Warming up the engine

Not that footy fans are fickle, but the same secessionists who suffered fap-related chafing when the Eagles beat us last time are on the verge of revolution again. They haven't won a game since then, the local gutter press is foaming over players allegedly texting each other that they don't care for the coach anymore, and I say welcome to the stop/start world of rebuilding. Every other time West Coast has been shit since 1987 they've turned it around quickly, now they're following the more traditional path of suffering through wild mood swings before finally stringing things together. 

Don't know why I care so much/at all about how other fans feel, but impatient Eagles nutters can start a faction with their Port counterparts who thought they could finally sack Ken Hinkley before they won two in a row. Be more like Melbourne fans, some who wanted to oust Goodwin before we'd lost another game post-flag. That element would have gone off their collective tits if we'd lost here, and not without some justification. I'm of the opinion that Goodwin's not getting the boot anytime soon unless Glenn Bartlett unveils hidden camera footage of him doing something remarkable, so there's no point ruining the vibe of the place by seriously debating it.

Adjust your enjoyment level as required for quality of the opposition, but we did the most important thing here and won comfortably by kicking a decent score. In a season with nightmare ladder predictor scenarios featuring us having to beat Collingwood by a particular margin in the last game, turning a hot start into a massive win would have been nice but I'm happy just to pocket premiership points and look hopefully to the future.

On the rare occasion of being able to attend consecutive home games, I decided to check in with the faithful and have my once a year crack at the Redlegs area. It's not like the guaranteed Grand Final ticket will be relevant so may as well get something out of my premium membership. This worked well, because after realising they could save a buck by closing the Ponsford Stand last time, the cheap bastards at the MCG went all-in on cost saving by necking the Ponsford too.

There's been no improvement in Redlegs visitor standards, with dickheads still allowed to attend in the colours of different teams. I don't sit there enough to demand a no guest pass policy, but would support turning away anyone in non-MFC merch. This time there were people in North and Richmond jumpers, both keen waiting to start chanting "one of us, one of us" if we lost. Also somebody responded to an Eagles goal by yelling "boo na na! boo na na!" like BT and should have been thrown at terminal velocity towards level one regardless of his team.

Even though the Eagles hadn't fired a shot since beating us, I went into this terrified of a humiliating home loss. Fretting is just what I do, but in this case it wasn't required. Usually you can't win by playing one quarter, except when it's against shite opposition who have had their season highlights and are now searching for the finish line. See, for example, us in 2014 after the Essendon win. The "we're back" boost runs out after a couple of weeks, you have a close loss, and the rest of the season is one big dead rubber while you look forward to what 'the kids' will do next year and start mentally delisting placeholder fringe players.

Long-term nervous conditions aside, everything pointed to a performance vastly improved from the half-baked shit sandwich served up against the Eagles last time. Other than the absence of Petracca, and Lever not being assassinated in the first quarter, the big difference was the return of Jake Melksham. It seemed like a wild move to send a recovering knee victim straight into the seniors without a VFL warmup game but as if they haven't been training him to match fitness in recent weeks, and he's experienced enough to know what he's doing without going through a reminder at some dogshit stained suburban ground.

It's ironic that Petty finally got enough touches to kick 0.4 last week, just in time to get injured. The Milkshake is a different type of player, but with the key difference of knowing how to be a forward. He's had a complicated career with us, written off multiple times, and all but finished midway through last year before a well-received revival that ended in an innocuous looking ACL explosion. Now, after a season of always looking one forward short he's seen as a potential game-changer because all the other options are either too young, too hurt, or too much better suited to playing at the other end.

I need more evidence against better opposition, but our attack looked significantly improved by his entry. It helped that for two and a half quarters van Rooyen looked like he'd reached the point where he no longer needs an older key forward to take the focus off him, and may be ready to be the clear #1 choice. Now watch him kick 0.0 next week.

Even if this season goes tits up, it's not like we're clinging on by our fingernails and about to hit another 2007 and beyond death spiral. Against the odds we've even seen benefits from the Petracca scandal. I'd rather him out there, not suffering from a range of issues that now includes appendicitis and can't be far from typhoid, but it's forcing us to do different things. You'd like to think Rivers would have been playing more in the midfield anyway, and Tholstrup would be getting senior games by now, but with our selection policy I'm not so sure.

For the second week in a row, the best highlights came from a few unstoppable minutes. This time we weren't having to overturn a deficit, and in all fairness the opposition wasn't much chop. It's hard to understand how we played so badly against them last time, but Lever surviving without getting his head kicked off sure helped. Neither he or May were at their best, but in conjunction with a really good game by McSizzle, they took care of more inside 50s than the margin would suggest.

My greatest fear was, as always, doing most things right but losing/nearly losing by kicking a shit score. Cue slight internal distress when two minutes of early attack delivered nowt but Pickett snapping out on the full from an angle where that would have been harder to do than score. 

After weathering the early storm, West Coast's first attack fell apart due to a horrific blunder but we countered by failing to capitalise and soon they were lining up a set shot. I have no earthly idea how we ended this quarter with so many goals. Botchamania continued when they failed to get anything, leading to Tholstrup marking and goalling shortly after. He got another almost literally straight away, when a perfect kick from the middle bounced off JVR's chest and into his path. If Koltyn didn't already have cult figure status because of his name (and am I the only one disappointed in the silent 'h' that reduces its Viking warrior appeal?), and perm-like mullet, it would have been sealed when he celebrated #2 by trying to fight a random defender. More of this please.

Between Rivers, van Rooyen, McVee and Tholstrup (with apologies to Woewodin, back to being marooned on the bench for three quarters), the Eagles took a tremendous amount of damage from Western Australians. By the time the game was lost they should have been sending their runner to our players with fat cash offers. Why not sign up for flying around the country every two weeks and constant scrutiny from the only newspaper in a two horse town. I still don't know why Jayden Hunt did this when he wasn't from there to start with, but I'm happy that he's been rewarded for playing through the worst era in Eagles by reaching 150 games. I still love that guy, even if he's now too old to talk about owl energy and use his abnormally long fingers to massage Christian Petracca's grundle.

For what turned into our best first quarter for a year, it was still only two goals to one halfway through. Then the Eagles did what teams in their position do, went to sleep for 10 minutes and saw the game fly out the window. They'd had the better of things for about five minutes until Fritsch's goal made them hit the abandon ship button and dive for the exits. By the time it was over, ending with two in a row to Pickett, including a lovely opportunistic goal off the ground, we were 36 points ahead and only a chance of losing by doing something incredibly stupid.

Unlike last time we directed some attention towards King Harley Race, and while he was still radiating 'future superstar' there was less of the wading through our midfield like shallow water than last time. He did pull off another double fend later in the game, but this time it was followed by a flub kick so nobody will want to see it again. He was still one of their best, but his greatest impact may have been the smother that led to Gawn's injured ankle. At this stage it doesn't seem to be serious but I've heard that before. Either way, let's cross to Tom Fullarton's house as he tears the metaphorical sub vest off and prepares to enter the conversation. Either that or we'll follow up one of van Rooyen's best games by playing him in the middle all next week so he can get injured too.         

I know West Coast is running on empty, and you suspect we're not going to get the same time and space to roam free and find targets inside 50 against the good teams, but you can only beat who's in front of you. There wasn't much to be upset about at quarter time, but one downer was the continuing struggles of Clayton Oliver. After one of his best games this year last week he looked way off it again here, but maybe there's a human sacrifice element to it? After two weeks of Viney stepping up, this was the best game Rivers has ever played as a midfielder. Get him through this year, give him a pre-season and hope for a thermonuclear return. Meanwhile, enjoy the emergence of midfield Rivers.

We've got a habit of failing to go on after high scoring quarters, but I still tempted fate by checking for our biggest win at the MCG. The answer is 141 points against Hawthorn in 1926, and it was obviously going to stay that way but as long as we went on with it to some degree I'd be happy. The priority was avoiding humiliation by winning, but I still reserved the right to be a bit sooky if we were outscored for the rest of the game. Hopes of a runaway win were briefly raised when a few tentative opening minutes ended with the ball being split into JVR's path on the goalline. Then we conceded one, narrowly survived another, and things were going as expected again. 

Fans of complaining about no plan B would have loved how we went back to making scoring look difficult once the opposition stopped letting us punt the ball from side to side unchallenged. Just as I was hoping for a repeat of the Complaining To A Tree game where we inexplicably won a quarter five goals to nil but lost the game by 98. There was another outburst of scoring that made it comfortable again. Thanks to the gormless fool who gave away a 50 that allowed JVR to kick another goal from a metre out - surely the closest range back-to-back goals you're ever likely to see. It was less a 'steadier' for us as a 'wobbler' for them, as a quarter they'd morally won ended in an increased margin.

When van Rooyen kicked a fourth before half time I thought he was warming up for a savage afternoon. One benefit of sitting near people was seeing the cute old couple in front of me simultaneously do an impression of him holding the ball in the air before running in just as he did. It's nice to reacquaint yourself with the purer things in life for a bit before going back to reading about airplane hijackings and shopping centre fires on Wikipedia.

I'm not going to harp on the absence of Petty until we see how this forward line goes next week, especially if Gawn's not there to float in and cause chaos, but it was a win for my theory that you can only have one of Petty or Turner. In this case Turner was free to only have a few possessions and we were covered elsewhere. I've got more faith in him learning to play forward, as evidenced by his perfect lead into acres of space, before booting the cover off his set shot from a tricky angle. Speaking of weird angles, this was his first career goal in daylight hours so insert your own Disco reference in the space provided.

The latest halftime innovation is 'Horns Up Cam', and I nearly had the horn myself. West Coast are officially shit again, but it was nice to be battering somebody one way or the other. I was as comfortable about winning as I'm going to get with half the game left, but still didn't want the second half to just ebb away without doing something to put the wind other teams. We increased the margin, but there was no big bang. It's too early for a 2021 Gold Coast style 'bloodlust discovered' match, and any margin would have been greeted with "yeah it's just West Coast" (to which I'd say, look how well we finished against "yeah it's just North Melbourne") so I might be clutching at straws. Overall, for the benefit of those not sure of my position, this was a good win and we can all hope it builds to bigger and better things. And if you don't think I'm appreciating it sufficiently log into one of the forums and see how some of those miserable old tarts are behaving.

Any chance of an National Lampoon's European Vacation style "I think they're going to pork 'em" went out the window when we conceded the first two goals of the term. The 'job done' atmosphere was furthered by JVR missing what would have been a career best fifth goal from just outside the square. Admittedly he shouldn't have been paid the mark to start with, but this is no time to be diplomatic. Give me goals anywhere, anyhow at any time. Maybe even in a fourth quarter if you're lucky. Again, the Eagles had a lot of the play but couldn't make it count, only to trip over, fall on their face, and watch us go back to doing what we liked.

The most notable thing about the third quarter was having a box seat view of Pickett finally pulling down a genuinely massive hanger. I felt a bit ungrateful that my first thought was "thank god he finally held one" rather than enjoying it, but as a screamer skeptic I'd be happier with a chest mark that turns into/saves a goal than a huge overhead grab that doesn't. Blame Jeremy Howe, I've never been the same since he took Mark of the Year when we were losing by 90 points then immediately turned the ball over. There's being a completely joyless fuck, and there's just playing the percentages.

So as many times as you'll see the replay of Pickett's mark, I'll have Gawn taking a regulation grab in front and converting. Oddly, the scoreboard claimed that his career record from that spot was 1.1 at 20% accuracy. Does that mean he'd kicked three others out on the full from 20 metres out on a slight angle? He's had some set shot woes but surely we'd remember three enormous shanks like that. 

Once the Eagles had fired all their shots, JVR missed another easy shot by his standards. He still played a fantastic game, but if he's got nerves about increasing his career best tally then I'm happy to settle for four goals every week. 

After our recent fourth quarters, starting across the Chris Sullivan Line was nice regardless of opposition but putting the foot down would have been nice. The first step was to kick a goal, duly provided as a 'welcome back' present to Melksham, left standing on his own in the forward pocket for his second. He didn't look rusty in the slightest, and is a much-welcome addition to the side just as we're threatening to fall off a cliff.

Any chance of the opposition dropping off and letting JVR run riot ended when Gawn and his sore ankle departed. Which was a perfectly understandable safety move, but if there's ever been a time to play A. Random in the ruck this was it. I was ready to punch on if he got hurt in some bullshit defensive contest, but he survived while never looking like kicking another goal. Eventually Turner got a crack at it, but the life force of this game exited at the same time Gawn did. Alas there was no season-defining percentage shift, but I'll get upset about that when we miss the eight by 0.01% again.

The most excitement I had in the final term was the crowd being announced at exactly 32,000. That can't happen very often, and not for us at the MCG since Round 13, 1950. Even that has conflicting numbers in different newspapers, so if you believe these figures were real and not subject to a GWS style 'count the Red Rooster staff' inflation it was statistically significant. Thrilled to have played a part.

Anyway, what more can be said? We won and remain in the hunt, but there's a lot more to be done. Can't see us being involved by late September based on this, but it's a start.

2024 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Trent Rivers
4 - Jacob van Rooyen
3 - Caleb Windsor
2 - Tom McDonald
1 - Alex Neal-Bullen

Apologies to Chandler, Gawn, May, McVee, Tholstrup, Viney

Leaderboard
Another week of the leaders missing out, but as long as he only missed one game Gawn will remain overwhelming favourite. Obviously he won't be beaten in the Stynes so let's go ahead and declare that over. And please welcome ANB to the podium, as he continues to improve his career best tally, drawing level with the winner of the Leigh Newton Injury Drama Award for third.

The action, for once, is in the Rising Star race, where Windsor has leapt from the grave to break the tie with Turner and take an outright lead. Still plenty of contenders who could nick it but I won't lie, a genuine first year player feels better suited to winning than somebody who qualified on the four games or less rule.

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
12 - Kysaiah Pickett
11 - Clayton Oliver, Trent Rivers
9 - Tom McDonald, Judd McVee
8 - Jacob van Rooyen
7 - Tom McDonald
6 - Caleb Windsor (LEADER: Rising Star Award)
4 - Bayley Fritsch, Christian Salem, Tom Sparrow, Adam Tomlinson
3 - Ed Langdon, Daniel Turner
2 - Kade Chandler, Harrison Petty
1 - Jack Billings, Blake Howes

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Apologies to the crumb aspect of Pickett's first quarter goal, but I'm giving an inaugural nomination to Tholstrup for his second due to the aggro celebration. 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
This was a perfectly good win but I won't fully appreciate it unless we back up against Essendon on Saturday. Regretfully, they are confirmed good again so it's up to us to save humanity with a win here. Could very well happen, but it won't be this easy.

Casey lost comfortably again, so other than Gawn's dicky ankle I suspect the only other changes will be for tactical considerations that I don't understand. A positive forward performance is bad news for McAdam and Jefferson, who both kicked goals in an otherwise ordinary game. As the theory about Windsor running out of gas has been temporarily discontinued, I've got nothing. Maybe we don't need all of Bowey, AMW and Salem but unless it's time for Tomlinson comes in - Tomlinson goes out episode 921 they can all stay. Bet they bring Petty straight back.

IN: Fullarton
OUT: Gawn (omit)
LUCKY: Nil
UNLUCKY: K. Brown, Howes, Jefferson, McAdam, Tomlinson

The All New Bradbury Plan...
We're almost at the point where people get angry about trying to Bradbury into the finals and lobby to finish 13th for the draft benefits. Not interested.

Geelong d. Collingwood (if the Pies aren't going to walk into the eight then let's keep them within range before R24 just in case...)
North d. Sydney (just in case the Swans spontaneously combust and make it interesting)
Hawthorn d. Freo
Carlton d. Footscray (there could be benefits going the other way but I don't think you can stop Carlton making it so they can kill a fringe contender instead)|
Adelaide d. St Kilda (almost a 'don't care' but may as well ensure the Saints don't get on a run)
Gold Coast d. Port (willing to keep the Suns in the mix by dragging Port down)
Richmond d. GWS
West Coast d. Brisbane

Administrative announcement
If you've read this far you're probably the sort of sicko who'd have noticed Demonwiki falling over more in recent weeks than Melbourne's forward line. Fear not fact fans, we're not entirely outage free yet but at the time of writing the site is back online. Due to an upgrade from 2009-era software the design looks weird and all the picture links need to be manually updated (insert sarcastic thumbs up emoji here) but your #1 source for obscure MFC content is alive and well for now.

Final thoughts
Because I'm old it still feels like Facebook is a new thing when in reality it was lapped by Twitter about 15 years ago. On my way home it served up a post with my reaction from 7 July 2013, when a 31 point loss with Dean Terlich as our best player was called "not as bad as I expected". This was a good reminder that I'm not in a position to complain about nine goal wins yet.