New beginning, same ending

Suffice to say that when writing last week's post, I didn't factor in the coach getting sacked after an 83 point win. This is the latest in a long line of humiliations for West Coast, who are so bad that even belting them wasn't enough to make our board pause and reconsider paying out a million dollar contract. Eagles management would be mad not to mention this in their priority pick application, even if they did inexplicably recover to nearly beat Adelaide.

The timing of Goodwin's ousting was strange, but it was the best outcome for everyone. We needed to reboot, and whether he agrees right now it's the best thing for his legacy. He thought we were on the verge of being good again, I thought he was about to imitate a Dial Before You Dig ad and cut through high voltage cables. Now he can either claim the groundwork for improvement, or say "Well, I was in the process of fixing it before you sacked me..." if we burn out.

My thoughts, and words of appreciation, to the former coach can be found in this post, but the TL:DR version is "you don't have to like what happened after 2021, but if you can't appreciate his key role in that great moment you need electric shock therapy". I can understand why he didn't want to coach the rest of the season, but one more week just to finish against the Bulldogs would've been an appropriate ending/opportunity to remind the opposition several hundred times how badly they botched that Grand Final.

Once it was clear that he was exiting ASAP, I had sick fantasies that my 15+ year campaign to get Choke Yourself With A Tie as coach might pay off with three token games at the end of the season. Alas, as our crack team of football analysts noted as early as Round 5, Troy Chaplin was clearly the designated survivor so it was no surprise when he was handed the keys for the last three games. Unlike most coach sackings, he wasn't taking possession of a rotten corpse where anything looked like an improvement. In the last fortnight we'd been about 110 points combined in front at three quarter time, so it was hardly a Dean Bailey/Mark Neeld to Todd Viney/Neil Craig type transition. 

Regardless of that, I still expected a belting here. Instead we got a round of "it's the hope that kills you", and some proof of life from our team at the end of a long, tedious season/unexpectedly exciting week. There's plenty to be said for getting so close, and in light of the emotional turmoil since Tuesday, my first instinct was "well done for having a crack". Then I remembered we were in reasonable form on the way in, so it was more a case of "well done for not going to pieces post-assassination". That puts them above the class of 2011, who were on track to save their beloved coach's job before having an on-field nervous breakdown.

Once you take away the coaching shenanigans, this was a rerun of King's Birthday in front of half the crowd. A much better side came in with us comfortably covered on paper, and had better players during the game then nearly stuffed up by failing to securely bolt the door. Then, after hanging around like an unflushable nugget into the third quarter, a few minutes of random champagne football offered a path to victory, before lack of killer instinct/finishing power ultimately cost us. So you can't be upset about it short-term, even if like me you're extremely suspect about the future. 

Some people - including ex-coaches - are convinced we're not that far away from being good again, but I'd point to the various contributions of Gawn, McDonald, and Melksham, and ask what we're going to do when they're gone. Maybe we get lucky/shrewd with the players arriving at the other end of their career, or pull off a club-changing recruiting coup, but to quote one review of a fine book "the default position is pessimism". Nobody would happier to be wrong on this subject than me, and I did say at half time that I'd eat the sweaty headbands of everyone involved in this game if we got within 10 points so it wouldn't be my first failed prediction.

Not surprisingly, I choose to interpret this result with raging confirmation bias. We nearly caused the Dogs a hilarious downhill skiing mishap, and were briefly in a position to win in piss funny fashion, but nobody can seriously claim we were the better side for more than a few minutes. I'd have gladly taken a great smash 'n grab victory, but for the god-knows-how-manyth time this year we weren't good enough for long enough. The result was better than flavour of the month forwards kicking 17 goals between them, and meaningless for anything in the future other than where our second round draft pick lands, but still close enough to give you the shits as another missed opportunity to get wins on the board and convince potential gap-plugging recruits that there's some life in the place yet.

Even after nine years as an assistant coach I know as much about Troy Chaplin's coaching philosophies as I do Helen of Troy's, but it was safe to assume that after all that time in the Goodwin camp he was going to hold steady and not deploy some sort of left-field radical style never previously seen in the AFL. A few alterations here and there, but no attempt to cynically win by any means necessary via slowing the game to a crawl and trying to keep the ball away from their forwards even if it ended in a final score of 30-25. No doubt there were a few mostly tweaks that were invisible to the untrained eye, but otherwise this was almost the same team as last week, playing the same way as last week, and nearly getting away with it against a team many times better.

I thought they might be a bit more adventurous in selection, but after a five month hiatus since blowing our debutante load sky high in Round 1, we gave another first gamer his chance. Instead of playing Jed Adams for the first time against a West Coast forward line that was barely consuming air, he was welcomed with an assignment on Aaron Naughton, currently in career best goalkicking form. And why not? Just because you've finally been rescued from dog turd smeared VFL grounds after nearly years, there's no hiding from the realities of senior football.

The first Jed ever to play for Melbourne (and hopefully an endless source of Jed Maxwell references) didn't have to wait long to get in the action. At the first bounce, Gawn suffered a rare case of his height working against him, when he tried to bring ball to boot in a way that resembled what players used to do before they were allowed to play on after a behind. Except he missed, and soon the ball was flying inside 50, and because I'm a coward at heart I thought "oh god, here we go". Pleasingly, he did well in this first contest. And if things don't work out, hopefully while handing over the #26 jumper in the rooms Sam Weideman slipped him a business card in case Jed wants to join the class action of all the players we've Melbourned.

We got away with this one, but it didn't look like the pace of the game would suit us when the opening minutes were being played like a game of high velocity pinball. We were already without our two main defenders, letting the ball fling in there before the remainder had a chance to set up seemed risky. This wasn't played like the 1989 Grand Final for long, but credit to McDonald and Turner for the way they held up in defence all day. 

We couldn't help but concede a decent score in the end, but not for want of effort from them. I'd bought right into the Sam Darcy as Godzilla hype, but McDonald did a tremendous job on him. I'll reluctantly accept if we don't have a spot for the Sizzle after this year (and we'll never find out if my theories about him acting as van Rooyen's bodyguard had any legs), but the three seriously rebuilding teams are off their nut if they don't think he could fill an important gap - especially because there's one at each club (McQualter, Yze, Viney) that has previously worked with him. If North recruit Jack Darling when the only thing they had going for them was key forwards, and can't see McDonald helping to prop up their faulty backline until somebody else comes along then they deserve to stay at the bottom for several more years. This has been a message from the People For Sizzle campaign, c/o Demonblog Towers.   

The main victim of the bonkers early pace was Windsor, who hopefully took a card from the Weid because we've done him no favours this year. I was right into his turbo, bouncing runs through the middle but the two early turnovers needed an 'unsafe at any speed' warning stamped on the side. I'd say we've got to stick with him for the rest of the year no matter what, but then he burst a hammy in the final minutes and hopefully when he returns for 2026 it's in a role tailored to his obvious natural talents. Start with what he was doing well in the first half of last year, in a much better side.

I like that we gave Adams the responsibility of our first kick-in, and even more that he just hoofed it directly up the middle of the ground to Gawn. You can't do that every time, but more than once every 10 weeks could have some benefit. The Dogs were so surprised that it ended up turning into a shot for van Rooyen, and as he shanked it they should've cut to Weideman in the crowd sadly shaking his head and writing notes.

At this stage I'd have scoffed at the final margin, and thought that we were setting ourselves up for more disaster than usual by not taking chances. This became especially clear when our next attempt at a fast break forward entry died when Melksham kicked to three defenders, and eventually we gave them the first goal with a turnover at such extreme pace that the player who got it had to waste time in the middle of the ground waiting for any of his teammates to get in front of him. I'm almost certain in the same situation we'd still have found a way to kick it straight to the other side, but they worked through it successfully and were seemingly off to the races. 

The only thing holding up full race status were our defenders, but after doing so well until then (and after) Turner flubbed a switch to gift them a second and it was starting to go much as I'd expected. It was like a high-paced shootout where only one team was equipped for the all-important element of scoring goals, but just as I was thinking about how much it would suck to coach a team for the first time only for them to finish on 0.7.7, up came Melksham with a relative screamer at the top of the square for our opener. 

I'd be a lot more positive about the future if we weren't relying on near 34 year old players to do this. We've got Pickett, and will for a long time, but I'd like to refloat the unpopular opinion (without any hard evidence to back it up), that he's being used in the midfield too much now. He's still a chance of appearing like a holy vision in the forward line - and had two missed shots in the first quarter to prove it - but I don't fancy anyone would without him inside 50 scaring the shit out of defenders whenever ball meets grass our forward line seems even less threatening than usual.

Maybe I'm extra sensitive because he's been fined 3x for striking this year and I think you get buried alive for a fourth, but there was also a hint of Pickett getting frustrated and thinking about belting somebody late in the quarter. That's the last thing we need at this time of the year. I'm not saying history dramatically alters if he played the first three rounds this season, but it could only help. Please note - requests for him to play forward do not include clobbering Darcy Moore in the head during Round 24 again. If he's getting frisky send him on a pre-emptive holiday if required because we can't afford to be without at the start of next year.

After going about our business like out of control fanatics in the early stages, the second goal came via patient build-up before van Rooyen got to pull off the rarest move in the MFC forward book - a storming lead to a perfectly weighted pass that didn't bounce away as if his chest was made of trampoline. Gerard Healy celebrated this by calling him Petty, which was unfortunate but not as bad as what he called Gold Coast that time.

The threat of conceding 30 goals had subsided thanks to the backline dealing well with bulk inside 50s. So they switched to the alternative method of a defender bombing one on the run from outside 50 through an empty square. I miss having multiple routes to goal. We got one from an extremely unusual source late in the game, but it's a rarity. Bowey, Langdon, Oliver, Salem and Viney only have 18 between them - and while none are expected to single-handedly carry us over the line with Gary Ablett Sr-like feats of goalkicking athleticism, some variation and mystery about where the scores might come from would be nice.

This is where Jai Culley came in, overcoming the handicap of me repeatedly typing his name as 'Jail', to give me the goal out of nowhere that I was so desperate for. Culleymania wasn't operating at the same power as last week, but given the vast increase in opposition quality he looked comfortable enough. Also had the most tackles in our side, which probably means nothing to professional coaches but makes me feel warm and fuzzy. He's definitely done enough to get a contract next year, and we'll wait until then to see if he goes on with it or joins the Bens Kennedy/Newton path of an encouraging first year before disappearing off the face of the earth.

We were only two points behind at quarter time, but I was incorrectly convinced that the dam walls would give in at any time. The defenders were doing a bang up job but the weight of attack had to blow us down eventually. Well, as it turns out no. This despite players squinting into sun at the Punt Road end in a way that made you (well, me anyway) wish to play under a closed roof again.

Wherever Simon Goodwin was (and in the press conference Goodwin he said he'd be watching "on the phone" which was an oddly specific thing to say. Does he not have a TV?) he'd have been pleased at the strong defensive effort. And the fitting tribute from the MCG when they reportedly played good old Freed From Desire at quarter time. Somewhere there's a massive loser who's still upset about our players singing this post-Grand Final, but given that Footscray recruited James Harmes after he piffed ice at them in a nightclub hours later I don't think the feud has reached Israel vs Palestine levels. 

Until social media LIT UP with mentions of this song (e.g. two) I hadn't thought about it since we were good, and it made realise that I'd never actually knowingly heard to it except when sung by plastered footy players. I thought this was an appropriate time to listen to the studio version, and what a piece of shit it is. I'm open to the genre, but may that tune be buried under tons of concrete Chernobyl style unless used in connection with premiership glory. I assume somebody has already done "freed from Nasiah", but it'll be topical again when he sprints away from St. Kilda two days after the season ends.

This was not an occasion for wasting opportunities. Like when we responded to a goal by Fritsch missing a gettable snap. He was very good again, and after a frankly shit first half of the season I'll be very happy to have him back in original condition next year. He did crop up for a steadier after we'd survived three shots (including a rundown tackle on Salem as he was going for a casual jog out of defence), and offered immediate feedback to some uncouth Dogs fans over the fence who obviously missed him running riot in a Grand Final.

To prove that everything was going to come easier for the Dogs, we had the ball in front of our goal for what would've been a go-ahead goal, only for one of theirs to nearly miss his boot trying to snap but still having the ball come back for another chance. They nearly got another when Rivers was penalised for Bont running into him. Lucky it didn't end in a concussion or Rivers would be missing Round 1 next year for not having the borderline mystical powers to know an opponent was going to launch headfirst into him.

There was another wasted opportunity when Melksham was stitched up by a dud kick when on his own inside 50 and responded by saying something which definitely ended in "king hell". Still, even if I still didn't have any faith in us keeping the margin sanitary by the end (YES, I KNOW I WAS WRONG, THERE IS NO NEED TO POINT IT OUT), a 10 point deficit at the break was appreciated. Especially when barely anyone outside of our defensive 50 was having a really good game. Rivers was good, and Gawn darted around trying to save the day as usual, but otherwise weren't much above 'manful battling' level. 

My suspicions of a sudden landslide breaking out weren't helped by conceding an easy clearance to start the third quarter, leaving Adams unsuccessfully trying to quell Naughton. I have no issues with his performance as a first gamer thrown into this high risk scenario, so it'll be interesting to see how he goes in the future. One on hand, I'm starting to think everything's pointing towards us being stuck with Petty as a forward but he was pretty good here so I remain very much option to the idea of finding a commanding tall forward who can go alongside JVR and let Petty roam around half-forward.

Speaking of light positional switching, I get the logic being playing Petracca forward more to give other players a crack at the centre bounce but can we have more McVee (unless he's leaving, then he can get on the cans over the next fortnight for all I care) and Rivers instead of Windsor? Maybe they'll give one a crack in each of the next three rounds, but this time Windsor was there for 65% of centre bounces, and the other two a combined 0%. Compare to last year's throwaway game against the Suns where McVee had 60% - and the full season where he's gone from 1.7 per game to 0.1. Rivers has done a bit better but is still well down from last year. I know we're accounting for extra Pickett + Langford etc... etc... but it's not very adventurous considering the usual midfielders have been on and off like a tap this season. As usual, insight from anybody who actually knows what they're talking about would be welcome.

I'm very much for Windsor but cripes he had a rocky time here, including dashing through the middle of the ground, slipping over and giving the ball away. He wasn't the only player to treat the surface like they were starring in Disney On Ice, but it wasn't pretty. Here's to the MCG surface wrecking the September experience as much as my dream Grand Final between Gold Coast and GWS.

We were just holding on when things suddenly got interesting. Chandler goalled, and after we nearly gave it back via a ruckman standing still, waiting to be run into, then claiming a block, Fritsch got another after a kick along the ground clean bowled a defender. As late-Clarko Hawthorn found out to our detriment one night, you can't give away intercept marks if you don't kick it in the air. Another example of why a human Hoovering machine like Pickett should be down there more often than not.

By now the Bulldogs were getting a bit nervy, but after we missed a couple of chances to bring the lead back under a goal they sliced us through the middle of the ground ginsu knife style for a steadier. When Pickett got one back I still doubted our chances, but Luke Beveridge was clearly fuming so it was worth it just to annoy him. We were also doing our bit for the future of footy by trying to put enough of a gap between 8th and 9th that this year can't be used as justification for a wildcard game.

In a game where the umpires couldn't bounce to save themselves but were also too self-conscious to call all but the worst back, a ball propulsion error in our favour led to Melksham grabbing the lead. Cripes. This lasted about one minute before Darcy was given a wildcard entry to the game with one of the best kicks to a lead you'll ever see.

Much to the disappointment of an internally boiling 'Bevo' we wouldn't go away as expected. If we'd won any journo who strayed from the usual softball press conference questions may have been subject to a microphone cord strangling. Especially when they let us kick two late third quarter goals in the traditional fashion. First there was Gawn and his new around the corner technique that's currently working at 100% (matter for pointless debate - if he had to take that kick in Geelong again today would he do it this way?), then Petracca hoofed into an open goal with the biggest smile (piss off Colgate) since his mum swore on national television after the Sydney game and we were 10 points up. It was our best quarter for scores generated from the defensive half since 2022, and if we can't find commanding key forwards I'm open to piling down there at full speed before the other side has a chance to get ready. The only problem is that eventually the moment you get the ball in defence everyone will know exactly what's going to happen and from a human barrier in front of the ball, so we'll need to step outside the comfort zone and introduce some variety.

Just to make sure the six points couldn't be given back in near-record time Barry Umpire wasted a few seconds by finally doing a bounce so off-centre that he had to admit defeat instead of making the ruckman chase it. I have no love for the bounce, so whoever the Grand Final is between may there be a late goal that brings the margin under a goal, followed by a bounce so embarrassingly diagonal or worse that the concept is immediately retired.

Better than the alternative, as they say, but I was still operating in full Grinch mode and expecting it turn out go like the Hawthorn game, where we put up a brave fight, temporarily looked capable of nicking it, then dropped dead as if shot. It didn't turn out that way, and I'm happy about that but obviously Troy Chaplin got the full horn for the chance of an upset on debut and chucked all the old guard back into the middle at the first bounce. Lucky they don't put the scores of other games on the screen these days or McVee would've glanced up to see West Coast not being totally putrid and thought "I'll be off then". 

The commentator greeted their first goal as if it was the moon landing, shouting "It's only the second goal in his life!" as some fringe Footscrayite converted. Later, their boundary rider had to force her way into the conversation to point out that the Dogs had made their sub, and five minutes later it was brought up in the box/Fox Footy studio as an exclusive that they'd just discovered on their own. I can't watch Channel 7 anymore because that clown kicking a footy through his window brings on the red mist, but this call was a bit rough.

We were lucky not to concede another just after that when Naughton took what morally should not be paid a mark but usually is. He'd have his revenge later, and they didn't take long to add the second anyway. Blake Howes had his moment later, but for now his first job was to stand on the mark while Ed Richards kicked the ball over the umpire's hat from an obscure angle. Petty responded, but it looked over again when they kicked two in a row just after Pickett killed one of their players with a knee to the internal organs in a marking contest. How long until you get suspended for that?

There was one last roll of the comedy dice when a panicked tumble kick out of defence landed with unlikely goalkicking candidate Howes, who broke his duck after 26 games, passing the most games without a goal baton all the way down to the two and out Tom Fullarton (!). As far as Bulldogs fans go, he was about as obscure a figure as the guy who'd only kicked two in his life but the difference was we didn't particularly care about losing, but they be left to play out two likely pointless weeks after losing the joy of life.

Alas the final bit of ebb and flow went against us, and they kicked two goals to take a seemingly unassailable lead into the last minute. Enter surprise forward Turner, who took advantage of a fantastic desperate effort from Petty to score from close range. According to that cockhead from the Tribunal who thinks players should make complex calculations in 0.5 seconds or less, we should be upset that he kicked it goal and made the margin six points because we'd have had more chance if he'd rushed a point, then the Bulldogs blew the kick-in and allowed us to win by a point. Those of us who live in the real world appreciate the effort, and understand that the real missed opportunity for gratuitously rushing a point was while six points up against the Saints.

This left 55 seconds to do something interesting. We went -6, +/-0, +1 in a similar time during the Marty Hore Miracle, but that involved tying the score first then just needing to score anything to win. Based on past experience there was a chance the Dogs might stand back and let us walk a couple of goals out of the middle in the last minute, but realistically we weren't doing any better than a draw. Good thing I didn't realise this would've been almost as fatal to their finals chances as a loss or I'd have emotionally invested more in pulling off the upset.

Strangely, Pickett was nowhere to be found at this bounce. I assume he was forward of the ball waiting to snap a last minute miracle goal from the boundary line if it ever got down there. Which it didn't. Maybe we'd already had a 6-6-6 warning earlier in the game, and everyone was shitscared about doing ad hoc positional changes in case we gave away another horror last minute free.

The only hope we had of half-nicking this was when the ball was booted practically straight up in the air out of the middle. I can't remember if it went remotely near 15 metres off the boot (and won't be watching a replay to find out), but given that my #1 Eddie McGuide style radical rule change is for intercept marks to count no matter how far they've travelled it would be hypocritical to complain. Enter Golden Child Darcy, who made up for doing nothing all day with a game-saving mark running against the flight of the ball. 

If this happened in Round 22, 1982 he'd still be on a ventilator (and more importantly we wouldn't be playing two more games) but it's reasonable progress that players can now take their eyes off the ball without risking pulverisation. Like the time Young Bont kicked a goal out of his arse to beat us, you had to appreciate being beaten by something special. You may have also chosen to curse the fact that Jack Viney is our only star father/son since Barassi, while Darcy has a brother who may turn out to be just as good.

We're owed a comedy finish in our favour, but the Bulldogs didn't come to the party by nervously turning the ball over to a player steaming through the middle of the ground. Their season continues, and while we're finishing at a little bit higher speed than 'limping'. This wasn't nearly as bad as expected, and while I've got renewed hope that the next two weeks won't be as ugly as expected I'll still be happy when it's over.

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Tom McDonald
4 - Trent Rivers
3 - Max Gawn
2 - Harrison Petty
1 - Daniel Turner

Apologies to Bowey, Fritsch, Langford, and Salem + Oliver and Petracca for their cameos.

Leaderboard
All the remaining action is in the defender ranks, where McSizzle has stormed into contention alongside Bowey and Turner. Who'd have thought that a three-man race for this award wouldn't involve May or Lever. Otherwise, Langford would be extraordinarily unlucky to lose the Rising Star from here, and Pickett has confirmed at worst a share of silver in the main event.

58 - Max Gawn (WINNER: Allen Jakovich Medal for Player of the Year and Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
34 - Kysaiah Pickett
24 - Jake Melksham
20 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Christian Petracca
18 - Daniel Turner
17 - Jack Viney
16 - Tom McDonald, Clayton Oliver
13 - Steven May
11 - Kade Chandler, Bayley Fritsch, Harvey Langford (LEADER: Rising Star Award)
9 - Ed Langdon
8 - Christian Salem
7 - Xavier Lindsay, Trent Rivers
4 - Harrison Petty, Tom Sparrow
3 - Judd McVee
2 - Jake Lever,
1 - Jai Culley, Harry Sharp

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
It won't change anything for the overall prize, so Petracca wins because the goal made him look happy again.

Next Week
Now that I'm open to a competitive finish to the season, we'll probably burn like buggery against the Hawks. At least there's some interest in it, other than the chance to play spoiler to the finals plans of better sides. There's a move to pick Kentfield after he kicked four in the VFL, but hands down there's no way they make unforced changes to the forward line after we pulled off a decent score against a finals contender. And at the other end, they'll obviously pick May even if there's an argument for winding him up this year and concentrating on Adams and Howes for the next two weeks.

Casey has a final spot entering the last round, but must beat top of the ladder Box Hill to avoid the dreaded Wildcard Wankfest. It's hard to take a competition called the Victorian Football League seriously when the result of GWS vs Gold Coast may be important to us, but it's odd that Box Hill have four more wins than Casey with only six points more scored and 33 less conceded. Probably something to do with it being a 21 team competition where you only play 18 games.

I'll have May at the expense of Howes, who they obviously didn't know what to do with if he was sub on Sunday. Next week he can come back for Adams, who would be the victim of a big pisstake if he didn't get to play VFL finals after spending almost three full years playing for Casey. Laurie couldn't even get the nod for an extended side this week, but I'm holding out some hope that they'll give him the respect of one full game in the seniors at some point this year - and again better now than in a week when he could be playing finals with the team he's spent more time with this year. And let's have Sharp as sub one more time just so he breaks the record for most in a season.

IN: Laurie, May, Sharp (sub)
OUT: Howes, Sparrow (omit), Windsor (inj)
LUCKY: Adams
UNLUCKY: Billings, Howes, Johnson, Spargo, Kentfield

Coaching Corner
I'm not going to set myself on fire outside the Demon Shop if Nathan Buckley gets the job, but he seems to have acquired favourite status by a) being the only person to say he's interested, and b) the other obvious experienced coaches not being interested. Hope he realises we won't offer the same level of protection he got at the Pies, where Eddie McGuire would've taken a bullet for him but sacked any outsider after 2017. It's unlikely to matter, I think he's so desperate to coach again that if the Brisbane Bears came back from the dead he'd give them another token season before bolting for a better job. Hopefully if more sensible judges than me determine rebuilding of any variety is required that he's up for it instead of trying to stay afloat with what he's got for a couple of years before the bottom falls out of the place. 

If I had a realistic (e.g. non-Yze) alternative to promote I'd invest more in arguing about this, but if we're mad for an experienced coach who's had any type of success, who else is there? Hinkley should go and be Michael Voss' kindly uncle at Carlton, Hird is an extreme version of the Buckley redemption story without ever going close to winning anything, and neither Don Pyke or Leon Cameron are in the market even if we were interested. So whoever it is, I'll salute the uniform and hope for the best.

W Watch
You'd have to be an enthusiast to know, but AFLW starts next week. The league slaughtered building up the men's season this year so I wouldn't trust them to promote The Second Coming, but there's not a lot of options available when half the season is played in competition with the final exciting (?) weeks of the home and away season and finals.

I'm into it (our games anyway, my free time for non-MFC footy is now about five minutes per year), but am baffled by how many experts and industry professionals think there's not enough crossover with the men. Anybody who suggests double headers instantly loses credibility with me, so thanks to the dickheads who scheduled our opening W game at 7.35pm at a different ground to where the men will be playing until roughly 7pm. Bad enough for those of us who want to give adequate respect to watching both games, shithouse for anyone who might want to attend both.

Speaking of enthusiasts, you'd have to be one to have read all the way down here, so consider this your open invitation to step in for a guest report. Even if we've done our best to minimise the crossover period by missing finals, there's every chance I'll be burnt to a crisp by the event of AFLW season and be posting in a cryptic code resembling transmissions from the Zodiac Killer so email, tweet, Facebook message, or fax me if you feel the holy spirit flowing through you at any time and want to have a crack.

Final thoughts
Get through the last two weeks, pull down the shutters on a genuinely odd campaign and let's get on with either trying to stop players going out the door and/or vigorously pushing them towards it while solemnly praying that 2026 brings us a Wade Derksen-led recovery.

Era over, legacy secure. Farewell Simon Goodwin.

So it's goodbye to the only Melbourne coach you can see holding a premiership cup in colour. The timing of Simon Goodwin's departure was strange, and there's no guarantee that our future will be any brighter, but I think this is the best result for everyone. It's a shame he couldn't go out on his own terms instead of having the word 'sacked' plastered all over his coaching obituary, but ironically he departs after what could genuinely be described as a 'good win'.

From my perspective, the best tribute I can pay the coach is that by the time he took over we'd been through so much disappointment that I'd never have imagined writing about the departure of a premiership coach. We had stability after the Paul Roos rescue mission, but while a 2018-style finals run was perfectly imaginable, an actual flag just seemed ridiculous. Melbourne stopped winning them when there were only 12 teams, now you had to be the best of 18 - and at the time we were still patiently waiting for the Gold Coast/GWS takeover that had been on the cards since they got all the draft picks.

There were obviously mistakes on-field and off (I'm sure once the media has waited a respectful couple of days we're going to discover some alleged rippers that have been kept off the books until now), and there have been times during his term where we were rubbish, but nobody can take away from the fact that Goodwin was at the helm when 57 years of pain, agony, and occasional brushes with extinction ended. You don't have to be happy about how things have gone since, but if you don't appreciate his greatest moment, feel free to stop reading and stick your head inside the nearest piece of industrial machinery.

We shouldn't focus entirely on the events of September 2021, but it's a great place to start. Now it's all over I'd love to have an 'enthusiast topics only' discussion with Goodwin (the invitation to come over and watch the Grand Final replay on my couch is a real thing), and talk about how the coaching group kept everything together and focused in those mad few weeks. It's not just his achievement, everyone involved with the management of the playing and coaching group across those weeks is a hero, and denigrating the flag because it was played in Perth is like telling Buzz Aldrin the moon landings were fake. 

You had players who'd spent the best part of two years being bounced around the country away from family and friends for weeks, dealing with COVID regulations across two states including the regular jamming of swab up nose, and having unprecedented spare time before the Grand Final to get nervous and cock it all up. All this while he was dealing with a massive dose of the shits. And what happened next needs no explanation, though this is worth watching again today:

I feel slightly jibbed that this only goes for 16 minutes, but we don't drive enough website/YouTube traffic to get the hour (+) it deserves. And if time allowed, I'd go into about 10,000 words of detail about the ups and downs of his time, rank every single match in order etc... etc... but now the interim senior coach is younger than me I've got to start looking for therapy sessions.

Going right back to the start, consider the actual, non-Damien Barrett variety sliding doors moment when Stuart Dew declined our kind offer to succeed Roos. Dew may have won more flags than Norm Smith as player and coach combined for all we know, but if he'd taken the job, the name Simon Goodwin would be as relevant to us now as Rhyce Shaw, David Teague, or Scott Watters. He'd have just been some bloke coming and going at another club while we had our own raft of problems to worry about. Now he's one of only four premiership coaches in our history.

There was another historical near-miss when Brenton Sanderson got the boot from Adelaide on the same day Goodwin was joining us. In a piece of none-more-Melbourne slapstick they couldn't reach him on the phone and thought the Crows had executed a last minute snatch and grab, only to find out that he was just unable to answer due to dropping the kids off at school. It's interesting that Peter Jackson later said they were looking for somebody to "build relationships and maintain relationships with the players", because for better or worse there's no doubt he smashed that KPI.

After the two year apprenticeship under Roos, Goodwin ascended to the top job in 2017 and we had our best year in a decade. Obviously, a lot of the ground work was done over the previous two boring-but-functional seasons, and yes we absolutely incinerated a chance to play finals with a start against Collingwood in the last round that didn't even qualify as insipid, but there was finally genuine excitement about the place again. 

In the reviews from that year you'll still find the usual whinging, but the four game winning streak culminating in the McSizzle Miracle at Subiaco was the most fun we'd had in a long time. When we beat Brisbane in the second last round it left us near enough to finals for somebody to hit 'send' on thousands of printed booklets telling us how to get finals tickets, which arrived right after one of the all-time epic botches against a long-dead Pies side who turned up expecting to go through the motions and ended the first quarter five goals in front.

So that was a cock-up, but going into 2018 you had Brayshaw, Gawn, Hogan, Oliver, Petracca and Salem on the rise, McDonald had new life as a forward, and we'd swiped Lever from Adelaide, so on paper it could only get better. It's risky to trust Melbourne though, so while I tipped us to finish seventh, it wouldn't have been surprising if everything fell to bits again. By the time we'd gone down in a heap against reigning premiers Richmond to sit 2-3 people were already trying to sack the coach. Indeed, my post after that night was basically just "can we just not tip into crisis just yet please?" That was the night Hogan's Heroes got cancelled because a contestant landed on his head and I stick by my suggestion of replacing it with "Goodwin's Gripes", where fans could line up for a quarter time whinge.

Then, entirely out of thin air we kicked some ridiculous scores by our standards - 146, 159, and 146 in consecutive weeks. I think deep down Simon always preferred to win by defensive strangulation, but registering our first 100 point win in years, then backing that up with the annihilation of Adelaide that sent Don Pyke off the deep end was tremendous stuff. That year we were 25 goals clear as the highest scoring team in the competition without any one player kicking 50+ goals in the home and away season.

There's always somebody trying to sack the coach, and I'm sure you'll find evidence somewhere of these nervous people sharpening knives when it looked like we might blow it again at the end of the year but that win in Perth made sure of finals, and set us on the course for two of the great nights. Two of the most partisan MFC crowds you'll ever see in packed stadiums going off their collective tits as we made a Preliminary Final. That didn't go so well, and there was a bit of bonus coach questioning in an otherwise great finish to the year when they dropped Fritsch, but I doubt anything short of a meteor strike would've made a difference that day.

Then things went tits up for a bit, even after adding Steven May and ending the annual "is Hogan going back to Perth?" saga. Fair to say we were eventually declared winners of that trade by a landslide, but not until after suffering through an implosion, featuring seven losses on the bounce at the end and a 17th placed finish. Felt like death at the time, ultimately turned out to be an accidentally good thing by delivering us Pickett and Jackson but at the time it was real toaster in the tub stuff. I didn't doubt the top end talent, just what looked like wafer thin depth.

This was the first year where people outside the usual sack-happy lunatics started to get the shits with Goodwin, especially the press conferences where you could run a betting pool on whether he'd say "learnings" or "connection" first. I first declared myself 'off him' in July, but just wanted to see a bit more fire. Tip over a table, strangle a journalist with a microphone cable etc... But that was never his go, and it's better to be yourself than come across like a nutter by trying to put it on. Until his last words as coach, Goodwin spoke like somebody under heavy sedation, but it's not what we see that matters, as long as things are in control behind the scenes. It didn't feel like they were by late 2019. During our last home game Channel 7 had him on 'Under Pressure Cam', cutting straight to reaction shots whenever something went wrong.

We'd had a great time in 2018, but by now I was even less convinced we'd ever win a flag than I'd been when he started. In the last game of the year, I described him as looking "like Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant standing there with his joint hanging out, crying like a baby as his life goes to bits". Which might be a bit extreme, and we hadn't known him long enough yet to realise that he had Resting Concerned Face. I don't doubt his commitment to the players for a second, because about the only time they'd catch him smiling was when he interacted with them after a win.

This is my favourite non-Grand Final related one:

Me: You're undefeated to start 2021

Goody and Jones: #AFLSaintsDees pic.twitter.com/wkIKWb5NEj

— AFL (@AFL) March 27, 2021

... and in the non-players department, remember when he uncharacteristically went off after a solid and important but non-thrilling win, annoying the shit out of Stone Cold Craig Jennings?

A little Saturday night emotion at Adelaide Oval. ✊#RaiseHell pic.twitter.com/M4VmgL9rmA

— Melbourne Demons (@melbournefc) July 31, 2018

Maybe Jennings will come back and try to build on his previous success as AFLX premiership coach? If you thought the old coach didn't show much emotion... 

After three years in the job, there was a sense before the 2020 season went haywire for everyone that he was in trouble. My season preview post (remember when there was enough time for them?) opened with another round of "let's all calm down and stop trying to sack the coach". This was the year they did a big pre-season propaganda series about all our hard work over summer, and my key takeaway was annoyance that he put his foot on Jason Taylor's couch. More importantly for his job security, the board had released their seemingly ludicrous plan to win a premiership within four years, so if we started the season badly he was in deep shit.

Next thing you know, the season was on hold, then shortened, and all the Victorian teams had to go interstate for a few months. About the only people this was good for (other than owners of the Queensland resorts where all the players were kept), was under the pump coaches because no matter how bad things got nobody was getting fired under those circumstances. Besides, at that stage we didn't know if there would be enough money to keep on the lights on after getting home. The fact that we're now semi-casually handing over a mil to sack the coach is credit to how well we've done post-COVID.

Regardless of the excuses, things didn't look great midway through the year. In the post from a random mid-season game there's much pisstaking of his press conferences. Another reason the flag was good is that I have rarely felt the need to watch these since, win or lose. There's also a mention of my old theory that he was the first coach to have a better Plan B than Plan A, because around that time we'd often start games like death then come good as it went on before usually losing by a thin margin that could've been covered by not getting so far behind in the first place.

I don't know whether Goodwin was saved by a positive end to the year, but if there was ever a moment where you thought a coach in one of the hubs would find out he was sacked via room key deactivation it was when Glenn Bartlett forgot he was President and went full footy nuffy after a rancid loss. He wasn't wrong, but it wasn't very presidential, and may have contributed to a rift with the coach. I tried to link to an article on our website about this but got "request blocked", possibly as part of a legal settlement. 

There's a view now that things were already building towards bigger and better things at the end of 2020, but after those bullshit back-to-back losses in Cairns featuring Brayden Preuss in a tropical downpour, we were getting the Caroline Wilson 'violently rocking a house of cards' treatment, including people trying to get Steven Smith to challenge for President. Goodwin had two years left on his contract so we'd need to take a bank loan to sack him anyway, but two wins to end the year and a narrow finals miss took the heat off a bit.

The end of that season also gave us this classic image, when he went to write something with his big textas after a goal, only to look up and discover we'd given it straight back.

This may have also been his expression when wild behind the scenes shit started going down over the 2020/2021 summer. It started with unproven allegations about a variety of things that I won't go into here, and included alleged 'scenario planning' in case we had to ditch him. 

As there wasn't compelling enough evidence to force the coach out, Bartlett discovered that it's easier to sack an unpaid President than a coach with two years left on his contract. I bet he departed thinking he'd soon be proven right when the season went sour. Talk about bad luck, you could have confidently bet the house against us winning a flag in any other season since 1965. Now, even if what he was claiming turned out to be 100% correct (and at time of writing nothing has been proven), he had the misfortune of being against the guy who ended the premiership drought and could - for now - do no wrong. 

Then it all got even more stupid with legal action, threats of legal action, much talk of legal action, and world class levels of leaking to journalists. At one point they were even hanging shit on us in Federal Parliament, which is an interesting body to lecture anybody on culture. Even if Bartlett turned out to be right about everything he said, his toys out of the cot reaction to everything since means I'll never admit he had a point. 

Not having any idea about this behind the scenes nonsense, I was more concerned with on-field performance and absolutely convinced we were heading for Yze by Anzac Day. Suffice to say nobody expected a 9-0 start, and after the usual mid-season ups and downs we were playing finals again. The famous win at an empty Kardinia Park gave us top spot, but even for a minor premiership winner we hadn't been that impressive during the year. This was a good side that deserved to be in the mix, but I still didn't believe it could end in glory. 

Even after that workmanlike win over Brisbane in the first final my inner veil of negativity said Geelong would beat us in the Prelim, ruining the legacy of Gawn's goal at the same time. Then we unexpectedly went supernova, put on two of the great modern performances just when it mattered and won the lot. Which was nice. The idea that fans were cheated because it happened in Perth is painfully stupid. How do you know the same thing happens? If the conditions for playing in front of a crowd at the MCG exist, do we still win in Geelong and finish top? And do the finals go exactly the same way? No, so stop being obscure and accept that even if you wanted it to happen in a different way it was still a monumental achievement.

We extended our winning streak to 17 games before things temporarily went a bit wonky and Jake Melksham punched Steven May in the head, but never forget that we still ended that year by wrecking Brisbane and went into the finals as a serious chance of winning again. The problem is, by now Ben Brown's wonderfully timed brief run of fitness was well over and our forward line was in a state of disarray it still hasn't recovered from. The midfield and backline were still good, we just couldn't score enough. There was a moment in each of the 2022 finals where we'd almost done enough to win, but fell short both times. It was a blow but the infrastructure was still there despite increasing external noise.

When practically the same thing happened a year later (via the Brayshaw incident, and the all-time baffling choice to pick Josh Schache as the sub then not use him while Brodie Grundy was available) some people wanted to give him the boot. It didn't make sense to me, we'd still been a top four side across two seasons, so what difference did it make if we beat Carlton and it was us that got thumped by Brisbane instead? I had a lot of issues with how we'd gone out of the finals, but judging it all on the finals losses was silly.

I started to get frustrated in the second half of 2024 when he wouldn't stop playing Petty forward, and did objectionable stuff like picking Turner as the sub in must win games, but my appreciation for his part in the premiership was so great that I went into this season dying for him to come back from the dead (and as worked out midway through this season, no premiership coach has ever plummeted this far down the ladder and recovered to take the same side to a Grand Final) just to stick it up some of the rude, ungrateful people who were cheerleading his demise. 

It didn't work, and once we'd torched the slight mid-season comeback this year, it was clear that the best thing for everyone was going to be a fresh start. No matter how much love there was between him and the players, we were doing the same thing every week and he looked out of ideas. After those bad results at the start of the year we've held together pretty well this season without winning a lot, but I sensed awful losses in our future and wanted him to go out with his head held high rather than being stripped of dignity then getting the sack.

Instead, the change we had to have came by surprise after an 83 point win. Even if he thought this might be where the season was heading, I bet he didn't see it coming when he saw Brad Green was calling on Monday night. His departure press conference was a bit weird. It would be on brand if he didn't want to make a statement, but it did come across as strange that Green did his bit then threw straight to questions. Unless it was a deep cut in joke about the time that goose Basil Zempilas forgot to call him up for the winning premiership coach speech. I don't think so, considering he had to bust in at the end just to make his final statement thanking the fans.

Other than him finally being able to admit that he hates driving to Casey, we didn't learn much. Obviously, nobody was going to ask spicy questions about off-field incidents (and it was an AFL press conference so you wouldn't have heard them anyway), so about the only thing of note was that he sounds convinced that the side is a lot closer to playing finals again than I do. His view has more credibility than mine, but it certainly explains why they've been so rigid in trying to finish this season like it means something.

I want to know if he's factoring Gawn, May, McDonald, Melksham, Viney etc.. into his analysis, because they're all key players now but could collectively go over the edge at any moment. We've got promising players coming up, but I don't know if there's enough to cover the nine players 28 and over in our side last weekend. If anything, I can see a rebound into the bottom of the top eight next year before a blowout after that. Unless the new coach can drag one more good season out of the group and use that as the lure to get free agents or trade in players who will make a serious difference. 

As for the identity of the new coach, beyond the interim reign of Troy Chaplin (god, I wish it had been Choke Yourself With A Tie just for fun), I don't know what to think. Assuming we can't afford to pay off Richmond and get Yze back, or that he'd want to return anyway, the first big philosophical question is whether to go for experience or a first time coach. Both options can go wrong if you pick the wrong person, but I hope we haven't done this at an odd time just to try and get our hooks into somebody before others (most likely Carlton) turf their coach. 

As long as the old 'no dickheads' policy is applied then I'll trust the process, but something in me says if thing are going south over the next couple of years it's better to have somebody who's been through all this before, not a first timer who could come in with great ideas and suddenly find themselves way out of their depth. Now that we'll be paying the ex-coach a million bucks to sit on the couch, and god knows what other contracted footy department members to go away, I don't suppose we could have a hot rookie coach and an experienced guru at his side?

So, after nine seasons and 202 games it's over. I feel bad for Goodwin, but at the same time he's got the monster payout and got to depart before it got really ugly so hopefully he'll be ok in the end. Regardless of how it ended, or what you think should've happened in recent years, all I can say is thank you Simon. No matter what anyone says or thinks, you helped make this happen and I couldn't agree with myself more...

It's been an up and down ride, but the uppest up was fucking tremendous. Change had to happen, but eternal respect for helping to make this picture a reality. https://t.co/WiZYK24AEA

— Adam 1.0 (@Demonblog) August 4, 2025

Take a licking and keep on kicking

I felt like the dumbest person in Australia for going back to Docklands a week after you-know-what, but it was probably my last chance to see a live game this season, and I was nearby enough that it would have been malicious protest not to make a token appearance. Life would be easier in the fringe 'I hope we lose so the coach gets sacked' community, but a) do you really think a club that has somehow ended up with an interim President and CEO within four years of winning a flag is going to make any big call before the end of the year?, and b) have you not studied our previous attempts to try and forcibly alter the course of history.

Thankfully we avoided the natural urge to do anything stupid and comfortably beat a team that has won 11 games in the last four years. Other than a few very brief moments of "for god's sake put them away before they realise we're fragile", this was certainly better than having our dignity sandblasted away last week. We can thank the fixture for this steadier, god knows what sort of post-nuclear nightmare the club we'd be living in if our follow-up to The Great Deeflation wasn't against one of the worst non-expansion teams ever seen in the AFL era.

Everyone else who grew up with the Eagles either as a powerhouse or about to bounce back to powerhouse status, it's hard to believe how putrid they've become. Injuries and the misery spiral of losing every week can't help, even if footy is all about long term ebb and flow they've gone from unstoppable empire to failed state. Just the sort of slopposition we'd lose to in times of crisis right? Well, thank god no, and it was ok to enjoy how we did it, even if you know it won't translate against credible teams.

I don't believe in draft concessions - especially when they could probably trade King Harley Race for several high picks instead of paying him millions of dollars in desperation money - but they should get whatever North did. You'll have to wait a couple of years for North to prove whether it had any benefit (unlike, say, the time the league just handed pick two to Gold Coast in a 'if this doesn't work we'll have to relocate a Victorian team' last ditch effort), but any top team wins this game by 120+ points. Don't worry Eagles fans, your team may soon be playing a mid-season tournament for one premiership point. Which is fantastic except for the fact that there's nothing in this fantasy competition that will make shit sides good, and if you're near the bottom why would you want the Slurry & Sons SuperPoint if it might cost you top draft picks? More abuse of the AFL's mid-season razzle dazzle as details leak out like particularly foul rectal gas.

The other reason for going to this game was the chance to be amongst a rock bottom, possibly record low at Docklands. Somehow they decided that 16,000 people turned up, and whoever posted that figure better hope AFL attendances aren't subject to freedom of information laws. Despite the circumstances, I'm not surprised it pushed beyond the GWS 2015 crowd thanks to relatively lots of West Coast fans turning up thinking they were a chance (sucked in), but come on. According to these figures it's not even the lowest drawing game at the stadium this year. Like old time wrestling, just suspend disbelief even though something obviously phony is going on.

Nobody wants to play a home game at Docklands, but we've done well to avoid doing it since 2016. Somehow, since we were last on hosting duties the AFL's top Victorian cash cow Collingwood has done it 15 (!!!) times. The difference is you can put those people through any sort of torment and they'll turn up due to lack of better things to do, while we're a more discerning (e.g. soft) audience. 

For a game where fans required gentle encouragement/kidnapping to turn up, they didn't make it easy to get a ticket. Unlike an MCG home game, you couldn't just open the app and scan in at the gate. And unlike when we last played as the home side, not everyone has a physical membership card. I'm ok with digital memberships but the process went tits up here. First you had to log into your MFC account, then into a Ticketmaster account, to get a barcode which would unlock your ticket. Easy enough on paper, but god knows where the barcode was in the app. 

Maybe I was approaching the process with all the care of a Melbourne side trying to observe 6-6-6 rules, but the bastard was nowhere to be seen. This says to look under the event, but as the event didn't exist as far as the app was concerned you were on your own. I wasn't far away from ringing the beleaguered membership hotline and giving them their only polite interaction of the week when it was finally found by logging into the website version of the member site. This was far too much effort for the quality of the game we were signing up to watch, and I wonder how many people lost interest halfway through this process. Not many if the final attendance was to be believed.

Whether club or stadium was responsible, I appreciated the free premium member ticket upgrade to level two. If the top deck isn't an option (and even I'm not arguing for the right to wide open spaces during this fixture) this suited me a lot better than being on ground level and having to watch half the game on the (very) big screen anyway. All good for a freebie, but I wouldn't pay any extra to sit there. Hopefully neither did the pair of Eagles fans in front who found themselves stuck in the middle of 99% opposition supporters. Surely free tickets were being sent to anyone who was on record as ever having lived in Western Australia. Maybe that's how they arrived at the dubious 16,000 figure?

If we allowed last week to get to us, the nice view would've just been of a big pile of shite. As expected, the selection strategy was 'well, the first three quarters were good' and there were limited alterations. Our commitment to getting games into Spargo by the end of the year lasted one quarter, and he paid the price for being the only person 100% involved in the supercollapse. The only other omission was Lindsay, who was shown as 'managed', then made one of the emergencies along with a zero game defender and a spare parts ruckman. This was never tested, but I wonder if he was still in full training during the week in case a midfielder blew chunks in the room pre-game, or whether the 'management' was just them thinking 'what are the chances?' and realising that nobody would really care if we had to replace Jack Viney with Tom Campbell at the dreg end of the season.       

I doubt it was the latter, because the sort of loyalty shown to our senior players this year hasn't been seen since the Battle of Iwo Jima. Hence why Harry Sharp was recycled from the Reserves for about the fifth time while our adopted good friend Bailey Laurie was left sitting around with thumb in fundament for the 79th of 80 quarters this year. If you want to make a case off raw VFL numbers with zero context, he's Casey's leader in tackles per game but put your feet up mate, we're prioritising midfielders on millions who can't score from a snap 30 metres out.

After all that Sharp was sub anyway, giving him the dubious honour of being involved in the most substitutions in one season (10 on, 2 off) and tying Toby Bedford and Taj Woewodin for starting in this all-important role the most times. It makes for one of the stranger first seasons with us, but as long as you don't have unrealistic expectations about depth players I think he's been reasonable. Still not entirely sure he needed to play here, especially when Casey had the bye so they could've kept Spargo involved. But we won by lots, and that's all that counts right now.

There was a win for 'give us something else you mad bastards' fans (e.g. me), with a debut for Jai Culley. The more headband wearers the better, but it didn't help my midlife crisis that somebody described as a 'childhood Melbourne fan' was 10 years old when we hired Paul Roos, but I'm just happy there was one child who sat through those years and didn't run a mile. He wasn't drafted until post-flag, so if Simon Goodwin doesn't want to come over and watch the Grand Final at Demonblog Towers over summer then Jai's reviews on the game as a fan would be welcome.

On a day when you didn't have to take things too seriously, he celebrated living the dream of all childhood 'mons fans (e.g. debuting at a 3/4 empty Docklands) with two goals and a hanger. By the end of the game there was an element of Culleymania in the crowd, as people got excited every time he went near it. His solid start might not translate to opposition even close to AFL standard, but he'll always have this performance, and being presented with his jumper by Troy Simmonds who he probably only knows as 'that guy I heard about getting clobbered in a Grand Final'... which happened two and a half years before his birth. No offence Troy, but if we needed a #46 to do the honours I'd have loved a Sam Blease revival. There's also the Dean Terlich option, but it seems rude to ask somebody to welcome a new player when their debut came in a 148 point loss.

For sickos like me, the main event was that Culley had played in 12 games for 12 losses at the Eagles so it would've been flat-out perverse if they'd beaten us here. Maybe these hack sides would find a way to draw and he still wouldn't have been involved in any sort of West Coast win? Fortunately, we did the right thing and finally got part of his career off to a winning start. He's one of only 18 players whose first win came against their original club, and I bet not many played 12 games for the first lot. That's the sort of gimmick record I wanted to set at this stadium, not 'most violent collapse' and 'longest continuous brain fade'.

I had to watch the first quarter via mobile phone on the way to Tumbleweed Central, and you could tell how seriously Fox Sports took their responsibility to this game when the commentators were talking up Daniel Turner's season and the camera never left Judd McVee. Then Kelli Underwood made the questionable claim that "you never know what you're going to get with this unpredictable Melbourne team". Which is like when you never knew what they were going to play next on Triple M, but it was usually Nickelback. Other than one quarter last week, we've been the most reliably average organisation in history. Maybe she was seeing through time to the third quarter, because nobody saw that coming.

It wasn't just the host broadcaster having a moment. Just weeks after Docklands couldn't get the roof to work properly, there was trouble lifting the pre-match net behind the goals at one end. They got there in the end without anyone needing to go full Brad Scott and berate venue management, but halfway through the first quarter I thought they'd have got better value redeploying the net to sweep away a few players and playing 16-a-side like the VFA. It already resembled how you'd picture a game between Camberwell vs Yarraville in 1975, lacking only the Assocation's reputation for violent biff. As an all-in, haymaker laden brawl between these sides would look like a parody, the nearest thing we got was somebody running past Gawn and whacking him in the Gorilla Monsoon memorial breadbasket.

Like the Docklands roof, our forward line costs a lot of money but can't be relied on to work every week. The early attempts at taking advantage of defenders who have been shelled relentlessly for the last five months were disappointing, and the last thing you wanted to do was give the Eagles any hope. Forget the good old days of tanking your way to success, they've currently got two of the 10 losingest players in history, if you tried to piff a game in the same way we did Richmond '09 there'd be a coup.

When all else failed, enter yet again the back from the dead Jake Melksham, who booted one from 50 metres out. We'll ignore that the Eagles only missed out seconds earlier due to goalsquare blundering, the more Melk the merrier. A reminder that before he dicked Harris Andrews around, Jake had two goals in five games and one of them came after starting as sub. At that point the chances of him going on in 2026 were somewhere between none and next to none, now you'd be sad if he wasn't there. I'm sure he'll understand the need to step aside if somebody better comes along, but what are the chances of that happening? He'll be especially important if Fritsch converts his improved end of season form into escaping for another club.

This was Melksham's only goal, and on paper it looks like he had a quiet game but there were two lovely squaring kicks that set up others, and some lovely body work in marking contests that cracked space open for others to mark. I think this is what van Rooyen was supposed to do before we Melbourned the life out of him. After his 50% domination of the Eagles last year, there was sadly no JVRevival here but he did get a free goal in weird circumstances. The Generous Fritsch tour continued when his foot went through sand during a set shot, came off the boot like a bag of same and bobbled to a grateful van Rooyen in the square. There's no such thing as a bad goal, but the rest of the quarter left you wanting less. Even the sort of nutters who want to watch nine standalone games a week wished there was something else on.

Maybe what went wrong last week was a lack of novelty signs held up on the bench. Imagine how much drama could've been avoided if we'd just had a stern, fatherly gentleman display this in the final frantic minutes?

Whatever this meant in a football context, there's no way it wasn't somehow inspired by Stone Cold Steve Austin. Who is about as relevant to their players as Jai Culley meeting Troy Simmonds, but I guess they all looked over and went "ahh, the upside down version, that changes everything". Even if he just botched the assignment and held it the wrong way I'd claim there was significance just to save face. 

Alternatively, the resemblance to the logo of a 90s wrestler was coincidental, and it had something to do with that big biblical hit John 3:16. Maybe it was a coded plea for John Worsfold to come back and save them? "Whoever believes in him that shall not perish but have everlasting life", apparently. The way they're going it wouldn't matter if genetically fused Norm Smith, Jock McHale, and Napoleon. Andrew McQualter wasn't with us long enough to develop a view either way (unlike, say, Adem Yze xoxo), but while I wish him well in all aspects other than West Coast being good again, his interview for their job must have been a ripper considering how he had the Richmond job dumped on him just as they died, then spent a season with us as the wheels slowly fell off. 

If he was just the next assistant coach in line for a job I feel bad for that the timing meant he landed this dud role. The Eagles will recover from rock bottom eventually because everyone other than Fitzroy and University always has (though North might be TBD at the moment), so enjoy it while you can. And may fans of certain other clubs called Geelong endure a similar "get some humility into you" era that will end without them gaining the slightest bit of self-awareness or understanding of what it's like to follow a small club.

Whatever the mystery sign was supposed to mean (and serious question, have we ever deployed a sign with anything more zany than the remaining time, or does this sit alongside curtains on banners and post-goal music as a shit footy trend we've refused to participate in), it coincided with what passed for a revival. Obviously this happened just as I walked into the ground, after 25 minutes of watching us unable to land a knockout blow. We got there in the end, and with some style, but you get the feeling any top team would've posted the final margin by quarter time. I walked in as the Eagles were denied a goal, then saw them kick one that counted, and I understand they nearly got another while I was going up the ramp.

Even if I'll never trust any 3/4 time lead again, I really wanted to stamp our authority on this game instead of leaving open the prospect of a fiasco. Hooray West Coast for coming to the party with a rotten attempt to spelunk their way out of defence, allowing Rivers to start and finish his own goal by smothering, then running onto a handball to goal from close range.

Petty and Fritsch followed on, and by midway through the quarter the margin was 33 points. Bullshit I was falling for something like that again, and wouldn't you know it we didn't get close to another goal for the next five minutes, before the Eagles kicked two and missed another from an easy set shot. Lucky there's no other recent examples of us having a handy lead approaching half time, then conceding the last two and ending up in disgrace.

During the break I was on as high alert for drama as possible for a fixture of this magnitude. That's not hard, because even when nobody's there (or perhaps because nobody was there) they pound you with non-stop noise like you're being interrogated at Guantanomo Bay. I didn't mind having to listen to our fans lightly grumbling, but had to put up with the external noise because this bit of the stadium was a black spot which subjected my cheap and cheerful headphones to more interference than [deleted on legal advice].  

Other than both being run by tightwads, you can judge the difference between the MCG and Docklands through their choice of entertainment. One has 'funny' special effects on the scoreboard and syncs footage of a seagull to music so it appears to be dancing, while this place has a 'DJ' who has to pretend he follows the home team and that anyone couldn't do the same job using winamp.exe. It's all shit as far as I'm concerned, but you know the AFL would 100% pick the faux nightclub atmosphere that they think 'young people' like over comedy for the sort of people who yell "he's being doing it all day" 20 seconds into the first quarter.

This, against all odds, is where the game got good. Labelling a third term between these sides as the 'premiership quarter' is a bit cruel, but kicking 10 goals in a rush has been a novelty for the last few years. In fact it was our equal 10th best third quarter of all time, which is fun even if you have to adjust for the opposition bringing the game into disrepute simply by turning up. On a day where we couldn't be persuaded to try radical selection changes, there was a lot more playing on. At first, this just led to more panic kicks and players running themselves into a corner they didn't know how to get out of, but Jesus H Christ when it kicked into gear it was a small reward for some of the dross seen this year.

It didn't start particularly well. The Eagles were piss, but they were under no pressure and could afford to hang around and hope we got nervous again. They almost got the first goal after the break (and who knows which direction things may have gone in), and blew three decent chances before paying tribute to MFC vs St Kilda and standing back to allow the ball to be transported straight down the other end where Docklands specialist Chandler goalled. 

We gave it back fairly quickly, but that was about as good as it got for the visitors because they were about to suffer the all-time classic scenario of being done over by the guy who used to play for you. After a reasonable but unspectacular first half, Culleymania erupted when he ghosted in from the side to mark, kick his first goal, then show an appropriate level of jumper tugging excitement towards friends and family in the crowd. This was nice, even when followed by the ultimate fusion of the MFC player and fan experience when his goal was quickly cancelled out by the guy he was playing on. Never mind, because the gates of hell were about to open on the Eagles. 

The game may have changed if King Harley hadn't been injured lifting his wallet, but you can't argue with the Grand Final level mental 15 minutes to end the quarter. We're still going to get fisted x3 in the remaining games, and it will take a while to wipe the stain of last week away, but it was nice to beat somebody senseless for once. Let's not talk about how it was close to our first choice side against the WAFL All Stars.

The romp started with Petty doing the appropriate level of theatre to win a free for a light push somewhere in the region of his back. He took a couple of good marks inside 50 during this game but for the love of all that is holy, can they please take into account the shattered opposition and not think that playing him down there all next season is a good idea? In an emergency, as a surprise, or when needing goals late in a game yes, but not permanently. Unless - and the idea of this happening is so silly that it's barely worth discussing - they find a big marking forward who can take the heat off van Rooyen and allow Petty to play further up the ground. But if you think those two can thrive without the closest we can find to Jeremy Cameron being parachuted in then I've got a pyramid scheme you could transfer your life savings to.

I think that free sucked the life out of the Eagles like an industrial strength vacuum cleaner, because party time erupted from there. van Rooyen getting another push in the back free proves my theory that the umpiring will always be wonky so for god's sake just make some sort of contest inside 50 and hope that they give you the benefit of the doubt. You can't win mystery frees when the ball has just been punted directly into the hands of a defender. The guy who committed the alleged infraction looked like he wanted to tell the umpire to GAGF and he may as well have done it because we kicked the goal anyway.

Just to prove everything was going our way, barely a minute later the ball landed with Viney after a stoppage in the pocket and he just casually sliced it through like somebody pissfarting around at training. It was fair reward for a very good game where he was clearly trying to have an influence and make sure all the good work wasn't wasted again. Also, please appreciate the genuine joy from Chandler as it went through, and the loss of will to live by the defender closest to goal.

If we'd won by any margin over five goals last week, you'd have automatically expected that there was a landslide on the cards here. West Coast may be missing everybody under the sun but they're still garbage. I wasted AI's valuable time by testing the theory of them against us in 2013 and it claimed we'd lose by 23 points but still though Tom Barass played for them, and Adam Simpson is the coach, so AI can FO.

For fans of saying "oh no, not again", the margin was 45 points late in the term. I was hoping we'd get another and leave the 3/4 gap on the exact same number as last week. But we couldn't help piling on goals, and the only experimentation on offer was Gawn kicking around the corner from practically the top of the square. There was actual groaning from some misfits in the crowd when he lined up sideways, but traditionalism be buggered, I just want them to go through so he's welcome to kick backwards over his head if that helps.

Kicks from Culley set up both the Gawn, and Petty to pull down the best contested mark he's ever taken inside 50. The only person with more goal assists was poor old Harry Edwards, who gave away what I'm sure was his third free kick leading to a goal - even if Champion Data has done him a solid and only given him two frees in the official stats. The next one wasn't his fault, as we pulled off a lo-fi Mad Minute when Fritsch launched a set shot from well beyond where you'd expect him to convert. When you're hot you're hot, even if the opposition had relocated to the morgue.

That left us 63 points up, setting up all sorts of "do you think that'll be enough" chortling amongst the live audience and half a dozen people watching on TV. Ideally we'd have gone on and won by 96 points, but I don't blame them for slightly removing foot from pedal, they'd have just been happy to remove the prospect of another week of everyone pointing and laughing at them.

The training drill atmosphere continued when Fritsch grabbed the ball on the turn at a stoppage and completely baffled a defender. Then there was more Culley action as he had one set shot that went horribly OOF, then made up for it by pulling down a screamer at the top of the square for his second. His childhood dreams of kicking goals on debut for us likely took place at the MCG, not this place, but I'm genuinely happy for him to have these moments and hope for more of the same in the future. And the good news is that he's played enough Reserves games that he might get to tick off that other great childhood dream of playing in a VFL wildcard game.

Another slight tactical switch was playing Petracca forward more often, and the Eagles welcomed him to this role with a goal from one of the worst kick-ins you'll ever see. Look at how much space he's in, what was the player even trying to do? If this is our future in a couple of years I'm going to be watching games under heavy sedation, 

I don't mind the idea of playing Petracca forward more, especially if it creates opportunities for Windsor, Rivers, McVee etc... and wish they'd done this a few weeks ago when it was clear to everyone not named Goodwin that we were rooted. But not if they just swap him with Pickett, because that's wasting nuclear powered forward play. You'll find a midfielder who can do the same things in close-range play, good luck finding somebody who can hoover up ground ball inside 50 like him. 

Hopefully they're just trying things, especially when there's still every chance Petracca will depart, and will find a balance once they know who'll be there next year. Langford will be, and by the time he was kicking a third goal in the dying seconds I was ready to give him all the money that's not committed to Pickett.

Before we got to that, junk time descended on the game like a poison mist but there was still time for one of the most ridiculous out of zone umpire free kicks I've ever seen. The guy was about 70 metres away when he thought to helpfully overrule his colleague and I'd like to think they nearly came to blows in the rooms after.

Once the game was well won, we should've deliberately given away a 6-6-6 penalty just to demonstrate the much vaunted learnings from last week. No doubt 'the media' would've labelled it disrespectful, but they would be asked to withhold comment until someone asks a remotely contentious post-match press conference question of Goodwin. I'll take one that's lightly probing at this stage, because otherwise people might start to think that just because we're around the same position as last year everything is ok. If you ignore several fewer wins and some big red flags about danger ahead.

The last three weeks may get ugly (or they may not, I'm happy to be surprised) but this result meant you could go about your business for the next few days without everybody wanting you to comment on an epic cockup. We may as well do a Narrm style rebrand to Can't Play West Coast Every Week for the remainder of the year, but after one of the all-time great own goals in AFL history this was what we needed to get a bit of clear air before the usual turbulence resumes.  

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Jack Viney
4 - Max Gawn
3 - Bayley Fritsch
2 - Daniel Turner
1 - Jai Culley

Apologies to Chandler, Langford, Petracca, Petty and Pickett

Leaderboard
And that is officially your lot, with 15 votes left to play for, Max Gawn cannot be beaten for the Jakovich. This is his third title, after wins in 2019 and 2024. He is now outright third for multiple victories behind five time winner Nathan Jones, and four time Clayton Oliver. A well-deserved victory, and if you disagree I'll fight you in the carpark of Swan Street Coles.

Other than the Stynes, which Max had his name on about 21 seconds into Round 1, the minor awards remain up in the air. Turner is closing the gap on Bowey in the Seecamp and will get ample chance to demonstrate his defensive powers in the next few weeks, while Langford is probably home in the Rising Star (unnamed for another year) unless Lindsay returns from management with near religious fervour. Watch this space.

55 - Max Gawn (WINNER: Allen Jakovich Medal for Player of the Year and Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
34 - Kysaiah Pickett
24 - Jake Melksham
20 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Christian Petracca
17 - Daniel Turner, Jack Viney
16 - Clayton Oliver
13 - Steven May
11 - Kade Chandler, Bayley Fritsch, Harvey Langford (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Tom McDonald
9 - Ed Langdon
8 - Christian Salem
7 - Xavier Lindsay
4 - Tom Sparrow
3 - Judd McVee, Trent Rivers
2 - Jake Lever, Harrison Petty
1 - Jai Culley, Harry Sharp

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
The mystery formula for this award is something like quality + context + likelihood of them doing it again, and as nothing in this game was remotely important I can only go off the first and last parts. Apologies to Fritsch basketballing to himself in the last quarter, it's got to be Jack Viney's lightning pick up and close range finish off the side of the boot during the third quarter. We've sorely lacked goals out of nowhere this year, and we're stuffed if relying on him to provide them in 2026 and beyond but this was very nice. Pickett vs Port still in front overall.  

Next Week
The alleged fun is over, time to take our medicine for the rest of the year. And next week could be the worst, with Footscray's tall forwards likely to root us vigorously. They just beat a much better than us GWS side by 88, and for all the fun we had this week, if the margin is under 10 goals I'll be astonished. The Dogs might be downhill skiiers but as far as alpine adventures go, they'll be dashing around the slopes James Bond style, while we plummeted off the mountain five months ago. Who gives a rat's if we lose, but I'd like to avoid a pummelling. 

Due to Casey having a bye, there's no VFL form to judge off, but when has that formed any part of our selection choices this year? The problem is we've missed the partial free hit game, and now have to pick a side to avoid being humped so I've got to go against my own beliefs and not do anything zany. May as well pick most of the same side, I'll just bust down Sparrow down to the sub to get Johnson into the main side as an extra tall to pinball around with the Bulldog equivalents and hopefully free up van Rooyen to play as a forward all game. Sadly, this may cost Sharp his chance at outright ownership of the most games started as sub.

Now watch them do the sort of wild and crazy shit that we may have gotten away with in the last month for it to go horribly wrong, and for the players involved to be irrevocably tainted by the experience. I don't think I've ever expected a bigger turnaround from an 83 point win to god knows what in reverse but am open to a medieval battle atmosphere that negates their talls. If there's ever going to be a modern version of Paul Peos being pelted with hail at Waverley, let it be next Saturday.

IN: Johnson
OUT: Sparrow (to sub), Sharp (to the couch)
LUCKY: Sharp
UNLUCKY: Johnson, Laurie, Lindsay, Spargo

Final thoughts
This was one step above Jerry Seinfeld mugging the old lady for a loaf of bread but it was the right result for Saturday 2 August 2025.

Send in the clowns

Sorry if you're here for table-tipping outrage, but the events of Sunday afternoon went so far beyond what we understand as bad football that they achieved a level of performance art that may never be beaten. During the final act, I sat there thinking that no other team could so perfectly blunder into a disaster of this magnitude, and the record books agree. We're now two time title holders for the greatest three quarter time choke in VFL/AFL history, and I'm blessed to have seen both live.

Given the 33.5 year gap between games, and the low percentage of Melbourne fans present on Sunday there can't be many of us who suffered the famous Round 6, 1992 capitulation and this latest indignity. I'm not weird enough to demand a personal apology from the club, but maybe we should get matching tattoos to recognise the shared achievement. [Note from the future - good news at last, the 1992 incident was actually only the second biggest behind something from 1947. So I've got that going for me].

Regular readers are well aware of how that Essendon game scarred me forever, but for the sake of one-off visitors who are just here for the Beef Stock - Chicken Stock - Laughing Stock atmosphere it involved us starting the last quarter 41 points in front, kicking the first goal, then losing by a point. I've never trusted a lead again, so 33.5 years later you'd think that incinerating a near eight goal advantage and facilitating one of the great fairytale finishes would end with a chair being kicked until deadly shards of plastic showered the jubiliant home crowd. Alas, it was so stupid that I could only sit there silently and have a bit of a laugh. Only an under the breath, ironic, "better this than a coronary" sort of laugh mind you.

As somebody who has previously thrown several tantrums at the end of footy games you'd like to think age and wisdom stopped me from going troppo here, but if it wasn't for the events of 25/09/2021 police negotiators would still be trying to talk me off the roof of Docklands Stadium. Maybe I'll wake up in the middle of a random night in the future, scream "you bastards!" and end up subject to the Mental Health Act, but in isolation it was one dud team humiliating another, and as long as we don't accidentally nuke the joint in reaction it means as little for next season as if we'd done the sensible thing and gone on to win.

Setting the record is the only thing I'm genuinely upset about. If we'd carked it from 40 points up there'd be a few days of hilarity at our expense before the result would fade into obscurity for most people. For example, we all know who holds the two biggest losses in league history, but who remembers third place? Now whenever the highlights are pulled out they'll have words like BIGGEST and GREATEST attached, and it will historically discredit us only slightly less than voting for the merger.

We're still going to be filth from next year onwards, this was just a bonus shower of piss for fans on the way down, but that shouldn't detract from the last quarter being some of the most horrifying viewing you'll ever see. St. Kilda came back from the dead at near-186 pace while our players stood around in confusion like hillbillies who think they've just seen a UFO. 

None of this should detract from the joy of Saints fans about pulling off the heist of the millennium, even if it might get a bit weird if the hero of the hour is playing for another team next year. If they boo him we should get two premiership points refunded. Ross Lyon has every right to be overjoyed too (especially now that he gives off the vibes of somebody who's just doing it for the lols), but he might be the one having a medical episode in the middle of the night when he realises what we've done in recent years. After coaching four Grand Finals and coming heartbreakingly close to winning twice he's had to watch us come out of nowhere, convert an unprecedented hour of power into flag, then go back to being boring and winning nowt. Now that he seems to have reached a zen mental state it's best not to dwell on it.

It's a little bit unfair to focus entirely on the bit of the game played with the same poise as people escaping a crashed plane, because blowing the biggest 3/4 time lead ever obviously means things were going quite well until then. It was hardly swashbuckling footy to convince you we're going to turn into the Harlem Globetrotters in 2026, but good enough to win an otherwise anonymous end of season game against a fellow struggler. 

When van Rooyen's kick on the siren missed and left us 46 points up, there was still something to say about our season not entirely disintegrating after the horror last quarter against North. It was effectively dead soon after (with that brief window of hope which ended the last time we went insane against the Saints), but the losses have been more boring than tragic, without any signs of getting more interesting in the future. As much as I've appreciated Gawn's brave attempts to hold the place together and Melksham's late-career revival, the only person under 30 who looks like offering serious entertainment value in the future is Pickett - and locking him up in this otherwise beige team is like forcing Mick Jagger to front the Wattle Park Primary School Recorder and Triangle Band.

There's Langford and Lindsay, plus McVee if he doesn't bolt, and Windsor/van Rooyen if they can avoid the Melbourning process setting in, but one of these teams had six players with under 20 games experience and one that folded like a house of cards had two so I'm assuming the worst and am open to being pleasantly surprised. 

I can't blame selection for what happened here (though if you want to make a case I'm open to it), but the changes were a clear philosophical choice about how we're approaching the end of this season. After last week, you'd think they'd finally concede defeat on 2025 and do something a little bit interesting. Instead, we made the least adventurous four changes for a meaningless game in recorded history. I bet you somebody on the coaching team did a one day course, came back thinking they were a guru, and decided we're going to play the season out regardless of the ladder. Let's wind that back a step and play out individual games first.

I'm not against the players who were picked, I just don't understand what we learned from rushing Sparrow back at the first opportunity, and returning Petty to the forward line when he's arguably had less good games per capita than last year. If we're allegedly trying to lure Joe Daniher out of retirement (and if he saw this game he'll send the 'no thanks' email three times just to make sure it's seen), they can't seriously be planning for him to play down there forever. And even if we're not activating Rent A Forward, they can't seriously be planning for him to play down there forever, so what about swapping him and Turner for a week to keep them warm at either end of the ground?

And I'm no Spargo fanatic, but I could just about understand the idea of getting games into him after barely playing for two years. Then they made him the sub, and his contribution amidst the fourth term mayhem was one effective disposal. Selection whinges were going to feature in this post even if we won, but please explain what we expected to learn from this? The only person who benefited from it was Caleb Windsor, who was subbed out early enough that he can plead not guilty to crimes against football.

The selectors have got things arse backwards this year. In Round 1, we picked bulk debutantes (including the guy who'd never even played a practice match for us, which I'll never stop complaining about), and are now carrying on like nothing happening late season games have some major bearing on our future. Last week Petracca played ill, proving nobody remembers carting a near catatonic Brent Moloney to Kardinia Park and subbing him out statless at half time while 120 points behind. I'm all for Petracca, even while patiently waiting for him to leg it, but would you not give the poor bastard a rest? Alternatively, he could self-report not feeling up to it instead of trying to break through the snot barrier. Alternatively, alternatively maybe he just had a light cough and I've fallen hook, line, and sinker for a media beatup.

If this result had to happen I'm glad to have seen it live, if only to avoid TV commentators punting home the miracle recovery like St Kilda was winning the America's Cup. You may remember bold claims about boycotting Docklands after their crowd management fiasco of Round 2, and I intended to hold firm on this pointless moral stance until realising that I hadn't been to nearly enough games this year, so it was worth betting that the attendance would be shit enough to make up for half the top level being shut.

As only 22,000 people turned up (which will look like the final of the 1950 World Cup in comparison to next week), there was just enough space for the socially averse, but general admission fans of St Kilda, North, and Footscray are mugs if they're not furious. Maybe it only happens against us, but what can you expect from a ground that is introducing self-checkout food so they can dodge paying as many staff as possible. In a week randomly chosen to celebrate 25 years (+19 rounds) of games at Docklands, it's a shame they've ruined the place again because there was a small window on either side of COVID when it was good for more reasons than just "is not Waverley". 

Appropriately, a venue owned by the AFL has embraced full corporate wank and a scoreboard message says "We require that all seats are occupied. Be prepared to move over to make sure middle seats are filled". Bullshit there's any such requirement, open more of your stadium and late arriving kents won't be disadvantaged.

Given the firepower of the two forward lines I thought there was a chance both sides combined would fall short of Jeremy Cameron's 11 goal haul on the same ground the previous night. We did our bit to keep it lively by winning the ball from the opening bounce, then fumbling it through hesitation, and setting up a Saints goal when Turner hung off the arm of his opponent like somebody trying to stop their friend from jumping off a cliff.  But from there until disaster struck we looked far more likely to kick a winning score. Fritsch got three goals in the first quarter alone, and looked back to his best before proceeding to obscurity until called upon to be jumped over for one of the decisive marks in the last minute.

The happiest non-St. Kilda related people after this game were the umpires, because our swift demise took the heat off their abysmal bounces. I don't know what more concrete-ish surface you're going to get than the one laid on a carpark roof but the ball was flinging off in every direction but straight up. On top of the multiple recalls there were also plenty where the ruckmen followed it near enough that they let play go on through social embarassment. 

An umpire randomly threw the ball in the air at one point before they went back to the traditional methods. It's a shame our ineptitude cost the game that one last bounce with eight seconds left that could've effectively killed the concept off in one go. I'll sell the bounce out in a heartbeat to save out of bounds, and if you had two teams lined up correctly with one chance to clear the ball and try to win the game, then lost half the available time because the ball shanked off at right angles there would be outrage. Mind you, these are the same people who just found Steven May guilty (twice) of not telepathically knowing how a ball would bounce so how can you trust them to ever make a positive change to the game again?

The umpires were likely also saved from St Kilda fans calling them unpleasant names over the fence, because the handful of people present were bleeding from every orifice about decisions by the end of the first quarter. I enjoyed Viney calling a stop to play and waiting for a free after a high tackle, but at least the free was there. Less so a 50 against the player improbably named 'Alixzander' (and if it's not spelt like that for cultural reasons the parents should be jailed) when he tried to pull up and not kill Lindsay but lightly bowled him over and was penalised. In the second quarter, Gawn did the biggest shove possible to eject somebody from a marking contest in front of their goal and got away with it. I wish it had been paid so the course of this game was altered and didn't lead us into doom.

After half a dozen career misses from all points of the compass this finally delivered Lindsay's inaugural career goal from point blank range and things were going pretty well. No chance I was going to take the lead seriously after we butchered similar against Adelaide, but as it's widely acknowledged (though you never really know) that we'd have beaten the Saints last time if not for the arsehole goalkicking you'd have thought a four goal quarter time margin was a solid platform to build on against a side whose only good forward is more brittle than Lasagna sheets. 

Indeed it was a solid platform, and I can't even complain that we didn't go on to build what would've been a match-winning lead in any other game since 1859, but the middle quarters were more of a slow-burn. This is not a side to really put the foot down, especially with a pair of key forwards who couldn't get near it. I don't know if they think they're doing the right thing but van Rooyen, but for god's sake find an actual forward with some size and natural acumen to play alongside him next year or trade the poor bastard, because the negilence in his development over the last two years has been spectacular even by our standards. 

JVR may not end up winning a Coleman Medal or kicking double figures in a game but there's a natural talent there that hasn't been served by doing double duty as a ruckman while playing as the focal point of a forward line alongside converted defenders. This might come across as hypocritical when I'm saying we should rotate the team more by the end of the year but I'll crack the shits if he gets dropped again. Whether he ends up with Petty, Turner, Jefferson, Kentfield or Darren Bennett alongside him, they should spend the next few weeks start trying to play to his advantage, and if he finds a Casey jumper in the locker on Thursday he should go swap it for a copy of the AFL's Grievance Procedure. 

For a few minutes of the second quarter it looked like we might finally have spotted vulnerable opposition and gone for the kill. As Viney went ballistic tackling anyone who came near him, Melksham got the first, then him with the zany first name flubbed a kick which allowed Chandler to snap a nice goal. The All New Selfless Bayley Fritsch (six goals in a Grand Final) opted to pass to Rivers (12 goals in his entire career) instead of having a shot, and while that didn't work Petracca soon put one through from distance, and only the late intervention of Zak Jones on the line stopped another. I was surprised he was still going last time we played them, and no less now.

It's easy to forget that we held them to a Melbourne-esque six goals in the first three quarters. Even without Lever or May, the other lot appeared so non-threatening that the rarely seen before (but get used to it for the next couple of weeks) backline of Turner, McSizzle, and Howes could get to know each other in a relaxed atmosphere. You knew it was getting desperate when they chucked Alexzander Ride of the Valkyries forward and of course we fell for this secret move and he got his first career goal. That was one of two in a row but we still led by 30 and come on let's all show a bit of positivity here, because what could possibly go wrong?

I've got a potentially unkind theory that Fritsch's last few weeks have coincided with finding out that other, better, clubs are interested in his services. If I had a legal advisor I'd check to make sure this isn't a defamatory implication before posting but oh well. In case it is true, he got to highlight his new sharing/caring attitude by handing off to Lindsay instead of kicking a fourth from right in front and that was one of the late second quarter goals accounted for. When Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera kicked his second there was a bit of "hey, that's the guy who necked us in Alice Springs", but Pickett soon replied in kind and things were actually going very nicely.

If we resigned from the league in shame after this result, the last goal we ever kicked was appropriately farcical. There was the defender casually standing around like he was waiting for a bus when Melksham half-bumped, half-tackled him and the ball fell to ground to the complete disinterest of the umpires. Even in a season where they're happy to stick their nose into each other's business from 40 metres away, nobody thought that this qualified as near enough is good enough for either holding the ball or incorrect disposal. Chandler didn't bother waiting and just punted it through anyway, but again maybe we'd have been better off if he hadn't. But for god's sake, if you can't think kicking a goal to make the margin 46 points late in the third quarter against a team with nothing to play will be a good thing then why bother ever being happy before the final siren again.

It didn't seem like an issue when van Rooyen missed a difficult set shot to send the margin over 50 points at the last change, but it was good enough for me to take the risk of posting this...

Just short of the Chris Sullivan Line but morally near enough

— Adam 1.0 (@Demonblog) July 27, 2025

... and ending up looking like an absolute cock. Again, for those of you who are just here for disaster tourist purposes, he kicked the goal in 1992 that made the margin 47 points and previously provided the mark which you could judge a game being safe at three quarter time. After years of faithful service this concept has now been retired, and wherever Chris is we thank him for the kind use of his name all these years. Technically it should be replaced by the Jake Melksham Line but when his goal didn't even come in the same quarter we disappeared off the face of the earth.

I'm not taking any blame, because curses and jinxes are not a thing. Unstable footy teams are very real though. Besides, I was right it morally was near enough considering NO TEAM IN HISTORY HAD EVER LOST FROM THIS POSITION. I don't know what a coach would say in a situation like this but chances are it was something about playing the game out, continuing to do the little things right, don't forget to give your teammate a nice rub on the grundle etc... I'm sure when he went to bed that night Simon Goodwin wondered if there was anything he could have said to avoid what happened next, but no coach should need to say "alright lads, let's not concede nine goals to nil in this quarter and spend the last minute looking like total wankers eh?"

I don't know whether you'd have got the best early warning of how this was going to go from watching live or on TV, and even a nervous wreck like me can't pretend I knew instantly what was going to happen, but you could say the signs were there early. Not signs that said "Watch out, we're going to cock this up", but the unnecessary Hollywood attempt to exit defensive 50 in the first minute raised an eyebrow. We were lucky not to give up another one right after when Salem casually swept a loose ball through for a rushed behind under no pressure. Instead they got a real goal when McVee failed to do a legal version of Salem's Franco Baresi impression and knock through a ball on the line, and I was starting to get a bit worried. Not yet Shitscared, but on the way because this is the point where you want to be rational but start to think "Shit, what if..."

We were struggling to cope with their sudden conversion to death or glory footy, but rarely has a team been able to keep it up for long enough to pull off anything like this. Usually they run out of gas, or it backfires once and creates the steadying goal which ends all resistance. The only comparable game I can think of this century was against Footscray in 2013, when we started the last quarter 39 in front, were 44 up midway through, then died in the arse and conceded seven unanswered goals that cut the margin under a goal. Then good old Jack Watts turned up in defence with the mark to save it after earlier kicking four goals. If you need a reminder that things can get worse, that was our first win against any Victorian team other than Essendon or Richmond for five years and 10 months.

Another option in these circumstances is to slow the charging side down long enough to blunder through to the final siren. Even after the first two goals my main thought was "we couldn't just go on and win a game comfortably could we?" and thinking about how any win was better than the alternative but it would take a bit of the sting out of it when the margin was back to 15 at the final siren. Instead it reached that midway through the quarter as we mentally headed for the fire exit. 

Any of our shots on goal might have killed it, and the nearest was Melksham's kick which dramatically clonked into the post. By now if we crossed halfway and didn't kick a goal (e.g. every time) it was an invitation for the Saints to rocket back the other way, where our backline was now fighting the biggest surprise defensive effort since the Tet Offensive.

The margin was back to a kick with four minutes left, keeping open the prospect of every result between us regaining control to win easily, and them finishing with two per minute and romping home. I'd nearly have preferred the second option to what did happen. There was a minute where it looked like we might get away with it, first a handy point made the margin six and (seemingly) removed the danger of losing by a point. It might have got to seven, which may still not have been enough the way things were going, when Petty somehow contrived to fumble around on the line and come out of it with no score. 

Until reviewing the always helpful FanFooty log I'd forgotten that Oliver also had a ping and kicked it OOF. Pardon my French but dead fucking set the same players would react more calmly if they were confronted with the Zombie apocalypse. There was another stoppage in our forward pocket when any score or wasted time might do it, but bugger me wouldn't you know it they escaped.

Even though all good sense and logic suggested they were only playing for a draw now ("not so fast" - Melbourne FC), Saints fans were going off their nut at this point. As you would. At least they'd stayed to see it, imagine how many cowards departed at three quarter time and missed one of the most exciting finishes their club will ever be involved in. Even after all the evil we'd seen in the quarter, we still only needed a little bit of luck to hold on and win. It had to take luck, because we'd shown ourselves completely incapable of finishing them off the traditional way.

Enter Wanganeen-Milera, who introduced some 2023 Semi Final flavour to this atrocity by pulling down a screamer over Fritsch, again left on his own in the dying seconds of a thriller while the actual backmen were MIA. I don't know why they're trying to pay some ruckman $2 million a year when the Armaguard truck should be doing circles around his house. In our first meeting he survived being clobbered by a large man to come back and be the most decisive player on the ground, now he's gone from nearly missing the game due to a sore eye to fixing us up again. Nice of them to give him the option to sit out if he didn't feel right, we'd probably have threatened to sue for breach of contract. 

Unfortunately NWM didn't realise we were every chance of doing something stupid in the aftermath or he might have rushed the kick to try and get it through with enough time for another play out of the middle. and rush the kick to try and keep time for another play out of the middle. Instead, he took enough time to make sure of it, and with eight seconds left the scores were tied.

Even if it was a draw we were already set to look like deadset buffoons for giving up a 46 point lead, but there was a final act of stupidity that took this into another stratosphere. Earlier in the game I thought some of St Kilda's bonkers self-harm moments balanced out our shitbox goalkicking last time, but the last act elevated our this to Shambles Hall of Fame Legend Status. Somehow after just conceding eight unanswered goals we ended up with one extra player in the forward line and gave away a 6-6-6 free kick. 

This led to a few seconds of confusion as the ball was returned to the middle, complete with radio commentators who briefly got my hopes up by saying it was Gawn's free, before they finally sorted it out and the ball was gently lobbed into his hands of Wanganeen-Milera, standing in acres of space, easily within range to kick the required point and win. Bravo, standing ovation, you have now achieved icon status.

Sometimes Kane Cornes tries too hard to be a pill, but I thought this claim was going to be a deep dive into the last two goals (though he might have added or subtracted a second so he didn't look like one of those desperately boring people who snicker over the number 69):

"This is the worst 69 seconds in the game's history."

- @kanecornes on Melbourne in the dying moments against the Saints

Watch First Up: https://t.co/lwBT4MAaLW pic.twitter.com/BVbYbCL0DM

— AFL.com.au (@AFLcomau) July 28, 2025

... but it turned out with all the carnage and chaos in the middle of the ground, that only covers the fateful last bounce, including Wanganeen-Milera pelting out of the middle in such enormous tracts of space that the screenshot barely does it justice while all our players think "well this bloke is just going to bomb it as long as possible isn't he?" Jack Viney realises too late but the ruckman gets such an easy kick that every St. Kilda ruckman in history down to Jason Blake on his first day in the country could hit the target. The potshot on Bowey "guarding nobody in the hole" is a bit harsh because that would have been a great place to stand if the ball had been hoofed long and he be subject to ridicule if the ball was instead punted to somebody 30 metres out where he was supposed to stand.. 

There wasn't enough time between free kick and kick to free player for any of the six forwards to get down the other end, and I'll let the six defenders off because they had other work to do, but god only knows what the midfielders were doing, which seems a fair metaphor for our season.

There was an outside chance he'd do a Steven Kernahan and kick OOF when any score would do, but the party atmosphere was such that he absolutely cannoned it through. This was historically appropriate for delivering the record comeback, but also because my (likely incomplete) records say nobody has ever kicked a point after the siren to beat us. This makes it seven VFL/AFL games and one in AFLW where we've been beaten by a goal after the siren versus one glorious time we did it where the ball landed in a construction site in front of an official attendance of nil. And I'd trade that kick and its aftermath for this win in a second.

It was hard to take what I'd just seen seriously. When we cocked up that Carlton final I sat in gloom for several minutes, then aimlessly drove around the suburbs for about three hours to gather my thoughts. This time I just walked out the ground, where it was appropriately pouring rain, and went home. As far as pure gameplay goes it's probably the most suicidal thriller we've lost since the 1987 Preliminary Final, but the context is so meaningless that I'm prepared to take up weapons to argue that Round 23, 2017 was worse. It didn't have the same violent ending, but all we needed to do for a first finals series in 10 years was beat a lowly Collingwood and were five goals down at quarter time after barely laying a tackle. Pound-for-pound that was a shitter result, but this is a close second and you'll never be allowed to forget it.

As about the only Melbourne fan with Simon Goodwin's welfare at heart, he should've listened to me and gracefully departed after the Gold Coast game when it became obvious that the only was is down. There's still no excuse for being total arseholes towards him, including the flange who went for a high risk/low reward gag about fixing him up in the carpark. This obviously seemed like a good idea at the time, only for the media to go "you beauty" and start reporting it like a serious, credible threat, presumably leading to a Sunday night spent throwing internet connected devices off a pier. This week I've already spoken to two (2) people who thought it was actually a photo of Goodwin's car, and I remind you that these people vote. 

Obviously there's no reason to be an over the top wanker about the coaching situation or get excessively personal towards anyone involved, but that doesn't mean you have to like the way things are going. In some ways it's good that we've been so boring this year that there haven't (yet) been horror defeats that the board would be wilfully negligent to ignore. This stain on our history is still better than losing by 160 points, but everyone watching knows where we're heading, so the best thing for everyone involved to start again. 

It doesn't matter how well we'd done for three quarters here, the out of control, freefall madness of the last quarter is the ultimate expression of how it's felt following this club for the last 12 months. You know it's going to fall apart at some point, so it's not even that surprising when it happens via once-in-a-lifetime methods. The board has less killer instinct than the players so whether you like it or not Goodwin isn't getting the sack, but the more headline results like this the less chance there is of him leaving with his held high. For god's sake man, retain some dignity and exit before it becomes really sad. Quoth Gareth Evans when Bob Hawke was about to get the arse,"pull out digger, the dogs are pissing on your swag". And we haven't even got to the AFL Dogs yet, currently operating with two shit hot key forwards who may kick 18 goals between them if we don't keep it together after this.

I've already put out an open invitation for Simon to come over and watch a replay of the Grand Final on my couch when this is all over, but if he needs some positive reinforcement today he should speak to my kid. I got home and tried to explain this all-time epic fiasco to my kid and she said: "So, they only lost by six points then?" Which is one way of looking at it.

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Jack Viney
4 - Max Gawn
3 - Christian Petracca
2 - Kade Chandler
1 - Trent Rivers

Apologies to Fritsch, Howes, McDonald, Pickett, and Turner.

Leaderboard
Four games to play thank god, and that means the result is all but sealed here. I'm glad Max didn't confirm victory here, because who'd want the stain of this finish attached to an otherwise joyous event. No change in the minors, where Bowy and Langford both remain vulnerable.

51 - Max Gawn (WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
34 - Kysaiah Pickett
--- Abandon all hope ye beyond here ---
24 - Jake Melksham
20 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Christian Petracca
16 - Clayton Oliver
15 - Daniel Turner
13 - Steven May
12 - Jack Viney
11 - Kade Chandler, Harvey Langford (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Tom McDonald
9 - Ed Langdon
8 - Bayley Fritsch, Christian Salem
7 - Xavier Lindsay
4 - Tom Sparrow
3 - Judd McVee, Trent Rivers
2 - Jake Lever, Harrison Petty
1 - Harry Sharp

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
I feel like awarding this to St. Kilda x9, but to be polite it's 1) the Melksham set shot from the boundary, 2) the inside out Pickett snap, and 3) Langford. None replace Pickett vs Port as the clubhouse leader.  

Next Week
It's a massive pisstake making us go straight back to Docklands after this, much less for a home game that would have already struggled to crack a five figure crowd. There's a chance this could challenge our own record low audience for the venue of 8974, but that I think West Coast will bring enough fans (especially now that they'll be expecting to catch us in freefall) to push it beyond the perfect storm of playing GWS, in the last round, at 1.10pm on Father's Day in 2015.

Not watching a second of the Casey game usually wouldn't stop me from suggesting some changes based off a combination of raw stats and the vibe, but you just know they're going to sit around and say "well, the first three quarters weren't bad, why would we make wholesale changes?" I bet they try to get through next week as safely as possible, then Laurie etc... get a crack in the last three games when all their senior teammates have lost interest and nobody's got a chance of impressing.

If you take the emotion of the fourth quarter out of this we should still win, but stuffed if I'll be making any more bold predictions for games at Docklands.

IN: What's
OUT: The
LUCKY: Bloody
UNLUCKY: Point?

Final thoughts
My first instinct was to finish this post with the old "Five hundred years from now who'll know the difference?", but sadly they will until somebody conjures up an even more shambolic final quarter capitulation.