Bright lights, bigger city

Even though Sydney's doing one of their occasional teases of going down the drain, who wasn't a little bit concerned about violently falling to earth after our heroics last week? Me for one, but only due to being extremely concerned instead. I didn't get used to being confident when we were a top side, it's not going to happen on the road back to mid-table mediocrity.

You could make a case for either team winning here so it wasn't a Richmond or West Coast style banana peel game where Me-LOL-bourne could appear at any minute. The Swans look ordinary but they did play in a Grand Final 12 games ago. Sure, they may as well have no shown up that day but on the whole their September campaign was a lot better than us having a proxy was Christian Petracca's family through the media.

I wasted about 25 minutes going for Sydney that day because I wanted James Jordon to be on the ground in a flag (+ a bit of residual bitterness against various Brisbane players) but wasn't invested enough to know exactly who else was playing for them. Surely not a large chunk of the randoms involved here, including somebody called Riley Bice who sounds like a fake names from an unlicensed video game. Keep the GTA: Bice City headline on ice in case he's ever caught cavorting with hookers.

Obviously these things go both ways, but other than perhaps Aidan Johnson and Harry Sharp it feels like our lineup should be familiar to people with only a minor interest in opposition clubs. For the first time this year our side featured the very recognisible duo of Lever and May after they passed each other at the emergency department earlier in the season. This came at the expense of Tom McDonald, causing a bit of excessive shit cracking on selection night. Good to see people firing up about the changes again instead of just taking whatever slurry they're offered, but even as a long-time Sizzle fanatic it wasn't worth losing your rag over - or in some cases implying that Lever is no good anymore so we should just leave him to pull pud in the VFL until someone gets injured. It also made sense when we found out Sydney's forward line consisted of a ruckman, a defender, and thin air.

It might have been more polite to list him as 'managed' rather than 'omitted', but it was obviously the former because they didn't make him play in the waste of everyone's time VFL mismatch on Saturday. It doesn't hurt to give players a rest late in their career (take note when Gawn expires from overuse), but to reignite the Send Sizzle Forward campaign for a second week in a row, I contend he would be better at doing the second ruck/forward thing than Johnson. The idea is that Evil Nathan Jones has more years left in him so we may as well give him the experience, but if you mysteriously teleported us into a final tomorrow I know which one I'd prefer. Unless there's a teleporting detour to pick up Luke Jackson on the way, in which case all the alternatives are out of a job.

If you believe Jackson really does want to come back, how are we supposed to pull it off without losing the biggest generator of electricity on the eastern seaboard by sending Pickett the other way? Especially after he's just played the most bonkers forward game in recent memory, kicking five, and missing several others by a variety of exciting methods. Kysaiah is not somebody to be judged on a simplistic category like disposal efficiency, but how often do you see a performance that exciting when 56% of a player's disposals missed the mark? He woke up on Sunday morning and decided to try and kick spectacular goals at every opportunity, while also turning up at the odd centre bounce and carrying on like he was Gary Ablett. Refer previous comments about the course of history changing if he hadn't run into a sliding Darcy Moore during the deadest of rubbers.

On the subject of people who have been involved in important collisions with Collingwood's captain, this was Christian Petracca's 200th game, a milestone that may not have happened for reasons up to and including being dead. After an off-season of unpleasantness and his public sense of helplessness as we sucked pond water early in the year, this was a good opportunity to reacquaint yourself with all the fantastic stuff he's done over the years. Obviously the highlight was a BOG performance in a Grand Final, including the all-important goal that kicked off the Mad Minute, but he has generally been a safe, sensible, and highly effective player for a decade and I love him for it. 

I remember the feeling of a Human Centipede-level stitch-up when Petracca did a knee in his first pre-season. We'd only had one tentatively 'not awful' four win season under Paul Roos so losing the #2 player in the draft to a season-long injury was like a surprise kick in the dick just when you thought things were getting better. 

At the time you didn't know it was (so far, not my fault if it happens again) or he had previously undiagnosed shit genetics that risked an ACL blowout every time he changed direction. There was extra fear when he turned up and was obviously quite good, but in lieu of further knee trouble he's gone through a series of novelty injuries ranging from comical to extremely serious. First he hurt his ankle playing basketball, then got bitten by a dog, and had to be fished out of a pool after a training session disaster. Then after a few years of just generally being fantastic, the King's Birthday debacle blew everything up. 

With all that going on you've got to be good at footy to be remembered more for your playing career than bad luck. Challenge accepted and he was one of the best players in the competition between going ballistic at about the same time as COVID 19 and his injury last year. He's still one of our most important players, and I might be setting myself up for heartbreak but I feel like he's warming to the idea of going out as a one club legend instead of doing a 'life begins at 30' tour elsewhere. I know players of his calibre probably look at some of the fringe players experiencing games like Anzac Day while they've got to play in front of 6000 people and a tree in Alice Springs, but this is home, don't risk going unappreciated elsewhere. What about when Oliver ran in for a manly snog during the post-match interview? Nature is healing, even if our salary cap isn't.

Also coming good, our win loss record. Previously a misery-inducing 0-5, now 5-6 with even the loss coming after three quarters of matching a toppish team. I could see us winning here, but didn't expect it to be courtesy of a joyous rampage. To be a bit ungrateful in advance, we did concede more goals than usual, but I suppose it balances out when you also kick a (relative) shitload the other end. All this still without a forward line you'd trust to score over a hundred points to save your life.

It started with another throwback to 2020 when Frtisch found space to mark on the lead but at a difficult angle on the absolute end of his range. He didn't need to horrendously shank it OOF, but it did eventually set up the first goal, where Gawn politely dismissed former understudy Grundy at a ball-up, snatched the ball, and spun around for a towering, high-altitude snap. That's the way to do it when you're down to about a 6.2% chance of kicking a set shot. This ended up being our biggest score since Grundy met Schache and we should've beaten North by the ton. Which makes sense after being as boring as bat shit for much of the last two years. 

I don't expect us to score like this again any time soon, but a few swashbuckling attacking displays would be good for our reputation. Maybe Channel 7 will welcome us back to prime time? Previously that would be a double-edged sword because you could avoid the ads but still had to put up with the shouting of drivel, but thanks to the Foxtel commentary option you can see your side in the national spotlight and have a choice of which call you find less offensive.

In Sunday's case, Channel 7 had Brian Taylor so the obvious choice was to listen to anything else, including somebody reading out your death sentence. The margin between options was a lot bigger than it would've been if we'd got the early game call team of Dwayne Russell and Kelli Underwood, but I'd still pick them as a matter of principle. I've seen a clip of Big Turd having a big old Broadcast Wars style sook about Fox doing their commentary from a studio, which is not ideal but they can call from the moon if it means not listening to some blockhead going on about Dr. Gary Zimmerman.

At this point Channel 7's News Director would have had the feet up, thinking there was no way the game was going to breach 6pm and create schedule havoc. Unless there was a spate of major injuries requiring players to be carted off, a random outbreak of lightning, or the scoreboard catching fire, nothing was going to make this game run long. It didn't seem not a surprise outburst of goals, because our doing all the attacking for no reward is the second longest-running storyline in Australia behind Home and Away. 

Melksham had a chance to continue the party from last week, but from the same spot where he snapped a crucial goal at the Gabba the thrice back from the dead great man did a weird, power-free snap that landed in the square. He wasn't as dominant as last week but still kicked three so job very much done. The good news is that his first miss wasn't a sign that his footy life gauge has run out, because he hammered one through from further out right at the end. Sadly he is probably due a managing soon, especially now that King's Birthday has become a live contest again after looking like it was going to be a ritual sacrifice earlier in the season. We haven't got anyone on the list close to a replacement (in some ways Pickett comes closest, but Melk could still be there longer than him), and when he retires this is exactly the type of experienced role player we need to pluck from elsewhere.

We didn't look like kicking a decent score, but I didn't fancy Sydney to fare much better. They were awfully slow, and their first decent chance died when a kick to a leading player in space landed at his feet, about 2cm from the boundary line. The Richmond/North game had some outrageous number of stoppages, and in the early stages this was headed the same way. Enter Kysaiah Pickett to crack things open, giving a taste of what was to come by declining to take a set shot from the boundary, choosing to run around the man on the mark while he was looking down and kicking grass, before booting it through with a satisfying level of power.

Sadly, after several minutes where they looked half a chance to finish on 0.0, this prompted the visitors to turn up and Peter Ladhams seemingly time travelled straight from a 1985 pub brawl to kick their opener. This was responded to straight out of the middle by Melksham, somebody who actually has recent experience of fighting in a licensed venue, who used wily veteran magic to flap his arms around and make sure the umpire saw a jumper hold. 

As usual we were doing everything right except taking advantage of dominance, and when Ladhams (Father Ted fans, can you ever hear his name without thinking about this?) got his second Kingsley Manor issued a watch and act alert. We usually do alright in holding big name key forwards, so why not let somebody unexpected run riot two weeks in a row? Stand down Kent, he may not have had another kick for the rest of the game.

An eight point quarter time lead didn't feel like value for effort but I'd still rather be in front than chasing. In the end we got away with wasting chances, but with the game still in the balance every failed assault on the 50 or missed shot felt like tempting fate. Like when we opened the second quarter by caning through the middle, only for Salem to flub the last kick inside 50. This didn't work, and he had another couple of rocky moments, but after being suss about Salem this year I thought this was his best game by miles. Nice to see him and Rivers getting more of a run through the midfield as well. The more players who can go through there the merrier, and as much as I cherish Viney his absence cracks open a spot behind Oliver, Petracca, and Pickett for experimentation.     

That near miss led to the Swans going straight down the other end for a goal from the guy who jumps on Petracca in that god awful toothpaste ad. But the Colgate marketing department must have flogged themselves senseless when Petracca got the next, thumping one through to the left side of the screen, from 50 metres out in a manner that was pretty much identical to the first goal on 25/09/2021. Then he continued to play the hits by missing a set shot, then setting Sparrow up for our next goal.  

Speaking of greatest hits packages, we then let an emergency forward who looked less comfortable than any of Jared Rivers, Colin Garland or James Frawley kick his third goal in 100 games. The only consolation was that all three have come this season, after going nine years without kicking any score. Is that the record (where behind figures are available) for most games without kicking anything? Even Jamie Shanahan got a point in game 83. Our record seems to be Oscar McDonald, who went without for his first 72 games. On a related note, I looked at the Freo injury list to see if he was hurt again (answer - no) and they have a player called 'Odin Jones', continuing a tradition of silly names that involved Tim Ruffles and the time they doubled down on the nautical themes by playing Shipp and Gale.

Our (belated) reply was one for people who get angry about switching play. I'm happy for them to do it, just scared that it will fall apart with an unpleasant helicopter pass being chopped off in the middle of the ground. In this case we dinked around and ended up in the same spot where it had started, but that was enough to lay down the path for a long kick to our advantage inside 50, where Petty gathered, realised he'd probably kick it into Row Z if he tried a shot from there, and sensibly handballing to the passing Pickett instead. He overcame the obstacle of heading towards the boundary line at speed with a ripper finish, before extracting from the centre bounce and landing a kick with Chandler. I'm not saying he was necessarily aiming for him, but when it missed everyone else Kade just happened to be in the right place at the right time. 

Chandler's set shot went off sideways like bootleg fireworks, but don't let that detract from the wonderful move that set it up. You sensed that Sydney only needed the slightest breeze to fall over, and by this point Pickett was playing with a raging horn, narrowly missed a pair of snaps, and everything was going right except we'd kicked 3.7 for the quarter. After all that there was nothing surer than Sydney reacting to minutes of pressure by going down the other end and scoring, which was only avoided by a) Bowey's smother, and b) a shizen handball to a player who was about to pelt inside 50 for a shot. 

Dean Cox comes across as somebody who will eventually snap and cause Clarko-esque destruction in the coaches' box, but he had to appreciate our efforts to keep his side in the game. He'd have been less thrilled by Melksham diving into a tackle for a late free, but normal service continued with another poster. I wasn't arguing a near four goal lead at half time, but the World Wildlife Fund hasn't done to preserve real-life swans as we did to keep the footy version in this game. All indicators pointed to a win but we've lost games in 10 minutes of terror before, so the safest course of action was to rip the life support system plug from the wall ASAP.

Our prospects further improved by Pickett opening the third term by finally landing a snap from general play, only to quickly give it back as Fritsch tried desperately not to be on the mark and missed being told to stand. And aren't these the administrative, nit-picky rules that we all watch the game for? Then there was more Pickett action, as he tried a torp that went so badly that it went at near right angles from 50 metres out and still just landed in the field of play. It was one of the worst set shots ever, and the game was still somewhat in the balance, but he's earned the right to try some offbeat shenanigans. Kysaiah later revealed that it was an attempted tribute to Uncle Byron, and I'd prefer he did his bit for family tradition by kicking an optimistic set shot like a bag of cement than going through opponents like a freight train (complete with Rex Hunt doing an unexpected Kevin Bloody Wilson reference).

By the time he was kicking another point, which came after Gawn doing likewise, the actual gap was 24 but the 'feels like' margin was about 10 goals. Unfortunately that means nothing, and after Salem turned the ball over, then gave away a 50, Sydney got their fifth goal straight from set shots and the door was hanging invitingly open if they had any extra gears to go into. They did not, and just as I was reaching for the brown undies that man Pickett walloped through a shot from the boundary to give us some breathing room. Next thing Fritsch is marking at the top of the square and my blood pressure was retreating from fatal levels. 

Then Salem made up for his earlier clanger with another that worked in his favour, technically setting up his own goal by booting it straight at a defender, who shat himself and ended up letting Salem kick a goal. He did some unusual stuff during this game, but it was far outweighed by the good. Just a few minutes after the Swans were presented with a warm invitation to get back in the game we ended the quarter hovering around the famous Chris Sullivan Line. 

Pickett's off-chops insanity continued when he did brilliantly to dispose of an opponent and mark 20 metres out, before the extreme rush of blood made him try to play on and miss. He got one just after that with a low percentage play-on after Spargo got clobbered, and he should've been subject to post-match testing for Viagra. It didn't always work but it was thrilling stuff, and his attempts to turn any half chance into a goal left us as close to a top box office team as we've been for two years. 

We were a goal from (perceived) three quarter time safety before conceding and keeping it ever so slightly interesting. Neutrals thought it was over, but I wasn't ready for anything beyond quiet confidence. Until they kicked a goal a minute into the last quarter and I was ready to soil myself again. Thanks then to the Sydney defender who vigorously groped at Petty's jumper from the next forward 50, which you won't be surprised to find out was created by Pickett getting first hands on the ball after the bounce. Pay everybody he knows to move to Victoria if that's what it will take the keep him. Build them their own Elon Musk-style compound, leave no stone unturned. He then tried to roll what would've been his sixth goal through along the ground, it hit the post, and Sydney went down the other end for a goal. I wasn't mad, it was all part of one of the wildest, loosest in the best possible way, forward performances we've ever seen.

Obviously, the game was already long sealed, but Oliver made it safe for panic merchants like me by celebrating his freedom from tagging duties with a set shot from distance. There was genuine party atmosphere by the time Sparrow barged past a couple of hapless defenders to kick his first. Sharp came on for Spargo, who was ordered off by the umpires for concussion testing but instantly subbed before the results came through, and joined in with a top shelf comedy goal. He gathered and was about to run straight into a defender, but fumbled the ball under the opponent's outstretched arm, then saw it bounce perfectly back to him for a goal and this was officially a rooting.

I wish we'd been able to feed Pickett another couple of opportunities to do something truly insane but he got the superstar treatment of sitting on the bench for the last few minutes alongside Gawn. Not that it meant anything, but conceding the last two goals was a bit of a let down. Until the Swans were subject to an epic pisstake at the end of a disappointing day, when in a great moment in the history of teams being kicked while they were down, the final goal was taken off them after an uncalled for video review.

For no other reason than there being 13 goals and a video review, the last quarter went over 39 minutes and well beyond 6pm. By the time it ended anyone interested in the news was probably already watching the opposition, so no doubt every stooge on the Channel 7 payroll will be getting a memo to start waffling on about shortening games this week. Could've got back 6.5 minutes here by halving the breaks after goals, or here's an idea you super geniuses - start the coverage at 3pm so you're either insured against a long-running game or can spend a few minutes on post-match atmosphere instead of barrelling straight from heart-stopping one point wins at 6.02pm to whatever miserable story about people getting blown up is at the top of the news.

Here's the real top story, Melbourne goes back-to-back against reigning grand finalists. Even I'm not enough of a history wanker to know the last time, if ever, we've done that. I'd feel better if we didn't also hold a pair of consecutive 10 goal losses in the same season (including one to a side that's won about five games in five years) but after a nightmare start to a year that's still probably not going anywhere we have at least climbed out of the grave and are back on two feet. Let's just try to avoid being pushed straight back into it, then we can think about miracles happening. All I know is that we might have to launch simultaneous Bradbury and Spitebury plans after the bye.   

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Kysaiah Pickett
4 - Christian Petracca
3 - Clayton Oliver
2 - Max Gawn
1 - Christian Salem

Apologies to Bowey, Langdon, Melksham, McVee, Rivers and Turner.

Leaderboard
Gawn still leads by just under 3+ BOGs, but beneath him the top of the leaderboard is starting to get a more familiar feeling. Bowey is still hanging about on the podium and already six votes ahead of his previous best season in 2023, but the big hitters like Oliver and Petracca are coming in search of medals. And when they're regularly polling good things are probably happening.

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

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
So many options, many involving Pickett. With respect to Petracca's Perth '21 cover version, and Sharp accidentally doing a Harlem Globetrotters move on his opponent, it's got to be Kysaiah's first when he took advantage of the opponent losing focus to run around and curl one through. He'll almost certainly win this award in the end, but for now Chandler in West Coast retains the lead.

Next Week
Outrageously we're one win from being 6-6, but it will require avoiding a 666 style Satanic performance against the sudden crisis side St. Kilda. They've lost three in a row, including to West Coast, and have taken our place as the league's most tediously boring club. So on paper we should win, but I think Ross Lyon's loins throb at the memory of when he'd treat us with utter contempt while coaching Freo. Nothing will be taken for granted here, just because we've kicked a few goals recently it doesn't mean he won't summon up one last act of football terrorism and hold us to 2.10.22.

It's not easy suggesting changes when a) we played our best game of the season, and b) you can't take VFL form seriously when Casey held a 21st (!) placed team to one goal in three quarters, then let them kick six consolations in the final quarter. At a ground with a massage parlour in the background. Incidentally, I looked up the reviews for this particular business and 66.6% of them are people complaining that the massage professional lost interest once they declined the offer of unnamed 'extra' services. Use that information as you like, but if there's a game on it's best to fire up the live stream and duck in quickly while the ball is down the other end.

I've got a radical Eddie McGuire style plan for the competition. Add Tasmania, find two other ring-in sides (Adelaide and Port?), and make it two divisions of 12. The low-budget standalone sides play each other twice a year, and AFL fans won't give a rat's if their reserve side is in the second division. Yes, it would mean a second game each year against hapless sides like Preston but maybe they'll attract better players if they're not nearly guaranteed to be royally humped every week. Coburg and Frankston are doing alright, so wouldn't it be more interesting if there were relegation/promotion implications than teams trying to qualify for a top 10?

As the VFL is not a serious competition and we don't need to make bulk panic changes I doubt the selectors will be putting too much stock in a gentle training run against traffic cone opposition. Jefferson kicked five but I'm not interested until he does it against AFL listed defenders, and van Rooyen took a lot of marks but it felt like they were all just taking the piss out of overmatched opposition for three quarters before pulling at stumps in the last and wondering if the massage joint offers group rates. I don't expect Bailey Laurie to be a long term player but he'd probably feel aggrieved not to get a token run at some point, and am starting to worry that Kynan Brown is going to be left stranded on about 10 minutes of AFL game time.

It won't happen, but now that we're outrageously back in the mix (not that I'm saying it will last, and we're still only a 11% chance to make the eight but at least it's double digits), I'm promoting the contentious McDonald as second ruck plan. Johnson is full of effort and somehow registered two goal assists from six disposals, but you can't go around having one kick a game. Give us McDonald, when that doesn't work gives us van Rooyen, then Campbell, then go back to Johnson, then Verrall, then anyone who can jump high enough to contest a stoppage. This all assumes Lever's late discomfort was just a symptom of having been away so long and his foot wasn't falling apart, because in that case McDonald returns directly to defence and you can do as you please with the fill-in rucks.

In other news, I don't know where Viney fits with a resurgent Oliver and well-received midfield cameos from Pickett, Rivers, Salem etc... but if he'll come in handy if it turns into a classic Ross The Boss slopfest. I'd really like to reward Sharp for one of the better sub performances, even if he did have the good fortune to turn up just as things were tilting violently in our favour, but he gets to continue his assault on Taj Woewodin's record of starting 10 games as sub. Spargo escaped without concussion but he had four touches in 51% of game time, so like a fancier version of Johnson I don't doubt the effort but think we can get more out of somebody else.

After thinking we'd win and not being proven horribly wrong I'm going for it twice in a row. The game is in Alice Springs, but as long as the players don't dwell on Freo kicking the shit out of us there last year it shouldn't make too much of a difference. Here's to making it back to par after being [insert golf metaphor here], and officially regaining our dignity in 2025.

IN: McDonald, Viney

OUT: Johnson, Spargo (omit)
LUCKY: Nil
UNLUCKY: Howes, Laurie, Sharp (to still be sub)

Final thoughts
I concur with the views of Mrs. Petracca

Christian Petracca's mum enjoyed his 200th: "That was a f**** great win"
byu/FlairUp835 inAFL

Gabba Gabba Wahey

For distance between expected margin and actual upset result, this may have been the most baffling victory since the 2015 'Gawn's Gone Wild' game at Kardinia Park. Brisbane had been held to a draw by North last week, but I put that down to the culture shock of playing in Hobart and expected a savage bounceback here. It didn't turn out as expected.

I thought we might hang around for the first half, before slowly losing ground, then fold like a house of cards in the final term again. It looked like the script was being followed to the letter when the 3/4 time margin was 14 points. Hardly an insurmountable gap, but hard to imagine any sort of life-affirming comeback when we've been playing final quarters all season as if heavily sedated. Then, plucked from the thinnest of air, our best final quarter of the year. I won't mock the Lions because they'll still be going when our players are applying the all-important 'offensive or not' test to Mad Monday costumes, but for a generic win that might not mean anything long-term, this was extremely satisfying. 

Thank god we beat a quality team interstate because during the week I'd got a bit sulky about our issues outside the Melbourne metropolitan area. To be precise, the bit where GWS won their fifth game in a row at Geelong, which is the same number of times we've beaten Geelong away since 1983. See also the semi-pros of Southport taking the unusual Gold Coast - Tullamarine - Cranbourne route to beat a side with about 18 listed MFC players. "Everyone else can travel" I silently wailed, "what's wrong with us?" Usually the answer to that question would be "how long have you got?", but Sunday's wacky result means we don't need to be gloomy fit a bit, even if I still don't understand why we make going 100km down the highway more difficult than scaling Mt. Everest when the AFL generously lets us practice there every year.

This makes four wins in the last five, but I'm still not prepared to entertain a miracle finals run. Mathematically we might romp in via winning every game for the rest of the year (before departing in straight sets), but until the probability on AFL Live Ladders rises from 4% into the mid-teens I won't be raising a sweat worrying about blowing it all in humiliating fashion against you-know-who in Round 24. I'll just be happy to keep working on the anti-Essendon Spitebury plan, and any slivers of hope of a critic throat stuffing revival will be a bonus. There's a 96% chance that we're only playing for spite so I'm sticking with that for now.

This was a weird game, but what do you expect against Brisbane after the last few years? From the high point of our modern existence coming less than a minute after Alex Neal-Bullen violently puking, to Lever's twirling disaster in the finals, the night the lights went out in Woolloongabba, Melksham finishing the big comeback, and more ANB content when he dived for touch last year. The strangest, still never fully explained controversy was the Petty vs Zorko debacle in 2022, which kicked off a bit of half-hearted spite between the sides/fans that quickly fizzed out. 

There was a little spark when some wanker did the 'boo hoo' face to Petty last year, but once he went on to play in a flag all normal people decided to move on. Not some simpletons in this crowd who booed Petty, not realising that incident was a turning point in the fortunes of the two sides. They went from being beaten senseless that night to two Grand Finals and a flag, while we proceeded to lose four finals in a row and fall off the face of the earth. Form an orderly queue to say thanks you bozos.

I tuned in fully expecting us to cheerfully go to our graves, but the good news was that it would be called by the sensible and professional Jason Bennett and Matt Hill. Unfortunately not on the same channel, as each was partnered by half of the buffoon power couple BT and Dwayne. At first my viewing was so low energy that I couldn't be bothered pressing several remote control buttons to access Kayo and wore the 50% sensible, 50% idiotic Channel 7 coverage until the ads were giving me the shits more than Taylor talking shite. 

After going to the trouble of digitally adding the putrid new Gold Coast logo, AAMI has changed the end of their commercial to the dickhead dad discovering for a second time that bad kicking is bad home maintenance. He's still able to calmly head straight for their app to make a claim, as if he wouldn't be paying an excess much more expensive than fixing one poxy window. They've obviously got a big budget for this campaign, give us something a bit more dramatic like footy hits tree, branch makes contact with electrical wires, catastrophic fire breaks out etc... Let the kid make 'cute' comments when the family home is burning to the ground.

In a battle of the lesser of two evils, I appreciated Dwayne sitting back and letting the adult in the commentary booth/remote Fox studio speak for large parts of the game instead of just blathering on over the top of everyone else. He still had to jam in the usual pre-planned 'Rivers to cross' style gags, but seemed much less offensive in partnership with Hill. Meanwhile, watching the highlights of the remainder with the Seven commentary makes me wish Bennett had taken to his partner with a headphone cord at quarter time.

Meanwhile, it's that time of the year when we rebrand as Narrm. The idea has been argued left, right, and bloody centre since we pioneered it (in the AFL anyway) but whether you're madly for it, madly against it, or like me and don't really care but wish everyone well, only unreasonable arseholes have a problem with the indigenous jumpers. I rated this year's version as one of our best yet, and still think there's something in using one these designs (preferably 2021) on the back every week. Brisbane's looked fine, except that it made all their players look like Simpsons characters with exposed buttocks. 

Given how I expected this to go, kicking the first goal was nice. Especially when it came from a fantastic Melksham contested mark. Last week it was Sparrow and Langford doing this, and is there any danger of a key forward taking similar grabs? We seem to do better with players who can get a run at the ball inside 50 than anyone trying to stand their ground and mark overhead.

One player who wouldn't be taking marks of any sort in the first quarter was Bayley Fritsch, relegated to substitute for the first time in his career. Things have mostly gone well since the Essendon game, but I still say it was a mistake dropping him after that when he finally looked to be finding some form. Fair enough being relegated to the bench after stinking it up last week though. I've got faith that Fritsch can still kick goals if the rest of the forward line can draw enough attention to get him some space, but it's been a good old fashioned slog this season. Lucky for him nobody else is kicking bulk goals either, and he's only five behind Pickett in the quest to lead our tally for the sixth consecutive year. For now, the race is on for somebody to beat recent humiliatingly low top totals like Brad Miller's 26 (2008), Chris Dawes' 20 (2014), and Petracca's 22 (2019).

This kicked off one of Melksham's best games, and after being written off several times since 2019, and at the stage of his career where he's being heavily 'managed', he's timed his career revival perfectly to go out with everyone lamenting that he couldn't go on for longer. To be fair, until now he'd only kicked two goals in five games, but it's the contest, and the opportunities laid on for teammates by taking smart options. In a team where nobody looks particularly dangerous, if you're not kicking them yourself at least set them up for somebody else. But he did both here, with only his sixth haul of four goals in 121 games.

Not sure Melksham gives a fat rat's clacker about what anyone else thinks (except Steven May in a fancy restaurant) but if we'd gone on to the presumed battling but ultimately demoralising defeat, his antics throughout the game would've given your Agenda Setters and associated content-hungry shockjocks seizures. Giving away a 50 for piffing the ball past his opponent at high speed was a bit unnecessary, but once we'd confirmed victory I was right into his mouthing off after marks, and responding to Harris Andrews' attempts at manly jostling by squirting him with water. 

If you're surprised the Anti Fun League didn't fine him for misconduct, don't worry they've extracted $1000 out of Clayton Oliver for being the latest player to have a light, unpublicised collision with an umpire. This is the exact same amount a West Coast player got for targeting an injured player, and $1000 more than the fine for threatening to get an opposition player bashed.

More important than his jovial attitude to the contest, Melksham also negotiated their best intercept defender. If you're not meant to trust somebody with two last names, I don't know what you're supposed to do with somebody who doesn't have any, but Harris must've been rubbing his hands together in anticipation for this game until sparks appeared. Surprisingly the record for intercept marks in a game is only 10, because I'm sure we've given away more than that in single quarters before. He'd have been waiting to shatter the world record by picking off a dozen of our panic kicks inside 50, only to be held to two, one fewer than noted aerialist Judd McVee. But he did get a free hose down from the water bottle so it wasn't all bad news.

The problem in this game, at least for the first three quarters, was that when we didn't kick goals the ball was flying down the other end as if heaved from a medieval catapult. Brisbane's effortless transfer of the ball and chains of free players lining up for their turn to move it forward gave the indication that there'd be no way to cover whatever they were going to score. 

It's frustrating how close we are to being a good team, but where most weeks you could say "if we only had a forward line", the obvious difference here was ball movement. One side was shifting it goalwards at warp speed with opponents getting within the same area code. The other was Melbourne. I remain confused as to how they were only 14 points up at three quarter time. When they helpfully kicked it long towards the square our defenders were holding up well, but they'd regularly have multiple players camped on their own about 40 metres out, and should be kicking themselves for stuffing this up.

Not only did we struggle to get any speed on the ball early, but there was also a few horror turnovers when exiting defence. This included McSizzle having a go at kicking in after a point, only to make connection that was flatter than a plateful of piss, then stand in a line of players who acted like Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men as the recipient of his gift casually wandered towards goal. We did not need to be giving up seven point plays in the space of 20 seconds if there was any hope of keeping the game alive into the last quarter. 

Petty took a solid mark in attack, but presented with near enough to a sitter he reverted to 2024 form and missed. Having said that, like last year his best work was when forced to play like a defender and chop off bad kicks. I'd still prefer Turner forward, but he looks good in defence so I've got absolutely no idea who'll be playing in our attack by the end of the season. I've tried my best but Tom McDonald probably won't be involved. But there was something here for members of the defunct Send Sizzle Forward campaign, when a 50 brought him within range for what is hopefully not his final career goal.

This was all very good, but the problem of Brisbane turning defence into attack in under five seconds was still there. Due to not giving a shit about other teams, I didn't know who Logan Morris was until stumbling upon an article suggesting we recruit him. After he'd kicked back-to-back goals I was ready to reroute the Armaguard truck that was once set to try and keep van Rooyen out of West Coast's hands. 

Morris' cause was helped by silver platter service, and being paid a mark that went about eight metres, but I felt bad for JVR sitting on the couch at home watching a young key position forward being fed marks in acres of space but it's not like he didn't also completely butterfinger some easy grabs earlier in the year.

Until these goals, we'd done well enough to keep it close. Even with Gawn taking advantage of a second choice ruckman and multiple wins out of the centre it felt like this was the dam walls bursting. Usually I think sports betting companies should be invited to FOAD, but would be interested in how short favourites the Lions were with a three goal quarter time lead, at home, against a side who have been finishing like Greg Norman at Augusta.

They'd have been unbackable after kicking the first after the break. It was bad enough letting Darcy Gardiner kick his 10th goal in 169 games, but by the time he had four the alarm at Kent Kingsley Manor could be heard from Norfolk Island. Kingsley nominations are usually reserved for players who have average careers highlighted by one (or more if you're Brad Dick) ripper games against us. This was a special category induction for a perfectly good, premiership winning player who has had a long career but pulls off random acts of heroism at the wrong end of the ground. And yes new readers, I know old Kent had plenty of good games against other teams but the name stuck 20 odd years ago so we're not changing now unless he sues.

Nobody would've been surprised if the floodgates burst open at this point. I'd already morally conceded de defeat before the first bounce (accusations of cowardice to the usual address) so was less upset by how the game was going than the sun which made it difficult to watch. Things picked up for us when it got dark, maybe they just couldn't see the waves of Brisbane players legging it into free space around them.

The recovery began with Melksham, who may not be welcome at French restaurants but is free to hang around on our list until he's completely crocked or a replacement turns up. Then Chandler squirmed out of an attempted tackle that looked more like he was being vigorously felt up and snapped a goal. This was unpopular with the locals, who haven't grasped the idea that you need to either hold the player or force them to dispose of the ball incorrectly.

After the latest edition of Gardner's Tony Lockett roleplay we rode our luck a bit as the Lions missed a couple of set shots. About time somebody else self-harms in front of goal. This left the door open for Petracca and Rivers to spelunk their way around the boundary, and for Rivers to trip over the goalpost on his way through. It was still not nearly as spectacular looking as Pickett getting legged by Hawthorn. That goal made it interesting at half time. Not yet very interesting because I was still expecting to burst into flames at the 0.01 minute mark of the last quarter.

Credit to Fox Sports for their novelty approach to a Robert Walls tribute during the break. Instead of wheeling out the same footage as everyone else they played the highlights of Brisbane coming back from the dead to beat Hawthorn in the early 90s. I was hoping for bonus footage of him grappling with Darren Kowal but that was probably considered inappropriate under the circumstances. Surely Channel 7 did something, but they also had to make room for a 'comedy' segment and multiple repeats of Darcy Moore being squirted with tomato sauce.

I wanted to believe in a famous come-from-behind win, but it wasn't easy when the first bounce of the second half went from us bursting towards goal to conceding at the other end seconds later. But we hung around to irritate the home crowd.

It's impossible to judge Tom Sparrow's contribution this season when he's been dumped in starvation corner to do defensive jobs, but in the spirit of our 'anyone, anytime, just not very often' forward structure he was on the end of a rocket pass from Melksham that probably left an indent on his right tit. Dayne Zorko then tried to leave a mark on the rest of him in the follow through, making certain of the goal with a 50 metre penalty. We responded to this gift by nearly giving it straight back, forced to extract the ball from the top of the square just seconds after the restart. This is why I had no faith that we could score enough to win. It just felt like we'd toil manfully for goals and they'd rip them out of thin air. 

Say what you like about Goodwin being incredibly stubborn about trying to make his tactical fantasies come true, but you can't say he's not persistent. See, for example, the violent smashing of a square peg into a round hole that was our 2024 forward line. Once Viney returns we'll find out whether Oliver as a tagger is this year's version of 'surely he'll kick goals eventually', or if it was just a cameo while waiting for the incumbent to return. I hope so, because even if he's well down on his best using him like this feels like when you see ex-celebrity musicians reluctantly playing the Doncaster Shoppingtown Hotel. On the other hand, you feel better about Viney ending his career like this because he clearly enjoys stalking opponents and trying to take their limbs as trophies Ben Roberts-Smith style.

If this was the last time Clayts is sent on a hunting mission it worked a lot better than last time. This time he followed a Brownlow Medal winner to where the possessions were and it paid off so let's bank the happy memories and stop doing this unless there's an emergency. 

Oliver also kicked a crucial goal to stop things getting out of hand after two in a row for Brisbane. The first came courtesy of a truly pissweak downfield free against Lindsay, who arrived late and simply tackled the guy. Usually these are paid when somebody gets pushed over and otherwise violently dealt with after disposing, but this was penalising a player for not getting there quickly enough. That handed surprise hero Gardner his third, and the Lions may have had another immediately after if the goal umpire wasn't 100% convinced that a shot missed. The commentators, including not quite impartial boundary rider Alistair Lynch, didn't believe it and there was talk of a replay that I can't remember ever being shown. Unlike a goal, there wasn't a minute for the reviewers to pick over the footage trying to find a reason to overturn it, but it was suspicious how quickly we restarted the game before some busybody field umpire could run in and snitch on us.

We had the chance to strike back, with Fritsch being welcomed back from exile with a pass from Spargo that seemed to expect he'd picked up Inspector Gadget robotic arms during the afternoon. Charleston had a shot of his own and missed the lot, and given that he's kicked all of one goal this year I'd like a look at somebody else please? He does some nice stuff, but five and a bit kicks a game + a decent number of tackles don't justify automatic selection. You can argue he's got more intent than Fritsch but in the end scores matter. 

After Melksham got his third you could squint really hard and clobber yourself over the head with a frypan to have visions of winning, before we let in a truly shit goal at the end of an otherwise decent quarter. Turner was very good but completely flubbed his efforts to rush the ball, leaving who else but Mr. Kingsley 2025 to boot a fourth and take the margin back into double figures.  

If the tables were turned I wouldn't have trusted us to hold a 14 point lead against players teleported in from 1897, but didn't have the slightest bit of faith in us outscoring the Lions by 15 before the final siren. Always happy to be proven wrong in situations like this, but you have to admit historical precedent was on my side.  

Our last quarters have been so bad that even missing a pair of opportunities right at the start felt like progress. Less so when the Lions were having a set shot not long after. Perhaps looking forward to a great future having the ball booted over his head inside our 50, Morris didn't even score this time. And that, bizarrely, was pretty much it for Brisbane. It took us a while to overturn the margin but once we finally found a solution to their pinballing from defence into attack a level of panic set in and they started doing stupid turnovers or booting it straight at Gawn despite not having anyone likely to challenge him in the air.

By the time scores were level I was in full close game mode, walking backwards and forwards behind the couch and muttering incoherently like a complete lunatic. There was actual climbing on the back of said couch when Johnson toe-poked through the go ahead goal. I still don't see what you get from him that van Rooyen can't also do, but he continued his career record of 100% goals kicked wildly off the ground and there was now a genuine sense that we might win it. Then Melksham kicked a fourth and I was on the verge of having to breathe into a paper bag.

When Lindsay stormed the 50 seconds later and missed what would've probably been the sealer I yelled out an obscenity just as A. Random knocked on my door to collect something (NB: not a drug related transaction), so there was a bit of awkward "sorry about that, just watching the footy" while trying to get him back out the door with as little chit-chat as possible. There was even more bad behaviour when the Lions responded with a goal. After claiming last week that we didn't qualify for 'it's the hope that kills you status' I'd have jammed my head in the dishwasher if we'd lost from here.

If you'd presented me a two kick game with a few minutes left earlier in the afternoon I'd have said we'd concede two slingshot goals to lose in horrifying circumstances, but Brisbane were in total disarray by now and helpfully wound the clock down by kicking it back to us at every opportunity. Pickett missed a chance at whacking a big fat exclamation mark on the result, but unlike certain other games this season we didn't just let the other team plow down the ground for a vital goal from the kick-in. He had ball in hand again in the dying seconds, narrowly missing an odd attempt at nine-ironing the ball through an unguarded square but the important work had been done. 

Once the excitement of a big upset wears off this won't challenge for our top 10 wins of modern times, but everyone involved deserves congratulations for weathering the early storm and pulling off a fine victory. It ended one of my more successful recent weekends - Wimbledon won a vital playoff game, Melbourne lifted the Veil of Negativity for a bit, and Demonblog Towers successfully hosted a four year old birthday party without being destroyed in the process.

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Jake Melksham
4 - Kysaiah Pickett
3 - Max Gawn
2 - Christian Petracca
1 - Trent Rivers

Apologies to Bowey, May, McVee, Oliver, Salem, and Turner.

Leaderboard
The Max rampage continues, and as long he stays upright I think the only person likely to poll consistently enough to catch him is Pickett. Watch this space. No alterations in the minor awards.

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

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Apologies to Oliver, Chandler slipping away from a groping, and the sentimental favourite of Johnson's big boot through it at the end, but I'm going for the Petracca/Rivers. It involved precision running in confined spaces, and out of respect for Rivers not breaking his ankle on the post at the end. Chandler vs West Coast still leads.  

Next Week
By ripping a fine win out of our arse here we get to apply 'danger game' status to playing Sydney at home. They're only ahead of us on percentage (albeit considerably ahead, due to not losing back-to-back games by 10 goals), and are coming off a win but expectation is bubbling so there will be some sour people if this doesn't go well. I've run out of gas to explain my changes, but under this plan Petty and Turner both play forward, one of them has an honest crack at second rucking, and Johnson is on the bench in case something goes tits up in defence and we need to send one of them back there.

I'm not taking a repeat of this performance for granted, but just for something different I predict we'll win.

IN: Fritsch (to start), Lever, Viney

OUT: Johnson (to sub), Sharp, Spargo (omit) 
LUCKY: Nil
UNLUCKY: Brown, Laurie

Final thoughts
How have I never seen this picture before? 

Dubs against the reigning premiers away on their own patch 🤌 pic.twitter.com/GtT67Q4Ae2

— MyHeartBeatsTrue (@melbournefans) May 18, 2025

It's a work of art that deserves to go alongside 'Grimes in bath next to a horse', the six-handed marking contest, and 'Juice, Bate, Dunn WTF' in the Melbourne Football Club pictorial Hall of Fame.

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Shoot straight you bastards

So, after a three week break from misery we're back where the year started. To the credit of everyone involved, the margin was about as expected but came via three quarters of doing everything right except playing with a forward line, and a few bonus minutes of "surely they couldn't..." excitement during the third quarter. They couldn't, but it didn't qualify for 'it's the hope that kills you' status. We're not going to finish last, we're not going to make the eight, so it was more a case of being gently bruised by hope. A win pulled from the arse would be nice, but in a few weeks nobody except Goal of the Year voters and fans of shithouse umpiring decisions will remember this game even happened. 

But before our usual incisive and analytical matchday coverage, a moment for the AFL's moral compass, which is currently spinning around as if thrown into a magnet factory. Imagine Trent Rivers sitting down to write his $1500 cheque for minor, otherwise unnoticed collision with an umpire, and looking up to see Willie Rioli getting the green light for threatening to set unknown thugs on an opposition player. Sure the AFL belatedly banned him for a match, but not until after Rioli had already announced he was going to sit this week out anyway. Then there's the wild and wonderful world of Clayton Oliver, who inadvertently helped kick off the week with a game dedicated to men's mental health, by having a microphone jabbed in his face and being asked to give candid comments on his own mental health while trying to walk through the park. I wish a teammate had jumped out from behind a tree and drop punted the microphone onto Punt Road.

The non-stop quest for content in footy, featuring Kane Cornes and his terrifyingly rigid eyebrows, will eventually end in tragedy, followed by half-genuine "we've got to be better" penance from the media before returning to the normal service of parkland ambushes and carrying on like they're at the moral pinnacle of society. For now they're comfortable sooking up about Brad Green cracking the shits on Twitter, accusing him acting too much like a fan as if supernuffs Eddie McGuire and Jeff Kennett weren't the most successful Victorian club presidents this century. I salute all the journalists going about their business professionally, without putting on fake outrage like they're auditioning for Sky News. The rest can far cough.

Anyway, back to the MCG, where our last unbeaten streak dating back to the Good Old Days (2021-2023) is kaput. After eight wins and a draw, this was an orderly transfer of the baton. We made them work for it, and Hawthorn would want to play a lot better against top sides, but a Hawks win/white bloke elected Pope double was the biggest certainty of the week. It was white smoke at the Vatican, and (eventually) white flag at the MCG, as we got a reminder of being simultaneously not all that far but also miles off the top sides. 

When the sides came out I felt bad for Jacob van Rooyen, who returned after watching a couple of half-decent wins from the couch, only to see Jake Melksham going the other way, depriving him of one of the few teammates who can convincingly deliver the ball inside 50. Fair enough to manage Melksham at his advanced stage of life (a decade younger than me), but it didn't bode well for delivery to the forwards. Pickett can usually put the ball where you want it, but we need one of him across half back, one in the middle, one to be kicking at, and another waiting to Hoover up spilt crumbs. 

I said during the week that Spargo's kicks were good but he only gets about five a week, and he showed me by dialling that up to seven. Unfortunately, the remainder were turnovers but he wasn't alone, team disposal efficiency was above season average, but the "kicking it straight to an opponent standing on his own" rate was the same as every other week.

By the time we'd kicked the classic late-period Goodwin score of 7.14.56, I still felt bad for JVR. Not because he'd put in some heroic single-handed performance that narrowly failed to carry the team over the line (e.g. Petracca vs Carlton last year), but because the poor lad has now officially been Melbourned. He's got time to overcome the handicap of being drafted to play in our forward line, but for now his greatest performance was one half against the worst West Coast side in history. When they go around the circle at the support group for other promising MFC careers dragged down like an anchor, Sam Weideman should probably keep quiet about helping win a landmark final in front of 90,000 people or he'll look up to find everyone else has jumped out the window.

van Rooyen was just one cog in a forward line that misfired as badly as ever but was still briefly in the frame to play in a massive upset. With Melksham and Petty injured, we had the option of finding another defender and trying to get Turner to do a repeat of his three goal performance last week. We declined, and while he did well was there really nobody else who could free him up to try and continue the momentum as a forward? NFI if Jed Adams is any good but he might be contemplating his future after not scoring a game in a lost year where all of May, Turner, Lever and Petty have been injured at some point

Instead, we reintroduced Matthew Jefferson, who I suspect will be remembered for kicking a goal 16 seconds into his debut and not much else. He didn't look remotely comfortable, had a bit of the Billings (remember him?) Resting Terrified Face and it's a mystery how he got in the side to start with. He's had five quarters of AFL experience and hasn't done much at VFL level, especially last week when Casey didn't have a game. The house must have been trained into dust. Then there's Fritsch, who has been stripped naked by the rest of the forward line disintegrating around him. He would still kick goals in a good side, but at the moment I'd rather play Petty '24 forward.

It was also the (temporary) end of Viney's tag-heavy renaissance after he fell victim to a mystery mid-week head knock. After getting away with several false alarms clutching his shoulder as if it was ripped from the socket, only to be jumping on opponents five minutes later, this is how nature got him. Even better, because it apparently happened on Thursday he can't play next week either. At the risk of white-hot sacrilege, I think it's impressive that Jack Crisp toppled Jim Stynes' consecutive games record given how easy it is for players to miss games these days. In the same way that you adjust Lance Franklin's goals for playing in a lower scoring era and he's every bit as good as Tony Lockett, Crisp has arguably done better than Jim to go this long without a miss. 

Turns out the second game in Crisp's streak was the day I had a meltdown because the Stefan Martin Experience was BOG for an equally putrid Brisbane after we'd traded him. Obviously, turfing the SME cleared a path for Max Gawn and - even if by accident - is by default the best thing that happened to us in 2012 (2nd place - Carnival Of Hate, 3rd place - keeping the lights on). I wasn't taking it well at the time. But when you're not winning it takes a few years for the context of shit results to become interesting - that was the last time Sam Blease, Luke Tapscott, or Dean Terlich played for us, and seven years later we were beating Martin in a Grand Final while he was playing for a different team. So see you in 2032 when we'll look back on whatever weird twists and turns have taken place since this slopfest.

Quoth myself from that day, and this is as true as ever, "Defensive sludge looks so much better when you're in front". That's somewhat true of this game, especially the sludge bit, but while the defence held up ably for three quarters, there were plenty of chances at the other end. Normal disclaimers apply that if any of them went through the course of the game turns out differently and we might either win or concede the next 24 goals unanswered, but I'll take my chances with accurate kicking and see where it goes from there.

I don't think the Hawthorn players were 100% into this at the start, which allowed us to do all the early attacking for two points. Then, without ever getting out of first gear they took the ball straight down the other end for a gaol at the first opportunity. So far, so predictable. Less so, Harvey Langford responding with the sort of key position-ish mark you'd love our key position forwards to take. You were probably already considering sliding off your seat over Harvey when he took an equally solid grab at the other end. 

None of us knows what happens behind the scenes at the start of the year (and this was around the time of the famous Goodwin press conference meltdown), but playing Langford as sub in Round 1 behind the VFL All Stars, then immediately dumping him from the team comes across as the wackiest decisions of the season. By half time of this game people will be arming themselves and forming vigilante posses if he's dropped again. 

The good thing about the club being spread over so many venues is that the armed gangs won't know whether to lay siege on the MCG, Casey or AAMI Park. On a related note, I see the league is considering a dedicated training facility in Victoria for interstate clubs. Any chance we can horn in on this racket and get dedicated oval/administration buildings/spy cameras for opposition training sessions at an inner-city venue instead of having to find $70 million just to play in the middle of a racetrack? Knowing our luck, we'll build Caulfield, discover the greatest player of a generation, then he'll be trampled by a runaway horse.

There's an alternative option to spend $20 million buying Waverley off Hawthorn, who basically got it for free, which should happen in 2026 just to tie in with the 30th anniversary of them being the literally poor relation of the proposed Melbourne Hawks (insert cheap plug for our review of the Merger Night '96 TV coverage). They've done well for themselves since, but hopefully their move to Dingley will have the same effect on draftees and superstars alike as us making highly paid, professional athletes train in Cranbourne.

We'll never get back in front of the Hawks financially, but had them under the thumb for sporting purposes for a while. I was already convinced that was coming to an end, but more so when they got the second goal. It looked like we'd struggle to get that many in the game, so couldn't afford to be handing them out to somebody going around as 'The Wizard' who is approaching Glenn Maxwell levels of "I have no reason to dislike this person except their nickname". I'm not upset that he's swiped Jeff Farmer's gimmick because wizardry goes all the way back to Merlin, but let's have a little less fois-gras style forcing of the name down our throats by commentators thanks. It was also good when he gave the Richmond cheersquad the finger, only for the babies to snitch him out and land Watson with another fine that was more than you'd get for threatening opposition players.

At this point I'd never have believed we'd have been in this game up to our necks at three quarter time. For now it just felt like damage limitation against a team who may actually turn up and start playing properly at any moment. The 'we're just holding on' atmosphere wasn't helped by the once great Clayton Oliver trailing former mid-season draftee John Newcombe around in an attempt to replicate Viney's recent success. I understand what they were trying to do, but don't believe their claims that it was Oliver's idea for a minute. The idea didn't work, but some of the hysteria about it was over the top. We tried something, it sort of failed/didn't offer enough benefit, I'll get upset if they try it again next week.

While I'm pro-Oliver, I wasn't crazy about the 13th minute Clap For Clayts Campaign. Not because it isn't a nice token thing to do (I've been in the middle of the MCG with the speakers fanging at full volume and you couldn't understand a word of it, he's not going to hear a light round of applause), but because of the potential for looking like a bunch of hypocrites when he leaves and gets booed by the 'our players good, your players bad' flanges. For historical precedent see Mitch Clark, who went from "you've got to do what's right for your mental health" to "but not like that" when he joined Geelong. 

The good news is that when Oliver finally got a touch it was a good one, the problem was it was well after the first 13 minutes. He finished a nice handball chain along the boundary with a kick perfectly to Sparrow's advantage, and under the circumstances we won't ask why he was the one required to pull down a mark 20 metres out from goal. We were ok, but not in a way that suggested the Hawthorn code would be cracked and let us pile on a winning score. Let's start with a competitive score, we're up to 73.2 per game but are well beyond the level where you can expect a Lever-less backline to turn that total into anything but random wins.

We might have been within a point if van Rooyen pulled down the mark he nearly took at full extension (and the extension is important, because otherwise he'd be subject to butterfinger allegations) in the last minute. The commentators tried to will themselves into it possibly being a mark, which was bloody optimistic. But that was ok, because in the dying seconds James Sicily walked straight into a Fritsch tackle (then had the nerve to whinge to the umpire about it), leaving our many time top goalkicker with a close-range shot after the siren. Sam Mitchell was shown cracking the shits Clarko style when it happened, but we continued to take a suicidal approach to taking chances by missing. There must be some measurement that combines inside 50s + set shot accuracy in recent seasons to prove that we're at historical levels of waste.

With the defenders holding up reasonably well for three quarters, we had a fair go at winning with a rancid score. In the second quarter this involved the innovative strategy of keeping the ball down our end by missing shot, after shot, after shot. I was just about to go into media blackout mode for the drive home when Jefferson used his big chance to checkside OOF and decided to just listen on the radio instead. 

I've got no idea when I last rejected watching on delay to listen while driving, but it wasn't safe, and there was definite high speed swerve when Spargo got one of the seven in 1.7. Fortunately the radio didn't properly convey how disgraceful the unpaid Pickett trip was or I'd have been left cartwheeling down the Tullmarine Freeway with the car on fire. Nobody will remember this game for anything else (except, possibly their last time playing for us) but the gratuitous, obvious, hand-to-ankle interface as Pickett ran into an open goal will be the go-to "what about..." awful decisions reference for the next 10 years. 

You'd almost accept that the umpire was blinking or looking into the sun if the whole season - including earlier this game - hadn't been littered with out of zone umps sticking their nose in where it wasn't wanted. It led to the inevitable calls for a challenge system, but you don't see botched free kicks like this often enough to make it worthwhile. We don't need people demanding unnecessary, hopeful challenges to kill momentum late in a game, we need somebody to pay blatantly obvious shit like this. Imagine being the goal umpire guiltily signalling for a point knowing you'd just witnessed one of the most obvious infringements of all time and couldn't do anything about it. Lucky they weren't located in front of our fans, who would no doubt have provided vigorous feedback at anyone in authority.

This was a disastrous decision that 99.9% cost us a goal (it's not like players haven't hit the post from that range before), but carrying on like umpires cost us this game is an old school pirate level of one-eyedness. If the Melbourne Football Club took up piracy we'd spend all year raiding and come home with $4.30 in five cent coins. No matter what happened in the first 2.5 quarters, there was a point in the third where we were in front and every possible chance of overcoming perceived rorts. But that would require playing a last quarter. 

I wasn't fooled by laying the boots into West Coast's corpse last week (and still letting them kick five), we'd have needed a miracle to stay alive long enough to win this. Which is such a shame because we were matching them in every other element of the game. Jefferson eventually got the arse for Tholstrup, who didn't do a lot except get a sore ear from Sicily yelling nonsense at him, but was probably more of a chance of taking a contested mark.

The only part of the second quarter I was disappointed to miss was Langford taking advantage of a defensive meltdown to snatch a second just before the break. Maybe the solution is to give up on having a traditional forward line and just run a confusing string of players in and out of the 50 so the opposition never know who's going to turn up next? One minute Langford's there, the next it's Fritsch, then of a sudden Steven May has legged it the length of the ground to randomly pop up in a contest. This would end in tragedy the moment the ball went the other way, but a) any sort of interesting development in our forward line would be appreciated, and b) it doesn't matter if it tires players out by the last quarter because you won't be able to tell the difference anyway.

Aided by Hawthorn's shit goalkicking (relatively speaking - compared to us they were laser accurate),  matching them in the contested game, and another fine performance from Gawn. Langford's third and Sharp running into an open goal half-fooled me into thinking we might go on with this but deep down only the most deluded believed it. One day we'll unexpectedly beat a better side from a similar position again but until then I'll be even more cynical about leads than usual. 

We celebrated the Sharp goal by missing two more chances, and of course when the ball went down the other end Hawthorn rediscovered their accuracy to take the lead at three quarter time. You could bet a kidney on how this was going to end, but when Gawn had a shot to put us back in front early in the last quarter I was open to making a game of it. For eighth time in nine scoring shots this season he missed, and that prompted the brown light to go on. 

They went practically right down the other end for a goal, which was soon three in a row and it was nearly curtains. Pickett cancelled the last one out with a tremendous running goal out of the middle but it was just a temporary holding back of the tide because we were collectively shot. The top shelf goal-led recovery couldn't drag any further life out of the rest of the team, and once we needed four goals in as many minutes there was more chance of money falling from the sky. 

Any mad comeback theories were terminated by Jack Gunston casually walloping one through from distance. Then they got another one from the centre bounce and a margin I'd have expected before the game now looked harsh on us. After playing like shite for most of the game, Gunston kicked three when it mattered, which is a key difference to our forwards who were shite for most of the game, then shite for the rest of it.

This rampage was partially because we'd belatedly sent Turner forward, leaving Hawthorn's forward line to do as they liked. Fair enough I suppose, not like percentage is going to make any difference to us. Just wish they'd played him there from the start.

As Hawthorn went into full 'crush, kill, destroy' mode in the last few minutes, effortlessly adding two more goals, my only intellectual thought was whether Changkuoth Jiath has ever been whacked in the plums during a game so somebody could do a 'Jiath's Crackers' headline?

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Harvey Langford
4 - Max Gawn
3 - Tom McDonald
2 - Jake Bowey
1 - Kysaiah Pickett

Apologies to May, Petracca, Rivers, and Turner

Leaderboard
The Gawnslide continues, but while you could see that coming, a potential podium including Bowey and Langford is weird. Harvey creates a commotion in the minor awards by snatching the Rising Star lead. Otherwise carry on as usual.

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

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
There was going to be slight controversy if the Langford goal I only saw on replay later won, so good thing Pickett went full NBA Jam turbo mode to give us a quickly extinguished glimmer of hope in the last quarter. Windsor still leads, but once I'm over this game I might reinvestigate whether this was better despite being followed by 100% dreck.

Next Week
It's Brisbane away, and yeah that's not going to end well. I don't care that they just drew with North Melbourne, that probably only makes it worse for us because they're not going to let the same thing happen at home. We did nearly pull one out of our arse there last year, until Neal-Bullen was pinched for doing a rugby try over the boundary line. I don't like the chances of a repeat, but am open to something weird and wonderful happening. Not if we score 56 again. The challenge is to get that much.

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

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

IN: Melksham, Petty, Laurie
OUT: Fritsch, Jefferson, Tholstrup (omit)
LUCKY: van Rooyen
UNLUCKY: Anyone whose life depends on us kicking accurately.

Final thoughts
For legal reasons, I can't accurately sum up how it felt to watch this until the Erin Patterson murder trial is over, but I can say with certainty that there will be no Bradbury Plan this year. In its place look out for the Spitebury Plan, where we aim for mid-table mediocrity just to devalue a draft pick.

'Mons Party

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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