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There is an idea from Daniel Kahneman (Behavioural Economics) that we evaluate an experience on the ‘peak-end effect’. That is, we are hopeless at assessing the full season rationally, and instead take our feeling from the season by the peak experience (good or bad) and the end experience. We all know what was the ‘end’ experience. It was disappointing, and a definite lowlight to leave us all feeling a bit worse about the journey the club took us on this year. However, what was your ‘peak’ experience for the year? What was the intense emotional moment (good or bad) that shapes the way you saw our year. Here are 3 of mine: The smashing of the crows in Alice. Man, what a performance. The Geelong final win. Probably my peak emotional experience and an absolute beauty. And #3 was the win over WCE that got us there. (My peak negative was the Geelong game with the loss after the siren). What was yours?

There has been a lot of commentary that we have only beaten weaker teams (which is correct, because if we beat them then we are ‘stronger’ on the day...). Personally, I think this is actually a good thing. Here’s why. we tuned up the gameplan over the summer, and the JLT allowed us to implement a version of it and look like top 4 material. we played less than ideal footy and took the points in a couple of games. Playing for 3/4, with a defensive press way too high, Maxy not hitting to advantage and terrible inside 50 connections. we were slaughtered by the Hawks. Wake up call. we played ok versus Richmond. A bit rushed early, but the third quarter was some of th3 toughest contested ball I have seen in footy in a while. so now we have a few ‘easy’ games in a row. Thank god. Over these games we have seen: the back 6 start to work. Lever to begin to show some real skill, and Lewis now being the general. Jetta rediscovered his form. tmac is back and building. Forward connection still needs work, but forward pressure is manic the big 4 have had a couple of games to work together. the midfield are growing. Salem and Angus in particular. viney is about to return. i for one am glad we have had this run to build skill, strategy and structure. The confidence of a few wins now might encourage the team to bring this style, refined and practiced over the ‘easy’ games, into the harder stuff. The coaching staff have made the adjustments and drilled the plan, and the players are seeing the rewards. This little period could be the making of the team. If we went straight into harder contests with no trust in the gameplan or each other, it could have been messy. It sure looks like these games have allowed a different sense to emerge. I am keen to see us kick over the blues, and set ourselves for some more serious challenges that will test our ability to keep playing our game.