So, after a three week break from misery we're back where the year started. To the credit of everyone involved, the margin was about as expected but came via three quarters of doing everything right except playing with a forward line, and a few bonus minutes of "surely they couldn't..." excitement during the third quarter. They couldn't, but it didn't qualify for 'it's the hope that kills you' status. We're not going to finish last, we're not going to make the eight, so it was more a case of being gently bruised by hope. A win pulled from the arse would be nice, but in a few weeks nobody except Goal of the Year voters and fans of shithouse umpiring decisions will remember this game even happened.
But before our usual incisive and analytical matchday coverage, a moment for the AFL's moral compass, which is currently spinning around as if thrown into a magnet factory. Imagine Trent Rivers sitting down to write his $1500 cheque for minor, otherwise unnoticed collision with an umpire, and looking up to see Willie Rioli getting the green light for threatening to set unknown thugs on an opposition player. Sure the AFL belatedly banned him for a match, but not until after Rioli had already announced he was going to sit this week out anyway. Then there's the wild and wonderful world of Clayton Oliver, who inadvertently helped kick off the week with a game dedicated to men's mental health, by having a microphone jabbed in his face and being asked to give candid comments on his own mental health while trying to walk through the park. I wish a teammate had jumped out from behind a tree and drop punted the microphone onto Punt Road.
The non-stop quest for content in footy, featuring Kane Cornes and his terrifyingly rigid eyebrows, will eventually end in tragedy, followed by half-genuine "we've got to be better" penance from the media before returning to the normal service of parkland ambushes and carrying on like they're at the moral pinnacle of society. For now they're comfortable sooking up about Brad Green cracking the shits on Twitter, accusing him acting too much like a fan as if supernuffs Eddie McGuire and Jeff Kennett weren't the most successful Victorian club presidents this century. I salute all the journalists going about their business professionally, without putting on fake outrage like they're auditioning for Sky News. The rest can far cough.
Anyway, back to the MCG, where our last unbeaten streak dating back to the Good Old Days (2021-2023) is kaput. After eight wins and a draw, this was an orderly transfer of the baton. We made them work for it, and Hawthorn would want to play a lot better against top sides, but a Hawks win/white bloke elected Pope double was the biggest certainty of the week. It was white smoke at the Vatican, and (eventually) white flag at the MCG, as we got a reminder of being simultaneously not all that far but also miles off the top sides.
When the sides came out I felt bad for Jacob van Rooyen, who returned after watching a couple of half-decent wins from the couch, only to see Jake Melksham going the other way, depriving him of one of the few teammates who can convincingly deliver the ball inside 50. Fair enough to manage Melksham at his advanced stage of life (a decade younger than me), but it didn't bode well for delivery to the forwards. Pickett can usually put the ball where you want it, but we need one of him across half back, one in the middle, one to be kicking at, and another waiting to Hoover up spilt crumbs.
I said during the week that Spargo's kicks were good but he only gets about five a week, and he showed me by dialling that up to seven. Unfortunately, the remainder were turnovers but he wasn't alone, team disposal efficiency was above season average, but the "kicking it straight to an opponent standing on his own" rate was the same as every other week.
By the time we'd kicked the classic late-period Goodwin score of 7.14.56, I still felt bad for JVR. Not because he'd put in some heroic single-handed performance that narrowly failed to carry the team over the line (e.g. Petracca vs Carlton last year), but because the poor lad has now officially been Melbourned. He's got time to overcome the handicap of being drafted to play in our forward line, but for now his greatest performance was one half against the worst West Coast side in history. When they go around the circle at the support group for other promising MFC careers dragged down like an anchor, Sam Weideman should probably keep quiet about helping win a landmark final in front of 90,000 people or he'll look up to find everyone else has jumped out the window.
van Rooyen was just one cog in a forward line that misfired as badly as ever but was still briefly in the frame to play in a massive upset. With Melksham and Petty injured, we had the option of finding another defender and trying to get Turner to do a repeat of his three goal performance last week. We declined, and while he did well was there really nobody else who could free him up to try and continue the momentum as a forward? NFI if Jed Adams is any good but he might be contemplating his future after not scoring a game in a lost year where all of May, Turner, Lever and Petty have been injured at some point
Instead, we reintroduced Matthew Jefferson, who I suspect will be remembered for kicking a goal 16 seconds into his debut and not much else. He didn't look remotely comfortable, had a bit of the Billings (remember him?) Resting Terrified Face and it's a mystery how he got in the side to start with. He's had five quarters of AFL experience and hasn't done much at VFL level, especially last week when Casey didn't have a game. The house must have been trained into dust. Then there's Fritsch, who has been stripped naked by the rest of the forward line disintegrating around him. He would still kick goals in a good side, but at the moment I'd rather play Petty '24 forward.
It was also the (temporary) end of Viney's tag-heavy renaissance after he fell victim to a mystery mid-week head knock. After getting away with several false alarms clutching his shoulder as if it was ripped from the socket, only to be jumping on opponents five minutes later, this is how nature got him. Even better, because it apparently happened on Thursday he can't play next week either. At the risk of white-hot sacrilege, I think it's impressive that Jack Crisp toppled Jim Stynes' consecutive games record given how easy it is for players to miss games these days. In the same way that you adjust Lance Franklin's goals for playing in a lower scoring era and he's every bit as good as Tony Lockett, Crisp has arguably done better than Jim to go this long without a miss.
Turns out the second game in Crisp's streak was the day I had a meltdown because the Stefan Martin Experience was BOG for an equally putrid Brisbane after we'd traded him. Obviously, turfing the SME cleared a path for Max Gawn and - even if by accident - is by default the best thing that happened to us in 2012 (2nd place - Carnival Of Hate, 3rd place - keeping the lights on). I wasn't taking it well at the time. But when you're not winning it takes a few years for the context of shit results to become interesting - that was the last time Sam Blease, Luke Tapscott, or Dean Terlich played for us, and seven years later we were beating Martin in a Grand Final while he was playing for a different team. So see you in 2032 when we'll look back on whatever weird twists and turns have taken place since this slopfest.
Quoth myself from that day, and this is as true as ever, "Defensive sludge looks so much better when you're in front". That's somewhat true of this game, especially the sludge bit, but while the defence held up ably for three quarters, there were plenty of chances at the other end. Normal disclaimers apply that if any of them went through the course of the game turns out differently and we might either win or concede the next 24 goals unanswered, but I'll take my chances with accurate kicking and see where it goes from there.
I don't think the Hawthorn players were 100% into this at the start, which allowed us to do all the early attacking for two points. Then, without ever getting out of first gear they took the ball straight down the other end for a gaol at the first opportunity. So far, so predictable. Less so, Harvey Langford responding with the sort of key position-ish mark you'd love our key position forwards to take. You were probably already considering sliding off your seat over Harvey when he took an equally solid grab at the other end.
None of us knows what happens behind the scenes at the start of the year (and this was around the time of the famous Goodwin press conference meltdown), but playing Langford as sub in Round 1 behind the VFL All Stars, then immediately dumping him from the team comes across as the wackiest decisions of the season. By half time of this game people will be arming themselves and forming vigilante posses if he's dropped again.
The good thing about the club being spread over so many venues is that the armed gangs won't know whether to lay siege on the MCG, Casey or AAMI Park. On a related note, I see the league is considering a dedicated training facility in Victoria for interstate clubs. Any chance we can horn in on this racket and get dedicated oval/administration buildings/spy cameras for opposition training sessions at an inner-city venue instead of having to find $70 million just to play in the middle of a racetrack? Knowing our luck, we'll build Caulfield, discover the greatest player of a generation, then he'll be trampled by a runaway horse.
There's an alternative option to spend $20 million buying Waverley off Hawthorn, who basically got it for free, which should happen in 2026 just to tie in with the 30th anniversary of them being the literally poor relation of the proposed Melbourne Hawks (insert cheap plug for our review of the Merger Night '96 TV coverage). They've done well for themselves since, but hopefully their move to Dingley will have the same effect on draftees and superstars alike as us making highly paid, professional athletes train in Cranbourne.
We'll never get back in front of the Hawks financially, but had them under the thumb for sporting purposes for a while. I was already convinced that was coming to an end, but more so when they got the second goal. It looked like we'd struggle to get that many in the game, so couldn't afford to be handing them out to somebody going around as 'The Wizard' who is approaching Glenn Maxwell levels of "I have no reason to dislike this person except their nickname". I'm not upset that he's swiped Jeff Farmer's gimmick because wizardry goes all the way back to Merlin, but let's have a little less fois-gras style forcing of the name down our throats by commentators thanks. It was also good when he gave the Richmond cheersquad the finger, only for the babies to snitch him out and land Watson with another fine that was more than you'd get for threatening opposition players.
At this point I'd never have believed we'd have been in this game up to our necks at three quarter time. For now it just felt like damage limitation against a team who may actually turn up and start playing properly at any moment. The 'we're just holding on' atmosphere wasn't helped by the once great Clayton Oliver trailing former mid-season draftee John Newcombe around in an attempt to replicate Viney's recent success. I understand what they were trying to do, but don't believe their claims that it was Oliver's idea for a minute. The idea didn't work, but some of the hysteria about it was over the top. We tried something, it sort of failed/didn't offer enough benefit, I'll get upset if they try it again next week.
While I'm pro-Oliver, I wasn't crazy about the 13th minute Clap For Clayts Campaign. Not because it isn't a nice token thing to do (I've been in the middle of the MCG with the speakers fanging at full volume and you couldn't understand a word of it, he's not going to hear a light round of applause), but because of the potential for looking like a bunch of hypocrites when he leaves and gets booed by the 'our players good, your players bad' flanges. For historical precedent see Mitch Clark, who went from "you've got to do what's right for your mental health" to "but not like that" when he joined Geelong.
The good news is that when Oliver finally got a touch it was a good one, the problem was it was well after the first 13 minutes. He finished a nice handball chain along the boundary with a kick perfectly to Sparrow's advantage, and under the circumstances we won't ask why he was the one required to pull down a mark 20 metres out from goal. We were ok, but not in a way that suggested the Hawthorn code would be cracked and let us pile on a winning score. Let's start with a competitive score, we're up to 73.2 per game but are well beyond the level where you can expect a Lever-less backline to turn that total into anything but random wins.
We might have been within a point if van Rooyen pulled down the mark he nearly took at full extension (and the extension is important, because otherwise he'd be subject to butterfinger allegations) in the last minute. The commentators tried to will themselves into it possibly being a mark, which was bloody optimistic. But that was ok, because in the dying seconds James Sicily walked straight into a Fritsch tackle (then had the nerve to whinge to the umpire about it), leaving our many time top goalkicker with a close-range shot after the siren. Sam Mitchell was shown cracking the shits Clarko style when it happened, but we continued to take a suicidal approach to taking chances by missing. There must be some measurement that combines inside 50s + set shot accuracy in recent seasons to prove that we're at historical levels of waste.
With the defenders holding up reasonably well for three quarters, we had a fair go at winning with a rancid score. In the second quarter this involved the innovative strategy of keeping the ball down our end by missing shot, after shot, after shot. I was just about to go into media blackout mode for the drive home when Jefferson used his big chance to checkside OOF and decided to just listen on the radio instead.
I've got no idea when I last rejected watching on delay to listen while driving, but it wasn't safe, and there was definite high speed swerve when Spargo got one of the seven in 1.7. Fortunately the radio didn't properly convey how disgraceful the unpaid Pickett trip was or I'd have been left cartwheeling down the Tullmarine Freeway with the car on fire. Nobody will remember this game for anything else (except, possibly their last time playing for us) but the gratuitous, obvious, hand-to-ankle interface as Pickett ran into an open goal will be the go-to "what about..." awful decisions reference for the next 10 years.
You'd almost accept that the umpire was blinking or looking into the sun if the whole season - including earlier this game - hadn't been littered with out of zone umps sticking their nose in where it wasn't wanted. It led to the inevitable calls for a challenge system, but you don't see botched free kicks like this often enough to make it worthwhile. We don't need people demanding unnecessary, hopeful challenges to kill momentum late in a game, we need somebody to pay blatantly obvious shit like this. Imagine being the goal umpire guiltily signalling for a point knowing you'd just witnessed one of the most obvious infringements of all time and couldn't do anything about it. Lucky they weren't located in front of our fans, who would no doubt have provided vigorous feedback at anyone in authority.
This was a disastrous decision that 99.9% cost us a goal (it's not like players haven't hit the post from that range before), but carrying on like umpires cost us this game is an old school pirate level of one-eyedness. If the Melbourne Football Club took up piracy we'd spend all year raiding and come home with $4.30 in five cent coins. No matter what happened in the first 2.5 quarters, there was a point in the third where we were in front and every possible chance of overcoming perceived rorts. But that would require playing a last quarter.
I wasn't fooled by laying the boots into West Coast's corpse last week (and still letting them kick five), we'd have needed a miracle to stay alive long enough to win this. Which is such a shame because we were matching them in every other element of the game. Jefferson eventually got the arse for Tholstrup, who didn't do a lot except get a sore ear from Sicily yelling nonsense at him, but was probably more of a chance of taking a contested mark.
The only part of the second quarter I was disappointed to miss was Langford taking advantage of a defensive meltdown to snatch a second just before the break. Maybe the solution is to give up on having a traditional forward line and just run a confusing string of players in and out of the 50 so the opposition never know who's going to turn up next? One minute Langford's there, the next it's Fritsch, then of a sudden Steven May has legged it the length of the ground to randomly pop up in a contest. This would end in tragedy the moment the ball went the other way, but a) any sort of interesting development in our forward line would be appreciated, and b) it doesn't matter if it tires players out by the last quarter because you won't be able to tell the difference anyway.
Aided by Hawthorn's shit goalkicking (relatively speaking - compared to us they were laser accurate), matching them in the contested game, and another fine performance from Gawn. Langford's third and Sharp running into an open goal half-fooled me into thinking we might go on with this but deep down only the most deluded believed it. One day we'll unexpectedly beat a better side from a similar position again but until then I'll be even more cynical about leads than usual.
We celebrated the Sharp goal by missing two more chances, and of course when the ball went down the other end Hawthorn rediscovered their accuracy to take the lead at three quarter time. You could bet a kidney on how this was going to end, but when Gawn had a shot to put us back in front early in the last quarter I was open to making a game of it. For eighth time in nine scoring shots this season he missed, and that prompted the brown light to go on.
They went practically right down the other end for a goal, which was soon three in a row and it was nearly curtains. Pickett cancelled the last one out with a tremendous running goal out of the middle but it was just a temporary holding back of the tide because we were collectively shot. The top shelf goal-led recovery couldn't drag any further life out of the rest of the team, and once we needed four goals in as many minutes there was more chance of money falling from the sky.
Any mad comeback theories were terminated by Jack Gunston casually walloping one through from distance. Then they got another one from the centre bounce and a margin I'd have expected before the game now looked harsh on us. After playing like shite for most of the game, Gunston kicked three when it mattered, which is a key difference to our forwards who were shite for most of the game, then shite for the rest of it.
This rampage was partially because we'd belatedly sent Turner forward, leaving Hawthorn's forward line to do as they liked. Fair enough I suppose, not like percentage is going to make any difference to us. Just wish they'd played him there from the start.
As Hawthorn went into full 'crush, kill, destroy' mode in the last few minutes, effortlessly adding two more goals, my only intellectual thought was whether Changkuoth Jiath has ever been whacked in the plums during a game so somebody could do a 'Jiath's Crackers' headline?
2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Harvey Langford
4 - Max Gawn
3 - Tom McDonald
2 - Jake Bowey
1 - Kysaiah Pickett
Apologies to May, Petracca, Rivers, and Turner
Leaderboard
The Gawnslide continues, but while you could see that coming, a potential podium including Bowey and Langford is weird. Harvey creates a commotion in the minor awards by snatching the Rising Star lead. Otherwise carry on as usual.
28 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
17 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
10 - Harvey Langford (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Kysaiah Pickett
9 - Clayton Oliver
8 - Kade Chandler, Ed Langdon
7 - Xavier Lindsay, Tom McDonald, Christian Petracca
6 - Jack Viney
5 - Jake Melksham
4 - Tom Sparrow
2 - Jake Lever, Harrison Petty, Christian Salem
1 - Harry Sharp
Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
There was going to be slight controversy if the Langford goal I only saw on replay later won, so good thing Pickett went full NBA Jam turbo mode to give us a quickly extinguished glimmer of hope in the last quarter. Windsor still leads, but once I'm over this game I might reinvestigate whether this was better despite being followed by 100% dreck.
It's Brisbane away, and yeah that's not going to end well. I don't care that they just drew with North Melbourne, that probably only makes it worse for us because they're not going to let the same thing happen at home. We did nearly pull one out of our arse there last year, until Neal-Bullen was pinched for doing a rugby try over the boundary line. I don't like the chances of a repeat, but am open to something weird and wonderful happening. Not if we score 56 again. The challenge is to get that much.
IN: Melksham, Petty, Laurie
OUT: Fritsch, Jefferson, Tholstrup (omit)
LUCKY: van Rooyen
UNLUCKY: Anyone whose life depends on us kicking accurately.
Final thoughts
For legal reasons, I can't accurately sum up how it felt to watch this until the Erin Patterson murder trial is over, but I can say with certainty that there will be no Bradbury Plan this year. In its place look out for the Spitebury Plan, where we aim for mid-table mediocrity just to devalue a draft pick.