Little Goffy

I sniff only one source of danger in this game. Now that both Walker and O'Brien are out the Crows may decide to go all-out with smalls scrambling and grubbing it along. That doesn't favour our defensive method and won't give us the intercept marks we like to counter-attack from. Of course they might go with a Fogarty-Himmelberg-Thilthorpe tall forward line and rotate 'someone' through the ruck. In which case we'll likely just bite their heads off and spit them into a pile. Worth noting that if we can hit their percentage enough, it will be Adelaide vs North for the spoon in the final round. All the Adelaide 2021 season needs now is a tanking scandal and it would be complete.

I just watched Eddie Betts' short video on Fox Footy about how it was affecting him and it really prompted one very clear thought in my head. Eddie knows Taylor Walker, worked with him for years. Walker was his captain for a time and also a vital person to work with in that Adelaide forward line. Eddie has to digest the idea that all along when people were directing racist abuse at him and others, his former captain and very close colleague had a bit of underground sympathy for all that ####. Now that Pickett also has been abused it gives us a very close to home analogy. A part of Kozzie's mind has to be considering the idea that any given one of his teammates, his captain, his forward line colleagues, might quietly be all right with it, too. Then Pickett, a young player in a role which is exposed to bad days no matter how good you are, also has to process the possibility that maybe there's a midfielder who would rather honour someone else's lead or there's a voice on the selection committee that still thinks Aboriginal people lack the discipline to train properly and that's why Pickett's form is up and down. And if he has the courage to stand up to the little signs and ambiguous comments, he runs the risk of being perceived as 'oversensitive' and going down the Lamumba path, or even getting his own experience of the Goodes disaster. What a trap. You're in it even if you're not in it - the Melbourne Football Club could be a true haven of decency but no Indigenous player could be sure.

Funny way to present the percentages. It's really a domino-effect where if Melbourne plays Geelong then Dogs will play Port. It's basically 50/50 that the entire top four will have replays, with the only other factor being if one of them loses BOTH remaining games AND one of the Lions or Swans win both of theirs. The top four could actually be locked in for replays by the end of this round because when Melbourne and Geelong play obviously one goes up and the other goes down, resulting in either a 1st/4th or 3rd/2nd split. Would be funny to go into that final round game already knowing that we'd be playing the next game as well. Just indulging in some even sillier speculation; we could conceivable play Geelong in the final round, the first round of finals, and then in the Grand final again. If nothing else, surely that would earn us the right to not have to meet them in 2022. There's only so much Geelong anyone can be expected to put up with.

There will be some shuffling in the last couple of rounds. Of course like all of us I'm hoping that Jones finds the marathon runner's second wind, comes back from the calf next week and then plays his best football through the finals to a premiership. But, setting aside that triumphant return, here's how it looks to me; B: Petty May Bowey HB: Salem Lever Rivers C: Langdon Petracca Brayshaw HF: Spargo McDonald Neal-Bullen F: Fritsch Brown Pickett FOLL: Gawn, Oliver, Harmes INT: Jordon, Jackson, Viney, Hibberd (or Hunt if available) EMRG: Sparrow, Weideman, Jones, and then Hibberd or a 'Wildcard' Bowey has just been amazing. Calm and composed and I think he made just one actual mistake the whole game. You'd also have Jordon and particularly Jackson on the field as much as anyone in that positional 22. But then it gets trickier. Likely a half-back type to allow for some young guys that could have off days and benefit from freedom to go up the ground and take less immediate pressure. I would assume Hibberd if Hunt isn't available. Melksham is a no for me. It may have been the right choice on the night given the conditions in Perth but I feel like his successes were more a product of the role than the player. A bit like the baseball assessment of 'wins over replacement'; take Melksham out and there's plenty to replace him who are as good as or maybe even better. My gut feeling is that Melksham's presence actually pushed all of Spargo, Pickett and Fritsch into slightly less comfortable roles for them - all three had very bad nights against West Coast. With Brown's returning to form it's pretty clear Weideman will be an emergency every game for the rest of the season.

Sadly, Vandenberg looks slow, clumsy and confused out there and simply doesn't have enough 'upside' to justify trying to build some form into him this close to an attack on the premiership. It's an easier call than Melksham, who at least did the things he was in the team to do (2 goals, 2 goal assists) but he didn't really contribute to the essential forward pressure and those dumb free kicks in the final quarter were momentum-swinging. Neither are really in our best 22 and I'll be watching for news on Jones' progress intensely because if he can get his gears working smoothly then we want his head and heart on the field for finals.

Sorry if I missed someone already explaining it, but does anyone know why the West Coast supporters were booing at the end of the game? Can't be umpiring - the final count was 28-17 and the string of frees after the reset helped enormously (cough... Melksham... cough... no finals for you) Can't be because the team disappointed them; they gave a good fight against the top team for most of the game and that post-reset surge was alarming. Are that just that sulky? Did they see a cloud that looked like it was asserting Indigenous pride?

They'll Neeld a whole new coach to deliver on that ambition.

The depths of your ignorance of global history ironically displays your Eurocentric worldview.

Your rhetorical method is odious and dishonest and it detracts from a crucial cause.

Racism is far from being an attitude restricted to only 'white' people. There are very few countries that have less prevalence of racism than is found in Australia. The urgency of addressing any given racist attitude is determined by the amount of power held by those with the attitude. For example, a crazy person living in a shack on an island off the west coast of Tasmania is not the issue. The massive accumulation of power by industrialising and coincidentally 'white' countries in the 15th to 20th centuries has led to legacies which must be addressed if those societies are to now be harmonious and just, particularly given their voluntary embrace of highly cosmopolitan culture. The legacy of slavery in the USA is of course a particularly egregious and exceptional case, as are the invasion/defacto genocide impacts upon indigenous peoples in several 'colonised' countries. But, to reiterate, racism is very much not some kind of 'whites only' phenomenon (if you'll pardon the ironic pun) and it helps nobody and no cause to act like it is, particularly when the 'Western' tradition is at present the only one which has widely embraced self-reflection about being a perpetrator. Referencing a grab-bag of random offences like the Opium Wars and 'Two Wongs don't make a right' and declaring that to be good enough to rest your case sets back the cause you claim to be articulating.

It could be a very weird final round of the season and first round of the finals. Melbourne vs Geelong. Bulldogs vs Port. Brisbane vs West Coast. ... are all realistic chances to be double-ups. Just Sydney v Gold Coast letting down the trivia nights of the future.

Come on Dieter, look closely at what you just said. I can only hope, unrealistically, that you were aiming for some kind of biting irony/sarcasm. Even then you need to flesh it out because internet text doesn't pick up nuance so well. But if you are actually resorting to the rhetorical ploys of the dreariest rationalisations of social darwinism and all manner of racism, then you need to take a few deep breaths and think about what your motivations and goals are in this conversation. Also, please keep in mind that racism as an attitude is not exclusive to or even more prevalent in 'white' societies than in any other - the catastrophe has always been the combination of racism with a massive preponderance of power. It's really important to stay on task when combating racism and 'ooh, you filthy white people' comments don't help anything.

Yep, Alex Neal-Bullen would be well advised to take next week off.

The only thing interesting about Taylor Walker is whether Bayley Fritsch can pass him on the goalkicking. 3 rounds, ten goals, get it done. Ideally he would pass that line during the game against Adelaide, too. What a 360-degree boofhead.

The basic trouble is that if we trade Weideman out, we'll be in serious need of new young key forwards in a few years as McDonald and Brown both get older. On the other hand, will Weideman even fill that need? I like him, but I was up very close to him for a lot of the game against Collingwood up in Sydney and had an eye on him... and was very disappointed. Interestingly, the tall prospects in this year's draft don't seem to appear until the late teens/early 20s. I feel like if we could get a package trade that saw us enter the draft with a pick around 15 we'd have our choice of the season's talls, if Taylor has a special in mind. Hell, we could even just take Mac Andrew.

Will this help us catch the cats napping in the final round? Will it put the Dog's midfield to bed? HOW WILL THESE PREMIUM QUALITY PET BEDS AND ACCESSORIES HELP US WIN A PREMIERSHIP? Also, do they have one big enough for the Viney family's mega-dog? That thing is alarming. https://www.instagram.com/p/CHqtrOLnXIe/

Just sharing a little article from the MFC website about our players who are at the top end of various stats. https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/994066/top-of-the-stats-sheet Surprised they missed Max Gawn at 3rd for contested marks. As a supplement, congrats to James Jordon leading the Rising Stars for tackles and Trent Rivers for leading the rebound 50s and intercepts. They also both feature in the top bracket for a whole bunch of relevant stats. Luke Jackson of course leads Rising Stars for hitouts, and his spread of stats where he is highly placed is quite amazing. Basically the order is the specialist roles in that stat, then Luke Jackson.

Footscray is an interesting one. Not only have they have a recent premiership as well as currently being a potent team, but they've really only had six uncompetitive years in the last thirty while racking up finals appearances and many charismatic, high profile players. Feels a bit like North from the 90s - 8 consecutive years of finals, 3 grand finals for 2 premierships, the absolute star of the competition and plenty of others with them... but it never translated into a growing supporter base. As for Carlton - the Teague Train was coming! A lot of Carlton supporters went into this season feeling like they were on the cusp of something. The blues have several players who each could realistically be the best in their position when in form and returned from injury. There's something to proverbially 'build a team around' there and there were a lot of highly rated (highly drafted) kids who might have filled that 22 into something really potent even if they didn't all reach great heights. Essendon... I have no idea why they have members at all. Their only impressive season in the last 15 years was the one they cheated in.

Looking at it over and over, it will all depend on where the actual force was. The only way Viney doesn't get suspended is if his arm was actually forming a 'bridge' between the jaw and shoulder of the Gold Coast player. Having done police transcription work in the past I've got no time for any kind of choking or throat crushing. It's pretty much the number 1 way people get hospitalised or killed by domestic violence and that's even after months or years of other forms of bashings. It is incredibly high risk and a bit like concussion in that it can seem innocuous at first then really hit hard that night or even the next day. I'd rated it on the level of eye gouging, but that isn't helpful given the Chris Judd precedent.

I appreciate Harmes' effort but he just isn't quick-thinking enough to be given attacking responsibility. Genuine tagger role or not in the team. I'd certainly rather have Jordon on the field. Speaking of young players I'd like to see on the field more - how about that Bowey? A debut game without a single ####-up! That win has me not only feeling better about the rest of this season, but has reminded me of just how many quality kids we have.

Lol, not even a crowd a the game and Essendon supporters still going berserk. I checked in on twitter just now and 'Razor Ray' has been trending for the last 30 minutes and it is just Essendon supporters telling him to 'eat a D', 'Gagf', 'and his mother', etc etc etc. Hilarious. It suits Melbourne for Essendon to win, but I hope it only happens because of a really bad free kick in the dying seconds. That'll confuse them.

1. This is now Melbourne's best odd-numbered year since 1955 (yes, the start of our premiership run) 2. Clayton Oliver + Luke Jackson = 5 goals, 7 tackles, 23 contested possessions, 15 clearances. All seven Collingwood players under 26 combined in yesterday's 'youthful triumph' over West Coast = 5 goals, 12 tackles, 29 contested possessions, 3 clearances. I just find it funny, is all.

Play the tape back from 7m to go on the second quarter. Nic Naitanui runs TOWARDS the player with the mark, from behind and then alongside, clearly within a few meters, the umpire sees it and can be heard shouting 'Nic, Nic' but Naitanui makes no effort to move on or deviate path. Clearly not in pursuit of any other opponent. Was it a 50m penalty? Was it ####

What just happened in the Collingwood goalsquare in the marking contest? Looked like Josh Kennedy just crumpled a West Coast teammate and left them struggling for breath on the ground and just walked off casually without interest or concern. Meanwhile, is Alistair Clarkson such a great coach that two different teams have both found form just on the possibility that he might coach them? :D

That's a re-rostering job my wife would be impressed by. Well, at least give an approving nod to. Especially since it means she'll be able to see the game now! She's managing the roster at an inner-west (NOT directly in the 'problem LGAs', thankfully) Sydney aged care centre with about 30% of total staff headcount unavailable due to the one-site-only restrictions, the zone restrictions, and the any-kind-of-contact restrictions. All of which are welcome as far as they are keeping the residents safe, but make roster management incredibly hard. If her shift officially finishes at 5, I doubt she's actually left before 7 in the last two weeks. I'm sorry. I'm just so freaking proud of her. Plus, she's become a legitimately intense Demon in the last 12 months or so, so I'm glad she gets to see today's game tomorrow.