Little Goffy

Taken as a rookie, but I predict he will be escalated quickly.

So many one-touch marks where he has also met the ball at full stretch and timing. That's definitely one of those deep-rooted traits that are very difficult to develop once you're already an adult. Good cloth and our defence program seems to be pretty good at tailoring it.

He is clearly better than Cadman already. Mile ahead.

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.