The bland played on

I haven't gone into any game 100% convinced about Melbourne winning since 1993, but this was the first time in several years that I didn't rate us any chance. After weeks of trying to conjure up a reverse jinx of individual players this almost set one off for the whole team. Sure all the scoring was stacked into one part of the game, but a side who'd been scoring for fun recently was held to a reasonable total at home, and we started the last quarter ahead. Then the Make A Wish Football Club reappeared, finishing the game with 0.4, and losing by under a kick. Goodbye West Coast '98 style season rebooting win, hello confirmed mid-table mediocrity.

So much of Friday night was good that I'm more broken up about losing than any recent home and away game, and even a couple of the finals. But you get what you deserve for kicking eight goals in one quarter, an average of one for the rest, and nil when it counted. Regardless of the cock-up finish and barely scoring for 3/4 of the game I'm happier at how we played than against North. Shame that premiership points are distributed on final score rather than exceeding expectations (this week anyway), because this has left us where we expected to be, in a fair bit of shit.

If you're already treating this as the 2025 pre-season there's not much to argue about in this performance, but those of us clinging onto outside hopes of a revival are entitled to be deflated. Twice this year we've put on an unexpected brisk run of goals against the Lions while looking almost totally incapable of scoring for the rest of it. Last time Brisbane applied the handbrake after they'd confirmed victory, this time the rush came when it counted but was followed by relatively bugger all. Either way, what must have been our most inexperienced side in years put in the desired effort and nearly pulled off something memorable but ultimately it's a case of 'operation successful, patient dead'. Maybe not quite dead, but with somebody hovering over the top with a defib yelling "clear!"     

Last week we won in a rock bottom atmosphere of disappointment, but this felt much more like a final. Mostly because we kicked an average score, slaughtered a bunch of golden chances to win, then lost a thriller. Stranger things have happened, but this may be as close as we'll get to a September atmosphere this season. At the same time, as much as it feels like the Grim Reaper is rounding the final turn, the only completely unexpected loss was West Coast, so pull a couple of wins out of our arse in the next few weeks and who knows. I think I know, but am still holding off joining the anti-everyone picket line. 

This was a brave performance (and I hate that we're back to having brave performances) Lever's return only restored one vital piece of the puzzle, so unless you've got supernatural belief in Bowey, Melksham, Salem or A. Random making a difference I'd be surprised if we even get to the nightmare scenario of having to beat Collingwood in the last round just to sneak into the eight. Some will say they don't want to fall in, but I'd be happy to get a ticket in the lottery and see what we can do without expectation.  

Recent games have included more storylines than the World Wrestling Federation, but I think we can bash through this relatively quickly. If you're in a hurry the TL:DR is - slow start followed by purplest patch of the season, before clinging on for the second half while Brisbane ran us down in slow motion, before botching a few chances to counter-punch, falling over in the last few minutes, then losing to a suicidal free kick.

By full time I was reportedly swearing enough for the whole house to hear it, but started this game doing the emotional equivalent of watching through my fingers. Brisbane has done silly things like losing to Hawthorn and drawing with Adelaide this year, but seem to have found their bloodlust in recent weeks, including two 150+ point scores - which was about 33% of what we'd done all season. 

With Lever back, I had faith we'd avoid the same plundering that fellow ex-premiership contender Port got last week, but had zero faith of keeping them to a score we could cover. Based on the last quarter against North that could have been as low as 0.1.1. We got a bit from columns A and B, nearly halving their score from last week and kicking our fifth highest tally of the season, but just falling short. The problem - and at the moment there's always a problem - is that the fifth highest total was mostly made up by the first highest quarter. The rest was ordinary. And unlike the previous game I wouldn't have been offended if we'd fallen over the line with our gizzards hanging out.

After having to show a string of games where we tried to put the nation to sleep, Channel 7 must have thought their only chance of value from broadcasting this was Brisbane kicking our brains in. They did their bit to hype 'interstate club vs mid-range Victorians in shit form' with a dramatic pre-match video package that heavily focused on the lights going out last year rather than a dozen more interesting things that have happened between these sides in recent years. And that's without risking their broadcast licence by showing Alex Neal-Bullen power spewing on the Gabba in 2022. The most offensive bit of that footage (viewer discretion advised) is being 10 goals up before half time and knowing what happened in the rematch.

Unlike the players called on to have a big laugh about the power outage I'm still upset about being so far behind at the time, but the one interesting thing to come out of it was behind the ball footage that showed the big bang happened just as an opponent was mid-leaping smother attempt against Angus Brayshaw. If that's not dramatic foreshadowing I don't know what is, but I'll note that even in sudden darkness this guy managed to avoid going through him like a freight train at a level crossing. And if there was a murder in the dark incident I think we'll agree that the Brisbane player would have paid the 'early season'/'not Collingwood player' tax and been suspended.

Days after suggestions that Channel 7 might give Big Turd the Big Turf (spoiler: no way this happens), this putrid cartoon character of a commentator did his best to promote network interests by declaring it was a "good start for Melbourne" 28 seconds in. This was based on a single clearance and inside 50 that failed to generate a score, and at the point where most of us still expected to lose comfortably it felt like a pisstake. Especially when Brisbane soon went two goals up without much resistance. These madcap antics might appeal to some sections of society, but none that should be taken seriously. 

This dickhead annoyed me so much I considered the gimmick where you can sync SEN commentary to your TV but flinched at the prospect of every in-game event being tied to some bootleg-sounding sponsor and ongoing mortality reminding mentions of how Tobin Brothers are celebrating lives. Even if much of it will come from people watching TV in a studio, roll on Foxtel having their own commentary on Channel 7 games next year. Until they go out of their way to annoy me and try to counter-program Taylor with Dwayne Russell. Keep everyone happy and have a range of feeds from Complete Lunacy to Hardcore Footy Nerdery, then I can pick something in the middle and switch to the extreme options as necessary.     

Anyone who saw what we did with a legitimately good start against Freo would have wanted a bit more evidence than that, and the sense that this could get disastrous was furthered by Cam Rayner jumping all over Woewodin at the top of the square, then treating him like a peasant after. I'm all for players doing spicy things to keep the game interesting, but Brisbane is quite a lippy organisation considering they've done nothing except let Collingwood win a flag. Once we're no longer eligible to participate in the premiership race I'll be specifically going for James Jordon, but there will be serious moral dilemmas if we're left with Brisbane holding the fort against Carlton, Collingwood or Essendon flags.

After signing up to thousand of dollars in fines for a pissweak 'melee' against North, our rulebreaking technique of the week was the clattering late spoil. It didn't rattle Brisbane nearly as much as the ground level chase 'n tackle in the second quarter, but I'm ready to rerun the JVR vs Gold Coast 'football action' defence if anyone gets rubbed out. 

They nearly got their second goal from another celebrity finee, as May gently tracked a ball over the line without realising it came off a Brisbane player. Lucky for him the replay showed it came via a knee and we survived with a point, but not before a good old fashioned exchange of views with Lever. Despite clear video evidence that it wasn't a goal some humanoids booed loudly, proving that some people need to exiled from mainland Australia. To be fair May did yell at Tomlinson for an even less ridiculous leave against Freo but as a White Line Fever nutter I'm sure he'd appreciate the irony.

This was only a quick break from them pounding away like a huge score was on the cards, before Pickett made his usual Mr. Electricity contribution while all stood still around him. He kicked off one of his best nights (well, best three quarters but he wasn't alone in disappearing late) with a big tackle in front of goal. That helped slow Brisbane down, and with the Gawn to Oliver/Viney service working better than anytime recently we got back in the game. Viney did pretty much as last week, throwing himself at every contest like a mad bastard, stopping them gettting it enough that you can excuse most of the disposals missing a target. After a career worst game, Oliver bounced back for much better this time. He didn't run it out, and is still light years below his peak footy gathering years but the right instincts are still there if we don't do something stupid like trade him to Port Adelaide for pick 37 and a fringe Motlop.

I was happy that we'd stopped letting goals in, but at the price of not kicking them ourselves. This time there were plenty of opportunities, but after zero behinds after half time last week we fed the habit with a 1.5 quarter plus bonus OOF. In another throwback to the worst win ever, Rivers got anothrt one on the run, but not until he'd been pinched running the Olympic Marathon first. 

If they'd punished that accordingly instead of missing from 20 metres out it might have provoked a collapse, but we survived until quarter time looking likely to battle hard but slowly ebb away to our death. Then out of nowhere, the best response to going under siege since Casey Ryback. I wouldn't have enjoyed it so much knowing we'd only kick one more goal for the game, but at the time eight in a quarter was a welcome break from recent medieval sadness. 

A word for Andy Moniz-Wakefield, who survived the dreaded fringe player change of position in the VFL, and had to rack up shitloads of disposals for weeks on end before getting his chance. I was worried it was going to come off like cycling through the list while the house burned down around us, but he looked comfortable against good opposition. Whether it's a long-term thing I can't say, but if we were at full pelt this year he may never have got a chance then got the boot after three years on the list and if we have to be in reduced circumstances I'm happy he got a chance and made the most of it.

For the first time since ??? we genuinely had a decent team on the run for a few minutes. It's happened in patches this year, but not to this level. It started slowly, with our first goal being wiped out via one of May's occasional short kick-in disasters. The old 'wallop it long and to the left' move is a cliche, and maybe Gawn was off the ground at the time, but if we're going to be beaten to a mark I'd rather it happen 60 metres from goal, not right in front. That could've been the green light to fall apart, but instead provoked us to go absolutely boonta. Pickett and Viney were at the heart of it, but Gawn's dominance in the middle helped. It wasn't one of his better around the ground games, but he flayed McInerney at the stoppages, and for once we did something when ball met ground.

By the time Oliver got a 50 that was actually about 40 (after North got one that was 70) for the sixth in a row I was getting excited. This is always the most dangerous thing to do around Melbourne, because naturally the next thing we did was let one in at the other end. But Pickett's fourth before the break restored the lead and by christ we looked good again. My only concern was recent inability to string multiple high scoring quarters together. We'll boot five or six (not usually eight), then follow it with one or none, so I wasn't getting sucked in to thinking this was a life-affirming romp waiting to happen.

The rot started in comical fashion after May took a mark on the wing, then after everyone ran forward the Brisbane player appeal for a free like he was playing cricket, the umpire went "you know what, you're right", and paid a block that left our backline standing around going "pardon?" while three Brisbane players ran into an open goal. Not for the last time in this game they nearly stuffed up a golden opportunity, but finally made it count. 

Turner popped up for a goal not long after, and after his shithouse miss on King's Birthday I'm back to being confident in his set shots, but the petrol light was starting to blink. So was the goalkicking accuracy light, with Langdon and Petty both missing gettable shots. Ironically, after weeks of hanging shit on his forward craft this was Petty's best game in ages. The issue is that he can't kick a set shot to save himself anymore, which was cruelly highlighted by the fact that he got near the ball more often than the last month combined, took five contested marks, and did enough to have four shots. 

One of them would have made the margin 28, but turned straight into a Brisbane goal at the other end, setting basic people who couldn't comprehend how much better this was than him not getting a touch at all off onto all sorts of excessively personal rants. I'm excessively on the record in not wanting him to play as a forward, but you're as late to the party choosing this as a week for a full turn as I will be when eventually cracking the full shits with Goodwin. Both he and Turner showed improvement here, and if we're going to stick with trying to make them a thing then here's hoping the big click isn't far away. Then just as he'd got some confidence in one part of his game, Harrison limped off with an ankle injury, got subbed out in just the week we might have got something out of him at the end, will probably find out in a few days that his leg needs to be amputated. I bet they'd still try and play him, hopping around on the remaining one in the background.

It was heading in the wrong direction when Pickett briefly recovered the momentum with a lovely fifth, leaving us 15 points ahead at three quarter time. I knew Brisbane was far from dead, but dearly wanted to believe that we'd survive a competitive, maybe even high-scoring final term and come out ahead. A trench warfare struggle with no goals was more likely, but surely (SURELY) we wouldn't go full loser and have a second goalless final quarter in two weeks?

If they were just going to take him off anyway, I have NFI why Petty came back on for the last quarter, but he could have made it worthwhile by converting the opening set shot. I don't know if Kynan Brown would have made a difference in a team that looked collectively dead, but it took another half a quarter for him to come on. This time he didn't get to open his account with a flying, goal-saving tackle, but could always look forward to his dreams coming true with a full game in the VFL the next day.

The rest of this was like a nature documentary with a predator stalking wounded prey, waiting to tear it to buggery. We were holding up at the back, including McDonald flying in to stop what would have been an obvious goal, but couldn't for the life of us put the game away. This time there were shots, just not many, and none any good. Between the defenders and Viney flying in for a K. Brown-esque super-tackle to stop a goal, a lot of players were justified in walking off annoyed that we couldn't finish this off.

One person who would have been shocked at our inability to hold on was your old friend Brian Taylor, who issued the ridiculous prediction that we'd done enough to hang on while seven points up with four minutes left. About 20 seconds later Brisbane kicked a goal. Earlier the commentators hung shit on whoever plays the post-goal music at the Gabba for getting the songs wrong, when they themselves got the songs wrong. Not long after, the night of live ladder updates with implications of a win for either side (as if this meant anything in Round 15) were rendered useless when scores were level, at which point these useless tits didn't put up a ladder explaining what a draw would mean.

Now there was no saving the game, but also fat chance of winning it. Brisbane had all the play, and got the decisive goal when the Bullet took a quick diversion from his career best season to fail the Acting Football League test, blatantly walking over the line under no pressure and giving away a free. Try as much as you like, you'll never stuff up a game against Brisbane in a more interesting way than Lever twirling himself into a 50 at the end of that final. It still required a brilliant finish from Huge McLuggage, but we'd finally got as deserved for not being able to make the game safe.

Now any result with premiership points attached would have been a steal but I was into it.  Fritsch had a big swing at a snap that would have levelled it, which opened the door to a seven point play miracle scenario that they could use in the highlights package next time. They gave us a chance, except that Rivers got it too far out to score, couldn't bring himself to square it to McDonald for a running ping, and finally ended up opting for a long kick to Tom Sparrow vs three defenders, which went as well as you'd expect. God knows where any of the alleged forwards were at this point, but there was nobody in the vicinity for the massive snap/bullshit toepoke required to win it and we were stuffed.

I've remained calm for all the other losses this season, but this set me off and ended in a child-size couch (child not included) being flung across the room and into a door. That'll be the premiership anaesthesia wearing off but it's nice to feel something again. 

2024 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Kysaiah Pickett
4 - Jack Viney
3 - Max Gawn
2 - Clayton Oliver
1 - Jacob van Rooyen

Apologies to Lever, McDonald, Neal-Bullen, Petty and Rivers.

Leaderboard
There's still a minimum 40 votes to be had so anyone's still an outside chance, but - famous last words alert - it's hard to see Gawn losing from here. Even harder to imagine anyone other than May outscoring him at a quick enough rate to stage a K. Brown vs North-style last minute run-down. No movement in the other minor awards, and with Lever's return I'm holding off on upgrading May to provisional Seecamp winner for a bit.

37 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
27 - Steven May (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
23 - Christian Petracca
22 - Alex Neal-Bullen
18 - Jake Lever
16 - Jack Viney
12 - Kysaiah Pickett
11 - Clayton Oliver
9 - Judd McVee
7 - Tom McDonald
6 - Trent Rivers
4 - Bayley Fritsch, Christian Salem, Tom Sparrow, Adam Tomlinson, Jacob van Rooyen
3 - Ed Langdon, Daniel Turner (JOINT LEADER: Rising Star Award), Caleb Windsor (JOINT LEADER: Rising Star Award)
2 - Kade Chandler, Harrison Petty
1 - Jack Billings, Blake Howes

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
The leaderboard is all about Q4 goals in wins and I don't see any need to change that. Maybe this would have become relevant if Trent Rivers got onto a cannon at the end, or if the Sparrow vs Brisbane battle had ended in somebody doing a bicycle kick from 40 metres out on the boundary line. Instead I'd like the Pickett one where he fended off, then snapped from distance. Bless that man for providing a spark of entertainment in an otherwise dull operation.

1st - Bayley Fritsch (Q4) vs Geelong
2nd - Kysaiah Pickett (Q4) vs Footscray
3rd - Kysaiah Pickett (Q4) vs Geelong

Next week
If you think there's anything left in this season, it's all on the line in our home rematch with King Harley Race, because we either beat West Coast or fold the tent for 2024. Hopefully this time they don't kick Lever's face off in the first quarter, and find the MCG less inviting than Premiership Stadium. Last time we were so generous allowing the Eagles to romp around unchallenged that they turned up the next week thinking the code was cracked and lost to Adelaide by 99 points. 

Even after their best performance together I still refuse to believe we're going anywhere with Petty and Turner in the same side. Maybe after full pre-seasons as forwards, but not yet. But what else are you going to do? Assuming Goodwin would drink poison before doing the obvious McDonald - Petty swap, I'm frightened to say we probably have to go with it again. The whereabouts of Ben Brown have been answered by a 'knee - TBC' injury report, so we'll probably never see him again, Fullarton is about as likely to kick goals for us as Brodie Grundy, and Schache is the only KPF option less exciting than the ones we've got. So you're down to playing smaller with McAdam (nah), or wheeling out another first gamer and hoping Jefferson doesn't get swallowed by the black hole of death inside our forward 50.

Windsor was cooked the last time we played West Coast and we've kept playing him every week, so it's time to finally to finally pat him on the back for a job well done and send him away for a couple of weeks. Otherwise, I've lost faith in Chandler a bit so he can get the spirit of 2021 back by applying tracksuit and waiting 3.5 quarters to be called on. Kynan Brown got to stretch his legs against Preston on a wet ground with a massage parlour clearly visible behind the fence, and from the parts that I watched I'm satisfied that he did well enough to justify starting on the ground next week. Despite the same standalone VFL opposition disclaimer, Jefferson looked alright in the parts of the game I saw, but if Petty is fit sitting through his recent form then chuck him after five contested marks would be odd.  

At the time of writing I've got no idea what's happening with Salem. After the unconvincing 'tactical sub' when clearly hurt last week, he wasn't listed on the Monday injury reports, before missing with injury. If he's mobile I suppose you play him, even if he's been average this year. Same for Bowey, who was a late withdrawal. Whether you need them both and Moniz-Wakefield, who would be extraordinarily stiff to get the boot after one game, I don't know. Send one of them forward and they can hold a reunion with all the other defenders. 

Not making any predictions because I've got no idea what's happening, but preparing for Round 1, 2013 style beetroot-faced yelling over the fence if we lose. I can't bring myself to go fully mental so will just curl into a ball and think about the good times.

IN: Bowey, K. Brown (to start)
OUT: Windsor (omit), Chandler (to sub)
LUCKY: Woewodin
UNLUCKY: Howes, Jefferson, Laurie

The All New Bradbury Plan...
... is irrelevant if we don't contribute by winning, but just for the record,

Essendon d. Collingwood (50/50)
North Melbourne d. Gold Coast
Port Adelaide d. Footscray (almost 50/50, but go against the side with a healthy percentage)
Hawthorn d. Geelong
Carlton d. GWS
Fremantle d. Richmond
Sydney d. St. Kilda
Adelaide d. Brisbane

Final thoughts
Part of me wants to be happy about an improved performance in difficult circumstances and good signs for the future, the remaining 99% clinging to the hope of immediate success is really miserable.

Vent your spleen

Remember when the only consistently enjoyable thing about following Melbourne was self-deprecating comedy gold? Victories were so rare that we treated them like joyful community events for about 48 hours before reality kicked in. This is not somewhere I want to be again, but it sure beat the other 350 days a year when we were pus.

As any sort of forward motion was welcome, there was no concept of a 'bad win'. GWS 2012 at Manuka Oval featured the worst teams I've ever seen in the same place, but even if you couldn't love a slopfest like that, it was a welcome week off from being humiliated. 

The first post-apocalypse win that left me slightly disappointed was Brisbane 2015, but I was still deep in a "shit wins are great wins" mentality that has never really gone away. The key factor is how you see the future. In recent years we've twice come back from five goals down against worse North sides, but it still felt like we were heading in the right direction (2021) or still had enough life force left to threaten in September (2023).

This episode of Seconds From Disaster had none of that. We got 39 points ahead without ever really impressing, then stopped as if struck by lightning, failed to score for the last 40 minutes against a lowly side that has bled last quarter goals from every orifice in recent weeks, and only avoided an after the siren kick because two of their players had a "You first. No you first" politeness disaster. Cue people punching on for 'End is Nigh' placards like toilet paper during COVID.

We could have won by any sort of margin and not believed in it translating to important games, but the collapse was so spectacular that the reaction went from "yeah, but you won't do that against the good sides" to "we're all going to die". They may as well have complimented the Grand Old Flag by ceremonially unveiling a new Veil of Negativity, because this was dire. Feel free to put a brave face on if you're directly employed by the MFC, but even fantasists like me who have been holding onto the hope of pulling off a shock Hollywood ending are realising that 2024 is going down the toilet.

Maybe four premiership points acquired via the equivalent of sticking your hand into a septic tank will prove crucial and later we'll chortle about being such panicky idiots. That would be fantastic, but between injuries, inexperience, form concerns, the suspicion that there's an outbreak of misery amongst the playing group, and our almost religious devotion to a malfunctioning forward structure I'll eat a pair of Brian Taylor's sweaty undies if we're seriously considered premiership contenders again this year.

Optimists will point out that when we were 39 points up North only had four goals, but even if the game stopped then you wouldn't have been rushing to cancel September plans. North has had their best run for years, and are generating some very good players, but still have half a squad who are only there to fill a spot until somebody better comes along. They played a half against Collingwood that was light years ahead of anything we managed, but I was hoping to assert some sort of dominance, no matter how abstract. Instead, we showed less killer instinct than the RSPCA, nearly lost in all time classic slapstick fashion, and left fans flatter than a plateful of piss.

If you're desperate enough for omens, this was our first win after a scoreless last quarter since 1964 so bet heavily now on Judd McVee sneaking forward to kick the winning goal on Grand Final Day. The key difference is that the original didn't lose one of its most important players for the season with crippling internal injuries. I'm sure Norm Smith would have also sent Petracca back on, but he'd have sensible parked him in the goalsquare out of harm's way instead of pointing to the nearest contest and not conceding it was having a detrimental effect on the team until seeing 20 minutes of facial expressions that looked like a man pissing glass.

With his organs confirmed rooted, the Petracca prognosis went from 'lucky we've got the bye', to 'maybe he'll come back for the last few rounds', to 'see you in 2025' messages directly from the intensive care unit. And from the rest of us, a bit of 'Jesus christ, lucky nobody crashed into him'. I doubt he'll go down the same path as our last durable midfielder who battled surprise injury, but am willing to join the #fistedforever death spiral and fret that he'll never be the same. Despite the best efforts of some flat earthers to deny that it happened, we'll always have 25/09/2021. Buzz Aldrin punched somebody who told him the moon landings were fake, and I'm encouraging our premiership players to do the same if they ever meet a flag denier.

I'll take the advice of rug sweeping experts at the AFL that we followed correct procedure in letting Petracca go back on (but am still bitter that they didn't take him straight back off when he was clearly broken), but it was a great excuse for the usual collection of journalists and amateurs who should have their hard drives seized to stick the boots in. Somehow in our longest period of not being shit since John Northey we've reached the point where you can fling any sort of dirt at us and it'll stick. This is only supposed to happen when you're at a Neeld-era level of distress. The classic "if you sit by the banks of a river long enough the bodies of your enemies will float by" comes to mind, but it feels like you might be waiting a while. 

Our best part of this season coincided with the media treating us like the Medellin Cartel, so I thought another round of being dragged through the mud might inspire a backs-to-the-wall response. Except  the players probably thought it was a debacle too. Then how about the chance to save a once-promising year that is now threatening to miserably fizz out? I'll remind you at this point, as you're probably introducing head to oven reading this, that we actually won. But even if you're not prepared to admit it publicly, if there was a midweek replay you'd 100% expect North to win.

There'd have been more heat on us if it wasn't for a free kick staging scandal, but I say it's about time we got into the dark arts after years of opponents diving headfirst into tackles. People were more upset about Steven May pretending to have a sore head than they were when Brayshaw was smothered into oblivion. May is now hated by fans of Brisbane, Collingwood, North and French cuisine, who can all form an orderly queue to piss up a rope. Until he does something closer to murder he's a hero in my book. Tedious people who didn't win a Grand Final with their hammy held together by string can boo until it validates their miserable lives, but he's so good that I'm already sad about him retiring well before it happens. Lever might be the straw that stirs the drink, but at his best May is worth the failed inside 50 that caused the ball to rocket back towards our goal.     

Based on the last few weeks, it wouldn't have been an earth-shattering surprise if we'd lost. Which says something about how far our star has fallen. The best indicator of something going horribly wrong had nothing to do with on-field matters, but me being in the ground. It feels like I've seen as any live losses as wins in recent years, but as much as I'd prefer to be there every week, if you think Melbourne's forward line is disjointed, come and live my life for a bit.

The MCG never had the courtesy to respond to my post-Round 1 complaint about shutting the top of the Ponsford Stand, but against the odds it was back just in time for our worst home crowd against a Victorian team (non-pandemic division) since 2013. That was for a 1-11 team who'd recently lost games by 90, 95 and 83 points, this was full-scale abandoning of a sinking ship and even that figure was propped up by large numbers of downtrodden opposition fans who thought they might be in with a chance..

It's not that the alleged 'People's Ground' was taking up the cause of fans who want to sit dozens of rows away from everyone else, they just realised it's even more cost efficient to neck the entire top level of the Southern Stand, including the AFL Members. There were so few people there that they could have shut level four entirely and put us all up in unused corporate boxes like disaster survivors.

The payoff for all this glorious space was having every seagull in Victoria flying overhead. The MCG's Anti Bird Coordinator must have chucked a sickie and been replaced by Alfred Hitchcock, because they were everywhere, carpet bombing shit on poor bastards who'd gone out of their way to attend this less than glamorous event. It made spectating an extreme sport, and until finding something better to worry about in the last quarter I was terrified about my number coming up next. Turns out level one was the place to be viciously shat upon, which resonates with me because the first time it happened to me was right behind the goals at the city end. That day we were 75% of the way to winning by 121 points, here you might have been pelted with all sorts of avian disease while also watching us play like it was 2015. 

Maybe the birds were spooked by the pre-match appearance of a marching band that had more members than there were spectators. When these American kids were told they'd be playing before an AFL game they probably all went "a what?", rushed straight to Google for more information, and were misled into thinking it would be a blockbuster crowd. By the time I arrived they were tootling away to 90,000 empty seats and still went home with better memories than fans of the winning team.  

Nothing says 'tough times at Melbourne' like a brass band, and we missed a fantastic opportunity by not paying their trombonist to stick around and do this whenever something went wrong...

... but by full time they'd have died of oxygen deprivation.

With all the distress caused by the end of this game, it's hard to believe that we kicked five goals to one in the first quarter. That's undoubtedly a good thing, but the famous 'Feels Like' measurement would have halved that lead. Nothing we did looked easy, and a lot of the scoring was courtesy of unforced blunders by the opposition. You'll take goals any way you can, but this was a long, long way from pelting North on the same ground last year. Back then we also let them kick the last three goals, but not until going 108 points in front first. Final quarter goalkickers that night included unlikely once-off teammates Josh Schache and Brodie Grundy. Keep that in mind in case it ever comes up in a trivia contest.

The first quarter wasn't all that inspiring, but as there were no signs yet that they'd end the game treating us like the Little League I was willing to go along with a glorified training session. There were still challenges to overcome, like the all-hands molestation of Gawn at every stoppage. Clarkson might be a White Line Fever nutcase but he didn't win flags galore by accident, and obviously realised that in lieu of a high performing midfield Max would try to grab the ball and do his own clearances. Not with opponents hanging off him for dear life. He battled this infringement of dignity to put in a solid performance, but if worked well enough that he may as well get used to being humped at every stoppage for the rest of the season.

Challenge #2 was the latest chapter in Clayton Oliver's toil and struggle years. Remember when he was practically untaggable? Coaches kept trying it, he played like the opponent wasn't there and had 30 touches weekly. Now he's without any of Brayshaw, Petracca, Jordon, Harmes etc... for company and no longer has untouchable aura. I get that he didn't have a proper pre-season (not a footy one anyway), and remain hopeful that he'll come back in top form next year but it's a hard watch. He's had decent games this year, but only the occasional reminders of his sixth sense years, when he could handball over his head to the exact spot a teammate was standing.

If Clayts didn't have recent form for going astray when not involved in club activities I'd say send him off on a mini-pre season and reload for finals/a headstart on next year. If we're going to play him every week no matter what, I question the effort put into getting him into the game. He'll never be a Petracca style forward, but just send him to wander around down there for a few minutes as a break from being scragged. It might stop him doing silly things like taking a theatrical, umpire duping dives when lightly pushed by an opponent. It might not work, but it's not like we can score much less.

On that note, welcome to the regular segment where I howl into the void about our Malfunction Junction attack. Jerry Seinfeld was playing over the road, and once he was done being heckled by nuffies he should have come to the 'G and asked "What is the deal with Melbourne's forward line?" I don't know shit about footy tactics, but am convinced that a decent forward line can cover up a lot of other deficiencies. Seems obvious but it's more than the direct kicking of goals, it's about the linking up, the contests inside 50, bringing the ball to ground etc... etc... The handful of footy TV shows don't have enough time to go into the depth you want about your club, but please give me an hour On The Couch special where Garry Lyon and Jason Dunstall spend an hour mocking behind the goal footage of our forward structure. The studio will need to have fire extinguishers handy in case they spontaneously combust.

Our forwards were certainly trying, but after sitting behind them for the 50% of game where our only goal came from a running midfielder, I need expert confirmation that they collectively have no idea how to be forwards. Turner and Petty had their best games in weeks, but that's not saying much, and didn't point to improvement against good teams. They can do something if the ball comes directly to them, but for positioning, leading, and playing together as a unit they're like Mark Corrigan (not the ex-Casey coach) threatening to put one right in the goal hole. I'd be happy for one of Petty or Turner to learn on the job, but expecting both to do it at the same time is madness. JVR is doing his best to lead the group but isn't a miracle worker yet, and with everything glued up like a Beijing traffic jam Fritsch has gone missing. Even if there's no obvious replacement (meanwhile, here's Tom McDonald banging goals from 50 but no thought to trying him for a bit?) try something else. 

It's still too early for me to turn on the coaches (no complaints if you want to), but this has almost cracked me. Do they seriously think this is the best we can do? If you so may as well go completely off the wall and send a mystery player forward every week. Tomlinson, Lever, May, Salem, McVee, Fullarton, Jefferson, Kentfield, Cuthbertson etc... leading to a shock run to the Grand Final where Schache gets left on the bench for four quarters again. There was going to be undue pressure on Melksham to make a difference immediately after returning from long term injury, but he's going to walk in and find everyone dead like Mr. Pink at the end of Reservoir Dogs.

While we're horrifically off the boil in this department, forward coach Greg Stafford is on the end of assistant coach slander not seen since the Bohdan Babijczuk era. Other than the time he gleefully banged rubbish bin lids together I've got NFI what he does so won't join the pile on yet, but do you think the nutter who jumped the fence to stalk him years ago was actually sent from the future to pass on the important message that Harrison Petty is a defender and should be played accordingly?

I will note that Turner turned limited opportunities into two goals, and that Petty took a bloody good intercept mark during the first quarter. If we can get opposition defenders to do more insane kicks across goal he might become the world's first specialist forward 50 intercept player. Otherwise he's at the wrong end and either needs to self-exclude or reveal what sexy inside gossip he's got on the coaches. We don't need intimate details on the emotional state of players, but the reaction of teammates to his goal felt a bit deeper than just supporting somebody who's been struggling with form. There's something weird about the whole operation at the moment, and I'm not declaring a mental health emergency but it's like some terrible, deep dark secret about the inner-workings of the club will be revealed later and we'll all go "ahh, that's why they were acting like that".

The usual disclaimers apply about not trying to run any of these players out of town. I'm frustrated with the way we're playing, but can't take fans whose only solution to underperforming players is to flog them at a discount price. Lucky these campaigners aren't in charge of health policy or granny would be turned into Soylent Green at the first sign of a cold. Clayton Oliver looks like he's getting zero enjoyment out of the game and conceded the stupidest 50 for not giving the ball back since Lever in the Brisbane final, but before we leave a bone fide premiership legend and multiple B&F winner out for hard rubbish, any chance of getting him through a full pre-season and seeing what happens?

So anyway, even if you couldn't take the four goal quarter time lead seriously it was better than the alternative. Even against a backline that has been shelled from every direction for years, we were still making scoring look difficult but it was a start. As long as we didn't concede bulk goals then you could see the path to an unconvincing but important win. Earlier in the day I'd been asked for a prediction and said "if we keep them to under 70 we'll win". This turned out to be correct, with not much margin for error.

Between two sets of fans going in opposite enthusiasm directions, and some spicy on field action, there was more atmosphere than a game like this deserved. The central villain was Eddie Ford, who sounds he should be the drummer for a 70s rock band, looks like a VCE student, and has a flair for agitation.

Eddie Ford is so awesome for this #AFLDeesRoos pic.twitter.com/uf8AJpdQ2s

— Todd Davey (@ToddJDavey) June 22, 2024

The more players spicing up games like this the better. I was going to talk about him showing Viney how many wins he's played in, but turns out the 33 gamer was a finger short. Jesus H Christ, even we never got to the point of having somebody with a 2-31 record. Don't let that detract from the fact that we need more action like this in the league, and how much you'd enjoy it if our players did the same thing.

We struggle to play two good quarters in a row, so to nobody's surprise the goals dried up after quarter time. They still weren't kicking any either, and for the first 15 minutes it looked like another ad free Saturday night for Channel 7. In the end each side got one, and we were left pretty much where the quarter started but with what counts by modern standards as a 'brawl' at half time. This article oddly describing it as 'out all carnage' was taking it a bit far. I missed the lot by going for hideously overpriced food at the siren, which probably cost more than what any of the players involved will be fined.

In many ways this game was pointless, especially the second half. For only the second time in VFL/AFL history, neither side scored a behind after the break. We helped by not kicking goals at the end either, but with our recent accuracy woes this was as unusual as kicking the club's highest ever fourth quarter score in 2013, or winning a Prelim/Grand Final via blitzkrieg attack then spending years trying to bore opponents to death. 

For a game that ended in fans having to be restrained from self-harm, we looked to have finally shaken them in the middle of the third quarter. None of it was in the slightest bit impressive, but three goals in five minutes took the margin to 39 and to the outer reaches of what you'd believe we could give away. When Gawn took us to 11.4, North was still on 4.7, and it wasn't quite the Chris Sullivan Line but at the outer limits of what you could believe we'd let slip. 

And bloody hell did we have a bash at letting it slip. Thinking back to when we were in the same boat as North now, the only comparison I can make is Essendon 2014 if it ended with the ball rolling out of bounds instead of Salem marking in acres of space. And we still nearly lost that game straight from the next centre bounce. This time we could have gone a point down after five minutes and probably still never scored again, it was like the power had gone out Gabba lighting style.

It wasn't all bad news. Another reminder that we did end up winning, but also Rivers looked promising as a midfielder, Tholstrup showed signs of good to come in the future, and even Viney got plenty of the ball, even if it regularly ended in slaughter. Now, back to our scheduled program Thanks, I Hate It.

Whinging about the umpires sort of misses the point of everything else we were shit at in the last quarter, but they did get the first goal from a soft as butter downfield free. Consider it karmic payback for the Oliver/May shenanigans. I've got more objection to the next one, via a 50 where the player on the mark was bilked into moving via a fake handball despite this being excluded from the rule ages ago. It was a weird night for umpiring, and without taking sides in the 'who had it worse' debate, I saw a few times where they changed their mind halfway through a signal. Maybe this happens all the time, but it felt like some of them were stressed out by this enormous, high profile game they'd been sent to officiate.

Unlike the rest of this post, you can sum up everything from here until the big tackle easily - North did as they liked, we were less threatening than Mother Teresa on Zoloft. By the time the margin was under a goal with plenty of time left for us not to response, the idea of losing was so comical that I'd almost come to terms with it. Like thinking Geelong may as well kick another goal so I could have been at the record loss, it was like people were already going to be really upset so why not send them entirely over the edge. Good coping strategy at the time, a few days later I can confirm that had we actually lost I'd have kicked an inanimate object off its hinges.

The only part of this fiasco I wanted to see highlights of was Nathan Brown fretting over Kynan's debut. The default setting for first gamer parents is 'going off like a pork chop' so it was refreshing to see him absolutely bricking it. In the company of Daniel Ward and unbeaten MFC senior coach Adem Yze, the man suspiciously nicknamed 'Doggy' had the expression of somebody waiting for their kid's medical results to come through.

I was in such a masochistic mood after the game that listening to talkback radio seemed like a good idea. The callers came from across the drunk/senile/dropped on head as babies spectrum, including one who reacted to Yze having the slightest bit of non-Richmond related enjoyment like he'd done high treason. Maybe get upset if he was wearing our scarf and falling from his seat at the siren, but if you're not sentimental enough for a guy to support a 30+ year friend and a kid he's probably known since birth then there may be a position for you in the war crimes and genocide department. And if you're really upset about it then send Yze back to us thanks.

Speaking of sentimentality (not to be confused with siege mentality), it's a shame that after all these years we finally debuted somebody as the sub. I'm sure Brown preferred it to battling a Casey Fields wind tunnel the next day, and it's better than not being picked at all but still feels uncouth by modern standards. He showed good signs in pre-season but somehow looks younger six months down the road. This is the most baffling age scenario since Charlie Spargo (remember him?) turned up looking like a middle aged divorcee who's slightly lost the plot and is doing his own research on vaccines.

Of all the people we could have given the novelty-size tactical hook to, Salem seemed an odd choice at the same time North was kicking the door down. Not to beat up on the usual suspects, but what more were you getting from the tall forwards as a group? Petty took one good contested mark and may have been jibbed out of another, and Turner had multiple goals on the board but we'd reverted to attacking as if drunk so one could have made way and not made things worse.

The good news for Brown Jr is that we might have made him wait forever, but he joined the exclusive club of players whose first involvement in AFL football was a sick rundown tackle just as their side looked like botching a game in humiliating fashion. It wasn't quite a game saving tackle because we still another vigorous bash at losing, which is a shame because that would have almost made everything worthwhile. Other than, as we're legally obliged to state, the premiership gained for having a higher score than the other team at the end.

And so we had another tentative go at sending the ball forward and keeping it there (kicking the sealer was well beyond us by now), and admittedly Petty was rorted out of what would have been a crucial mark on the half-forward flank. This led to the latest chapter in North pelting forward in convoy and the aforementioned marking mixup that saved us. I'm surprised it didn't bounce straight out the back to somebody on his own in the square. But for what it's worth we hung on for dear life to win and our remaining fans went mild.

If there was ever a time for the captain to take a stand and tell his team that they won't be singing this song this was it. Not the sort of bold stance you'd expect from the MFC, and off they went with a 75% power rendition that nobody except bored journalists would have missed if it didn't happen. We'd have been called bastards for denying Tholstrup/Brown their moment, and it would probably cause unnecessary controversy but fuck a duck, the majority of this side has seen ultimate success, surely they knew pretending to joyously celebrate this was like when the Christmas Eve news reports on the location of Santa's sleigh. 

I'm aware that this comes just a few paragraphs after complaining about people being a joyless drain on society, but the world won't stop if you shelve the jaunty showtune for a week after going scoreless for 40 minutes against North Melbourne. I'm not saying the players should fill the spa with boiling water and write tear-stained apologies to fans, but for once celebrate winning behind closed doors and send a message that you're not prepared to settle for winning like this. Then when you win properly against decent opposition sing it so hard bits of your lungs fly across the room. Instead we continued Going Through The Motions Night before the people involved dispersed to reassure the public that it wasn't all bad, the lunatic fringe of our fanbase got excessively personal towards players they'd have lined up to nosh off 24 months ago, and I sulked off thinking 'is that all there is?"

I'd rather eat plutonium than watch the replay, but we'll judge the long-term value of this later in the year. For now, strap yourself in for Friday night because all signs point to it being putrid.

2024 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Steven May
4 - Trent Rivers
3 - Max Gawn
2 - Jack Viney
1 - Alex Neal-Bullen

Apologies to McDonald, McVee and Pickett + an encouragement award for Tholstrup 

Leaderboard
As long as they stay upright it's hard to see the big one going to anyone other than Gawn or May from here. There's still a minimum of 45 votes available, so even if he's probably never heard of Allen Jakovich, maybe Kentfield can take inspiration and go bananas in the last few weeks. Gawn is already 99.99% of the way to the Stynes, and May is on the verge of provisional status in the Seecamp. The Rising Star is the close one, where nobody's scored a vote for weeks and any random could come from the clouds and snatch it in one game. Which would be great if it came as part of a surprise match-winning performance, not default votes because everyone else was crap.

34 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
27 - Steven May (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
23 - Christian Petracca
22 - Alex Neal-Bullen
18 - Jake Lever
12 - Jack Viney
9 - Judd McVee, Clayton Oliver
7 - Tom McDonald, Kysaiah Pickett
6 - Trent Rivers
4 - Bayley Fritsch, Christian Salem, Tom Sparrow, Adam Tomlinson
3 - Ed Langdon, Daniel Turner (JOINT LEADER: Rising Star Award), Jacob van Rooyen, Caleb Windsor (JOINT LEADER: Rising Star Award)
2 - Kade Chandler, Harrison Petty, 
1 - Jack Billings, Blake Howes

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Pickett's opener was nice, but it's got to be Rivers wandering through half the North side (a Rivers dance if you will) for that goal on the run in the second quarter. He's not Petracca and never will be, but this was a fair cover version. I was almost going to show ridiculous recency bias and promote this to third on the leaderboard but that would mean having to reference this game every week until something else beat it, so no.

1st - Bayley Fritsch (Q4) vs Geelong
2nd - Kysaiah Pickett (Q4) vs Footscray
3rd - Kysaiah Pickett (Q4) vs Geelong

Next week
It's been a season of weird results, but I'll fall off the back of the couch if we beat Brisbane. They're prone to wacky performances like losing to Hawthorn or drawing with Adelaide, but have otherwise scored over 150 twice in recent weeks and have the second best percentage in the league. On paper they're going to kick seven shades of shit from us, but in the unlikely event of a morale-boosting performance I'll happily go back to fantasising about a miracle saving our season.

If you're hoping for the biggest post-win turnover since Freo saddled us with the pre-finals bye by chucking a last round game, the bad news is that a) we'll never do it, b) I think they're actually quite happy with how this game went, and c) who are you going to pick as replacements? Assuming Lever comes back, the AFL listed players at Casey this week were Adams, Billings, Fullarton, Jefferson, Kentfield, Laurie, McAdam, Moniz-Wakefield, Schache, Sestan, Verrall, and Woewodin. That's a lot of names, but not much to make your liver quiver. 

With Windsor hitting the wall at force on Saturday night, I thought we might give Woewodin a full game after weeks of substitute wankery, only for him to get injured in a pointless marking dual with a teammate. So that was good. He came back and didn't do much, but I'm picking him for want of other options. Alternatively go back to Billings again so I can throw myself from an upstairs window.

Laurie did nothing against Collingwood but it was a bit harsh turfing him straight away considering how many chances some other players have had, so there's that. Otherwise, your senior experience options are *drum roll* Fullarton, McAdam and Schache. The first has missed the boat, the second couldn't kick over 40 metres last time, and the less said about Option C the better. 

Moniz-Wakefield had another shitload of Reserves disposals, and looked composed when he had the ball in defence but assuming Brown gets another chance, I don't know if we're ready to go full Casey and play 1st, 2nd and 3rd gamers in the same senior side. There was something fishy about Salem being allegedly tactically subbed out though, so if he's hurt then give me primetime AMW off a five day break against a team scoring for fun. What could possibly go wrong?

There's more chance of Putin dropping Ukraine than an unenforced change to our tall forward mix, and as we didn't even let Ben Brown play one last game against North in the VFL it seems unlikely that they'll go for the radical plan of playing somebody who knows what a forward does. It might fail miserably, but on what reasonable grounds can anyone think we'll get anywhere playing Petty and Turner together? One of them fine, but both at the same time is suicidal. 

My next selection in the category of Things That Will Never Happen is to send McDonald forward and play either Tomlinson, Petty, or both in defence. The nuclear option is to reward what passes for VFL form this year and give Matt Jefferson a game, but I've watched enough of Casey recently to know that throwing him into our slow-moving clump of a forward line would be cruel. Maybe later in the year, but can we exhaust all the options involving experienced, big-bodied players who have proven goalkicking history first?

I'd like to preface these suggested changes by saying that I'm aware Petty will play in the forward line unless the game is called off due to an alien invasion. Just trying to set up a scenario where I can either say "I told you so" or be wrong but happy. 

IN: Lever, Woewodin
OUT: Petty, Windsor (omit)
LUCKY: Chandler, Fritsch, Oliver, Turner
UNLUCKY: Jefferson, Laurie

The All-New Bradbury Plan
I think we can agree there's no point looking at anything beyond a 'falling into the eight' scheme. Here's to a rethink in the next few weeks, but for now I'm willing to concede that the top sides will stay there and use them to our advantage. 

North Melbourne d. Footscray
Sydney d. Freo
Collingwood d. Gold Coast (Not the end of the world if it goes the other way, but they're going to make it so may as well depress the Suns before we play them) 
Adelaide d. GWS
Geelong vs Essendon (If we lose Essendon, if we win Geelong)
St Kilda d. Port Adelaide
Richmond d. Carlton
West Coast d. Hawthorn

Final thoughts
It's not over yet, but welcome to Italian Job week, where all our collected riches are teetering on the edge of a cliff. Michael Caine had a great idea that was never explained, but I'll bet it was superior to anything we'll come up with this week.

Royal Crumble

My only philosophical view on the state of the game is that there should be more feuds. We don't need to dial it up to fans punching on, but some good old-fashioned spite really livens things up. After years of one-way rivalry where we tried to hate Collingwood but they didn't give a rats about us, things are getting interesting now. The problem is that since 2022 we've had one soon discredited mid-season against their three wins, scot-free escape from causing career-ending injury, and flag.

The unfortunate side-effect of restoring traditional balance has been the joy at our expense from Australia's neediest fans. You can spot them getting more enjoyment complaining that their big, successful team isn't acknowledged at every turn than following the big, successful team in the first place. This sizeable faction of deadshits are more to be pitied than despised, but I'm still upset at giving them something to be smug about. The bit where our season swirled down the toilet was almost as bad.

The main event was our first meeting with Corey Maynard's brother since Angus Brayshaw was smothered into oblivion. Thoughts with the Channel 7 video packages producer who had to play up alleged ill-feeling between these sides (spoiler: players not really that concerned) without dwelling on the 'football incident' that ended a man's career. Instead they had to rely on archival footage and Ed Langdon's off-hand duck comments that weird units took unusually strong exception to at the time. They must have limited outrage capacity, because the live crowd forgot about Langdon and focused on moaning about everything else.

I'm on the unpopular radical fringe of Melbourne fans when it comes to Maynard. Obviously he should have been suspended, but it doesn't rank close to the most heinous assassinations in modern footy, and it's pure awful luck that the guy on the other end had been one big hit from enforced retirement for years. I question his character based on the classless post-match interview where he was at full mast over the crowd reaction without a hint of "shame about the circumstances" respect for Brayshaw, but if the same thing happened in reverse our fans would be the ones doing Olympic standard mental gymnastics to try and prove it wasn't his fault.

There wouldn't be nearly as much hate towards Maynard himself if not for all the Collingwood-connected people who have acted entirely without self-awareness since. Like the sad tool dancing around a restaurant when the not guilty verdict arrived, or thousands of people who couldn't stand to hear this poor man booed and countered by treating him like a hero. This was the footy equivalent of a soldier who accidentally blew up a village coming home to a rapturous street parade.

Suggestions that we should punch on with him were optimistic. After last week's limp performance, I'd have accepted a token pile-on at his first possession to get the blood flowing, but we haven't got the cult-like atmosphere to pull something like that off. They've done stacks-on aggression towards Jack Watts for being somebody else's prized possession, and Langdon for saying something no normal person would give a shit about, while we would struggle to convincingly pull off a pre-determined brawl if they burnt our mascot alive. 

Having said all that, I'm not usually one for complaining about player reactions at full time but could have done without Oliver and May yukking it up with him after we'd dished out four quarters of slop. Mind you, I don't see May as a spokesman for serious collision vendettas after once nearly turning a Brisbane player's brain to mush.  

You'd think people wearing beanies to raise funds for a serious neurological disorder might have more sympathy for the person with brain damage instead of acting like giddy simpletons at a Donald Trump rally, but now that the first meeting is done can we move on a bit? Even the Scully vitriol was never the same after the original Carnival of Hate. I predict we'll have better things to complain about by the time we play them in the final round, and carrying on like this will be sadder than Jeff Kennett writing sooky letters about token government awards.

That's what we were mad at, what about the other side? They're still howlingly upset that May expressed the opinion that we should've beaten them in a final. The obvious response would be "that's nice, but you didn't, then we won the flag" but in one of the great ironies, fans of the club that once put out "I don't care what you think" bumper stickers acted like he'd shat on the grave of Jock McHale. The great news is that an Expected Score from this game had us ahead so they can now go to their grave feeling hard done by about statistics despite winning comfortably where it counts.

All this made for a genuinely spicy fixture, but made me realise that it's more fun watching neutral crowds baying for blood. I didn't fancy being in the minority at Nuremberg Rally '24 so wasn't really upset when my half-hearted midweek attempt to get a ticket died in 'allocation exhausted' land (for an attendance of 84k in a 100k stadium). I'm starting to get middle-age phobia about dropping dead on the spot, so hanging out with the family until 3.19pm and from 6.01pm felt like a better use of my time. I'll be happy to cark it at the 'G but want a minimum five rows of empty seats in front when it happens.

After missing a lot of epic live moments in recent years, this saved me from a slopfest on the same level as when we sullied the marquee fixture by kicking three goals. Until recently our "I love you but you're boring" era was balanced by knowing we'd hold the opposition to a catchable score, but now ball movement has ceased to be, the midfield is expired, and any hint of forward structure has gone to meet its maker. This meant we were more tedious than watching paint dry on a public holiday in Adelaide, and if Channel 7 hadn't just been handed an annual Carlton/Essendon blockbuster (if you thought Anzac Day Eve sounded fake, what about King's Birthday Eve?) they'd be lobbying to turf us from this fixture, if not the network entirely.

You probably suspected what was going to happen when the teams were announced. For the first time they came as an interactive game where you had to work them out on your own after the Sunday VFL game started. Once Ben Brown appeared at Casey I knew they were going to have another crack at the Petty/Turner combination that did sod all in Alice Springs, and that it wouldn't work. They did, it didn't. The reserves cupboard might be almost bare, but even with van Rooyen back, anyone who thinks this is going to work should be piss tested by Glenn Bartlett's personal doctor. 

You can't blame Turner for taking every opportunity, but if they won't stop picking Petty then he's got to chuck a sickie eventually because it's looking more like a cruel pisstake every week. I'm desperate not to make this look like a weekly vendetta so would like to point out that in the rare times he was at the right end of the ground Petty took a solid defensive mark and put in a timely spoil before returning to Centre Half Bermuda Triangle. Even his contribution to JVRs second goal came from a intercept mark. What could the message be? Answers on a postcard/flaming bag of dog turd to PO Box 'He's a fucking defender you clowns' in your capital city.

We started the day only a sliver of percentage behind the Pies, but even with blah recent form and a raft of injuries they led us around by the nose all day. With a few exceptions we were terrible at everything, and in another advertisement for my 'Feels Like' margin system, it's almost admirable that we only lost by 38. Choose your own adventure, but it felt more like 58 to me. That's more than our sad final score of 6.15.51 which felt like 3.18.36 with five out on the full.

Under exceptional circumstances you could win scoring 51 (e.g. against us in Alice Springs when it's a bit damp), but good luck making a habit of it. Collingwood did convert an absurd number of goals from strange angles, but the real story is the horrendous toil and struggle we went through just to get in a position to miss shots. Maybe if we'd converted an early one the rest of the game would have turned out differently, but anything after Petracca's injury is irrelevant because that was the official end of us. Off (eventually) went one of our few consistent performers, leaving many others who were out of form, couldn't handle the atmosphere, or have lost the will to live. You never know what sort of weird shit is in store for the rest of the year, but unless something drastic happens or Jake Lever is a miracle worker we may be in shitloads of trouble.

After the first couple of minutes it's hard to believe that they didn't crush us beyond recognition. Highlights included an attempted bear hug tackle by Pickett being brushed off, and May desperately chasing an opponent back into the 50 before a goal. Imagine going two goals down and recovering to win by 92. And that's what you'll need to do because the only recovery here was belatedly putting the brakes on and stopping them from piling on goals for a few minutes. It was a bit like last year's final, except that our laughably poor forward line that night looked like world beaters compared to this version. I'm always open to a game swinging at random (love you 25/09/2021, no matter what anyone says) but this was so disjointed and ugly that Collingwood would have needed to commit football suicide on an epic scale to avoid a winning score.

We did have a few shots from novelty angles early, for a couple of hit posts and Chandler shanking one in embarrassing fashion. We still looked horrible, but when Turner marked 40 metres out as good as directly in front I hoped for a tide turning moment. Then he kicked it into the behind post and it was 'Hello darkness my old friend' etc... For about 0.001 seconds it looked like Pickett had one, but the enthusiastic protest from a defender about touching it was a hint not to get too excited. I'd have thought the reaction was enough to review it on the spot instead of waiting for everyone to go back to the centre before taking it off us, but any excuse to get an ad break in.

If the upside to sitting on the couch in misery was avoiding a depressingly negative live atmosphere, the trade-off was another rock-bottom shit call from the worst commentator ever to breathe air. The Pickett replay led to some 'hilarious' Footy Record-related 'banter' where 'BT' was asked if he had a rubber, and I wondered how much better our viewing experience would be if his parents used one. Whether he's playing a character or not, this buffoon adds insult to injury when your side is already having a shit one. Minutes later Big Turd called a Collingwood player's first career goal, then came back from the break to clarify that he'd actually kicked four. People think he's not wacky enough on TV compared to radio should be removed from the electoral roll.    

That ended a brief period where we were sort of in the game but unbelievably poor at creating and/or converting chances. I don't know where a game-changing forward is supposed to mysteriously appear from at this stage, but the only hope I'm holding out for this season is that we find somebody who can take marks, or just make a decent contest to keep the ball at our end. Amongst all the confusion, JVR was very good but he can't do it alone. I know half our side has gone into witness protection but am (semi) convinced that a lot of our issues can be fixed by them not spending 75% of each quarter furiously defending.

If conceding late, (sort of) against the run of play goals to somebody who hasn't played since early 2023 while kicking nil ourselves wasn't bad enough, the quarter ended with Petracca suffering a heroic demise while trying his best to do something/anything. A big old knee to the vital organs in a marking contest left him struggling to get off the ground as if he'd been dropped from a third floor window. Some people complained like he'd been the victim of a mob hit, but as much as I love siege mentality you can't just fire off into the outer solar system about everything. Never mind what they did to him, the call was coming from inside the house on this one.

Petracca had been one of our few decent performers in the first quarter, so I was pondering whether we could score double figures without him when he unexpectedly reappeared on the ground. I don't blame him, the doctors, or the coaches for letting him return based on the available evidence, but it was blatantly obvious about 15 seconds after returning that he was actually quite broken. Everyone loves a heroic last stand, but the problem is they're usually accompanied by a 100% casualty rate, so how he made it all the way to half time without being removed is the biggest question since the sound of one hand clapping.

It would have been one thing if he'd come back to life like Hulk Hogan, played like a man possessed, and was revealed to have serious internal injuries later. Instead he could hardly run, and winced when kicking the ball as if being squashed in an industrial vice. At this point somebody should've thrown the towel in. Thanks for having a go at getting him back, but if the doctor says grandma is fit, then she topples over in the hotel foyer you take her back inside, not to your car. The severity of his injuries wasn't known, but as he couldn't actually do anything what was the point in risking him? It hardly inspired his teammates, most of them were so passive they wouldn't have flinched if a hand grenade blew up behind them.

At first I thought they might have been waiting for the painkilling gear to kick in, but could that not have been done on the bench? Lucky he could barely get to a contest let alone participate in one, because if he'd been anywhere between generously bumped or cleaned up this could have been really ugly. Imagine Maynard going through him in either 'football act' or 'other act' fashion? Even our placid and reserved fans would have turned it into Milburn vs Silvagni II.  

While all this was going on poor old Jack Billings was sitting on the bench with his Resting Terrified Face thinking how they preferred to risk major injury to a 1% fit star player than let him on. Once he was introduced Jack did nothing of any consequence, and while I don't expect him to replace Petracca the problem is that he's not replacing any of Brayshaw, Harmes, Jordon or Spargo either. We got Melksham to be a defender then turned him into a handy forward when that didn't work, but if there's no Plan B for Billings he may follow the Luke Dunstan path of St. Kilda > Melbourne > Casey > Retired.

Trying to get Petracca to half time in one piece was like that movie where they drive trucks full of unstable explosive materials through South American jungles with obvious results for half the cast. Like the time we nearly drowned him in 2019, Trac survived our best efforts at an insurance job before mercifully being replaced at half time. Next time you saw him, he was being loaded into an ambulance with family present, and later ended up in intensive care, which makes sending him back out there for so long look like an even worse idea. Great news for NQR humanoids with conspiracy theories that we're actually at fault for the Brayshaw KO because [scene missing]. Hope they invest their life savings in a Glenroy tobacco shop.   

Until those last minute goals and effective loss of a key player we were starting to get back in the game. Last year we had two similarly shit starts against Collingwood and recovered to one win, and one close enough to hurt loss. This was more like the final, as we barely clung on by our fingernails while looking unlikely to kick a decent score. That night we only got one in the first quarter from the downfield free after Brayshaw was carried off, this time there were posters, and the near miss with the video review, but it just felt like everything was such hard work that there was no way back. There wasn't, but thanks to van Rooyen for briefly making it interesting with a couple of goals. Nobody since 99 goal Fev could have successfully overcome playing forward in such a malfunctioning side, but he had a crack. 

It was JVR's best game since kicking four against Richmond last year, a game that will also be remembered for Petty kicking six. Andrew McQualter has gone from coaching the Tigers that day to working for us, and if this was a TV show they'd have cut to his inner monologue wondering how the hell he ever let that happen. The most frustrating part of the Petty debacle is that there's a perfectly valid alternative position for him to be playing. At one point you'd have gotten more out of swapping him with May, but we just kept doing what wasn't working. Meanwhile, Meanwhile, Tom McDonald kicked two quick goals last week and was never seen forward of centre here.

I'm trying my hardest not to do a cowardly but satisfying U-turn on Goodwin, but the first question at the press conference should have been "Do you seriously expect to win anything with this forward line?". Instead he got to summon his inner Mark Neeld and claim we'd made improvements. Which is technically true, but compared to losing by 92 points is like bragging to the rest of the burns unit that you've only had half your face singed off. If it was any worse than the St Kilda game - which wasn't exactly our finest hour regardless of the result - then this was a failure. You didn't need the coach to admit that it was, no matter what spin they put on it we were putrid.

We didn't have many winners, but ANB did a good job tagging the premium Daicos brother. It could lead to a second half of the season a'la James Harmes 2018, but the way we're going it's more likely to backfire and derail one of his best seasons. For now it was good, even though the other Collingwood players jumped straight into the void, and it cost us the Bullet's contributions as a forward. Maybe we'd have been better letting Daicos get 50 touches, but ANB could only do what he was asked. In an alternative universe the bit where he chased hard to stop a Daicos goal might have been the turning point, instead all their players you'd never heard of ran riot while half our side looked like they'd rather be anywhere else. 

Just when you thought we'd successfully applied the boring filter and might be within range at half time our inability to take chances came back to haunt us when they casually lobbed through three in the dying minutes. Queen's/King's Birthday may be the atmosphere-free public holiday in the book, but one great tradition is Collingwood players unexpectedly going off their nut against us. Enter Nathan Krueger, who has previously done nothing except rehab before kicking three here. He pulled up in the second half, but is still a worthy induction in the Kingsleys - joining two-time nominees Brad Dick and Mason Cox as the first Pies inductee without a flange-related surname. They're playing North next week and I bet he kicks 0.1 and finishes the year in the VFL but he'll always remember doing as he pleased against what was once the best defence in the league.

At half time the players were shown awkwardly milling around the meeting room, reportedly because the coaches were making them wait. Given that there's no windows for the coaches to have been trying to escape through, I think they were frantically wheeling out the iron lung Petracca was going to spend the break in until the late goals made them realise there was no point risking him further.

If you held out any hope of a miracle win then I'd like some of your medication, but JVR's third not long after the restart left the door ever so slightly ajar. And then it was slammed shut with our fingers inside seconds later. You can wear the odd immediate return goal while kicking a competitive score, when you've had three in two and a bit quarters then it's a death blow. After another unexpected goal from the boundary line (remember the bit where we kicked OOF from right in front?), the Collingwood bench went into full "we've broken these kents" elation for Steele Sidebottom pulling down a screamer about 10 career games beyond where we've been able to drag any player since 1897. He didn't score, but nobody cared because they were toying with us by this point. I'm retaining my childlike hope of a recovery but it was getting a bit sad now.

If we did anything of note in the last 1.5 quarters it barely deserves a mention. I enjoyed Pickett flipping somebody the bird but that's about it. Gawn did his best to keep things happening around the ground, but even he couldn't be arsed with the usual "grab the ball and do it yourself" move when we were getting flayed at stoppages. Whatever's going with Oliver's finger, emotions or OTHER, he's a shadow of his best, and Viney always has a go but isn't having a huge impact. About the only player you can trust to get near a centre clearance is Pickett, and around the ground we were in full traffic cone mode. 

It's hard to find players who have improved this year (ANB, Lever, McDonald?), but Chandler seems to have come to a complete halt. Laurie deserved his full game here, and probably should get another chance at it instead of being rotated directly out, but we're yet to see any suggestion that he's a long termer other than that feasting on a defeated Richmond. You can go back to the earliest posts this season to see me fretting about our depth, but the frightening thing is that until recently we've had a reasonable run with injury. It's just that the players we've got aren't performing at full power, and even if there was selection pressure coming from the VFL, the coaches wouldn't reward it. I'm more depressed thinking about this game now than I was on the day. Take me back to the glorious afterglow of us boring Geelong and the nation shitless.

In the end we barely covered Collingwood's half time score and departed with minimal fuss. I'm surprised we didn't make things even easier for them and chair a couple of players off. Making us play them again in the last round is cruel, not only will it bring up memories of our hari kari job at the end of 2017, but if they keep us out of the finals it'll be another in a long line of things you'll never hear the end of. For that to happen we've got to reach the final game with a mathematical chance of making the top eight, and every day I'm less confident that will happen. Never mind, if it all gets too much at least we can switch codes and start following the Melbourne Rebels right?     

2024 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Alex Neal-Bullen
4 - Max Gawn
3 - Jacob van Rooyen
2 - Kysaiah Pickett
1 - Judd McVee

Apologies to McDonald, Salem and Petracca before he was crippled.

Leaderboard
A few weeks ago this was looking like a thrilling race, but as most others have sunk or been sunk by injury, Gawn continues to risk serious injury pulling teammates onto his back. He's a great man and deserves to win this outright but there's 10 games to go (plus... no, I can't say it) so any offbeat shenanigans are possible. No change to the minors, except for the Rising Star trending towards a bit of a farcical result if there's no more scores.

31 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
23 - Christian Petracca
22 - Steven May (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
21 - Alex Neal-Bullen
18 - Jake Lever
10 - Jack Viney
9 - Judd McVee, Clayton Oliver
7 - Tom McDonald, Kysaiah Pickett
4 - Bayley Fritsch, Christian Salem, Tom Sparrow, Adam Tomlinson
3 - Ed Langdon, Daniel Turner (JOINT LEADER: Rising Star Award), Jacob van Rooyen, Caleb Windsor (JOINT LEADER: Rising Star Award)
2 - Kade Chandler, Harrison Petty, Trent Rivers
1 - Jack Billings, Blake Howes

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Pickett in the third quarter, but what does it really matter? I don't need screamers, somebody kick bulk goals from the bloody square.

1st - Bayley Fritsch (Q4) vs Geelong
2nd - Kysaiah Pickett (Q4) vs Footscray
3rd - Kysaiah Pickett (Q4) vs Geelong

Next week (+1)
Thank god for the bye, because now we get a fortnight to fight amongst ourselves plan to revive this rapidly disintegrating season. More likely - the same players get rotated in and out and we turn up basically unchanged from this limp and lifeless performance. Thank the good lord that North finally won again this week, because we're in such emotional freefall that even if they do beat us it won't have the same Sydney '93 air of humiliation. So that's something.

It's a long way down from a year and a bit ago when the Roos were held in such contempt that Josh Schache was called up for the lols and we still won by 90. That went so well that we tried it again in a final but forgot to let him on the ground. If he was fit I wouldn't even argue about them picking him ahead of the other two. I'm kicking myself for not being able to join in the serious Goodwin whinging, but could do an America vs Iraq and find any flimsy reason to have a crack.

Like Saddam Hussein circa 2003, our weapons of mass destruction have long since disappeared but my tipping point could be reached by them playing Petty and Turner in the same forward line again. One of them if absolutely necessary, but both would be criminal negligence. None of the other options will make your liver quiver, but they must try something before it's too late. In an ideal world Petty gets some touch back by clubbing North, but as he's done BUGGER ALL against everyone else except for a half against Geelong how can you have any confidence that it'll happen? And even if it does, what faith would you have that it would continue? And as they're clearly never going to put him back where he belongs then sadly he must tour the VFL until a) finding goalkicking form, or b) all the alternatives suck and we're back to throwing magnets in the air.

It would be hard for any key forward in the known universe to have less impact as them in the last two weeks, so regardless of where his career is at I'd like some Ben Brown please. He's had as many goals in six games as Petty and Turner in 14 combined, and even if an individual Fox Footy style pressure gauge would probably show him on -50 a proven goalkicker is better than waiting for miracles to happen. Also, because we're a friendly club dedicated to making everyone else's day it would be wholesome for him to play in one last North game. 

Next to him comes Tom Fullarton, who could still be a fictional character for all I know but things are desperate. I've seen four non-consecutive quarters of VFL in the last two weeks and he's never been on the near side of screen yet so maybe they're just making him up. If I take his AFL Tables page as proof of life (including last playing seniors in a finals win over us), six goals in 19 career matches doesn't bode well but if he can compete, and take the second ruck so van Rooyen gets to stay inside 50 then it's worth a try. Maybe it's not, but at this point I'd rather play Troy Davis, Declan Keilty or a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man than 66.6% of our talls. You could pick a smaller player (then boot it a metre over his head), but even though Shane McAdam kicked four at Casey I say do it a couple more times before we start thinking it will translate into the seniors.  

Tholstrup gets his chance to be mini-Petracca, Woewodin gets a full game somewhere, and I'm going to give Laurie another chance. There's some talk that Lever might be back, but for the love of all that is good and pure in the world the man has just had knee surgery so can we look somewhat into the future and not rush him back too quickly? If we can't beat North then we've got bigger issues than him having another week off. 

You'd think we'd win, but funnier things have happened.

IN: B. Brown, Fullarton, Tholstrup, Woewodin,
OUT: Petracca (inj), Billings, Petty, Turner (omit), Chandler (to sub)
LUCKY: Laurie, Oliver, Sparrow, Windsor
UNLUCKY: Tomlinson + anyone who is MFC listed and can walk.

The All-New Bradbury Plan
Welcome back to the ever-popular segment where we choose preferred winners based on results that suit us best. None of this means dick if we don't also win, but it doesn't mean you can't find some interest in neutral games. It may mean secretly going for teams you hate but we're all about the big picture here at Plan HQ. For now I'm only brave enough to aim at the top eight, but the plan is open source so alter as required to match your lofty ideals. Due to the bye I'm going to chuck in two weeks' worth, but please check your fax machine for any amendments after next week.

Round 14

St Kilda d. Brisbane
Footscray d. Fremantle (Better to jam up the middle of the ladder than let any of the other mid-table mediocrities get too far ahead)
Richmond d. Hawthorn
Sydney d. Adelaide (Swans too far ahead for either plan, may as well kill off the Crows ASAP)
North d. Collingwood
GWS vs Port

Round 15

Carlton vs Geelong
Port d. Brisbane
Sydney d. GWS
West Coast d. Essendon
Gold Coast d. Fremantle (Suns more likely to fall over at the end of the year so may as well do us a favour now)

Final thoughts
Shame my daughter doesn't care enough about footy to take over the Demonblog empire, because she summed this up far more succinctly than I ever will. Late in the fourth quarter she walked past the TV, said "Well, Melbourne are really going downhill again" with perfect comic timing, then kept going. Hard to argue, but I reserve the right to go full Bart Simpson at Kamp Krusty and believe that somebody is going to turn up and save us.

Dead heart

If you think it's time to be dramatic you might say our greatest modern era started and ended against Freo. The undisputed opening ceremony was Round 1, 2021, and you can either retrospectively bring the curtain down the day they ended our big winning streak, or when they kicked seven shades of suitcase out of us here.

The Dockers are sponsored by the Max Hardcore-affiliate sounding 'DP World' and they celebrated by doing us from every conceivable angle. We once kicked the first goal then lost by 120, but this set a new benchmark for futility by turning a 13-0 lead into a record-breaking trip down the tube.

After demanding a Euro '96 reference last week, we unexpectedly rolled the clock back to 92. It wasn't just the margin, but a coach deploying players in positions they weren't suited to and watching it all go sour in spectacular fashion. Graham Taylor was silly enough to let his reactions be captured on video for eternal mockery but sadly we'll never get a similar fly-on-the-wall documentary about this atrocity. An optimistic staff member was taping Goodwin's half time address just in case, but I guarantee that footage has already been 'accidentally' wiped.

Era-adjusted, this was one of the shit performances. It was up there with John Longmire kicking 14 in 1990, the twin mid-season thumpings of 1998, the 2000 Carlton calamity, or any number of Football Park/Subiaco games before the arse completely fell out of things post-2006. None of those are relevant examples unless we bounce back to make finals, which suddenly looks a bit ropey. It's not our first mid-season dip in recent years, but this was by some distance the most violent.

Most of the traditional post-loss whinges are valid, but thoughts with the people who'd have gone triple troppo if we were still called Narrm. Seems a bit weird playing in Alice Springs directly after two indigenous-themed rounds, but I suspect rank and file local fans couldn't gave a rats. Instead, we did this under the old-fashioned name - inspired by some deve who whipped orphan girls and had a brother called 'Peniston'.

The old 'flogging home games' debate was ready to step into the void until we lost by such a significant margin that the focus went straight to coach and players instead. And rightly so. Even I'm noting where the Goodwin Bunker emergency exits are just in case. It's on all of them though. Remember the struggle to find players for the votes against West Coast? Whoever gets mentioned here should officially decline to be named.

This was by all metrics the worst game of Simon Goodwin's coaching career. Not only the biggest margin, but the most disorganised team playing as if stoned to the bejesus belt. It was a replay of the Eagles game, but with a more advanced opposition causing us to collapse in a heap. Shame 'Things can only get bitter' has already been a headline, because the next eight days (and beyond?) promise to be extra spicy.

You could easily see us losing this game by kicking a poxy score, but anyone who predicted a surrender on this scale should be studied by the government. It was like Brisbane and West Coast combined and mutated by radioactivity. The club got a fat cheque for turning up, but other than the Chief Financial Officer we had no winners.

The first few minutes were soon spectacularly discredited but were actually really good. Shame about the bit when the other side turned up. It was the equivalent of somebody sprinting to the lead in the Olympic Marathon, getting exposed for jumping the fence mid-race, then being forced to finish the course even if it killed them. 

First Gawn snuck through a set shot, then Petty was handed an open-goal confidence builder before not getting another kick for the rest of the game. Not a cracker. I'm determined to hold off on joining the mass panic for a few more weeks, but the continuing saga of him playing forward may set me off. What more evidence do you need that it's not working? He was great against Geelong, but has done chuff all else forward of centre. They couldn't help van Rooyen being hurt, but when you know Turner is learning to be a forward, Fritsch is low possessions/high(ish) impact, and McAdam hasn't looked remotely likely to impact a game yet, leaving him to get pulverised again is just cruel. At some point it's partially on the player for not putting their hand up to stop being humiliated, but the other 99% is on the coaches.

JVR hasn't been dominant this year, but this is twice in recent weeks we've gone down in a screaming heap without him. Again there was a putrid low number of inside 50s, and again a lot of that was down to nobody able to mark the ball forward of centre. Putting peak Wayne Carey at today's equivalent of CHF probably wouldn't have helped, but some level of deep forward entries to a genuine contest would have been nice. The B in BBB may now stand for 'broken', but I refuse to accept that Brown couldn't do more than Petty and Turner combined, and if he can still kick 41 metres he's one ahead of McAdam.

Based on all that, I can understand how a two goal lead might not have been as safe as it (briefly) looked. Conceding 11 of the next 12 goals was a bit surprising. Ironically, in the week of the great holding the ball crackdown we were dudded out of a third from what should have been a free kick directly in front. That might have spooked Freo into winning by less than 90 points, but instead became the green light for an epic fiasco to break out. he opening ceremony was Rivers burying May with a flubbed switch kick under no pressure, and it was off to the races from there. For unknown reasons the people calling this game off a TV from Victoria originally assigned this kick to Bowey. This was quickly clarified, probably because the Fox Footy lawyer hit the emergency button before the biggest AFL defamation case since Hutchy called the wrong St Kilda player a sex offender.

And from there Freo went whomp, whomp, and whomp, as the TV kept pretending the 'Pressure Gauge' meant anything. They stopped talking it about as we were being dominated for the rest of the half, and I could see why when it rotated through the on-screen graphics in the break and we were only slightly behind. You don't need a number to explain pressure when you can see opposition players charging around doing whatever they want, however they want.

As if we needed any more help to lose, their first goal of the second quarter came via a 'mark' that was held for about 0.25 seconds, then dropped the moment he hit the ground. Still, see what happens when you have forwards who are involved in contests and get their hands to the ball. Things were going so badly that Freo botched a certain goal in what would usually be hilarious circumstances, with an attempt to hand one off to a teammate in the square ending in a literal handoff and free kick. That would have been a great turning point if the game had turned anywhere but straight down the crapper. Enter, about 45 painful seconds later, premiership player Luke Jackson for his first of a season-high three goals. He would have come in handy at the other end, and while I'm not as bitter towards him as most other defectors I hope he's enjoying flying across the country every two weeks. Seems like Adelaide is our flight time limit before turning into pumpkins.

Every thrashing has a point of no return where you can't imagine any chance of a comeback (Unless we're in front, then one mark inside 50 by the other side and I'm panicking about a humiliating collapse), and the rest of the game is about nothing but damage limitation. Reasonable people would have treated the next goal as a good time to depart to do something more important, but like a complete tool I stuck around until the miserable end. The pisstakes came thick and fast, including goals from May being kneed out of a contest, and a 50 for Turner wandering through the protected zone like Jim Stynes in 1987.

Most of us would be old enough to remember games regularly being over by half time, but it must have been an experience for the kids who have taken up this lifestyle in an era where it's considered a good day out if we're not stripped of all dignity. And not just kids, we haven't lost this comprehensively since the last round of 2016. Sure, the Port 2020 game was headed in that direction if not for reduced quarters, but if you were 10 when we finished Paul Roos' coaching career on a low you've almost reached legal driving age without seeing us being pummelled senseless. Now you are truly an adult.  

If there's a pond in Alice Springs, we were sucking the water out of it with an industrial vacuum. We hadn't played this badly against the Dockers since the Air Farce One game where this happened:

The key difference between Round 9, 2013 and the present is that a) we were expected to do offbeat and stupid things then, and b) in their own special way three of our defenders got near the ball. This was an open invitation for any Freo forward since Clive Waterhouse to roam like native animals in acres of free space.

I thought Woewodin replacing Hunter at half time was an admission that we'd been so bad it was worth trying a young player over somebody who is probably on their AFL exit lap. Then they cut to an injured Hunter and you realised that even as everything burnt to a crisp they'd probably have left Taj sitting on his arse until the last quarter if not forced into it.

We've overcome a 50 point deficit to beat the Dockers before, but this time there was more chance of [insert unlikely example] than a repeat. I still wouldn't have been happy if we'd broken even in the second half, but expected some semblance of a response. We did get the first goal after half time, after surviving a couple of near misses down the other end, only to concede it straight back after 20 seconds due to having a backline you could have flown a plane through. If the truck behind the goals had gone full Maximum Overdrive and taken off the only people in any danger would have been Freo forwards.

Even considering previous form I don't think Lever will go anywhere else (and I'm voting for him as next captain), but he must have been sitting on the couch mentally adding thousands of dollars to his contract while seeing this shambles unfold. The performance was so dire that he might have not have prevented us from losing, but I doubt there would have been the same level of abandon ship panic going on. Not that I'm pinning all the blame on the defenders, they were certainly thrashed but any danger of not letting the ball get down there so easily? After those (relatively) magical early minutes we moved the ball as if navigating a Cambodian minefield.

I knew we couldn't win, but was open to a crack-papering second half stalemate. Should've known how things would turn out when Langdon and Petracca almost buggered up the first goal, then got an even bigger hint when we gave it straight back. No need for detail about what happened next, just imagine Freo players having a training drill, while some red and blue traffic cones looked increasingly miserable.

As the margin hit 63, Anthony Hudson nuked years of hard-won credibility by yelling "They're going to take some catching from here". You reckon? Unless he was talking about the handful of fans who'd travelled to see this running out into the desert to escape. Even as the club tries desperately to flog what a great cultural experience these games are I'm only into them for the financial benefits, but how long do you think the Northern Territory government will keep paying us to show up? It's one thing when the game is shown on Channel 7 and they can flog tourism benefits to a national audience, but this was buried (preferably under concrete) at 1pm on a Sunday, with 7000 people in the ground and only about twice as many watching. I'm not cultured enough to know who you're paying taxes to when living in a territory, but thanks for the free cash. 

At 70 points with a quarter and a half to play the big structural change was finally made... with Turner going back instead of the premiership defender. McSizzle then plucked a goal out of a stoppage in a way you suspect neither of the other two would have done if the game lasted 24 hours. Then at the end of the quarter Turner was back forward having a shot, so it may have just turned into a Little League style 'go wherever you want' fiasco. Later Fritsch and Turner were in defence and somehow Petty still forward, suggesting he may have blackmail material on the coach that would make Glenn Bartlett bar-up.

All McAdam has done so far is defensive pressure, so ironically he looked to have injured himself by doing a tackle. We're currently heading towards paying a pick in the mid 20s for him, which doesn't seem like good value. His other main contributions were a pretty looking bump on a player mid-disposal, and randomly having a bounce as he played on after a mark. He's got solid novelty value so I'm not against him playing again, but for the love of all that is holy can we get some of these players form in the VFL before picking them?

Without Lever to argue with, May escalated to difficult conversations with Gawn at three quarter time. He hadn't played well but was probably complaining about all the times we've kept a side to five goals at three quarter time without scoring 115 in response. There was a very real chance of a triple figure loss here, not helped by Sparrow copping a bullshit 50 after being beaten to a mark. It probably saved us from them kicking a point, then getting it straight back for a goal. Not much use in shaving single points off the margin by now, we were already a confirmed basketcase.

Nobody deserves votes, but Petracca gets credit for having a go. Anyone upset with him for cracking it at teammates should boil themselves in oil. I thought he was quite restrained, given that he'd just been in the middle of Freo's defence casually punting the ball around him without a teammate to be found. This is the level of angry reaction I respect, not soft as butter loser fans announcing they're off to follow another club.

Later some bloke marked in the middle of May and Tomlinson, who shared a "what in god's name is going on?" look in the aftermath. Eventually the margin landed right on the dreaded 100 points. It feels like we've lost by that much more than 26 times in my life, let alone the history of the club, but only because morally you can throw in all the 90 point defeats as well. I knew we'd be back in this position eventually but really didn't think it would happen this soon. There's bad days, this was toxic. 

McDonald had already made the most of his forward cameo for one goal, and he saved us again with a nice mark in front of goal. Everyone else please note, it can be done. For some reason rushing his set shot like he was trying to bring the margin under a goal with 20 seconds left. I don't know if you can say he's still got it based on this alone, but even his horrid end to last year looks like a glory era compared to Petty's season so this opens the argument to sending him forward again. How can he do any worse than the non-van Rooyen players we've tried down there?

While that goal reduced the margin to just (?) 94, we were still only one kick from crossing the great psychological bridge to doom. Enter Ed Langdon with the most bittersweet handy point of all time, ensuring that even in our degraded, possibly oxygen-deprived state, we'd keep the margin in double figures. And that really was that was left to get excited about. Remember when Channel 9 found a guy lost in the desert for 43 days and made him walk around doing an interview before rescuing him. That's about the level of power we finished this game with.

Just as I was finishing writing this I decided to take on the distress and see how AFL360 and On The Couch covered it. Incredibly, nobody talked about the forward line at all. We did get Nathan Buckley looking at shirtless players in the rooms after and deciding they're not fit looking enough for him. Of course he knows more about footy than me, but that's rock bottom 'nutters on Facebook' level analysis.

This looked like a sad reverse of the greatest day in the history of Alice Springs, when we clubbed Adelaide and sent Don Pyke bonkers. They've never been any good since, and I'm not saying the same will happen to us but it does make you wonder. I was non-commital in tipping us to finish somewhere between third and ninth, and less than a month after thinking we were back after the Geelong game I'm concerned we'll struggle to get there. The Bradbury Plan returns next week, but I've been tempted to look in the future. This prediction has us 10th, one game behind 2nd, which shows there's still a lot of weird, unpredictable stuff to happen before this season is over. I invite you to join me living in silent, quivering fear.

2024 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Christian Petracca
4 - Max Gawn
3 - Ed Langdon
2 - Jack Viney
1 - Christian Salem

Apologies to McDonald for doing more in a quarter than the alternative has in two months, and Woewodin for only getting half of this king size borry on him.

Leaderboard
More votes for the leaders whether they want them or not. No alterations to the minors, though Turner's share of the Rising Star based off one game is looking a bit shonky now.

27 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
23 - Christian Petracca
22 - Steven May (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
18 - Jake Lever
16 - Alex Neal-Bullen
10 - Jack Viney
9 - Clayton Oliver
8 - Judd McVee
7 - Tom McDonald
5 - Kysaiah Pickett
4 - Bayley Fritsch, Christian Salem, Tom Sparrow, Adam Tomlinson
3 - Ed Langdon, Daniel Turner (JOINT LEADER: Rising Star Award), Caleb Windsor (JOINT LEADER: Rising Star Award)
2 - Kade Chandler, Harrison Petty, Trent Rivers
1 - Jack Billings, Blake Howes

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Tempted not to award this out of spite but going for Oliver from distance just to tick a box. 

1st - Bayley Fritsch (Q4) vs Geelong
2nd - Kysaiah Pickett (Q4) vs Footscray
3rd - Kysaiah Pickett (Q4) vs Geelong

Next week
Special events unite on King's Birthday when we play Collingwood for the Disappointing Premiership Defence Cup. They're coming at it from a different angle than us, losing at the start of the year instead of the middle, and hopefully at the end. Either way this could be (massive cliche alert) season defining for both sides, so if there's ever been a day for on-edge fans to have an embarassing punch up this could be it. Get ready for a massive fortnight of content from the AFL's neediest fans. People who don't get enough satisfaction from following the most popular, generally successful club and need constant reassurance that everything Collingwood does is right and everyone else is an idiot for not joining in. I predict unpleasantness on a grand scale.

Casey's results mean nothing in the overall scheme of things, but comfortably losing to standalone strugglers Coburg was a bit high alert. I watched the second half to confirm that Tom Fullarton did exist and discovered that a) he does, but b) the depth cupboard is almost bare. Which is a shame because I'm ready to cut a swathe. Your fit AFL experienced players to choose from are - B. Brown, Fullarton, Howes, Laurie and Tholstrup - with potential first-gamers Adams, K. Brown, Jefferson, Moniz-Wakefield, Sestan and Verrall. There's a couple of options there, but not enough to replace all the players who need a week to think about where they're going.

I'm terrified that if JVR isn't fit they're going to play Petty again and somehow expect him to turn around some of the worst form ever seen on the Australian mainland. The only reason I'm not trying to drop Petty, as if it's possible, is that he should fill the spot from McSizzle going forward again. Bet you there's no hint taken from him being the only person to compete in the forward line here and we carry on in disarray. Alternatively, he stays in defence, Petty goes entirely, and we give Brown a one-for-the-road shot at glory.

Howes comes back, Laurie and Woewodin get a full game to sink or swim, and god help us all if there's a similar debacle next week. NFI if these changes do anything for team balance but I'm in a mood for change.

IN: B.Brown, Howes, Laurie, Tholstrup (to sub), van Rooyen, Woewodin (to start)
OUT: Hunter (inj), McAdam, Petty, Rivers, Turner (omit)
LUCKY: Chandler, Petty, Sparrow, Windsor
UNLUCKY: Fullarton, Jefferson, Moniz-Wakefield

This was already going to be a hot one before both sides sank to mid-table mediocrity but will now go right off. God knows what happened to Angus Brayshaw after his early-season bench cameos, but we should ramp up the tension levels by bringing him back. Maybe as guest coach for the day?

Final thoughts
Watching this live would have caused me to commit violent public mayhem, but seeing it on TV from half a continent away left enough separation to go outside and play with the kids at full time. I miss getting really angry about footy but am open to recapturing that vibe by the end of the year.