Little Goffy

CHAAAARLLIIEEEEE Spargo now equal leader of the competition for goal assists. I continue to believe he is on the cusp of becoming something special.

Grundy with a couple of handy marks in the first five minutes.

Textbook chain from defence all the way to goal. Loved the decision to keep running it out when the defenders could quite realistically have just wanted to take a deep breath and pause after multiple Swans inside-50s.

Just quietly, we're going at 98 points / games after two rounds, which is roughly 20% higher scoring than last season. Small sample but follows on from the preseason impression. Swans game will be interesting to watch on that specific detail, as they are easily the stingiest team in defence so far. Then again, the Swans have basically just beaten up a couple of weak clubs so far, so the form line tells us very little.

When we do play Freo, it would be greatly appreciated if they could wheel our Peter Bell very once in a while so we can get our booing needs sorted on him, instead of Jackson. I really, really don't hate Jackson. He's just a simple young guy who loves his mum. Also possible he wanted to move back to the west so he could check to make sure the sun wasn't boiling all the water when it went down each day.

Gold coast v Geelong is bizarre. I cannot recall seeing a game this loose through the corridor at AFL level, which makes the lack of scoring truly extraordinary.

Well, to an extent they did. Complete with draftee tied to a tree, and some never clarified events on a boat other Yarra, the 'Fevola era' of spiralling behaviour did as much damage to the club as the salary cap penalties. One example that comes to mind is that Luke Livingston really should have been a 200-game player, but didn't even reach 50 due to [reasons]. Any time I hear about these things I'm reminded of our own 'camp pushback' by the players, and that as a club we were able to resolve the argument maturely and to actually have player-coach relationships improve over the long term as a result. That process may even have been a crucial moment of building trust and commitment.

I bet he's friends with the Brisbane ruck, Oscar Bert'n'Ernie.

Well, I'll be darned, the old Albanian 'Kings under the mountain' legend was true!

I think all prospects of additional teams will fizzle out for a while once Hawthorn realises their only hope to survive is the move to Tassie. Fair-weather fans and constant awful failure do not mix.

Perfectly happy for Hawthorn to pick up this generation's Ellis, Dowler, and Thorpe with their next 3 top-ten selections. I like this coming draft, without pretending to know a whole lot about it. What is clear is that there's a good collection of suitable players who could all be considered great value late in the top ten.

Snow at a Darwin crocodile ranch seems like something to be very, very concerned about.

Just for the milestone, let's take a moment to see how he's going on the stats. Disposals: 4,341, at 29.13 / game. All-time target for total disposals is currently Robert Harvey (9,656) but will probably be Scott Pendlebury by the end of the year. On disposals per game of, only marginally behind Tom Mitchell at 29.42. I'm comfortable saying Mitchell has peaked while continuing to be very good for some years yet. The target is basically Clayton's to chase. Clearances: 1,024 at 6.87 per game. Clubhouse leader by a fair margin is Selwood. on 1,844 at 5.19 per game. Patrick Cripps is the only other chaser, going at 7.07 per game but is two seasons older for just 12 additional games due to the strain of carrying Carlton on his back. Contested possessions: 2,332 at 15.65 per game Patrick Dangerfield leads overall with 4,082, at 13.38 per game. Once again Cripps is the main rival chaser, going at 14.73/game. Tackles: 891, at 5.98 per game. Record currently held by Selwood on 1,799, but is another likely to be claimed by Pendlebury by the end of the year. Of current rival 'chasers' only Jack Steel (6.98) and Hugh Greenwood (6.74) are laying more tackles per game than Oliver. Clangers: 4.32 per game. The all-time leader (at least since the stat was formally recorded) for clangers per game. Almost all modern Brownlow medals have been won by a player with an exceptionally high clanger count (Martin, Fyfe, Cripp, Wines, Mitchell - the only exception in the last 8 years was Lachie Neale in the 18-game 2020 season) Brownlow votes: 110 votes, at 0.79 per game. Gary Ablett Jr's 262 total votes would seem insurmountable, but Oliver is actually going at exactly the same rate of votes per game. Something I find interesting is that it took Ablett Jr 100 games before he even cracked double-figures for votes in a season. He then had 8 consecutive seasons of more than 20 votes per game, before a long tail of another six seasons which netted him another 50 or so votes. Oliver was in the double-figures by his second season and now appears to have just entered his peak '20+ votes' period, but his average is already a match for Ablett. In years to come it will be interesting to compared Ablett's tragectory and the 'clear best player in a weak team' vs Oliver's 'great player sharing votes with great players in a strong team' distribution of votes. In summary and touching wood of course, if Clayton Oliver just keeps plugging along even without any further improvement on his first 150 games, he is realistically on target to become the all-time record holder for; Disposals, Handballs (obviously), Contested possessions, Clearances, Tackles, Clangers and Brownlow Votes.

Another post that aged well. We really need to get the MFC wine sponsor onto Demonland.

Dr Schadenfreude reports that this case may be terminal. By the time Hawthorn genuinely experienced a season on the bottom, and were obviously tanking according to a plan, they already had Mitchell and Hodge running around earning Brownlow votes and then added three top-7 picks in a single draft. Just one more season of tanking and they were back climbing. Meanwhile, the team still had a collection of charismatic players which the supporter base were attached to and which were still young enough to ride the rise again, led by Shane Crawford and the bonus return-to-sender of Trent Croad. At no point in that little dip did they ever really have to feel beaten or broken. This time, though... they've already been weak for a few years, they are looking like they are only now about to truly bottom out and they don't have the charismatic established players that can sustain an emotional connection to persevere though tough times. There is also no real sign that any of their recent high draft picks are going to be destiny-changing; just good. Which is fine as a player but inadequate for the club. Throw in the lurking suspicions that an arrogant club president is the reason they are currently watching Alastair Clarkson prove his genius at a whole other rival club they will feel directly compared to after mocking just six months ago, while their untried shiny new coach is looking more and more like the Hird/Voss/Ratten tragic destiny of favourite son turned to first-time coach and dumped straight under pressure while the board keeps giving its 'helpful' opinion and prognostications. They're doomed, I tell you, doomed! Ahhh ha ha ha ha haaaa ha ha ha haaa haaaaaa ha ah ah ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa ha haaa ha ha ah aaah ha ha haa

Ooh, yes, he can be Fremantle's Matthew Richardson. So easy to picture.

Griffin Logue outperforming Luke Jackson must be sending Freo fans absolutely mental.

Just got home and keeping an eye on Freo v North and honestly, I think there are people on Demonland more interest int he result of this game than some of the Fremantle players. North, on the other hand, may yet force us to admit that Clarkson is a good coach.

Well, that's 40 minutes of football that has probably ended Luke Beveridge's coaching at the Bulldogs.

I think it is kind of funny that for all the glory of picking Fritsch so late in the draft, we actually took Spargo a few picks before him. Personally, I think Spargo is on the cusp of a breakout, and the more he shows the more he will be used. He is so effective that if his numbers pushed up to even the high teens instead of the current 12ish disposals per game, he becomes a serious menance. He's already getting a goal or goal assist with almost every third disposal! We may even see our whole game style shift if the Pickett-Spargo-Chandler small forward mix comes together the way I suspect it will.

Crows are so bad I'm already thinking about the big game - Freo v North.

So I guess now we can expect to see Jack Viney go to maximum intensity for a while? Should be interesting.

4-2-6. Really, it is as if he just wants to embrace all the classic Demon traditions.

Bump.

I found it interesting that once we decided to go all out attack we barely let the opposition move it forward either. Keep them unsettled with relentless attack and it just encourages them to rush it and bomb it to the loving arms of Lever. We experienced exactly the same mental paralysis in the two bursts where Brisbane got runs on against us - far too many hurried, thoughtless kicks 'away from where they are' rather than purposeful attacking 'to where we want it'.