Shoot straight you bastards

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.

Next Week
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.

We can't have Viney back but I assume Melksham's refreshed from having the week off because he's coming back for Fritsch. The only reason van Rooyen's not going too is because I complained about dropping them both at the same time earlier in the season. Jefferson, on the other hand, needs to rumble a few VFL sides before I'll even think about having him in the senior side again. Tholstrup will be welcome back later, but he could also do with (hopefully) beating up on some underlings.

In the great deckchair shuffling of our forward line it's Petty back, Turner forward, and abandon all hope ye who enter. They can do what they like, we're going to lose by lots.

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.

'Mons Party

As a confirmed NQR, the only thing I like as much as obscure footy stats is elections. Don't particularly care who wins because it's basically an intra-club game between crooks but percentages, swings, gains, and losses violently trigger the giant 'nerd' switch in my brain. So even though this is the first time since Saturday night games were invented that one of ours has intersected with a vote count, I still felt a bit cheated at having to take my focus off the obscure distribution of numbers to watch us play a piss boring brand of footy against a truly awful team having the worst run in their history. But I successfully managed to do both, and the biggest swing of the night didn't involve Gawn's set shot kicking so happy days.

Both viewing options included a recent powerhouse who are down on their luck due to chronic mismanagement and failure to develop new talent, represented on this channel by West Coast. May we gracefully spring off the bottom instead of the traumatic barrel-scraping that the Eagles have been in for years. Even we were only truly putrid from 2012-2014, they're now in a fourth season of rebuilding at a glacial pace, and after winning five games last year they've swirled straight back down the toilet in 2025. Having gone through this sort of trauma I know that you eventually look back and laugh at the absurdity of it, but it's gruesome at the time, so I'd really appreciate one more half-baked, fruitless swing at finals (not exactly setting the bar high there) before going into another potentially years-long death spiral.

Like us, the Eagles followed a flag season by going finals/finals/mediocrity, but even if there's not much to be said for favourably comparing yourself to them we've won more games in the last three weeks than they did in all of 2022. I'm worried that sort of blowout is still coming in a couple of years but am enthusiastic to be proven wrong. 

While this was by no means a classic victory, it was a more successful MFC/federal politics crossover than our previous appearance in the genre, when Hansard dutifully recorded still unproven allegations that we were being run like the Cali Cartel. I prefer achieving Peak Stereotype by electing a former Liberal leader as President, a few years before he became the last Melbourne fan to die happy until 2021 by carking it mid-pump. 

The never-to-be-defeated master of mixing sport and politics is Brian Dixon, who was elected to Victorian Parliament and played in a 113 point win on the same day. Stranger things have happened in politics (including 'winning premiership coach speech sceptic' Basil Zempilas becoming the leader of a major party), but imagine somebody trying to pull off the Dicko Double again? Even if it was done for pure comedy value, the footy media's self-obsessed shock jocks would have a coronary. Besides, in 1964 it meant Dixon got to collect two pay cheques, these days most players would be taking a pay cut to sit in the Senate. 

What chance has a surprise Gawn-led ticket got of getting the respect it deserves when some plonker on the radio tried to explain Clayton Oliver's absence this week (get well soon xoxo) via the most pissweak anecdote in footy history. Apparently some bozo interrupted him on the way into the Richmond game to ask if he was going to have a big one and being told "I wouldn't have thought so". And he didn't, so Clayts is certainly a man of his word. Any chance he was just throwing out an off-hand reaction to crap fan chat rather than issuing a public cry for help? He's got things going on, but if this is the best contribution you can make then perhaps just speak about the matter in general terms?

Unnecessary investment in the 'nothing happening yet' phase of election night caused me to botch the start time of this game and arrive after Petracca's opener. On replay it was a lovely one too, and naturally reminds us of another game at this venue where he was first goalscorer. That night we got all our scoring for the next few years out of the way, and less than four seasons later were reduced to some of the most putrid attempts at placing the ball between the centre posts by foot that you'll ever hope to see. 

Things got better as the inferior outfit ran out of petrol, enthusiasm, and fit players, but in the first quarter West Coast played about as badly as any non-expansion team since the Neeld era and still had more scoring shots. Like last week we eventually battled to a three goal lead before leaving the door wide open, with a sign saying 'come in and take what you like', and our address posted on a Facebook page in the style of Corey Worthington.

Even when we had the good fortune of an Eagles goal being reversed (via an unnecessarily long mandatory review that left players wandering around the ground looking confused for a minute we'll never get back), and instantly going down the other end for the rare five point play, there was no sense of imminent floodgate bursting. The clearances were 10-0 at one point, but the lead still didn't look safe because of how laboured every attack was. Albo's first game as Prime Minister was the end of our 17 game winning streak, and for his entire first term we've never had a settled, dangerous-looking forward line. Forget the cost of living, promise key forwards and quality delivery and I'll commit electoral fraud on your behalf.

When it was revealed that the Eagles came in with the equal worst start for quarters won in VFL/AFL history, level with two sides who didn't win a game, I went on full Sydney '93 banana peel alert. Bog average team a couple of years out of finals starts the season winless, battles to two wins in a row, then goes interstate as hot favourites against shizen opposition. The difference is that in 1993 I was a naive near enough to 12-year-old who hadn't yet been broken by footy or real life, and parked myself in front of the TV on that fateful Sunday afternoon 100% sure of a win. 

I've never been that optimistic since, and as bad as the Eagles are I wasn't going to shift policy in an era where we're eventually going to finish a game on 3.8.24. We shouldn't have lost this, and didn't, but not without a scare on either side of half time that had me breathing into a paper bag about everything we'd clawed back in the last fortnight going up in smoke. That could happen as early as next week, but it won't come as the first victim of a winless side.

I don't hold any great affection for Andrew McQualter after one season with us, somehow turning a year in charge of a midfield that wasn't as good as it used to be into a senior job, but he's got to coach a win eventually and I didn't fancy the limited irony in it coming against us. He's been handed a flaming bag of shite on the way into the job, but his insights into our midfielders didn't translate into any info the Eagles players could use, because they may as well not have been there in the first quarter. 

Throwing emerging ruckmen against Gawn is like pinging pebbles at a battleship, but that wasn't a problem when they caught us by surprise in the corresponding fixture last year. This time we didn't fall into the trap of letting King Harley Race do whatever he liked, sending Viney to continue his tag led recovery, removing Harley as a serious threat. We still had to see the highlights of him fending off Oliver and Petracca, but you'll never get away from that footage now. It's better than that shithouse vitamin (?) ad he's in, which is second only for bad footy commercials to Petracca being used as a homoerotic smiling stepladder by him from Sydney.  

If Harley doesn't want to play for us after inevitably walking out on the Eagles in the next couple of years, we need to direct him towards whichever club is most likely to get Petracca so we can shut that escape hatch and force Trac to reluctantly/heroically go down (in almost every sense of the word) as a one club player. He's not the same player as the one who went boonta on 25/09/21, but who is? Gawn, Bowey, Lever when fit, and Pickett only because he did bugger all in the Grand Final. I'd be satisfied if Oliver went now just to remove the media circus element, and am resigned to Pickett legging it in the next couple of years, but I really want Petracca to stay and realise that it's morally better to live and die as a one club legend than play a handful of big games elsewhere and be treated as an afterthought in retirement.

Surely with competition from an unpredictable election and a game between top teams on the other channel, not a single neutral was still watching this game by the first break. Especially with commentary from our old friends at the Western Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I was invested in this game and they still made me want to jam foreign objects through the eardrums. Don't let the Will Schofield novelty interview with Gawn at the end detract from him being the worst special comments man since Doug Hawkins. West Coast fans wanted to get rid of Don Scott, but the call is coming from inside the house now. 

At one point he was sooking about some sort of cheapshot behind play that was so earth-shattering and consequential that nobody bothered to replay it. I think it was Spargo bumping into somebody, but as the Match Review Officer managed to ignore this while plucking out a fine for Rivers running into an umpire I'll just assume he was auditioning for a gig on Sky News by putting on fake outrage. I know interstate people bleed from every orifice about Victorian commentator bias, but we're not pretending Taylor, Russell et al are any good and would be happy to bin them for almost anyone else, so don't pretend this guy is any good. While you're it, sit Matthew Pavlich down and assure him that he's got a job for life in WA footy and doesn't need to tarnish his reputation by carrying on like Ted Whitten at a state game. In isolation, Adam Papalia is good, but he's being dragged down by association with these knuckleheads. 

Thanks to West Coast being inept, we got to quarter time in front and without conceding a goal. It wasn't for want of trying, including a free against Tholstrup at the end that wrapped up the worst quarter of his senior career. He's learning, was probably overexcited to be playing in front of a home audience, and got better as the game went on but it was a rocky start. Koltyn (!?) got the hook last week, and was likely only saved from a similar fate here when Petty went off concussed. Never mind, the best thing now is to get games into him. He was ripped off blind at one point but umpires who had serious problems judging distance, trying to create an 'outside five' situation by standing about 10 metres off the player with the ball, but being called to stand and left wobbling around one leg like somebody playing Twister.

I've got a McGuire-esque radical plan to help take some of the controversy away from estimating distance, if you intercept an opposition kick untouched it should be a mark no matter how far the ball travelled. Even if somebody boots it straight into your guts from one metre away and you hit the deck clutching the ball on top of your shattered ribcage it should count. It's rude when a player intercepts a dud kick by the other team and gets instantly clobbered in a tackle, penalise teams for giving the ball away more. Laura Kane and the other bloke, you can contact me for rules consultancy via the usual channels.

Speaking of controversial decisions, it's a rare win for common sense that Jake Melksham wasn't held liable for injuring the player who was flattened by an unrelated pair of players after being nudged out of a marking contest. They had to come up with a long, flowery explanation to stop other teams from citing it as a precedent but it came down the obvious fact that he was watching the ball the whole time, and couldn't reasonably have known that trying to mark the ball would cause injury. It's not like he deliberately shoved George McGovern into oncoming players like somebody being lobbed into the path of an express train, and I'd argue that the West Coast player with the meth dealer haircut contributed just as much to the contact.

Despite all that I was surprised that he didn't get three weeks, following on from the league's 2025 policy of panicking about players running into each other. I thought the match review would take the easy way out and suspend him, knowing we'd obviously challenge. Goodwin's view that it wasn't even a free kick is a bit inflammatory, but let's have more harking back to the Maynard vs Brayshaw wankfest by declaring it a 'football act' at every opportunity. It would've been a disaster to lose him for several weeks just before playing the good teams, because after being written off multiple times he's still the best kick inside 50 that we've got at nearly 34 years old. If Spargo got more than five kicks a game or Pickett could kick to himself they might challenge, but for now Melksham makes our often invisible forward seem a lot better.

Maybe it helped Melksham's case that the poor man's Kane Cornes instantly started waffling about how many weeks he'd go for. The MRO probably heard that and decided he didn't want to be associated with anything Schofield had to say. I'd have done a deal where we accepted a suspension for Melk as long as Schofield was banned from involvement in twice as many Melbourne games in Perth.

The collision left McGovern making wacky expressions that indicated either concussion or a broken face. Either way you knew he wasn't coming back, and he didn't but there was a suggestion by the Eagles' in-house broadcast team that while he was subbed off, West Coast wasn't admitting he had a concussion. This didn't sound very realistic, but I was waiting for Melksham to be rubbed out and McGovern to miraculously return next week, like a modern version of Trengove dropping Dangerfield on his head then sitting on the couch the next week while Danger struggled so severely with the effects that he only kicked six.

I'm not wishing injury on anyone (except retrospectively on all the players who turned out to be nonces/wifebeaters etc..), and we didn't yet know that Petty was going to depart due to the same incident, but it helped our cause that the Eagles lost one of their few senior players who remembers what it's like to play with his dignity intact. This was especially helpful when we went from kicking the first goal of the quarter to being on full mega upset alert by half time. As usual, there were chances to lay the boots in but we missed set shots, and in the traditional manner, our opposition went on a 10 minute bender that might have been fatal if done by nearly any other team. 

I don't know if Jayden Hunt kicks goals against anyone else, but for the second year in a row he got amongst it against us. I've still got happy memories of his time with us (especially the underrated highlight of early COVID, when his car started after being left in the MCG carpark for months), but the poor guy went out looking fresh-faced and joyful, and now has the grizzled appearance of somebody who's come back from war permanently scarred by seeing untold atrocities. 

That's probably how it feels to be a Victorian who willingly joined a Perth club just as they turned into a natural disaster zone, giving him a lot of time flying back-and-forth across the country to think about it. After playing in 10 wins to start his final season with us, Hunt is now 8-43 since joining the Eagles. I propose a kidnap scheme to save him when the Eagles come here for the rematch in Round 21. He might not get a game with us, but maybe Richmond needs an experienced player to go with all their new recruits. It won't stop the unmerciful beatings, but he'll get home quicker.  

The sixth of Hunt's eight wins came against us, and there was genuine fear of lucky #9 when they finally got the ball out of the centre, and hit the lead. We got away with them missing one late in the quarter, but that was made up for a minute after the restart when a couple of usually hapless Eagles forwards nearly stuffed up an easy goal via "you first, no you first" hesitation before one of them finally just decided to punt the bloody thing through. I was feeling lower Peter Dutton at this point, third quarters have been our best all season but the idea of pouring on a string of goals that effectively killed the game seemed far-fetched.

In a throwback to the GWS game (which seems a lifetime ago now), Windsor kicked another wonderful third quarter goal to the right of screen after pelting through the middle of the ground. The tight zoom meant I couldn't tell if the roar after was towards teammates or opponents, but it seemed a bit early for the latter. He obviously knew better, because this was the green light to commence our match-winning burst. 

A four quarter performance eventually would be ace, and probably necessary to beat any of Hawthorn, Brisbane, Sydney or a St Kilda side that's rediscovered Ross Lyon's joy of slow-strangulations in the next month. And the fixture doesn't get much better than that after, so if we're going to rest on this performance and/or rely on Herculean backstory-free performances by Gawn, the three wins on the bounce might be the last you see for a while.

Speaking of Supreme Leader Max, I don't think anyone was upset when Langdon played on from a ruck free instead of letting the captain have another set shot. He finally snuck one home in the last quarter, but I make no apologies for constantly talking about how astonished I am that he converted the famous one in 2021. I'll still be pondering it on my deathbed. Might reference it on the headstone. Before that, Max has definitely qualified for an autobiography to be released around Christmas in the late 2020s, and I demand a chapter on that kick that's not as gratuitously ghost-written as the Captain's Diaries. I'll do it this time, as long as the publisher is willing to go for 500+ pages.

There was more broadcasting gold when Petty departed with concussion and we were told that "both teams are down a key defender" when he'd been playing as a forward for a month. You could claim to have been talking about Turner going forward, but they obviously weren't. The manpower balance went back in our favour when one of their players had a random ankle blowout, but as we were still only a point in front it made a potential loss even more embarrassing. A week after saying that there's no such thing as a shit win at the moment, I was ready to take the shittest of victories here if required.

Straight after the Langdon goal, we flung out of the middle and Fritsch took his best mark in years for the immediate double. There was a brief interlude for the Eagles to kick a goal (PS: I don't think it bodes well for us how often they scored when going inside 50) and for Tholstrup to miss twice, before Chandler kicked an absolute ripper. He gathered a loose ball on the boundary line, ran past two defenders, then had to do a high angle finish, on the run, from a slight angle to get it over a defender standing between him and the goal. It was a great finish, but the secret ingredient was crime, because the ball only got to him thanks to a ripper of a push by Turner, back in the forward line after Petty's demise. 

Turner then got one for himself, via another solid forward 50 mark. You've got to adjust for opposition and surprise element, but on 1.5 quarters of evidence I'm convinced Disco is a better key forward than Petty. Yes, this again. Petty had a good couple of weeks before barely going near it here, and it's good to have both options available so we can move players around at the drop of a hat and try to blind opposition sides with science, but Turner has my vote. 

Petty will miss next week with concussion, and we've got to reintroduce JVR at some point before he blows up and tries to join Freo, but Harrison please proceed back into defence until either Lever returns or we need to spring a mid-match surprise. I appreciate that he did more in two weeks than about 18 last season, but if he can avoid injury or knee-jerk selection decisions for a few weeks in a row, Turner is the man. Now watch him kick 1.5 in the next month and end up back in the VFL.

For unknown reason we're tedious for 75% of every game but get exciting in the third quarter. The fun continued with a freebie, as Viney was lightly whacked around the bonce during an attempted spoil and a 50 made certain of the goal. I was happy to take it, but thought the 50 was a bit harsh when it came as part of the motion of trying to spoil. So, in a rare bit of concern for other teams, I'm outraged that he ended up being suspended for a week. It's one thing if somebody takes a mark then you round-arm them in the chops on the way down, but this was simultaneous so I'm offended. Obviously they changed the rules after van Rooyen spoiled that Gold Coast player into an alternative universe two years ago. West Coast is still rich enough to pay for a challenge and they should do it just to make a point.

Once the margin was out to five goals I was as comfortable as I'm going to get that far below the Chris Sullivan Line. If Fritsch converted after Melksham hit him with a delightful kick I'd have been ready to quietly declare victory. Still pretty good, considering how we were going a minute into the quarter, and even with our traditionally putrid final terms I didn't think there was much danger of the Eagles running us down.

My target was to kick more than one goal in the last quarter, but I didn't expect six, which is only one short of our total from rounds 1-7. That's also Gawn's record in front of goals this season after finally converting at the eighth attempt. He didn't need a goal to be best on ground by a country mile, but it was a nice bonus. Out of nowhere, this was his record for possessions in a game, and the first time he's ever had +30 in a win. Once he retires we'll ponder his greatest games, but off the top of my head I'll have the 2021 Prelim or the Hawthorn game earlier that year when he was pulling down contested marks like an absolute madman. It was more than good enough for a game like this though, and when he's done I'll push granny down the stairs to be present for the standing ovation during his lap of honour.

Just when you thought it might be time for full feet-up relaxation or maybe even a rare landslide finish, we conceded the next two goals to bring the margin within "surely not, but wouldn't be horrible if..." range. Then Spargo rumbled long-term hostage Hunt holding the ball (even if the ball did accidentally land on his other foot after the umpire had already made their mind up) and an unpleasant fiasco was officially off the agenda. Could've done without conceding five in the final term, but I'll take it as a trade off for kicking six. Here's to getting another six across the next four weeks in total.

The good news is that we've won three in a row, and I very much appreciate that. The bad news is that we've now played the three bottom sides, and some of the ones at the other end of the ladder are going to absolutely ROOT US at this rate. But that's a next week problem, for now I'm just content to avoid losing.

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Max Gawn
4 - Jake Melksham
3 - Jack Viney
2 - Kade Chandler
1 - Daniel Turner

Apologies to Fritsch, Langford, McDonald, Petracca, Spargo and Windsor.

Leaderboard
He's had to contend with Oliver, Petracca, and natural midfielder bias, but it seems a touch rude that Gawn has only won the Jakovich once. But like 2019, he looks likely to salute by way of carrying the team through a shit season. Not a cracker of progress in the minor awards, other than Max making the Stynes even more secure.

24 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
15 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
9 - Clayton Oliver, Kysaiah Pickett
8 - Kade Chandler, Ed Langdon
7 - Xavier Lindsay (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Christian Petracca
6 - Jack Viney
5 - Harvey Langford, Tom McDonald, Jake Melksham
4 - Tom Sparrow
2 - Jake Lever, Harrison Petty, Christian Salem
1 - Harry Sharp

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
The originally unseen Petracca goal and Windsor's cover version of Round 1 would be winners in most weeks, but I loved the Chandler goal so much that I'm promoting it to first place for the season. Chandler is such a good guy that he even gave his boots to some kids scabbing for them over the fence after the final siren. I don't think this sort of behaviour should be encouraged, but who am I to argue with Chandler continuing to be one of the most cheerful players in the league? Better than the Eagles players having to go around the boundary line handing out footies when they probably just wanted to curl up in a ball and die. A few weeks ago they lost a thriller then had to go around giving easter eggs to fans, which felt like the biggest pisstake ever visited on a group of professional sportsmen.    

Next Week
I'm sure one of the clowns on commentary said our game against Hawthorn would be in Tasmania, as if they don't still play home games in Victoria. Or indeed that it may be our home game, which it is. After two good but not great wins against dreck, this is a massive test. I'm not expecting to win but would love some evidence that we really have improved in the last three weeks. If there was ever a week to manage Gawn this would be it, but we're committed to running the great man into the ground so it's not time for the Tom Campbell 'Break In Case Of Emergency' button yet.

We've got no Reserves game to base changes on because the VFL is a shit competition, so I've got NFI if Oliver is coming back this week, next week, mid-August, or never, but am hoping for the best. I'm going to do something novel/unique/shithouse and start him as sub. This will not happen in real life. To make way, Sharp goes back to the Seconds for a full game after being the sub four weeks in a row, and I don't know how I'm going to balance JVR replacing Petty but Turner still playing as a forward so lucky none of this needs to be justified.

IN: van Rooyen, Oliver (to sub)
OUT: Petty (inj), Sharp (omit)
LUCKY: Tholstrup
UNLUCKY: Laurie

Final thoughts
According to AFL Live Ladders, there's still a .01 per cent probability of finishing in the top two, but you'll need to be over .05 to think there's any chance of that happening. Our current three per cent chance of making finals is more attractive, but have a cold shower because it's not going to happen. However, the dream of finishing above Essendon and wrecking the value of the trade that delivered us Lindsay is alive and well. When you've got nothing else to do it for, do it for spite.

Throw back the little ones

Don't cancel your alternative September plans yet, but for now the time to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo has passed. We're no longer the worst team in Victoria, and even if it's probably just the eye of the storm, I have a dream that if we can just beat one more dud team next week the door is open for a return to mid-table mediocrity. And because there's nothing else left to play for, at that point we we will say to Essendon:

I'm still not willing to think about this season beyond a) avoiding humiliation, and b) ruining the value of pre-traded first round selections, but at the moment there's no such thing as a shit win so I'm prepared to take this result as a good thing and get on with trying to finish in the top 13. We've had wonkier wins in this fixture that meant nothing for the future (e.g. the 3.12 first half snoozefest of 2022), but I still don't see us beating enough top sides to make this year interesting. Other than being spiteful towards the Bombers, the best we can hope for is to be the case study for bored journos to try and introduce a wildcard round when they're scrambling for mid-season content. Don't be fooled into thinking this would be a good idea just because it might benefit us, if you start 0-5 and can't turn it around in 18 games then bad luck, try again next year.

After the elation of an alleged premiership contender letting us do whatever we wanted last week, this was a return to core values of toil and slog. Which is fine when you win, but until half time it was a lot like the North game. We'd been on the verge of kicking away a couple of times, were holding onto a suspect lead, and had to rely on the idea that the underdogs didn't have four quarters in them. 

This time we played it safe and killed the game off in the third quarter, which was important protection for another final term that had all the energy of somebody coming out of a long-term coma. For once the fade was partly self-imposed and we never remotely looked like losing, but it's still concerning that we're averaging one goal per last quarter. And the only game in six with multiples was against Gold Coast, who were gleefully caving our skulls in at the other end. The BurgessBall era is long gone - and may have been a myth anyway - but I wouldn't bet five Zimbabwean dollars on us winning from a three quarter time deficit anytime soon.

Now that the Anzac Day eve game is established (unlike the concept of an actual 'Anzac Day Eve' which is not now, and will never be a thing) and unlikely to go anywhere, all it's lacking is a close game. For not having to hang around with Pies and Essendon fans it shits on the actual Anzac game, but they've had plenty of drama over the years, while the nearest thing to a thriller in this fixture has been Richmond winning by 13, and us by 17. Stiff shit neutrals, we've still had some memorable moments - the birth of Hulkamania, the Bugg shhhing incident, Nathan Jones' 300th, on the night I really started to believe we were good, and Disco Demolition Night livening up an otherwise putrid game last year. In this time they've also won three flags so I'm sure they'd have a few fond memories too, but refer to Tigerblog for that sort of thing.

Another advantage the actual Anzac game has is that no matter how shit the competing clubs are, it will always draw a big crowd. This has had a couple of random spikes above 80k, but has settled in the low 70s for the last couple of years. Lucky both sides won last week, or we'd have been subjected to the usual demands from clubs not interesting enough to have a 'blockbuster' game that we hand over one of ours. I was hoping that we'd get the unique situation of our fourth home crowd single-handedly outdrawing the first three combined but it just fell short. By the state of the crowd during the post-match presentations I think opposition fans did a lot of the heavy lifting in the 71k total.

I missed the pre-match commemorations due to watching on a savage delay that left me eight minutes behind at the final siren after skipping all the breaks, but it's safe to assume there was another round of gushing about how good the New Zealand anthem is. It might be better than ours because it never says 'girt', but at the risk of being expelled from the Melbourne Football Club for going full commo, the top anthem from the winning side of either World War belonged to the Soviet Union. Anthems only really work if the people are mad with self-belief for the system, you can change our song to anything you like and it'll always seem cringe to a country of cynical bastards like us.

In a week dedicated to honouring brave people who put their lives on the line, the big controversy of the week was over somebody not being allowed to play footy at night after beating the suitcase out of somebody in a pub carpark. Instead of being pleased that Noah Balta isn't spending the rest of the season making licence plates, some Richmond fans invoked the 'I only feel this way because he plays for my club' rule and went full nuff. One wanted to pick Balta, sub him off at 3/4 time, and send him to a nearby apartment to beat the court-imposed 10pm curfew. Somehow this was supposed to spite the Victorian Premier, whose unconvincing 'tough on crime' gimmick required having an opinion. Her poll numbers suggest bigger problems to worry about, but I wish they'd gone full cooker and done this then had an injury in the opening minutes and played the last quarter two men down.

I'm glad Balta didn't play, but not because of his off-field shitblokery. I'd just get extreme cultural cringe seeing our fans lustily booing him when the same people would tear a hammy off the bone trying to argue why one of our players was hard done by in the same circumstances. I can see the arguments for putting him in the side last week when sentencing was imminent, but it's the stiffest of legal shit for player and club once the verdict is in. And if they can pin anything substantial on the MFC player allegedly involved in pub shenanigans over summer then he can also wear whatever the judge hands out. You don't get a moral discount for being a good guy at sports, and by not being the first team to play against this guy post-sentence, we've been saved from reacting in a way that will look massively hypocritical in the future.

But who gives a continental about social issues when the 'mons are unbeaten in consecutive weeks. Shame about the five games before that, but you can only beat who they put in front of you. After the joy of breaking through against Freo, my biggest worry was that we'd revert to making goalkicking look harder than climbing Mt. Everest. I'm sure it was an advantage for Adem Yze to have coached a lot of our players, and alongside Goodwin, but even with a team full of kids they were never going to let us get away with the same sort of free range antics that Freo did. It's not much of a spoiler to say Gawn gets the five votes this week, but there was an obvious plan to stop him from doing the old pluck 'n kick at stoppages, and Pickett was never allowed to reach peak electrical mode. We got there in the end, but I hope the coaches consider this a stepping stone and not a revolutionary moment in our development.

The early stages looked familiar, with multiple inside 50s generating stuff all good chances. In recent years Richmond has been dominated by unheralded goalkickers Weideman, Petty and Turner so I was open to the prospect of Tom Fullarton having the day of his life but alas no, this time we had to rely on a range of obvious goalkickers rather than a zany wildcard option.

As a middle-aged man I've obviously become interested in Steely Dan, and was disappointed to find that Richmond hasn't moved heaven and earth to get the player technically named after a steam-powered strap-on dildo into #19. Sorry Tom Lynch, thanks for the flags but we're doing a gimmick here. Steely (good thing his parents weren't mad for certain other bands) did us a couple of solids in the opening minutes, giving away two 50 metre penalties. The second allowed Langdon to kick a settler, but I'd prefer to create goals off our own bat rather than relying on assistance from overwhelmed opposition players.

In a scenario we've seen many times before, relentless attack for little reward was fine, but eventually you'll have to deal with the other side getting the ball. After blowing their first few attacks by booting it down Gawn's throat, I was a bit nervous when they finally moved with some speed and went from one end to the other untouched, before Lynch beat his old Suns co-captain May all ends up. He missed, but looked more capable of putting a poor team on his back and carrying them to victory than any forward we've had recently. 

Once it was clear we'd win you had to have some sympathy for Lynch, who was trying his heart out to try and make a difference for his team. The pressure of being their only decent forward was obviously weighing on him, and it was a shame that they didn't force him out for another kid because if he could generate three opportunities (including one from the same spot where he nearly beat us after the siren in 2016) from some of the slop delivered by his teammates, he'd have definitely have made a difference in our forward line.

Now that everyone knows we're probably heading down the gurgler in the next few years, it's probably too late to fill our list by ramraiding the list of truly underperforming teams (though paging Nick Larkey if he gets sick of losing against everyone except us and wants to risk a surprise reversal of fortunes like The Other Nathan Brown), and we're stuck with what we've got. So far so good on Langford, Lindsay and Windsor (though the latter had a bit of an issue with punting the ball straight to Richmond players here), and I'm still hopeful on van Rooyen even though he's recently been Melbourned. I'm still terrified by the gaps that will be left when Gawn, May etc... retire or fall apart, but that's something for future me to worry about.

When we got to three goals in front via a lovely snap by Chandler (followed by a much more convincing heart sign to his loved ones than when May accidentally called for the Diamond Cutter last year) I started having sick thoughts about an easy win. This is pure madness when watching us, but literally every other team in the competition seems to smash somebody else occasionally so when do we get a chance again? My reward for optimism was for things to go temporarily tits up. 

Conceding one goal was understandable, but the second annoyed me because the free happened about one second before the siren. Not that the players were to know that, but watching the clock tick down with the ball at the opposition end is like seeing Jason pop up behind Expendable Teenager #11 with a chainsaw and holding your breath waiting for them to be cut in half. I'd be annoyed with Viney holding onto Tim Taranto at the stoppage for dear life if he hadn't also done 15 legal tackles (just one short of his own club record) and a solid tagging job. His kicking is getting more butcherous with age, but I'm willing to trade some of that for animal defensive efforts like this. 

For now it just looked like we'd blown half a quarter of dominance by not taking advantage of our chances, and when a couple of misses at both ends to start the second finally turned into Richmond taking the lead I saw a grim future of losing 57-49 and plunging back into the pre-Freo misery. We were briefly back in front via a charitable off-the-ball decking of Bowey that gifted Petty a downfield free and goal, but it looked like this was going to be a live game well into the last quarter. 

Enter Nick Vlaustin, who may have personally won as many flags as we have in total since 1964 but had a couple of truly naff moments here. Richmond premiership players have done worse on camera in the last few months, but his kick-in straight down the throat of Petty was the ultimate gift-wrapped goal, just when we really needed something positive to focus on at half time. Vlaustin would later get mowed down holding the ball in front of goal, and we thank him for his service.

As expected, Petty's performance lacked the same surprise value as last week but even if both his goals came on a silver platter he played his role. I still think his long term future is in goal, but when our tall forward stocks otherwise are Jefferson (undersized), JVR (out of form) and Fullarton (out of depth), I'll concede that he's done more as a forward in two games than anyone (including himself) since van Rooyen looked on the verge of something massive in the first quarter against West Coast last year.

The best thing about belatedly turning up in the third quarter this time is that we did it before going five goals behind. We started to win clearances, Oliver appeared out of nowhere to play a great quarter, and in the space of a few minutes it was goodbye Richmond, who were unable to cope with us playing like the actual finals-ish team we could be. The three goals all had something to recommend them. The first was born from a dodgy free kick in the middle, which is nice, then Chandler created a goal for Petracca with solid attack on the ball, before Fritsch kicked a sick snap which gave the impression that we were about to run away with it. And we were, but not before Lynch briefly stemmed the tide as part of his one-man show.

A 37 point lead wasn't quite the Chris Sullivan Line, but adjusted for the opposition and what we'd seen in the first three quarters I was reasonably confident that they weren't going to catch us. Last week they set up an unassailable lead then put the feet up and let the other side kick a bunch of pointless late goals, so I was hoping we might go on to crush them and make some sort of futile statement to the rest of the competition. We raised hopes of a landslide with the first goal, before but that turned out to be our traditional only goal of the final term. There was another overturned on the flimsiest review footage of all time, after being cleared by field and goal umpires, and with the teams back to the middle and waiting to restart before Mr. ARC woke up and realised he had something to do. I think they just made up a decision because everyone was waiting to restart the game and they knew it would have no bearing on the result.

Sadly we didn't piss it in, but I'll settle for premiership points as a consolation prize. There was a lot of 'cue in rack' about the end of this, including Gawn sitting on the bench for the last 16 minutes. No argument there, it's about time we started protecting the man instead of running him into the ground every week. 

Even if it cost us three or four goals on the margin it's worth it to keep him upright for as long as possible, just in case the end of the year does get spicy (NB: It will not, but I'm prepared to humour the idea to make this point) and we need him at peak fitness. In an ideal world you'd 'manage' him for a couple of random games, but we haven't got that luxury yet. Later in the year, when finals are well and truly off the agenda, we might hit the Tom Campbell 'break in case of emergency' button and try and preserve Maximum's body for the future but right now he's too important to leave out. 

Answers on a postcard PO Box 999 in your capital city for the "What did Gawn say to Goodwin at the final siren?" competition. Maybe a quick reminder not to make unfortunate panicky comments about his private life at the press conference? It didn't cost him the BOG medal, with the voters/awarders sensibly realising that he'd done his best work when the game was in the balance so it would be bonkers to hold it against him for avoiding some of the junkiest junk time on record.

Not much else to say, this was a welcome result but it doesn't mean anything medium/long term unless we go on with it. I'm not expecting to beat the top sides - and am already cringing at the prospect of being rooted sideways in front of a national audience on King's Birthday - but I'd like to think if we played North again next week there'd be no repeat of that afternoon's white flag debacle. So we've got that going for us.

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Max Gawn
4 - Jake Bowey
3 - Tom Sparrow
2 - Jack Viney
1 - Kade Chandler

Apologies to Petracca, Langdon, Langford, May, McDonald, Oliver, Petty, Pickett, and Salem.

Leaderboard
What looked like a potential battle royale for the main prize has been nuked by back-to-back Gawn gold. I'm mad for the Bowey campaign but can't see him keeping up with Max for the rest of the year. Speaking of Max, I've seen enough to provisionally declare the Stynes over. The only other ruckmen who have ever scored 19+ in a season are White 2007, Jamar 2009-2010 and Jackson 2021, so fat chance of catching him. 

There's also Gawn Watch on the all-time Jakovich Medal leader. He's now up to 367, trailing only N. Jones on 379, and Clayton Oliver on 390 so that race should provide some token late season entertainment value. With three players polling for the first time this year, we've now had 142 people in the votes at some point since R1, 2005.

19 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
15 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
9 - Clayton Oliver, Kysaiah Pickett
8 - Ed Langdon
7 - Xavier Lindsay (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Christian Petracca
6 - Kade Chandler
5 - Harvey Langford, Tom McDonald
4 - Tom Sparrow
3 - Jack Viney
2 - Jake Lever, Harrison Petty, Christian Salem
1 - Jake Melksham, Harry Sharp

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Fritsch's snap gets the 'welcome back from exile' nomination, but Windsor maintains the overall lead. 

Next Week

After 1x surprise and 1x expected win, the decider comes against the rotting corpse of the once great West Coast Eagles. On paper it should turn out a lot like this, but I can't forget King Harley Race shoving our players around as the rot well and truly set in over there last year. We tonked them in the rematch, but I'm still wary about making any premature claims about this result. The word 'should' will be doing even more heavy lifting than it did whenever somebody asked me about this week's game.

Barring any surprise suspensions, or May succumbing to another ankle related groin complaint, there's no need for rampant changes. It's hard to know how seriously to take the Casey game when they bollocked Richmond by 118 points (still NFI why it was an 11am Tigers home game in Cranbourne), their biggest win against an AFL-affiliated side since shacking up with/eventually being taken over by us. It makes sense that if Richmond's seniors are relying on kids galore that they've got bugger all in the tank, but before this the Tigers were 3-1 so let's just take it as a good thing.

All I need to know is that regardless of opposition quality, van Rooyen kicked five and alas Fullarton hasn't grasped his chance so there's a straight swap. Otherwise, I have no faith in Laurie as a long-term senior player but he's done enough to deserve a return. After three weeks as sub I'd like to give Sharp a full game in the seconds, but as usual the VFL is run like a Tijuana whorehouse and Casey have the bye two weeks after they called a round off for semi-pro state of origin. So Laurie starts and gets the comedy hook for Melksham if things don't work. Everyone else who didn't make the senior side can get on the cans.

IN: Laurie, van Rooyen + Melksham (sub)
OUT: Fullarton, Sharp (omit)
LUCKY: Nil
UNLUCKY: Johnson, Turner

Final thoughts
I'm still not sure how many degrees things are looking 'up' on the 1-90 scale, but it's better than the gigantic flashing DOWN arrow that was hanging over us after the Essendon game.

Operation Unthinkable

Balls to 'Opening Round' and 'Gather Round', thank god it's 'Melbourne Wins A Game Round' again. I thought this season could go either way, but was less ready for an an 0-6 start than JFK was for feedback from the Texas Schoolbook Depository. It's a bit sad that we're already back to celebrating individual wins like the end of World War II, but this was the settler everyone needed - coach, players, beleaguered receptionist, the poor bastard who has to moderate Facebook comments, and most importantly from our perspective, the fans.

After the mega false start of kicking a goal 16 seconds into Round 1, we soon descended into mayhem. I know some people are secretly (or not so secretly) grumpy that we didn't lose by 170 points and sack the coach, but you'd have to be a bit of a prick not to be happy for all involved here. Perhaps a little relieved that this season is confirmed better than 1919 (zero wins, but with plenty of combat-related excuses) and 1981 (one win by one point in failed 'coach as Messiah' scenario). No need to go over the top after one game where the opposition did their best to facilitate heartwarming moments, but warm up the hot tub because at this pace we could reach the giddy heights of 2015.

Of course we had to win eventually, because in the professional era even the worst teams eventually do (often against us) but it's nice to get one on the board before things started to look really drastic. But I'm deadset baffled that it came against a team who have taken care of us with the greatest of ease in recent years. And with our highest score of the year by half time, with a forward line that was reminiscent of the Troy Davis, Declan Keilty and Oscar McDonald eras. There was a bit of 'hanging on for dear life' by the last quarter, but we did, so remove thine fork from thy toaster for a few days.

It also came via some high risk selection decisions. After demanding wacky changes I couldn't complain that they nuked Fritsch and van Rooyen at the same time, but it felt a bit radical. Worked out in the end, but even though neither has been great this year it felt safer to chuck/rotate them out one at a time and retain some continuity to what should eventually be our first choice forward line again. Instead, we had Turner going in and out like [insert crude metaphor], and Fullarton getting his chance after spending last weekend on the couch instead of immediately after kicking five in the VFL. So that leave us with a 

We were left a forward who used to be a ruckman and was a defender for about five minutes in pre-season, playing alongside a forward who used to be a defender and was probably expecting to be back in the VFL next week. Some opposition flange got retrospective grief on Twitter for declaring it the worst forward line of all time, but it wasn't even our least threatening one of the last decade.

I don't know if the result vindicates the way this was done, but wins with dropped players - zero, wins with Tom Fullarton - one, so that's all that matters for now. The underrated angle to Fullarton replacing van Rooyen is that he had to play second ruck, which is a flashback to when Gawn was hurt last year and we announced that the guy recruited as a backup ruck couldn't ruck well enough to replace him. Based on this I'd prefer him as a ruck than a forward. 

At the time he was publicly smeared, you'd have got long odds on Fullarton every playing for us. All it took was the arse entirely falling out of the joint. Usually this would win Long Term Storytelling of the week, but had the misfortune to come just after we offered the CEO job to Andrew Demetriou nearly 16 years after he swept our blatant tanking shenanigans under the rug.

In a year where he'd struggle to get credit for eradicating smallpox (probably after doing exactly the same research every week, even when it's obviously not working), the coach gets credit for the brass balls gamble of playing Petty forward after May was a late withdrawal. Not only didn't I think he'd make a difference in attack, but thought it would guarantee their forwards a field day against surviving tall defenders McDonald and Howes. Apparently, it was the first time in 75 wins that neither Lever or May was involved, dating back to 2019's classic Great Escape: Gold Coast. I already find it hard to believe we won 75 games in four and a half seasons.

I think about Harrison Petty's 2024 season more than the Roman Empire, especially how the selectors would rather go to the electric chair than drop him, and I bet JVR and Fritsch were thinking about that too when they got the chop. I was also grumbling about self-exclusion when he got nowhere near the first contest, before he contributed almost as many as the omittees in 10 combined games. Under the circumstances it was an even better performance than kicking six against Richmond, and even though I still refuse to believe it can work long-term he offered a better physical presence in attack than anyone else has this year.

Speaking of incidents involving both Fritsch and Petty, at peak midweek misery I was looking back at some recent joyful moments and found this...

Bayley Fritsch dribbles the winning goal from the boundary vs Geelong multi-call (AFL NATION/FIVEaa/ABC/MMM) #AFLDeesCats pic.twitter.com/hVVCIMKCen

— Lace out (@laceoutofficial) May 5, 2024

... where one of the most aesthetically pleasing Melbourne goals of recent times turned out to be a joint closing and opening ceremony for our brief run as a good side (Round 17, 2020 - Round 8, 2024) and the start of being piss boring/finally succumbing to constant off-field noise. Like our last official game against Freo, I thought the sound of barrels being scraped would be the only thing louder than everyone hanging shit on us for losing again. 

After a string of uninspiring losses with another seemingly on the way, and with an excuse to be anywhere else that you liked over a long weekend, getting 25,000 people there is almost more surprising than winning. It won't be enough for the wanker fans of too-big-to-fail clubs with 45,000 derelicts who can be relied on to have nothing better to do, but was one of our better home crowds against Freo. Plenty of people will rediscover their interest before Thursday night, but those who turned up here were rewarded with our first big upset win for years.

Ultimately, you don't want to be celebrating too many surprise wins because it implies that you're so shit that each is an early-shattering shock, but I'd have bet my knackers on being thrashed after our recent form against the Dockers so will very much take this in the right spirit.

Now that we've won I'm happy that they got away with risky changes and didn't just reach for the Big Book O'Selection cliches, featuring Billings in the starting side and Woewodin as sub for the 17th time. Before May's withdrawal I might have stretched my imagination to fantasise about winning a low-scoring snoozefest, but if you saw the result coming in this fashion you're either a visionary or massive liar.

While some discerning viewers chose to avoid this game like the plague, I haven't got the luxury of picking and choosing so have to turn up when available. And it's a good thing I did, because after being jibbed out of so many great live wins when we were good, it feels good to turn what felt like an obligation appearance into a surprise victory.

If this is your first time reading and you're expecting serious insight then turn around now, because after years of suspecting that I'm losing my mind it was confirmed in the first half here. In one of the all-time great moments of spectator-related dementia, I managed to miss Daniel Turner's entire contribution to the game and only realised he was supposed to be playing when checking the stats at half time. Fair enough if he'd had one handball, but as a contested mark enthusiast you'd think I'd have noticed him taking two in 46% of game time before concussion beat the selectors to eliminating him from the side. 

Part of it was not listening to the radio for once as I tried to put on an enjoyable day for my kid after having a last start nervous breakdown over seating policy at Docklands, but it's no excuse for blanking so badly and confirms living in a 'home' by 2030. So I've got that going for me. Best win a few more games now in the hope that I totally slip it while we're on top and get stuck thinking that's reality. Alternatively, up to 40 years of dark muttering under my breath about how footy peaked in the samea minute of Alex Neal-Bullen spewed on the Gabba. 

On the same Biden-esque level of decline, it took ages to realise Luke Jackson wasn't out there. I finally twigged when Gawn snatching the ball out of the air at centre bounces started to get ridiculous. We haven't had charity like that at the MCG since Adelaide formed a guard of honour for Jamar and Moloney to have about 18 centre clearances. I had fun watching it but there's no way other teams will let him get away with doing it this much. But even if the door is left wide open for the old five finger discount, you've still got to be good to take advantage. Even as Maximum rounds the home turn on his era of dominance, he still plays a massive role in keeping us afloat. I don't fancy his chance of launching any post-high thermonuclear bombs from 55 metres out these days, but good luck to whoever is expected to follow him as our first ruck.

I'd have been better informed about who was playing if I'd stayed home and watched the TV, but that's about where the advantages end. Apparently, Kelli Underwood suggested players were trying to top each other, which brings to mind the great St. Kilda fingering scandal of 2018.

Only the most brittle of males have an issue with female commentators, but all these years later surely it's time to give somebody else a go. If there was a commentator draft I'd still pick her in front of Brian Taylor for quality, and Dwayne Russell for slightly more natural sounding pre-planned gags.

There was no need for nervous adjustment of collar and swearing under the breath when Freo got the first, because I was expecting about 26 to follow. So you can imagine how surprised I was when we got the next two. 

Langdon was literally in everything early on, giving away the free for Freo's first, then setting up two the other way. There was an audible groan from the crowd when what looked like a horrible shank rolled inside 50, but they hadn't even gone to the peak of a disappointed 'awwwwwwwwwww' when it was revealed to be a genius pass to the advantage of Pickett to run onto. Obviously the fans would have preferred that he just madly roost it to 30 metres out and watch the opposition slingshot it down the other end in seconds.

Then, not long after I'd cursed Petty's first awkward effort at getting involved in a contest, he executed the perfect lead/mark combo with Langdon. It was like that perfect one against North that bounced off JVR like he was a trampoline. It'll take more evidence before I burn my PhD thesis on why he can't be a forward every week, but this was very good. I think - and this is in no way a walk back because I probably said the same thing at some time last year - that his problem is when made to travel hither and yon looking for the ball, which is not what you want while on the end of our quantity over quality forward entries.

We were moving the ball better than almost any other team this season, and the homebrand backline was holding together, but even after Rivers kicked a third and celebrated to the MCG like a respectable version of Maradona at the 1994 World Cup I still refused to contemplate that we were going to score enough to win. We were still no guarantee to kick six goals for the match by this point, but I was almost certain Freo was going to get going at some point and start raining goals. 

Then they got the next two in succession and I was ready to unravel a big 'Here We Go' tarp across one of the empty level fours. But we didn't just hold on until quarter time, the margin extended. And that's with Oliver having his worst game of the year and Petracca - other than one nicely taken goal - not hugely contributing. But if that's convinced you we can do without one or both next year, may I stress how important it is to keep Pickett. He hadn't even started kicking goals yet, but was already appearing like a holy apparition in various parts of the ground. We've had times when we needed two versions of players for different positions, but he is a one man show who can convincingly play any height appropriate role. I won't be angry if he goes, because as far as I'm concerned a flag buys you the right to do anything other than a Wayne Carey style lucky dip on a teammate's spouse, but it will be the footy equivalent of "you can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half".

Things were going so well that even when we let in the obligatory last minute goal, it was responded to seconds later. Jack Viney has done so little in the opening rounds that he was lucky not to enjoying a premiership reunion with Fritsch at Casey, but he was very good doing the old 'follow somebody around and pick up a shitload of possessions at the same time' routine that James Harmes briefly mastered in 2018. Stepping around defenders to kick crucial goals from 45 metres out was a bonus.

Then it got really silly in the second quarter. Some of it was lucky, like Chandler's kick to the square evading everyone and rolling through, and some was actual, real life, hot shit footy. See, for instance, the handball chain that opened the door for Petty to mark and give Pickett a close-range freebie. And fanging straight out of the middle for Pickett to get another one straight after. Christ on a bicycle this was more like it... and then we conceded another two in a row to bring a bit of realism to the occasion. Apparently for the first time since 1897 the secret to success when playing us is to change your name to 'Jye' or a variant thereof.

But never mind that shit, here comes Petty. He may only be a pawn in the game of life, but it started to get ridiculous late in the quarter. First he opened the door a Pickett screamer with a blatant but unpunished push, then booted his third off the ground and bloody hell, if we could get far enough in front as insurance against another spontaneous combustion in the last quarter this was suddenly looking like a potential win. Of course, it would be too easy to just smash away to a thumping victory. Instead we let our old pal Sizzle Jr, returning after a year out with a knee injury, become surely the first man ever to go goalless in his first 73 games, then kick at least one for three different clubs over the next 15. I was pleased with our efforts so far, and have zero ill will towards Oscar, but may still have thrown myself down the stairs if he'd piled on seven and single-handedly won the game. Not sure if he got another kick. What odds in 2018 that they'd play against each other seven years later with Senior in defence and Junior in attack?

All's well that ends well, but it never got better than Pickett storming an open goal for his fifth and taking time at the last minute to flash his opponent the peace sign. The usual bums will be upset about it (and I'm guilty of once thinking Stephen Coniglio was shhhing the crowd when he was actually doing an early version of the rizz face), but like Mr. Electricity Mac Andrew feuding with Adelaide and Richmond at the same time, the more of this stuff the merrier. The guy doing the bow and arrow is a bit rehearsed for my liking, but if it gives outrage fetishists the shits I'm in.

Genuinely unfunny people went straight to gags about Freo being his future employer and how it'll be awkward when he turns up next year, as if ANB didn't get immediately added to Adelaide's leadership group a few years after (accidentally) bouncing a Crows player's head off the turf like a basketball. Ironically, the bouncee was delisted at the end of last year so technically was booted out to make room for Neal-Bullen to join. Even Peter Caven spent an awkward year on the same list as Tony Lockett after Plugger had earlier cavened his face in. But he did get some closure by thumping the head off a Lockett effigy with a baseball bat. Under the circumstances, Generic Freo Defender probably won't wrap himself in plastic explosives outside the club offices if a trade is agreed. 

I'm just happy that it didn't cause Pickett to stuff up an easy chance. He was going at a much faster pace than other great open goal taunters, and a less skilled individual would be in danger of misjudging how much room he had and either running over the line before ball hit boot, or trying to pull up at the last minute and bash it through off his knee for a point. It's all good clean fun, but he'd have looked a bit of a tit if we'd lost the game from there. The only consolation for people who believe in football gods/are terminally boring, is that he didn't kick another. After our forward struggles I'm happy to bank five in three quarters.

By now, even with Pickett's wildcard antics livening up an otherwise off-off Broadway game, the free-scoring in the first half had been replaced by a bit of dour struggle. It was still much more exciting than most of what we'd done so far, but when we were on 71 at half time you knew it wasn't going to end in a score anywhere near 140. I still wasn't convinced we'd hold the Dockers and their allegedly good forward line out long enough, especially when they started to find more free players running through the middle. Again they got a late goal, again we responded. This time it was a bit more luck over skill, and you could hear the sound of whinging wafting across the continent, as if these kents haven't been generously looked after at home over the years.  

We got to the last change 19 points ahead, and that's less than half of what I'll trust under any circumstances, let alone after our low energy finishes this season. As far as I was concerned it was the moral equivalent of kicking into a three goal breeze. And bloody hell the quarter felt like it went forever. You can take the old 'five minute warning' and stuff it up your jumper, I nearly did a tendon checking how much time was left on the AFL app. 

In a classic "hope kills" scenario, I'd have been inconsolable if we'd blown the game I expected to lose by 10 goals from this position. It would still have pissed copiously on everything else we've done outside half the third quarter against GWS, but what's that going to do for you after six straight losses?

Gawn converting an early sitter would've helped, but he's got form so I didn't get excited when the free was paid. Of all the major anomalies from the end of 2021, him kicking that goal at the siren is up there with winning a flag by winning the most important games of the modern era by 157 points combined. After that miss we started to go into survival mode, but there was still time for a desperate lunge by Rivers to keep them out. Still, when the margin got down to six points I was ready for Surrender O'Clock.

Thanks then to Shai Bolton, who'd troubled us all day before turning into Shite Bolton at just the right time. Too far out for a kick to tie the game, he channelled his inner-Alyssa Bannan (non-AFLW readers, just go with this) by trying to run around the mark, but didn't make it all the way around and was panicked into kicking OOF. It still felt like the death blow was coming, even if we were bravely holding on. It was all a bit Round 1 for my liking, but glory be this time we got the second goal for the quarter and it proved decisive. No surprise it was set up by Gawn, and maybe if Langford hadn't been left sitting on his arse for 3/4 of the game that day he'd also have drilled a snap like a veteran to give us crucial breathing room late in the game that day as well?

There was still time for a horror collapse, but we kept attacking long enough to run the clock down. All it lacked was the killer blow so the crowd could blow their stack into orbit, but a series of misses kept the margin safely above the nightmare result line. It helped that we forced them to kick hopeful long bombs to Gawn instead of turning on Round 1 style runway lights to help them transition from one end to the other. They didn't really need to switch to Hail Mary mode when we'd been leaving free players all down the ground for the previous 15 minutes but this is probably what they've been told to do at this point of a game and didn't dare question it. Justin Longmuir looks like somebody who'd be really passive aggressive and sarcastic if you didn't follow instructions, so best to do as told, even if illogical.

The four post-Langford behinds meant that even when Freo got a consolation goal at the end, featuring the player handily wasting a shitload of time making sure he converted, they still needed two goals in a minute to win. Even we couldn't stuff that up, and are finally on the board. No idea what it means for the future, but as we like to say in these parts it's better than the alternative. 

I'm exceptionally happy for a coach that's been treated like a war criminal in some circles, but still feel like this season will end with a negotiated settlement at some point. Serious, non-loaded question - has any premiership coach ever successfully climbed out of a deeper hole than this? Kevin Sheedy missed finals two seasons in a row in the late 80s, but the second was with a 12-10 record so not exactly rock bottom. More recently, Clarkson and Simpson had varying degrees of success in trying to recapture the good times before conceding defeat. I'm open to any other contenders, but even if they don't exist just being known as a 'premiership coach' puts you ahead of about 99% of people to be in charge of an AFL team.   

At the low point of our midweek misery there was a suggestion of Luke Beveridge taking over, and my first thought after Brad Green, Nathan Jones, Mark Jamar and (soon) Steven Smith all getting involved recently my first thought was "christ, not another ex-player". Then I realised that other than Tom Scully there may not be anybody who would give less of a shit about once playing for us then Beveridge. For his part, Luke (never 'Bevo') has claimed he'll coach Footscray or nobody, so it's not worth thinking seriously about just yet. I don't know why anyone would even consider our job at the moment when multiple top players are a chance of bolting, but it would be a better balance of 'cracking the shits with players'/'has done this before' than when we tried a 100/0 split with Neeld. Also advances the odd post-2021 cultural exchange between us and the Bulldogs. 

Speaking of ex-players, whatever happened to Cameron Bruce as a coach? He was there for all the Hawthorn success, took the top job when they gubbed us in a pre-season game, and has never been talked about as a potential senior coach since. Maybe being wiped out in Carlton's post-Teague purge turned him off? Instead, he went to Brisbane and helped his old Reserves coach win a flag, so why stress yourself unnecessarily? 

Here's to more of the same as today that renders coach chat void but this makes this year seem even more like 2007. Narrow breakthrough win over an interstate team, followed closely by a disappointing loss to a pox Richmond side that makes everyone forget the temporary comeback and crack the shits again. If the result had gone the other way this bit might have been apt "Apparently the players want to keep Daniher. I've got a simple way to get around that - find some new players." But no need for that sort of thing this week, we may still be the worst team in Victoria, but let yourself enjoy winning for a bit before lying down in front of the Reality Bus. 

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Max Gawn
4 - Kysaiah Pickett
3 - Jake Bowey
2 - Harrison Petty
1 - Jack Viney

Apologies to Langdon, Langford and Rivers

Leaderboard
Last week I said this was the year something weird could happen with this medal, then forgot to add Langdon's votes to his total so lucky nobody's reading. There's still some unusual action happening down the leaderboard, but other than Bowey running second and holding a solid lead in the Seecamp, the top of the table is about what you'd expect. Just over 25% of the way through the season I'm almost ready to declare the Stynes, because I refuse to believe anybody else would score 15 votes and average 10 hitouts a week, even if Max retired on a high tomorrow.    

14 - Max Gawn (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
11 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
9 - Clayton Oliver, Kysaiah Pickett
8 - Ed Langdon
7 - Xavier Lindsay (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Christian Petracca
5 - Kade Chandler, Harvey Langford, Tom McDonald
2 - Jake Lever, Harrison Petty, Christian Salem
1 - Jake Melksham, Harry Sharp, Tom Sparrow, Jack Viney

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
I liked the Viney one in the first quarter, and Pickett's attempt to bring a United Nations vibe to the AFL was as fun as you'll get from somebody running into an open goal, but I'm voting #1 Langford again for the sealer. Not technically spectacular but well taken at a perfect time. I haven't seen somebody kick this many quality goals early in their career since Sam Blease, and hopefully this version doesn't disappear off the face of the earth so quickly. Windsor in Round 1 remains your clubhouse leader.

Next Week
I wish Adem Yze all the best (especially in getting out of his contract to come back and coach us), but please feel free to delay Richmond's rebuild for another week. They've got one player named after Steely Dan, and another who may be playing in an ankle bracelet, but any automatic assumption of a win will not be entertained. Especially because they did the biggest one upping (or topping, if you prefer) since Peter Daicos kicked 13 hours after Jakovich got 11 by rolling the unbeaten Gold Coast a few hours after this. The Suns are the football version of "Get ready everybody, he's about to do something stupid", so it's a shame we got them the first few rounds before they traditionally go to pieces.  

Fritsch and JVR would've felt at home in a reserves side that got thrashed after kicking five goals in the first three quarters, but with Turner out we might have to pick some sort of forward. It won't be Jefferson, who had two kicks. More importantly than any of this, McVee survived so get him straight back in thanks. I think there's something to be said for Sharp, but after consecutive games as sub he may bank a first MFC win and play at the unique time of 11:05 Thursday morning in what looks like a Richmond home game at Casey. Is Punt Road double booked? Does Casey Fields have to be clear in the afternoon for a school athletics carnival? Gives you something to sneakily watch at work though.

Richmond's performance against the Suns makes the prospect of following this with a letdown seem less distressing, but considering where the teams are at I'd have expected us to win even if this result had gone as expected. I refuse to believe we'll get away with some of the loose-as-a-goose stuff that the Dockers allowed here, but am hopeful of two in a row (NB: But not in any way assuming it will happen).   

IN: May, McVee, van Rooyen
OUT: Howes, Sharp (omit), Turner (inj), Spargo (to sub)
LUCKY: Nil (but I'm still a bit suss on Salem)
UNLUCKY: Billings, Fritsch

Final thoughts
The season might not be salvageable, but it's nice to confirm we're not going to be the first side to ever go 0-23.