Commotion in the ocean

Our season has never been better than the night we beat Geelong by boring the piss out of everyone. Lovers of spectacle, avert your eyes because the 'tedious but effective' method has returned just in time to keep our season alive. The original was pure defensive malice, with karma kicking us in the crack via a scoreless first quarter the next week, but this time we've got regularly pelting rain as an excuse for not putting on a replay of the 1989 Grand Final. 

After the usual review period nobody's ever going to watch this game in full again, in the short(?)/long term absence of Gawn and Petracca it was just what we needed. Wankers and Channel 7 executives can complain about the 'how', this was light years ahead of falling over the line against North. The last few minutes were both literally and metaphorically damp but after 90 seconds of "surely we're not going to stuff this up" we didn't, and are firmly back in the mix to go out in single sets. 

Nobody comes here for the rigorous football analysis, but it's been a while since I watched a game in such a disjointed rush so apologies if anything interesting doesn't get a mention. The second half was a bit more stable, but I started the game watching on a 20 minute delay and having to catch up by a certain time. This required old watching on a phone classics like pressing the Kayo +15 second button three times after a goal, once at stoppages, and a lot in quick succession at quarter time. 

Normal people would have just accepted missing five minutes of play, but I might have fallen down the footy nuff ladder but am not at that stage yet. Could've listened to the radio, but am still recovering from having to follow Footscray 2005 like that so it's best for the community if I don't Demon and Drive. 

By midway through the second I was so far behind that extreme moves like pressing skip at kick-ins and during defensive switches had to be wheeled out. If you've never followed a game that you're heavily emotionally invested in like this, I recommend trying it at least once. There's no breathing space for relaxing and contemplating what's going on, just an all-out information assault that will leave your head spinning. The problem is that you've got no time to take in what just happened before the next thing, so the game ends up as a big blur where you remember the major angles but not always in the correct order.

After kicking our highest score of the year a week earlier, albeit against players who CBF lifting their arms on the mark and a coach who was about to get the arse, I thought they might temporarily detach from the Petty forward fantasy and rotate him out for a couple of weeks. Even after the Gawn injury, it was generally accepted that we'd pick the only player on the list close to meeting the definition of 'experienced ruckman'. Instead, Tom Fullarton was sent to Casey to argue with Tom Linson about who's been unluckier this year, while the great survivor was immediately rushed back to play a role he had no qualification for other than having a large frame. 

I wouldn't exactly say it 'worked', and I'll be horrified if we try to cover Maximum's entire absence with him, but we won so I'm happy to play along with the idea that the move somehow contributed. Bad news for everyone who reacted to the selection like [insert off-colour allusion to recent political violence]. It didn't fill me with joy - and again I'll note that the best Petty looked all night was when he wandered into the defensive 50 - but given that I was ready to set myself on fire in the middle of Brunton Avenue if he was picked at full forward, my Thursday night circa 6.20pm could have been worse. 

NFI if these ratings are trustworthy or the equivalent of inside 50s, hitouts, and "if they'd kicked 10.1 instead of 1.10 they'd have won", but while Petty may be the fifth lowest ranked played in the competition (10+ games department) he's got one teammate below him. To be fair to Taj Woewodin, it's not easy to rack up fictional footy points when you're usually sat on the bench for three quarters thinking how shit it's going to be playing a few minutes, running laps of an empty stadium, then having to back up for some bullshit VFL game the next day. 

Because Demonwiki has been in such massive disarray (and more on that later) I've been slack following milestones, but Woewodin is involved in all sort of sub records this year. He becomes the first modern MFC player to come on 10 times in a season (previous leader - Aaron Davey with seven in 2013), equals Toby Bedford for most times named sub in one year, and goes beyond James Jordon for the most 'activated' (*spit*) player. I'm sure he's happy to be involved at senior level but it must be strange turning up every week to find out you'll be in a tracksuit doing fark all for most of the night. Could always be worse, the unrealistic "why didn't we keep Grundy?" moaning during the week was a sad reminder of the time we preferred Schache as our finals sub then didn't bother using him.

Considering how our depth still feels paper thin we've got a few hard luck stories. Kynan Brown got about five minutes of senior footy before being dismissed, and Matthew Jefferson was probably on the verge of getting a "what's the worst that could happen?" before Jake Melksham rose from the dead to - and let's be overly dramatic here - save our forward line. But there are positive stories, Koltyn Tholstrup not only gives off vibes of somebody who'll be shit hot with more experience but also has a fun habit of picking fights with the opposition, and Andy Moniz-Wakefield has come from the clouds to look comfortable at the top level. Who knows if any of these people will go on with it, but if you'd told me pre-season that Gawn would break a bone and Petracca would be getting dismantled one piece at a time I'd have wandered into oncoming traffic.

Even with some evidence that we're good in the wet, I'm still spooked by adverse conditions. Obviously it should suit a team that lives to win with low scores, but my mind goes straight to the massive debacles. Most recently, the one where we kept GWS to a pitiful score and lost with an even worse one. The mood was helped here by kicking what passes for us as a decent score, and the opposition literally going to water whenever it got seriously moist.

In another world I'd be saying "it started well... but", because the first few minutes was just us piling into the Essendon backline. Fritsch kicked the first inside a minute for I think the third time this season, which is odd considering how hot/cold he's run otherwise, and it came courtesy of a smart punch forward by Moniz-Wakefield. Their only early foray was a shithouse kick straight into the arms of a defender in acres of space, and we went forward again in a way that might have led you to thinking everything was going to be ok if we'd converted any of the chances. 

On a related note, I'm impressed at how well Fritsch's hair bounced back from the early soaking to regain full puffy volume. Things went badly for us shortly after, with their ruckman starting to realise he could have an all-time game against our pro-am division, and if it continued that way I'm sure somebody would have linked Fritsch to a half-time hairdrying and held it up as a sign of everything that's wrong with our club. I wouldn't care if players had a mid-match enema if it put them in the right frame of mind for the contest. 

By the time they'd kicked the next three goals it looked like we'd done our bolt and were going to ebb away to a sad defeat. Essendon's recovery got a bit of help from a trigger happy umpire who paid a 50 against Pickett for encroaching on the mark that was hotter than Mt. Vesuvius. I wouldn't have minded so much if they hadn't all but abolished holding the ball in the opening minutes and let players from both sides dispose of it however they liked. Later in the quarter we semi-evened the ledger with a deliberate out of bounds that caused Channel 7 to cut to a kid in the crowd doing his block a split second before he threw the double middle fingers like he was Stone Cold Steve Austin. Hopefully when special commenter Nathan Jones said "I don't like that" he was referring to the ill-manned little bastard and not the decision.

The third goal was the one that made me nervously adjust my collar and start mentally preparing for disappointment. I can understand the backline being caught out of position if there's a surprise turnover in the middle of the ground, but it came towards them at a moderate pace here and god knows where anybody was. It was the footy equivalent of John Travolta walking into a room and wondering where everyone was. They proceeded to chip around to free range players before finding somebody standing directly in front and I thought was having the same reaction as the angry child - sans bird - while sitting in my car, pulled over to the side of the road in a generic suburban street. Thank god nobody walked past at that point or they'd have called police. 

It was bad enough watching this on a screen where you only realised the escalating doom of how many players were on their own inside 50 as the camera panned, imagine watching that unfold from Row MM, you'd have piffed an object down the stairs. Thank god it was a false alarm, because from there until the last few minutes Essendon was so inept in attack that they'd have got better value parachuting our old pal The Weid in and hoping for the Brent Grgic style 'only good game against his old side'. I'm a year late to finding out that he kicked five in a game last year, but am happy to see it was against Geelong again.

No apologies for any of the issues I've had with the forward line, but I'd like to revisit the bit about how you can have one of Turner or Petty, and say that I'd very much like the former. Not only did he put on a perfect lead for the second goal, but he kicked the cover off a wet ball in a way that suggested that getting him space instead of expecting pack marks of panic kicks may = profit. It also helps when the opposition don't know exactly who you're going to kick it to the moment ball leaves boot. Refer again to Weideman, and the time we reacted to the most consistent stretch of his career by dropping Tom McDonald, leaving absolutely no doubt as to where the ball was going with obvious results. Now they're both defenders, but while McSizzle is reliving his finest days in the backline, Weid hasn't played a game all year so sorry about that.

I assume the stripes on Essendon's clash jumper that made it look like they'd been run over by a car is related to their car company sponsorship, and this was relevant to their performance for the next two quarters. Old mate ruckman was still having the time of his life, but it wasn't as relevant when we had the rest of them well under control. It still felt a bit generous to be within a point at quarter time, courtesy of a late joint enterprise holding the ball/goal by Fritsch, Tholstrup and Pickett, but now that we'd survived the early scare without conceding again I was open to good times again. 

Still worried about how we'd kick a winning score, but the best way to neutralise that threat is to stop the other lot from kicking goals. Not to mention - and I know this might feel unfamiliar - getting some yourself. Cue a very good second quarter that I didn't get to properly enjoy due to watching it frantically like an ice addict. My degree of difficulty didn't nearly stack up to what the players went through when the rain started hammering down early in the second, but against everything I've grown up to believe this favoured us. Certainly helped stop their ruckman having any impact, even when allowed to motor around unchallenged for most of the game. 

Rivers got a lot of the plaudits for racking up possessions galore early in the game, but I very much enjoyed Langdon's best game for ages. He helped set up the second of the quarter, and Windsor finished it by hitting the NBA Jam turbo button and bolting through a pair of defenders, but the genius element was provided by Melksham, who trapped a loose ball, and delayed his opponent just long enough for his teammate to come past in express mode. 

The Milkshake has been through a lot of ups and downs since joining us, and has been written off several times by more astute judges than me, but christ on a bike either he's come back post-knee with a furious vengeance, or we just don't know what we've been missing over this season. He got our fifth out of the last six, but not before Brad Scott got material for his latest round of umpire whinging by Sparrow blatantly dropping the ball. I doubt he'll consider it a payoff for that 50 at the start. Ironically the twin who doesn't look a cult leader has ended up coaching a team followed by extremely cult-vunerable people.

And that was it for a while. For anyone, as either side of half time became the usual endurance test for neutral viewers. By now I was watching in real time from a secure indoor location so it was easy for me to want more hammering rain, because that's when we were the vastly better side. It took a bit of old school Pickett brilliance to get things going again, as he did a Matrix-style spin move through two opponents which unlocked that man Melksham standing on his own inside 50, and he generously handed off to Langdon for the tap in. Later in the quarter he did the most beautiful kick to Turner inside 50, and surely we'd have won a final somewhere last year if his knee hadn't crumpled.   

We're just as likely to turn this outburst of excitement into 4.14.39 as go on with it, but in the last weeks there's been genuine non-Pickett specific spark about our forward line game. There's still a chance for most elements of the much-vaunted Hollywood finish to the season, highlighted by Melksham and May playfully squaring up on the dais with premiership medallions around their neck before heading off to celebrate with a succulent French meal. I'm not holding out much hope of the 'Joel Smith gets off on a technicality and comes back to kick a bag' leg, but there's still time for Clayton Oliver to turn a season of struggle into the Norm Smith Medal. At quarter time he looked more likely to be ending the year in the VFL, but came good at the end. He's still nowhere near his best but who's in reserve that will do better? Best to stick with him and hope that either a) he takes the heat off others and/or b) reignites his sixth sense for ball getting and distributing at a crucial point of the season.

Essendon were being kept at arms' length, but no margin is enough the way our last quarters have gone recently. And who didn't think a 17 point lead was just a one point loss waiting to happen? I sure did when they got the first goal of the last quarter. They started playing 'death or glory' footy, and fortunately for us, the second part of the equation didn't start working until they were already dead. You can argue the last few minutes were a letdown, but once we'd survived their half-baked, late comeback the simple fact was that we'd finally put a team away early in the final term. More of that in future thanks.

Party time started with Melksham probably dropping the ball in a sea of Essendon defenders who were desperate to give the ball to us, then he skidded a goal through, causing some poor bastard to plow into the fence while trying to stop it. Earlier in the night the slide rule was invoked for one of our players tripping over an opponent and kicking him in the head, now I suppose we'll have to stick sandbags or inflatables around the ad boards in case a player collides with it. 

Further brutality was dished out over the next few minutes, including another great lead by Turner against a defender who had clearly run out of will to live, and before you knew it the margin was out to 41 points. This is where I did something silly and not only thought we were safe, but publicly admitted it just before a Bomber attack that had been tits on a bull useless since the first quarter belatedly turned up and started kicking goals at pace. 

With three minutes left it was back to where we'd started the quarter, with the very minimal chance of a Round 6, 1992 style implosion for the ages. One more would have made it really interesting, but despite the commentators fanging home drama with all their might we held on. Good.

Finishing the round inside the eight on percentage feels like a step down from the last few years, but there are no (allegedly) easy games left so holding position (or better?) will be deserved. It's the most mid-table mediocrity run-in you'll ever see, playing the teams currently in 5th, 7th, 10th, 9th, 11th and 12th. Last time we were in this position it ended in a tragic defeat at the hands of Collingwood which ultimately necked our season so let's not go through that again.

2024 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Judd McVee
4 - Ed Langdon
3 - Jake Melksham
2 - Kysaiah Pickett
1 - Trent Rivers

Massive apologies to McDonald, varying degrees of apology to Fritsch, Neal-Bullen, Oliver (after quarter time), Turner and Windsor.

Leaderboard
I've got no time to trawl the archives but suspect that since this award started we've never had a game this late in the season where none of the top six polled. That's great news for Gawn, who can put his feet up for both medical and relaxation reasons while the all-important votes go elsewhere. There's 35 home and away votes left, so unless we play finals I'm afraid that it's for anyone who hasn't got going yet. If your September dreams are reinvigorated, adjust what's available by up to 20 based on how far you think we'll go.

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

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Turner's Gawn tribute megabomb in the first quarter was good, but as a team effort you can't beat Melksham's marvellous handball and Windsor flying through like the bullet train Australia has never had. No change to the leaderboard.    

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

Next week
In the second part of our redemption tour of the WA teams, we attempt to avenge the peak shambles defeat against Fremantle in Alice Springs. I suggest not getting overly excited if we kick two early goals. Before the West Coast fiasco I'd have been rubbing my hands together in glee at returning to Premiership Stadium but now that spell has been broken I reserve the right to fret.

For the love of all that is holy surely they pick a proper ruckman this time. We got away with it against a one person operation, but I can't see any scenario featuring Petty vs Jackson and The Other One not ending in them running riot from coast to coast. If we're ever going to find out that Tom Fullarton is a real person this will be it. Didn't see a cracker of the VFL game but I'm led to understand by various internet lunatics that he was belted in the ruck and dropped marks but got (relatively) plenty of the ball around the ground. 

Ruck it, let's find out if he's any use so we can stop having this discussion every week. If it goes badly we might get our first one-and-done import since Moose Henwood. I'm open to Petty taking centre bounces then dropping back to where he belongs, but don't want to sacrifice JVR into having to do excess rucking, and am not convinced we'll get away with covering up via animal midfield intensity without the element of surprise.

Otherwise, mystical tactical changes or surprise injuries aside, we may as well roll with this group for another week and see what happens. Not sure Bowey and Moniz-Wakefield will eventually both be needed in the same side, but for now it frees Rivers up to play midfield so I'll buy that for a dollar. Looks like the only other serious contender from the Seconds is Laurie, and I'm open to waiting for the great leap forward with him but maybe not right not now. I note Ben Brown is alive and well so he could be a nice surprise option if things get interesting.

IN: Fullarton
OUT: Petty (omit)
LUCKY: Woewodin (he's already got our single season sub record, may as well set the bar ridiculously high)
UNLUCKY: K. Brown, Howes, Laurie, Tomlinson

The All New Bradbury Plan...
Due to the middle of the ladder becoming a deadly minefield some of these serving suggestions may alter based on other results. All things being equal let's go for...

Adelaide d. Essendon
Gold Coast d. GWS
Hawthorn vs Collingwood
Richmond d. Port Adelaide
Geelong d. Footscray (but I can see potential benefits the other way)
Sydney d. Brisbane
North Melbourne d. Carlton

... and West Coast vs St Kilda is your first confirmed useless game of 2024.

Administrative announcement
Remember the bit where I said Demonwiki was up and running again? Well, it is now but for the majority of the week it was in disarray. Restoring the full collection of images is proving trickier than expected, so there's half a chance I'll have to trawl through the archives are manually reintroduce them. That's not going to happen until I've got confirmation that uploading a picture won't cause catastrophic meltdown so hold tight. Design is also still weird, but anything purely related to text is doing well. 

Final thoughts
I won't look back on this fondly if we celebrate the 20th anniversary of their last finals win by helping deliver another one, but for now it was a slightly better version of last week's 'just what we needed' win. Still can't see us wobbling to within range of flag but am willing to buy a ticket and take the trip.