The new certainties in life are death, taxes, and Melbourne fans incorrectly believing they'll get one over Collingwood. Even with their final chances reduced to a probability of *, anyone expecting a Mortal Kombat-style 'Finish Him!' ending was either being wildly optimistic or desperately trying to manifest a satisfying exit from a long, unsuccessful season where cups of hot piss were regularly thrown in and out of the tent. Bring a raincoat, the supply doesn't look like drying up.
Strangely, the team that might have benefited from a thumping win brought in players who could do with the exposure, while we only reluctantly let Bailey Laurie play because Sparrow was injured, then made him the sub anyway. Casey has been tits on a bull useless recently, but this was the biggest commitment to martyrdom since Reverend Jim Jones visited Guyana. For all we know Kynan Brown's AFL career might have peaked with that one ripping tackle, but any harm in giving him one measly start? He may have had more luck getting into the same orbit as a Daicos brother than anyone else. Maybe not, but some indication they didn't think thrashing hot garbage Gold Coast was a great leap forward would have been nice. Instead, our all-important crack at stability in the 25th and last week of the season turned into Witches' Hat Appreciation Night and it's a modern miracle that the margin was under 50 points.
Who can blame the players for being over it by this point, especially after another week of speculation about who pinched Petracca's lunch from the Casey Fields fridge. Nobody knew that saga existed a couple of weeks ago, now it keeps on giving in the style of repeated blows to the head with a cricket bat. When Channel 7 promoted his pre-match interview I expected something more like Jack Viney's carefully chosen words at Carrara than the sequel to I Have A Dream, but after a season where we've been dead weight on their billion dollar investment, there was one final double middle finger to 7 when he pulled out and left Steven May to politely go through the motions instead. They got something back by taking up half Ben Brown's lap of honour with banal questions just above the level of awkward chats with Auskick kids.
This left the door open for more speculation, and the chance that he'd turn on us halfway through the game like Hulk Hogan joining the New World Order, but regardless of what happens between now and the final day of trade period, it's his right to choose who he speaks to and when. If replacing Dustin Martin as the league's #1 anti-media recluse is best for him then he should do it, regardless of the views of sooky journos who think the world revolves around them getting content. Regardless of what's been leaked (so far), my preference is for Petracca to come back and play the rest of a great career with us, but whatever is happening out of the public eye I hope he's being supported by people with more interest in his welfare than their cut of the next yoghurt endorsement.
All conspiracy theories are shit except the ones you believe in, so while the natural reaction to this article would be to say "well stuff him then", I'm pretty sure we're being played like a fiddle through the media. It could be his side looking for an excuse to create the classic 'untenable situation', the club softening up the ground for cashing in on him, other teams throwing hand grenades so they can take advantage of the chaos, or a combination of the three. I'd bet options B) or C), but let's see if I can hit publish before option A) comes back with a vengeance with conveniently timed reports about the club being awful and memories of that time we nearly drowned him.
I'm suss about the stuff that goes out of its way to make him look like a diva. Anyone would prefer training full-time around the city rather than Cranbourne, and it would be nice to play blockbusters galore, but what's changed on either of those fronts since he signed a goldenballs contract extension? Reading between the lines and coming up with my own story, I gather that he's no longer fond of Oliver. That's fine, but please note Mick Jagger and Keith Richards fell out for about 15 years too but look how much money they've made since.
I'm definitely getting too old for this shit, because come or go I can't work get into a frenzy unless we're spooked into letting him go for peanuts. Here's to enforcing his contract, even if it makes the club go even more Fawlty Towers, and he can choose to get paid next year by us or Colgate. Kane Cornes was upset that Neal-Bullen didn't consider delicate family scenarios when signing a new deal, so he'll either treat this like war crimes or have a clickbait-friendly change of heart and decide Petracca should get freedom of movement because United Nations or something.
Distractions are welcome when not involved in finals, but this is a bit extreme. Set your time machine for early 2020 and see what reaction you'd get to Petracca and ANB both requesting trades and the Bullet possibly leaving as the more beloved figure. Thrown in what happened at the end of 2021 and you'll be put to death for witchcraft.
Also withdrawing late, but without the same 'Harold Holt goes to Portsea' style rumours attached, Jake Lever. He became the latest player to go down ill before a game, and it's worth checking there's not a dead pigeon in the Casey Fields water supply before that's cited as a reason for players to leave too. I was expecting a disappointing night long before he dropped out, and with our VFL key position stocks down to one untried kid at least it meant a full game for Woewodin after a record-breaking half a year as sub. His reward was a night of torment, but that's ok because there's only two things anyone will remember about this game with an optional third if it decides the Brownlow result.
The good news for a defence with cavernous Lever and May-shaped holes is that we had a qualified, premiership-winning backman at the other end who could easily return to his natural habitat after a season that's been the equivalent of trying to strike a match underwater. That didn't happen, and in what may be his last game for us Adam Tomlinson was handed a leaking box of shite for a going away present. He'd visibly lost the will to live before half time as the ball came towards him at the warpiest possible speed, while at the other end our reincarnation of Victoria's 1989 State of Origin forward line scored fewer points than there were minutes in the final quarter.
I was all for honouring the 1964 premiership players (and if you want to know more about that season, *hint hint*), but if I felt there wasn't enough time left to watch the final 10 minutes, any of them who stayed through the lightning delay deserve a second life membership. The unsaid bit of that presentation was they were the final chapter in a glorious era before the whole operation collapsed into dust, back to a wooden spoon within five years, and no further finals until 1987. That was just coach fighting with committee, in 2024 you need an IMAX-size flowchart to understand who's cranky at who, incorporating upset family members, and court cases involving both former and aspiring administrators.
As we were doing everything to guide Collingwood towards goal except turn on airport-style ground lights, it might not have helped if we had Petty, Turner, or the USS Ticonderoga down there, but when it looked like our season was going end in a sad, disgrunted heap I wondered how long it would take before they tried something to plug the gap. Maybe the real farewell gift was for Greg Stafford, leaving his forward dream together one last time before he departed under an unprecedented level of anti-assistant coach vitriol as if most of us have any idea what assistants are actually responsible for.
With injury excuses out the wazoo and absolutely nothing to play for, I'm not broken-hearted about losing. Strangely, we played worse than I expected but lost by less. The most important thing was avoiding humiliation. The actual margin has already been forgotten but a perverse, triple-figure slaughter might have blown the place to bits. What is annoying is how often we lost games like this when the season was still alive. This was just a lo-fi version of King's Birthday, where Lever was the only serious absence and Petracca went down trying to conjure something from a forward line on their way to 0.4 at quarter time. Getting all the stars back next year will be a positive, but they've got heaps of gap-plugging work to do on the list.
Flogging the ultimate dead horse last week was welcome proof of life but not much guide to the future. It was the first time anyone's ever said "they played their Grand Final against Gold Coast" but that's as close as we're getting this year, and depending on off-season carnage perhaps several more after. We did our bit for tradition by clocking off after 22 games, and I could have comfortably bet a kidney on Collingwood well before we replaced the last part of the Great Wall of Melbourne with thin air. They'd be disappointed at not winning by a lot more, if not only slightly less over it than us by the end.
The brief summary is that the team with a fanging midfield and average forward line comfortably beat one running on fumes and reverting to barely functioning respectively. There's something in the "it's the midfield stupid" philosophy, but I'm certain you can make up for a lot of that by retaining the ball when it goes forward, or at least slowing it down so the opposition can't just launch like the bloody space shuttle right over the heads of said midfield. In one extra game we only kicked about 10 less goals than the 2021 home and away season (and conceded about 40 more), but the toil to get them was like the Paul Roos rebuild years without a 'just happy to be alive' free hit atmosphere.
It's been the sort of year where you can have three games where somebody kicks five goals and lose two of them. Several years ago I'd have, in the style of Martha and the Motels, sold my soul for 41 goals but it still feels like Fritsch underperformed. Pickett was a steady enough, and a welcome cameo midfielder, Chandler does things but not as often or as importantly as last year, and all of Petty, Turner and van Rooyen had moments, but you could tell the structure wasn't working midway through the year and we boldly persisted while the season burned down around us. If it pays off in the future I'll send a card to say thanks, but didn't do us any good this year.
Now that we know Wayne Harmes kept the ball in, footy's greatest unsolved mystery is Harrison Petty's 2024 season. It was a good idea to try and recapture his form from last year pre-foot burst, and I was willing to be patient after he missed pre-season, but stretching that patience across goal tallies of 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0 and 0 without a break wasn't in anyone's best interest unless they've got a binary code fetish.
I'm pleased that he bumped his tally up by 33% in the second last game of the season, but how does a key position forward kick six goals in his first 18 games and not get rotated out of the side once? Credit to his resilience for playing through a difficult year where he must have known things weren't going well, but I'd understand if players well down the food chain from Petracca were annoyed watching him get picked every week while they were being madly rotated in and out of the side. Only his foot could do what the coaches refused to, causing his only two substitutions and only absence from the side after Round 2. Just one token dropping in the middle of the year would have confirmed they had some standards.
My only hesitation in declaring this an all-time dreadful selection policy is that a) I don't want to be cited as a hater so he can carpool to Adelaide with Neal-Bullen and anchor their defence for the next decade, and b) Petty did some good stuff up the ground. It's just that whenever he entered 50 it was like one of those shopping trollies wired to slam the brakes on if you take them too far. In another environment, with different players around him I can see how it could work but this wasn't meant to be an experimental season where we could sacrifice wins to force-feed players with experience like human Fois Gras. And if it was, a few probably want a word about how long they spent ankle-deep in sludge on VFL grounds.
NFI if we'd have got any benefit from throwing Schache, Jefferson, late season Brown, or McDonald down there instead, but not even trying it once with the season on the line is stubborn to the point of insanity. 50% of those names are not our future, one has already been express delisted, and the other is an unknown quantity but until a few weeks ago we were hanging on in a competitive finals race and the only change of policy was making Turner the sub for a fortnight after he'd kicked eight goals in five games. Asked before the game if we were looking for a key forward in the off-season Goodwin gave the usual diplomatic "we want anybody who'll improve us", but sounded like he genuinely believed everything was going well, without even a slightly conciliatory "it hasn't worked exactly as we've liked but they're improving" blah blah blah, so we've got that going for us.
But surely if you're not going to fill a defensive hole with a defender, the next best option in a nothing game was to use Petty as second ruckman. Give JVR a full game doing his actual job and hopefully not thinking about Armaguard truck style offers from home, enjoy the additional benefits of a natural defender floating through an understrength backline as required etc... Nah, we just stuck with what got us here, as if tonking the Washington Generals last week solved everything. It's all just a bit weird, and if the media's going to tee off on us non-stop can we have a break from the sexy macro-level topics and get into some of this enthusiast-only stuff?
If you turned up with dreams of another stirring victory that would send us into the off-season on Cloud 9, disappointment can't have been far behind. The opening moments showed there was only one team in it, and refer previous amazement that we weren't left identifiable only by dental records. It feels like the opening quarter was just the ball going towards the Collingwood goal like an endlessly looping GIF - except for the bits where they'd stop to have a shot.
I only arrived at the tail end of Peter Daicos' career, so my top memory of him was taking the focus off Jako's famous 11 goal haul in 1991 by plundering Brisbane for 13 a few hours later. Turns out he's actually a genetic jackhammer who delivered his old club the Father/Son lotto jackpot. Playing against a light breeze, they both racked up 40 disposals in the easiest final round accumulation since Carlton stood back and let Travis Johnstone do as he liked. This time there was two of them, neither will get traded immediately after, and the opposition was competing to the best of their abilities.
Our midfield was less good. Gawn continued to do his Nathan Jones tribute act by trying to lift teammates onto his weary shoulders but could only do so much when we were being obliterated at ground level. If anyone deserves to squeeze a few extra dollars out of it's Viney, but nothing says Melbourne 2024 like successfully pulling off Operation Contract Extension then being tagged into the ground by somebody who's played about 380 games. Once all was lost we gave McVee a turn, and he had a few good minutes before it became an extended learning experience. Remember not too far back when Salem was going to become a midfielder? That didn't take, and here he was getting plenty of the ball at half-back but never threatening to launch end-to-end moves that end with somebody trotting into an empty goalsquare. Didn't have much to work with ahead of him though.
You wouldn't have known it watching this procession, but we arrived with as many wins as losses. That's not worth getting excited about, and the 23rd game was a bridge too far. You'll never convince me that Gather Round's Gold Coast vs North at A. Local Park blockbusters are worth an extra game, and Carlton nearly missing finals in epic/tragic/hilarious fashion (delete as applicable) helped covered up how for the second year in a row what looked like a thrilling finals race was all but decided before the last round.
We did get the first goal of the game, absurdly against the run of play. If you thought that was the start of something big I've got a pyramid scheme you may be interested in. And once Collingwood got in front even the Pakistani cricket team would have struggled to make a loss look convincing. Our players were having what go they could still muster, but were basically just objects to be navigated around. The best comparison is our last home game of 2019 when all was long lost and everyone just wanted the season to be over. That night we kicked three goals in the first quarter, two in the last, and STUFF ALL in the middle, so in some obscure ways this was a better performance. That was Marty Hore's 13th career game, this was his 20th, and he must feel a bit cheated participating in that pair of slopfests after missing The Good Years.
Things can get very bad, very quickly, but reaching quarter time 'just' four goals behind made an unmerciful beating less likely. Collingwood players were conceding before the game that their season was over, but reducing if they'd had a sniff of what Geelong did to West Coast in the first half there would have been no reason to slow down. Fortunately we held it together long enough that once that was off the cards they were happy to get to the end as quickly as possible (weather permitting) and crack on with their September Plan B too.
It would have saved a lot of trouble if the captains had been permitted to shake hands and go home right then. We got the smallest of potential revival buzzes when Chandler got an early goal and tried to do the impossible and lift spirits with an enthusiastic celebration. That just cancelled out the one we'd already conceded, but there was a slight buzz when JVR got the next. Didn't last long, but this was our best part of the game. It was still mostly get ball > do nothing with ball > watch other team go past with ball, but well ahead of the bit where we were 10-0 behind for inside 50 marks.
As all fell apart before him, I appreciated Tom McDonald taking on all comers to stop the margin getting unsavoury. He didn't win every time (because how could you with the ball arriving like that?), but helped us avoid being blown away by a forward line that only looked marginally less bootleg than ours. We were only narrowly outscored for the quarter, which sounds like a terrible thing to be satisfied about, but the way it was going early I was happy with anything that took apocalyptic battery off the table.
And on the topic of battery, it looks like our new end of season tradition is a Kysaiah Pickett suspension. Last year it was striking, this time it was illegal bumping, so god knows what he'll do next year but I wouldn't mind a return to 2021's popular 'wearing a premiership medal' ending. Pending a legal miracle he's out for the first three games of 2025, and extra fuel has been chucked on the bonfire for two fanbases who were already upset with each other. With a level of respect for Darcy Moore not often afforded to Angus Brayshaw, I'd prefer if we spiced things up by winning more than once every five years rather than by trading concussions.
Before mocking 100% self-confidence, 0% self-awareness opposition fans, I'd like to reiterate my unpopular minority opinion that still carrying on about Maynard makes us look minor league. It also plays right into their deranged 'everyone is against us' identity, and most importantly sets a moral highground bar that can't be maintained forever. Kindly exclude me from 'what about XYZ?' comparisons between the incidents, because while Maynard was lucky to avoid suspension via the influential club/"you can't miss a Grand Final for that" double, the real villains are classless nutbags on the other side of the fence. It's not all Collingwood fans, just the ones who use either "dog", "flog", or both in every sentence and go on jubilant, sweaty laps of a restaurant when their players are found not liable for causing a brain injury. We've all got them, but these people are so highly strung that Russia should study them for ways to up their election interference game.
This is where I get involved, making an immediate post-bump prediction that based on historical precedent we were about to see the 'Days since a Collingwood racism scandal' counter reset to zero. That went down about as well as Drag Queen Storytime for the Taliban, causing human victim impact statements to come from all angles like they'd been personally wronged, starting replies to the suggestion that a player might be vilified with "but... ", offering unsolicited opinions about how Craig Kelly is innocent, and all sorts of other generic vitriol that confirmed they've replaced Essendon fans as the fish who jump on the hook for you.
I regret not taking the easy way out and saying he'd be on the end of general foul abuse from deros, because in a partial win for human decency the dog 'n flog connection pulled up short and just called Pickett every other dehumanising name under the sun. Well done for confounding expectations, maybe consider why everyone else's first thought was "yeah, I can see that happening". After the mileage they got out of Ed Langdon's throwaway duck talk, the WWF-style 'pretending to be upset to get fans excited' will be off the chart the next time we play them - which I can confidently say won't be in the first three rounds if the suspension holds.
As for the incident itself, I wasn't surprised that he was rubbed out. You can go down the list of mitigating factors from credible to ludicrous, but in a week where Dan Houston (appearing in back-to-back posts after never being mentioned once before) got five weeks for doing something not worthy of a free kick you're cactus if a bump catches somebody in the head. Rightly or wrongly, there's no consideration given to how the other player ended up there. Regardless of who's at fault, Moore was unlucky to be in the path of one of the few times our forwards have made body contact with a defender all season.
A split second earlier they'd have clattered off each other, the commentators would have had a brief orgasm, and we'd go back to politely losing before the game was never mentioned again. Now our best hope is to get the penalty reduced with the biggest legal heist since the OJ Simpson trial. Can't see it happening, but if the "I wasn't looking" defence somehow gets him off it'll cause the usual suspects to melt down as if Chernobyl merged with Fukushima, so no matter how frivolous the appeals are I'm all the way in. Go for a three-in-one Supreme Court deal with Glenn Bartlett and Peter Lawrence if that's what it takes to annoy these clods.
Assuming we don't get the ultimate comedy result of the AFL necking their own case with legal errors, that's our only lively forward gone for the first few weeks of next season. Remember when he was suspended for the inaugural Round Bugger All, and I thought his return meant we'd never go hungry again? In defence of that failed projection, I didn't think we'd react to the inevitable Ben Brown breakdown by sticking with a malfunctioning forward line well beyond the point of silliness.
Any serious interest in the game was dead after the big bump, but there was still time for one last slapstick routine. Bowey and Fritsch had both departed for medical attention during the second quarter, and as he walked off the ground before the restart Goodwin said they were "good to go", just as the camera cut with perfect comic timing to Bowey walking off the ground, shaking his head. About two minutes later he was subbed out, and somewhere Christian Petracca was doing his own version of Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the TV. I guess he had initially been cleared but realised he wasn't right and self-excluded (now there's an idea), but to anyone else who wants to unfairly malign our medical staff it made us look like we were making decisions like this:
There was a third quarter, and like a complete goose I sat through it. In some horrible years one last force 10 gale of shit would tide you over for a few months (e.g. James Sellar nearly kicking what I choose to believe would have been goal of the century after coming in as a late replacement in 2013. And if you're suspect of my commitment for not attending this week, I rushed to get to that game on time and round out a season with our lowest percentage since 1919, so FO, my conscience is translucently clear), this was hard to even enjoy ironically because everyone knows it's the warm-up act for off-season shenanigans. Like everything pre-2021 (and, by the looks of it, after) it'll make sense if it accidentally sets us on course for something better.
I'm against playing all the final round games at the same time (though I wonder if putting games in Ballarat and Tasmania was so they could keep the idea open), but waiting until a few weeks out to fixture them for perceived maximum drama is nearly as bad. When this was put on Friday night they would have hoped for a drama-filled Elimination Final atmosphere, but once we declined the invite they still had the idea of Collingwood planting themselves into the eight and waiting all weekend to be knocked out. Once that passes this was just a waste of human energy.
BT doesn't need a decomposing rubber to do stupid things, misinterpreting the fun fact about defending premiers missing finals since 2000 as being all-time, and not reacting with the slightest surprise that it hadn't happened more since 1897. Matthew Richardson continues to involve himself in this nonsense with good grace and humility, but Luke Hodge sounded like he wanted to batter Taylor with his own microphone before crouching down and whispering "Brian, what are your goals?"
Who knows if they'd have given Ray (never Razor) Chamberlain a primetime farewell this game if this game did have serious implications. I have no complaints about him because people who get upset about individual umpires are often a little bit weird, but after blowing the lid on the Houston (him again) bump not being worth a free kick, I'm surprised Ray didn't get banished to a suburban reserves game. It was a memorable finish for nothing to do with umpiring decisions, but there was also a spot of wackiness when he thought Billings marked the ball on the line and the goal umpire thought it hit the post but on a night of varying levels of going away present they only reviewed what Ray wanted to see. It helped that the ball wasn't anywhere near the post, so wasting time on any further reviews would have been cruel to everyone involved.
Contrary to Cameron Ling getting upset that there was a tribute to ANB on the banner (what has this guy done to annoy all the crusty veterans?), he departs with more goodwill than anyone else whose trade request has ever been made public before the end of the season. I'd have needed a tear gas blast directly in my eyes to get emotional about this game, but came closest when the cameras focused on him talking to the huddle before the third quarter. Depending on what happens this year I'll still want Jordon or Hogan to win a flag before him, but he goes out right at the top of the list of ex-players I wish well. Even in the best season of his career there was still time for a tribute act to the past when he flubbed a kick that led to us conceding a goal.
I've got so many issues with our forward play that it will need an airing of grievances a'la Frank Costanza at Festivus to get through them all, but I think there's something about Turner. He doesn't need to be the man, but could be a nice compliment to JVR if they can find a third wheel to make contests and/or take contested marks within scoring range. Bet you we recruit a key forward and Turner's the one who ends up back in defence. He's still learning how to get it, but kicks a nice set shot when he does. Remember when he didn't in the two games that may have (but probably not) saved our season, because he was on the bench for three quarters?
We'd successfully sandbagged against a belting, but a five goal lead may as well have been 15 for what it mattered at the time. It left us with one quarter of this cursed season to say goodbye to ANB, avoiding further bumping disasters at all costs, and try to score 50. The sudden arrival of pouring rain would have been about as welcome to players as acid rain, but one side took a cheerful approach to running the season out, while ours looked like they were representing Hussein-era Iraq and would be forced to kick a concrete footy as punishment.
It got to within a few minutes of being over when fork lightning caused a bigger crowd reaction than our recent home games combined. I had to get up at 4.30am so also said "fork lightning", because I wasn't hanging around for play to resume. After a few minutes of officials consulting the rules/ringing the BOM/waiting for players to be nuked by a direct hit, the game was paused with just under 10 minutes to go. Off went players who just wanted to put on silly costumes, sink bulk piss, and possibly belt each other again. Unlike me they had to come back.
The scoreboard said it was due to 'approaching weather', which isn't nearly dramatic enough. Weather is always approaching, that's what it does. Do they think 'due to lightning' is going to set off a deadly stampede amongst people who stayed in their seats for five minutes after the initial hit? This reminds me, to wrap up a storyline from earlier in the season, the MCC never responded to my complaint about closing the top level of the Ponsford Stand (not even to blame it on 'approaching weather') but it's not called The People's Ground for nothing, because they did add my email address to their marketing list. That's not how it's supposed to work.
In recent years we've had one previous stoppage for lightning, and one for lack of lighting. The first time we conceded a shitload of goals after resuming and won, the second time we kicked a shitload of goals after resuming and lost. I expected to wake up and find that we'd taken the worst parts of each and spent the last few minutes conceding at 186 pace amidst soggy misery. It seems to have been played out like a match simulation session, and nobody suffered a critical injury or was reported so zero further harm done. Tholstrup kicked another goal, which is good, and I understand Billings was handed one on a platter and hit the post from 10 metres out, so just a nice, normal way to wind the season up.
And thank god that's all. It's been a weird year and we're not even close to knowing what sort of NQR action has been going on behind the scenes yet. Usually I'd save the thanks for sticking with me for another year until the final thoughts, but that spot is reserved for a bit that is unlikely to translate as well as it sounds in my head. So, before tying up administrative loose ends and turning my focus to all things W, let me say how much I appreciate everyone's support and interest, especially the hardy few who read this deep into posts. For 20 years (!!!) I've been doing this for my own amusement and continue to be staggered that anyone else comes along for the ride. Players, coaches, CEOs and Presidents will come and go, but I'll keep doing this until the club or I cark it.
2024 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Tom McDonald
4 - Kysaiah Pickett
3 - Max Gawn
2 - Kade Chandler
1 - Christian Salem
Apologies to Billings and Langdon in a blanket finish of people who might have got a vote just to fill the available spots.
Final standings
With everything else sorted out in advance, the last item of business was whether Turner could win the Rising Star outright. He could not, but being half of the first joint winning pair since Hunt/Petracca 2016 was a great effort considering where he started the year.
The all-time leaderboard has been updated. Since Round 1, 2005 there have now been 6705 votes handed out to 139 players. Notable changes this year - rare good news for Oliver as he went past Nathan Jones for the all-time lead (381 votes), there is now a 134 vote gap between Petracca in fifth and Brad Green in sixth, Alex Neal-Bullen doubled his career tally on the way out, and I feel older than the sun seeing Alistair Nicholson and Guy Rigoni on the list.
51 - Max Gawn (WINNER: Allen Jakovich Medal for Player of the Year, WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
29 - Jack Viney
27 - Steven May (WINNER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
26 - Alex Neal-Bullen
24 - Christian Petracca
22 - Kysaiah Pickett
19 - Ed Langdon
18 - Jake Lever, Trent Rivers
16 - Clayton Oliver, Jacob van Rooyen
15 - Judd McVee
14 - Tom McDonald
7 - Christian Salem
6 - Harrison Petty, Daniel Turner (JOINT WINNER: Rising Star Award), Caleb Windsor (JOINT WINNER: Rising Star Award)
4 - Jack Billings, Kade Chandler, Bayley Fritsch, Tom Sparrow, Adam Tomlinson
3 - Jake Melksham
1 - Jake Bowey, Blake Howes
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James Frawley for McDonalds, asked for his career highlights - "At Melbourne? Not many". Jesus Christ, I know it's the intellectual lightweight segment with Campbell Brown but any chance of faking something up for a segment that's being played BEFORE A MELBOURNE MATCH. Of course, winning a flag at Hawthorn was his greatest moment (thanks to the brave decision to do a runner from the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald to the defending premier) but the question wasn't "what percentage of memories from your time at Melbourne were good?" so pluck something out for fans who could only muster up the barest animosity to you after leaving.
This throwaway moment unnecessarily made me more upset than the game that followed, but while there's admittedly not a lot to work with that isn't just him trying to hold back an unstoppable tide, here's a brief shortlist:
- Dicking Collingwood on QB 2007 (featuring somebody lobbing a bottle at Russell Robertson as he lined up for #7)
- The mega comeback against Freo in 2008 + a mention of Austin Wonaeamirri so they can show the picture of him celebrating
- Chasing Lewis Jetta like the final of the Olympic 100m in 2010
- Being an All-Australian team in 2010 (now really, how did this not get a mention?)
- [Fair enough leaving out the Neeld years]
- Another mega comeback against Essendon in 2014
Still better viewing than Petracca acting as a cheerful stepladder to promote toothpaste.
Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
As it makes not a cracker of difference to the final result I'll assume the post-lightning Tholstrup one I didn't see was a ripper. Congratulations to Bayley Fritsch for winning the season, with a goal that sits up there in our all-time classics but is less exciting now that you know about the terminal spiral that followed. May next year bring lots of boring goals from 10 metres out directly in front.
1st - Bayley Fritsch (Q4) vs Geelong
2nd - Kysaiah Pickett (Q4) vs Footscray
3rd - Kysaiah Pickett (Q4) vs Geelong
Next year
In 2007 we followed three finals seasons with a much worse year, and even when all the evidence pointed to a crop of cherished veterans coming towards the end, without nearly enough exciting young players to replace them, I expected to bounce back based on who was returning from injury. Then we lost our first two games by nearly 200 points combined and took off down some weird, dark roads before it all paid off on 25/09/2021.
We're not in a completely different spot now, except with a little more of the emerging and less of the 'about to irrevocably fall apart'. There's still time to heed the pull up warnings but if we're having the same discussion in 12 months a massive stack could be just around the corner.
Even if everything goes well with Oliver, Petracca etc... there will be room for manoeuvre on the list - Schache and Farris-White having already been chopped, Brayshaw and B. Brown are retired, Neal-Bullen will be traded and Smith departs for 'administrative reasons'. The only other senior player I can see them potentially cashing in on is Salem, which will be famous last words when half the list wants to leave. Then it's down to who survives from the uncontracted players (per this list) - if he's interested Tom McSizzle is a certainty, as well as Moniz-Wakefield and K. Brown, and I don't see the harm in having Hore, Melksham and Tomlinson in reserve for depth. Hunter has survived the initial cull but I can't see how he'll be there next year unless we lose so many senior players that the average age resembles GWS 2012.
Verrall will get re-signed under the 'ruckmen take longer' clause, and even if Kentfield didn't do much in half a season getting rid of him now would be a reminder of skipping over all the experienced mid-season draft options that might have helped us win senior games. Casey fanatics can tell me if there's mitigating circumstances to Sestan averaging less than a goal a game over two Reserves seasons that would prevent him from getting the chop.
Within the next couple of weeks we'll be linked with everyone in the league - but the biggest names so far are Houston, who I still wouldn't pay five cents in foreign currency for if he has to be begged to come, Harry McKay in the most fantastically fictional way, and Tom Lynch for a Ben Brown style squeezing of the last drop. Not the worst idea, but who's he replacing in the forward line we dedicated our season to? Then it's off to the draft where our short and medium term are probably defenders, midfielders, ruckmen and forwards, so no pressure there. Remember when Delist > Trade > Draft used to be the happiest time of the year? This time I'm approaching it in fear.
Final thoughts
And mercifully, in conclusion please welcome the great seer, soothsayer, and sage, Deenac the Magnificent. I hold in my hand an envelope containing the final words on this season, and in his mystical and borderline psychic way, Deenac will ascertain the answer, never having heard the question.
Over to you Deenac:
'It Ends With Us'.
And the answer...
My interest in the 2024 AFL Men's Premiership season.
