Little Goffy

It's The Age. You can open it in incognito mode and it resets the 'monthly free article' counter. Because they are super tech savvy at Fairfax. 😁

It is a tough ask no matter how good or durable a player is. It basically takes 14 years of full seasons to reach 300 games. Even getting games from your first year you are still talking about playing to 32+ without missing a season. Testament to the sheer determination and resilience of Nathan Jones to get there while spending most of that time being used as both battering ram and castle gate. Of current (one-club) players with at least slightly realistic hopes; McDonald; 29 years, 193 games. Would need 4 1/2 years worth of games, but is durable and smart, and a key position player. Viney; 27 years, 150 games. Would need to keep plugging along to 33+ but isn't as far behind in the games vs age balance at you might expect as a lot of the time it has been more a case of being limited by injury than not playing. Salem; 26 years, 130 games. Limited games in his first few seasons, but I can't see any reason why he wouldn't be able to keep playing until at least 40. Harmes; 26 years, 122 games. Similar numbers to Salem but is not as certain of a continuous place in the 22, and doesn't have the wise head and kicking value that adds to longevity. Petracca; 26 years, 127 games. The idea that this guy is less than halfway through his career... Brayshaw; 26 years, 119 games. The coach loves him for a reason and it isn't because he's super quick or a mega-athlete. Outside chance for an unusually long career. Neal-Bullen; 26 years, 105 games. In a tough position to be stable in the best 22 and behind the count a bit already. Unlikely but I hardly think he'd be embarrassed if he 'only' managed 200! Fritsch; 25 years, 85 games. Mature-age recruit the only thing against him, but it makes it very hard. Oliver; 24 years, 124 games. Piece of trivia; Simon Goodwin has only coached one game without Clayton Oliver playing, and that game was as stand-in coach for Essendon. Clayton Oliver is 24 years old. *Snort-smirk.* Rivers, Pickett & Jackson; Sure, why not?

In a good side he could win a Brownlow. But, seriously, if he maintains anything like what he's done in the last couple of seasons, he's a walk-up-start. Consider the likes of Richardson, Hayes, Koutafides, Anthony Stevens - they are outstanding players but Petracca has them covered for sheer footballing effect. The only consideration is whether Petracca will have the same 'gravitas' and perceived team impact as some of the characters that have received the modern-era entries in the Hall of Fame. That includes a lot of different kinds of people but the shared feature is that they were visibly outstanding for long periods. By now, everyone knows who Petracca is and he is part of conversations about football. If he holds a consistent picture in people's mind (the laughing beast?) and becomes part of the 'personality' of the era, then obviously he'll be a hall of famer. I'm more interested in Goodwin being promoted to Legend status, because that would only happen if Melbourne as a whole goes stomp-stomp-stomp for another few years. :D

WA officially stating that Covid/Omicron has leaked into the community such that they cannot realistically eliminate it now. Best of luck to them at suppressing the curve and learning from the errors of other states (which is not a political statement because different states have made different errors and if WA can learn from all of them they'll be operating like profound warrior monks. Also best of luck getting their vaccination/booster coverage up, which as I understand it has been a bit behind. On the football side of things, it probably means that at the very least there will be interstate travel allowed under tight regulations. Unfortunately for Freo and Weagle fans, such 'bulk' travel probably won't be on the cards for a bit longer. It might actually be a good opportunity for us Demons to return the favour of their excellent welcome to Perth. I'd struggle to cheer on the Eagles but I might be able to get as far as giving a few yells for a FReo game or two on the east coast!

Both Petracca and Oliver have sporadic games where they really butcher it - talking low 40s disposal efficiency and clangers all over the place. Our mid-season semi-slump precisely coincided with a patch of games where both had off days at the same time. They got the problem under control though. 😁

Forgive me if I've already mentioned - one little slice of hope for a genuine end to the variant cycle is a US Army medical research project that has actually been smouldering along for a very long time but suddenly found itself fully funded. Basically, they had previously been working on a very long term project for a comprehensive coronavirus-type vaccine, covering flu, various SARS, etc.. If anyone remembers the cheesy sci-fi movie The Core, there's a scene where a Dr Brasseldon(?) has been stuck out in the desert for 30 years or so, going a bit crazy working on his bizarre invention for tunneling into the earth. Suddenly it becomes crucial to saving the world from total disaster, so 'our heroes' turn up for a demonstration and ask him, "How much would it cost to have this thing operation in, say, three months?" "Uh... fifty... fifty billion dollars?" "Can we put it on card, we'll get flyer miles?" That's more or less what has happened to this obscure Army medical research team. Something that was an ongoing project that could have taken decades is now front and center and has just begun human clinical trials. IF it works, Covid can go in the bin and so can swine flu, bird flu and most of your damn sniffles too. Except for anti-vaxxers, of course. Glad they weren't around when we were killing smallpox.

At a population health level it is all about flattening the curve so that everyone who does get serious symptoms can actually get the necessary treatment. For a football club the key challenge will be similar, in that we definitely want to avoid having large numbers of players all unwell at the same time. Lots of testing, lots of segmenting of groups, precautionary isolation, all that. I expect finals will see some bubble formation as well, though hopefully with a little more family presence. We may even need to do some load management changes and dietary tweaking - there's a strange phenomenon where people maintaining super-intense training loads can actually have slightly suppressed immune systems because their body is shifting to maximise performance rather than the usual balance and 'risk management' rhythm. A known problem for marathon runners, tour de France and for many sports' pre-season training.

I wrote a bunch of speculations and then deleted them and wrote some more and deleted them, also. But I do want to thank you for giving me an excuse to look over our list and go, "ooooooooh nice".

You know the old cliche line from horror movies, "It is inside the building!" Aged Care. They've done everything they can to keep the virus out for as long as they can but when the choice is between not providing care at all or using staff who bring some risk of contact-spread, you just have to take the infection risk. Then once it is into your residents there's very little that can be done. It's not like there are hospitals with spare beds and staff to monitor them safely unless they are getting critical. Thanks to lockdowns we've had time to roll out vaccinations and improve treatments. The mortality even for the (vaccinated) elderly could be as low as 1%, provided the treatment is actually available. Unfortunately, right now all branches of health care are woefully understaffed and disrupted by daily waves of positive tests and close-contact isolations. If anyone still remembers 'flatten the curve'; that's the whole ball game now.

That is happening in some places that I know of (well, three specifically - two that I was turned away from and then the third put up their 'closed' signs shortly after I got there). They were, however, relying a bit on the honour system because random people were definitely adding themselves to the end of the queue after those signs went up. What was really noticable was that the testing location we were able to get tested at only had two staff, and they were covering all testing and then all prep of test paperwork to then be picked up by courier. At least they were getting to alternate between sitting in the office and standing outside in the marquee, but I couldn't help but think that one extra person could have made the whole thing twice as fast. It blows my mind that ALL state governments are being stingy on the staffing at so many of these critical bottlenecks. It doesn't add up but that's what you get from silo/bucket budget planning.

Yes, but what country are you actually from? It's the 'Loons and the Phlegms. The latter got the name because their language sounds similar to Dutch. I actually have a friend who grew up/still has roots right on the edge of Flemish and French language zones, and went so schools in each zone at different times in her education. She speaks English like a native because both language zones taught English as a second language instead of the other Belgian language! :D

I wonder if the guy who went to Perth was there? But, seriously, best of health to all.

I think Nibbler, McDonald and Pickett completing our B&F Top Ten is also quite fitting. They are there because of their contribution to the overall result rather than individually stellar season. Most of our B&F are there because of their teamwork commitment, I'm sure, but it is harder to tell that is the reason when the individual players are also mind-meltingly brilliant!

Wow that's a lot of kids doing well in a premiership team. Also, nice reminder of how well Salem started the season before tapering a bit in the '3rd quarter'. He sure knew when to put on his best game, though!

Our cake doesn't need icing. Certainly not patchy icing!

Similar thoughts to Wrecker here; If you've got a 25 year-old with 100 games under their belt, you'll probably get another 5 years and 100 games out of them. But an 18 year old is maybe a 1/3rd chance of giving you even 100 games at all. A team that is older on average is just a team that has managed to collect more AFL-level players over recent years. Put another way - it matters that Josh Kennedy is old because he's Josh Kennedy. Nathan Ablett is also pretty old now but you wouldn't be concerned about the impact on your list if he retired! And as always with all statistics, you've got to break it into the segments if you're going to get any real value out of it. In this case, you really have to know about the bulges at the ends - if you've got too many kids that will cause problems even if they are talented. If you've got too many 'genuinely older' players you've got risks to endurance, injuries, and retirement suddenly blowing a hole in your team.

Have fun everyone! It's a wet and coolish day up here in Sydney so I'll be wearing the scarf. Please post photos here - it will be great to have the memento on Demonland. In fact, should we start a thread specifically for posting event photos?

Could be a record-breaking get-well-card handed around at the 'G.

Bring back the bugler.

At this stage I'm willing to believe that the Saints are where you'll find the personality problem.

Will rotate with Luke Donston.

Given how many kids we had out there, the grand final was not that far off our draft day!

It is just too slow for me. And there's the same problem that means it hasn't even worked for suicide bombers; they often have time to produce offspring before detonating. I've got a very strong commitment to the social contract, the safety net, and a society that doesn't leave people to die of starvation in ditches, but when people call nurses and doctors 'medico-fascist' and will later expect to be triaged into ICU taking critical resources away from blameless others, my inclusiveness is sorely tested. Feel free to tap your desk in irritation while contemplating that whole countries are going back into lockdown solely because of anti-vaxxers and also very much to protect those same people who refuse to do a most basic thing to protect themselves. I also haven't seen any stalls set up at the nuffy-marches where people can sign a commitment to not accept the several thousand dollars worth of treatment a significant Covid19 case requires and which the community will, despite everything, provide to them. The mood could change a little when we see something tangible like the AFL 2022 season disrupted because of this gitswarm.

Adem Yze was definitely annoyed when he was 'retired', firmly believing he had more left to give. I believe he was pretty chipper on the night, though! Generally I've got the impression that the club has made quite a bit of effort to reconnect in recent times with a message that this has been a long journey and those who kept us going at the hardest moments are a part of this victory. Not to be underestimated how much Nathan Jones' situation has compelled people to recognise that not everyone who got us to this point got to stand on the podium.

AFL trading is a village market where everyone knows everyone and knows they'll be dealing with each other for decades to come. As opposed to a ruthless metropolitan share trade floor or the like. The relationships matter. In the end the big value will be the accumulated win-win deals you can make with people who will listen and even come to you with ideas, not the occasional deadline staredown.