Reassuring that I'm not the only one a bit concerned about the mix of Harmes, Sparrow, Nibbler, and (Dunstan), in our midfield mix. Not enough impact from them. They have all had some good games but none have given the consistency that is required. Pack that together with Petracca's drop-off ever since the game he was sick for, and our overall midfield mix is a long way behind where it was for finals 2021. I'm slowly firming in the 'Brayshaw to the middle' fan club. I think we have some pretty smart players who can do as well or almost as well as him across half-back, but he can add something extra in a midfield that lacks situational awareness. Meanwhile, Weideman clearly just has to be made to play until he either gets it together or moves on for a fresh start. It is a testament to just how little we all 'trust' him that there is even hesitation about bringing him in when we are down our main ruck, backup ruck and our CHF, and our other tall forwards are in poor form as well. Actual changes I'd do? Ummm.... OUT: Gawn (inj), Turner (Inj), M Brown, Harmes IN: Weideman, Van Rooyen(!), May, Rivers