Little Goffy

So, now we do a quick trade to jump into the early picks tomorrow and grab Barnett & Keeler, added to Jefferson and our new rookie Faris-White, and we'll have a solid 8m draft.

Melbourne: We rate getting a top 5 pick so highly that we would offer up two first round picks and a downgrade from 13 to 22 just to get one. North, Godl Coast and Essendon; Yeah, we would want more than that. Sydney: Yes, we agree. After all, that is about what we gave up in total for Braeden Campbell, Callum Mills and Isaac Heeney. AFLHQ: We are so good at this.

Ooh ooh, I've got it! They all called in sick for their day jobs today. Except Daisy. She's probably already delivered three babies and a successful fetal-alcohol-syndrome intervention.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out Earth has been up on stumps on some derro alien's galactic front lawn for the last twenty years.

Might go the way of the pre-game stretch routine. Long been shown that a proper warm up and mild working through of different parts of the body is the way to go, not the specific 'stretch-out' processes that used to be so standard. Stretching as a targeted activity is supposed to be done as a 'lifestyle' every day to continuously build and maintain the baseline of flexibility. Looks like something similar with the cold-water and ice bath therapies. A good way to stimulate blood flow and over time develop a better circulation at the fine capillaries, but not as a direct response to specific damage. Maybe the reason stretching and cold water treatment is still emphasized in these 'targeted' spaces is because otherwise we'd all have to admit we just can't be buggered doing a 30 minute stretch session every morning followed by a cold shower. Like some kind of 'Anna McNulty meets Wim Hof' nightmare.

That was pretty intense and I'm particularly pleased that Daisy got to kick the sealer. Defence held up brilliantly ont he strictly defensive side but had some trouble breaking out of the ring at 50-70m. That's a team thing. Similarly, we struggled to put it to any kind of forward or space favouring a forward for a long time. Bannan had a game of 'almosts' and relatively little real impact. A couple of extra steps here, a slightly cleaner break from a contest there, and she would have ended the game in our favour multiple times. Must have been very frustrating and I'd be hoping she is setting herself for a mighty grand final. Plenty to like. North are like a custom-built counter to the way we'd like to play and they kept the intensity up very well. Good test, time for the grand final!

Is upwood related to updog?

First two kicks at AFL level were goals. It was a bizarre one with Weideman as no articles or Wikipedia mention it, because he had about a dozen handballs in between his first and second kick and the second was late in the game. I only realised when I noticed Weideman had just two kicks total in his first game, so they must both have been goals otherwise another umpire would have to be arrested.

Award-winning at reserves level while playing for Demons? Oh, premierships at reserves level? Waaaaaiiiit..... I've got it but will leave it for others to guess/figure as well. That's amazing. I would've thought there would be barely three players in the whole league who have that in common, let alone three who each spent most of their career playing at reserves level.

BBO: "More PM insults than early 90s Australia."

Spot betting. Intentionally designed to cultivate addiction. Might as well have also been designed to cultivate corruption.

Got to acknowledge the AFL leadership for their one true skill. Finding out ways to make stakeholders pay for something that was previously a public good. Now every year the states can get into a bidding war. I'm glad Gil isn't in charge of the electricity grid or we'd be paying to lean on a street post by now.

I'm a fan. Obviously only speaking based on various profiles and highlights but if you show me a super-mobile tall who can still stick marks and who has a clean long kick I'll always be interested. Also a good time to start developing the rucks and ruck-support players of the future, when they can grow under the supervision of basically the two smartest rucks in the game.

Or scratches his itch.

Our women's team seems to be always on the cusp of being absolutely unstoppable and having a great time while doing it. A breakthrough premiership could really be the first of many. I also think Alyssa Bannan is in the same 'moment' as an individual player; she is right on the edge of being the outright superstar of the women's game and also making everything around her feel more fun. Ugh, the anticipation is killing me. Damn I want that deeply deserved premiership.

Clearly we have more interest in the depth of the 2023 draft (where we already have four 1st/2nd round picks, if I recall correctly) than in the 2022. I'd suggest they are on modest salaries, will require very little attention from coaches, contribute to player development at Casey, and be part of the overall weight of demonstration and support for standards for new players. These things matter in the era of tight budgets and footy dept soft caps. Plus, obviously, either of them in their better form is a legitimate AFL level player. I'm not dancing around giddy but I'm also far from being upset. Also, Melksham just needs 6 more games for his premium genetics to become available to us.

Is it just me or is Alyssa Bannan kind of the 'supreme footballer body' for women in the way that they talked about Anthony Koutoufides as being the prototype of the modern footballer body in the men's game twenty years ago? Touch wood she doesn't start coming apart at the seams the way he did, though!

Excellleeeeeeent.

Fun Fact: Just 113 AFL players took as many bounces in the entire 2022 season as did Alyssa Bannan in that single run down the wing. Don't know how many times in the history of any level of Australian football there has been a player start a run inside the defensive 50 and finish it inside forward 50.

Didn't make it easy but finally one on the board. There's a few players having serious 'moments' out there, but the real power will come only when the system settles into place... Oh, no, wait, there's another goal. Moments of brilliance doing the job.

Considering the reigning premiers went into the grand final with an average age just shy of 29, and almost all of their best dozen on the day were older than that, I'm going to suggest that premiership windows are a little bit over-hyped. Gawn to get his fourth premiership in his 300th game. You heard it here first.

I kind of wish this had been our first game of the season just so we could have had a four-digit percentage. Tell you what, if this is the way things go when we really put everything into attacking, sign me up for more.

Interesting that Twomey has Barnett in the late 20s, and Keeler doesn't even break in. Seems a lot of other phantom drafts have one or the other, or feature both in that late 20s to early 30s range. If we are looking to add a ruckman who can play forward while 'waiting their turn' to go full-time in the ruck, either or both of them fit the bill. So I'm wondering... do we test our luck and do a pick swap 13 and 37 for West Coast's 20 and 26?

Yep, even if it is annoying for the overall effect on the game, Lyon was an early master of the art of getting the most out of unexceptional players through sheer fitness and well-drilled plans. I'd argue, though, that both during his previous run at St Kilda and at Fremantle, Lyon was able to make that work thanks to having some of the most outstanding individual players in the game at the time. With all respect to Jack Steele who is an absolute first-rate player, and to Max King who looks like he'll spend a lot of his career in Coleman Medal contention, there just isn't anyone at the Saints now who can really cut a game open or make the whole structure work through them. Nobody would doubt for a second that Ratten would have taken the Saints routinely into finals if he could add Fyfe and Pavlich or Riewoldt and Goddard (peak Goddard, to be sure) to the Saint's list which he managed to extract a 50% win rate out of. I think Ratten coached the Saints very well, as he did at Carlton. Lyon isn't necessarily a better coach and may yet find himself on a similar trajectory to Malthouse given the brittleness inherent in how he came (back) to the club.

Even at St Kilda's peak with Nick Riewoldt at his best and Justin Koncussedny having his good season, they were never a scoring powerhouse. Even more telling is that it was above all in the later seasons at Fremantle where Lyon really went all-out on the defensive style, hovering around 1575 points for in a season for three years running and not a lot to show for it. I think for both coaches there was an element of what players were available. Arguably, Hogan, McDonald, Garlett, Melksham, Nibbler and Hannan were all in their career best form in 2018, so you run with what you've got! Ross Lyon might be able to make it work up forward with Max King as the superstar and Higgins & Butler sneaking or charging for their share of goals, and maybe his hard-drilled group defence methods will also work in version 2. But here's the rub - Hayes, Dal Santo, Montagna, Goddard. v Sinclair, Crouch, Steele, Ross.