Little Goffy

I had just seen the 'nine things we learned' article on the AFL website which talked up the Swans as having the best youngsters. I was expecting this to be a kind of reply to that clearly erroneous point. I'm not quite sated so I'll just say; Sparrow, Pickett, Jordon, Rivers, Jackson, Bowey. Not only are they all quite talented, but they also all stand out for character and commitment. I'd be quite content if you told me that five years from now that would be our best 6. Having new young players who have rapidly embraced the necessary commitment to effort and to team is just gold. Credit to the development coaches.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. As a team we a relying very much on big scoring bursts in just one quarter. I went back and had a look at what our results would be if you removed our best quarter each game. ... Yeah, nah, we still win every game. I really put effort into my MFCSS then, and it still didn't work out.

58k to the Bulldogs game, 45k to the Essendon game, that doesn't seem too bad. It is the easter long weekend, there are a lot of people with serious visiting family/friends backlogs to clear, and lots of people skipped their usual summer holidays because of the Omicron spike. We've also got three more consecutive games at the MCG coming, against opponents that some people may even care about. For me personally, I'm many thousands of kilometers away so definitely the issue is the cost of the Uber.

I agree but please leave poor old George out of it.

I'll be flying over your head (Nha Trang back to Hanoi; le tour de in-laws) about 30mins after the game finishes. Sometimes even a flight delay is favourable, although listening through a mobile in a packed airport waiting area isn't ideal!

Will it shock anyone if I say that I think we've been in only 'adequate' form so far this season? It feels more like the last few games of our big run of wins last year, rather than either of our dominant peaks. To be sure, it is a whole thrill of its own to be winning solidly when off our best, but I'm slightly impatient to see us really turn it on at least once. Just for recreational reasons I'd like to see 120mins of football at the level of the last 40mins of 2021! I'm not sure GWS are even worthy of being thrashed so historically, so I guess I'll keep my focus on maintaining the defensive rigor up to standard. Wins are wins and Bowey still needs 17 more to break the record run.

Geolocked. Can't even use VPN for it.

Dammit, I'm reduced to listening on radio. Any tips on watching from overseas without subscribing to stupid things from stupid companies?

Time for a random bag of individual statsl Clayton Oliver; most handballs in a season with 482 in 2017. Incredibly, that count still stands despite being against players who had the extra games from finals. Oliver claimed the most contested possessions in a season in 2021. He is currently chasing most clearances/season, with his current 9/game behind only Brett Ratten's astonishing 265 total in 1999. It has already been noted that Gawn holds the 'most hitouts in a season', with 1119 in 2018. Chasing; Steven May is currently on 8 rebound-50s a game, which is on target for the most ever, while he is also a fraction shy of the pace for most one percenters. Christian Petracca is currently well ahead of the pace for inside-50s/season, with more than ten a game chasing Dangerfield's 194 total. Oliver and Petracca are 1 and 2 for clangers in a seasons, which is the champion's stat given Franklin, Martin and Bontempelli are all in the top echelon. Alex Neal-Bullen is going at 2 goal assists per game, chasing Jason Akermanis' 44 total in 2004. Unicorn watch: I'm convinced that Luke Jackson will become the first player to record every possible stat in a single game. 🦄

Yep, just because the AFL HQ made an absolute mess of it doesn't mean the ambition is correct. Karmichael Hunt. Israel Folau. Geezus. As for Tassie, there have been so many promises and slipping schedules that even when there is a signed contract to look at I'll trust it about as much as a Submarine Procurement Agreement. I've always believed in a massive boost to the second-tier competitions and feel like Tassie could have been well served by that, but I'm not Tasmanian and won't attempt to speak for what they want.

I have faith in Serious Sam. I also think it is going to be absolute scoreboard carnage. Essendon have been exposed by small and mid-sized forwards as well as attacking midfielders this season already. (12 of 15 goals by Brisbane, 14 of 20 goals by Geelong) I would argue that we have one of the best groups in the competition for exactly that kind of attack. I'm perfectly happy with any win, but a little part of me wants to cleanse what has been a wildly stressful (but successful) couple of weeks for me and unwind with a nice relaxing obliteration of an opponent that still somehow manages to be sound smug and entitled at 0-2.

'Foot, don't ask' should be a category of its own. Good read, thanks for the depth. (Everyone knows I love a good screenful of text!)

For sure. I would say the only reason he isn't mentioned here is that there is no debate to be had! B&F, endless smiles, showed a way to be successful and professional without being a robot. Highly valuable and I hope I'm sure he had fun celebrating the premiership!

I rate each of them about a 50% chance. But seriously, Petracca after two games in 2022 is AVERAGING the numbers that were his very best games of 2021. It is horrifying. He is the god of war come to destroy us all.

Absolutely. He gave us two years of being solidly in our best 22 and one further year of being a kind of 'playing assistant coach.' Standard setter and a substantial part of the sheer weight of effort that it took to turn the culture towards professionalism. One of the best veteran trades made. Nods to Daniel Cross, also, who gave an uncannily similar contribution. Unlikely we would have a premiership without what those two added to our club.

I'm not sure out salary cap position is as bad as it might seem at first glance. Yes, we have a number of **SUPERSTARSZZZ** who add a lot within the first few names you call out, but then consider just how many value-for-money role players we have out there. I'd also suggest that a few of our older very important players were brought in on front-ended contracts and would not be expecting their peak salaries for their next extension. But let's focus on the swarm of role-players currently giving excellent service in the best 22; Nibbler, Harmes, Ben Brown, and Tomlinson are each examples of players who put longer-term deals ahead of getting maximum coin year-by-year. Harmes was the only one of these who signed their new contract while at their best form. As essential mature players contributing their role to a high standard, they have all delivered great value for money. Fritsch it is hard to know exactly but even though he is terrific, there's still the fact that he is not a 'structural' key forward and he can be inconsistent. Very hard to assess what money he would be considered 'worth' and what his attitude to cash would be. Also worth noting that we actually have a very long 'tail' of kids and top-up types who would be on very little money, from Daw and Mitch Brown at the older end, to 16 players aged 21 or under. Setting aside Jackson, whose performance plus hype is a bit wild at the moment, there's Spargo, Sparrow, Jordon, Pickett, Rivers, Petty and Bowey. Seven players in our best 22 who are still kids. Contributors, with great futures, but none of these are going to be earning mega-dollars within the next couple of years. We have a little bit of a shallow list and we were a little lucky that injuries didn't expose our depth too badly in 2021. Also, we just happened to have a whole collection of really solid, respectable young players! Quick comparison; at present our players 22 years old or less have accumulated 250 games between them. Those up-and-coming Bombers we play on Friday have just over 100 games total from the same age range. That also takes a different shape to, say, the Bulldogs, who have almost as many games played by kids, but that number is almost entirely in Naughton and Bailey Smith who will, like Jackson, come at a premium. In contrast, we have all those kids who have been picking up games and making steady progress in the normal way that good young players do. Long story short; our salary cap isn't as tight as it might look, and we don't need to be throwing wads of cash to desperately recruit stars, so we should be able to manage it.

Playing a team role beautifully. He's two good possessions off his 2021 and that's all, while clearly taking an accountable role to neutralise opposition rucks. He may have another comparatively quiet game against Essendon on Friday, looking to physically evaporate Sam Draper, which will again give Jackson a chance to play free and wild. Gawn is giving Jackson the kind of support and protection that few young rucks would dare dream about and it is also giving the Demons the very best attacking output from the young gun. This is dynasty-building stuff we're watching.

We have 4 players over 30 who are realistically likely to retire at the end of the year. Probably the only players who wouldn't be 100% secure on the list would be Hunt and Smith. Weideman seems forever stuck on the edge of being a good forward, but I'd expect we would persevere with him given that Brown & McDonald are both 29, and our other back-up forwards are actually older!

His next contract may well resemble a 'football ATM'!

I think it is all a bit of hype, just because of how much he looks like the perfect modern prototype footballer.

I simply cannot cope with the thought that Max Gawn, who can be talked about among our greatest all-time players, might end up not even being our best current ruckman. But, seriously, can we give a nod to the big man here - he was working incredibly hard to wear down Witts in particular as well as Chol, both in ruck-wrestling and covering them around the ground. This was letting Jackson spend a surprising amount of time on ground being comparatively fresh and lurking menacingly (if someone that affable can be menacing) in dangerous places. Pretty phenonemal little stat - we had two ruck players who played 84% and 83% time on ground. Last week it was Jackson on field for 86% of the game and Gawn was out there for a mind-boggling 97% time on ground. I don't think there's any ruck combination out there who could go with them for sheer time and endurance, and then there's the talent package as well.

Bump, just in case, to save us starting a new thread! 34 disposals, 16 contested possessions, 10 intercepts, 81% disposal efficiency. As good as any medium or small defender's game can possibly be. 152 Supercoach, for those who monitor that as a loose indicator. Nobody even close on the numbers this week, so he should now become only the second player to be nominated for Rising Star after already having a premiership medal. (I asked SwampThing on Twitter and he confirmed Richard Hadley, who, incredibly, not only was in his third season, but had ONLY played finals in his second season.)

And you can tell they did not enjoy any of the losses in 2007. Three of the four teams they lost to that year, they played a second time after the loss; Lost to the Dogs in Round 1, then beat them by 75 in round 16. Lost to the Kangaroos in Round 5, then beat then by 27 in round 20 and 106 in the qualifying final. Lost to Port (breaking the streak) in round 21, and then posted 163 to 44 in the Grand Final. By the way, when that streak was broken, they then started another 12 game winning streak, followed by a 15 game winning streak, followed by a 13 game winning streak. Works out to, um, 15+12+15+13= 55 wins, 4 losses from the start of the multi-streak to the next time they lost two games in a row. But we've got Bowey now, so all is well.

In hindsight that Cairns disaster could be marked as a turning point as significant as the Geelong loss to North way back, which promoted a collected removal of heads from 4rses and launched a incredible run of team and individual brilliance. But I think we all know that things only really turned when Jake Bowey joined the club.

For selfish reasons, I only hope it doesn't have to be consecutive years! I've clocked about 15 years overall, including some of the very worst years, but have a gap because a bunch of those things that happen, happened. Personally, I think being a continuous member from 2007-2017 should also count for additional rewards. Like, a sympathetic hug from a player or a free 20-minute session in a sound proof padded room. But, seriously, I think anything that recognises the deep durability of some members is a good idea.