Disarray, thataway

So, the game that was meant to pay off last week's near-miss against a premiership contender instead turned into North Melbourne's revenge for blowing multiple golden opportunities against us while at the opposite end of the ladder. In the (probable) words of 1996 MFC Best and Fairest runner-up Al Clarkson, "wildcard, bitches", as they strung us along for three quarters before unleashing a direct nuclear strike in the last quarter.

I don't think it will be remembered as a definitive passing in opposite directions like the oft-cited Hawthorn '07 incident, but it was not good for us. The focus will be on the vigorous raising of white flag in the final quarter, but we'd been uncomfortably crap long before that. The margin was only narrowly more than Footscray last year, but that was end-of-season freefall, this was much worse. For 10 goal early season misery you've got to go all the way back to a slopfest against the Hawks (them again) in Round 4, 2018. At least that came after two wins, now we've dug ourselves a hole that's in danger of expanding into a gaping chasm.

From the 'How well are you going?' Files, sponsored by Tobin Brothers, it only took two rounds to become confused about when a game was being played. All week I thought this was happening on Saturday, before doing a comedy double-take when an extended squad came out. Good thing that clue set me straight or I might have turned up on Saturday afternoon wondering where everyone was. Maybe bad thing, because it would have saved me from coming back the next day and seeing our worst performance in Victoria for years. 

It says something about how (relatively) well we've had it recently that you've got to go back seven years for a depressing early-season blowout. Ironically that happened a week after we'd beaten North for the first time in 18 attempts. Since then we've been the better side, but have still teased a few farcical losses, including last year when I upset randoms by declaring it the worst win ever. The chickens came home to roost in spectacular fashion here, as we did everything possible to send a crowd who have spent years watching their team lose home with the happiest memories they've had since Drew Petrie did a funny walk.

Due to our unconditional surrender and really post-match comments by the coach, there's not going to be much room for niche grievances this week so let me get mine in first. Yes, it's time to go on about seating arrangements again so if you're over that search for the words 'first goal' to skip to the alleged playing of Australian Rules football. 

As the MCG went into full tightwad mode post-COVID I've been more polite to Docklands than almost any Melbourne fan in the last 25 years. It's hard times when the people who pioneered the closing of large segments of the ground to save money end up as the good guys. I'll reluctantly accept the logic of doing this when interstate teams are involved, or back when we'd play unwanted home games there (when both happened at the same time it would have been fair enough if they'd made us sit around the boundary line), but shutting half of level three for a game between even Victorian teams - even low drawing ones - was such a massive extraction of piss that they should've handed out catheters on the way in.

The result of this rubbish was general admission patrons being crammed in like battery hens, crawling across six people to get in/out of rows, having to stand up whenever somebody wanted to go past, and being forced to listen to people who should be exiled from the mainland of Australia talking nonsense. I've reached the point in life where comfort is king so wouldn't have shown up if I knew this was happening. Young people can scoff but this will happen to you eventually. The stadium operators will say this was advertised on their website etc... but what are we doing if you can't expect the full general admission area to be open for an all-Victorian game? 

I know I'm a special case who falls somewhere in the middle of being an active member of society and qualifying for the sensory room, but surely even people who are open human contact thought this was stuipid. The irony of being forced to sit in the back row was not lost on me, but the advantages are lost when you've constantly got people clambering across the fittings behind you while clutching three cans of booze for dear life because it's easier to get in that way than making everyone stand up.

It's hard to explain what triggers me so much about this, but it just feels like such a tight-fisted(forever) approach. You're flogging food at a 1000% markup, give a few more people jobs for the day and play your part in supporting the game instead of acting like ruthless for-profit arseholes. This goes double for a venue controlled by the AFL. I know they'd set both these teams on fire in an instant if they could, but at some point you've got to have a bit of respect for your customers.

Of course this was the day I cranked up the degree of difficulty by bringing a kid along. The good news is that purchasing a ticket meant they sent me a survey asking what the experience was like, the bad news was it meant the poor child who has about 1% interest in footy and just wants to watch people do their block instead got to see me slowly losing the will to live. 

The first leg of the quest was working out what part of the ground we were allowed to enter. Instead of letting people make their own way to level three then blocking off aisles as necessary, they only allowed access to the enchanted kingdom via two ramps. The next had a sign saying "no access to level 3" without any instruction on what to do about that, leaving us wandering around like clowns until finding a frantic ground attendant waving her arms like she was landing planes on an aircraft carrier, shouting out aisle numbers, and probably wondering why her bosses couldn't just put up a bloody sign explaining what was going on.

Now that I think about it, we should have just gone up the unattended ramp and walked around to the legal part of level three from there, but at this stage I still wasn't sure you could get up there at all. By now the game had already started, and that's partially on me for only showing up 20 minutes before the bounce, but the other 99% of this is their fault. By the time we got to aisle 43 I was starting to understand how Burke and Wills felt. Once I got to a seat I was hot, bothered, and if it hadn't taken so long to get there might have turned around and watched on the train. Yes, I acknowledge this is peak 'first world problems' but if we don't fight back in some lame way they'll have us playing home games at Princes Park again soon. 

The big hint that their strategy was a farce was when people behind the goals started to migrate into the wide open spaces of the bay next to them, but staff soon came from every angle to herd them back onto the other side of the tape. Credit then to the heroes at the other end who saw this and shifted across en masse so that by the time the ground staff got there they'd crossed the tipping point of being too big a group to shift. It was a minor version of how they can crash tackle one person running onto the ground but can't do shit when 10,000 do it. It's a shame because Docklands actually do a lot right (e.g. the location, and a ground entry system that shits on the MCG) but after this experience they can either drop dead or blow me.

I was so outraged by all this that I never seriously got into hating the footy. Which is probably lucky. By the time I finally got to a seat North had kicked the first goal (hello readers who skipped the whinging), but van Rooyen was about to respond and all was well with the world. Briefly anyway, because we were clearly not playing well. Last week ended in tragedy but there were moments of beauty, this was almost entirely struggle. It didn't start getting disastrous for about 2.5 quarters, but the signs weren't good early. 

They were having plenty of shots from different sources, while we were encouraging JVR to take on their whole backline every time. I feel bad for the guy, he hasn't done much to start the season but what help is he getting when the ball is being madly heaved down there with no care or concern. He's not completely innocent, he did one tremendous lead into space, got the ball set up for him on a platter and dropped it. Oops.  

I refuse to accept that slow build-ups and switches are going to help us, but the biggest difference between this and the practice match that Clarko probably tanked to lull us into a false sense of security was the lack of Pickett. Of course Harry Sharp wasn't going to kick four goals in a real game, but it's easy to imagine Pickett making life difficult for lesser opponents. Instead, it was springtime for North as they ran around collecting possessions at will. I'm still not sure how we were in front at quarter time but it might have been better to trail and get a wakeup call. If you believe that would have changed anything. Previous experience says we'd probably have lost by less if five goals down at quarter time after launching an ultimately futile panic mode comeback.

Nobody on our list is on the same continent as Pickett, but I appreciated Kade Chandler trying his best to fill the void. He couldn't do the crumb, but kicked a couple of set shots, put good defensive pressure on, and generally played his best game yet. Maybe it just looked better because other than Oliver nobody else did bugger all. I'm going to have a wild time handing out votes this week.

Spoiler alert - Gawn won't be amongst them After a fine performance against the Giants, he was comfortably beaten here. Which is fine, he's been up for the vast majority of the last decade so I'm not going to hold one ordinary game against him. Considering what he's done I probably wouldn't hold 15 against him. I'm sure everyone would have all moved on with their lives safe in the knowledge that we'll have to stop relying on him to save us eventually, before the coach got all philosophical and weird in the press conference.

Maybe I'm thinking too much into it, but the question felt like an attempt to bait the coach and he jumped in feet first. Instead of playing a straight bat and saying words to the effect of "he had a down day, so did everyone else, we'll work on it", Goodwin went off on one about things "going on", and how there's a "backstory" for the performance. There might be, but unless a ripper of a story is about to break and he was trying to get ahead of it, I don't see what this did other than make thousands of people who don't waste their time on AFL press conference stick their head up and go "huh?"

At first, I thought he was alluding to some sort of maltreatment during the game. This is known in the industry as the 'Sir Ben Kingsley Defence'

But if Max had been groped, prodded, gouged, or rabbit punched we'd have seen footage by now. So, at the time of writing we have no idea whether he's got a major life challenge or the washing machine flooded his house overnight. Thoughts are with him either way. 

I've deliberately not looked for any clues about what's going on because a) it's none of my business, and b) this is the kind of situation where dickheads validate their disappointing lives by making up crazy shit that bozos swallow without question. 

For god's sake can we not publicly resolve this issue until I publish this post so it doesn't need rewrites? I've barely got time for first draft editing at the moment. "Maybe reign it in a few thousand words and stop complaining about having to sit next to people" I hear you say. "No" I reply. That's the enjoyable bit, it's discussing the actual playing of footy that weighs things down. Good thing I know rock all about tactics because it saves us about 4000 words a week.

I know we're lacking depth - see last week's debutante extravaganza - but even before he was injured Charlie Spargo hadn't done anything since blowing the lid on Ricky Nixon's fake premiership merchandise scam, so what was the undue haste to throw him back into the side off the back of one VFL practice match? My theory that Chandler does the same things better took a bit of a hit last year, but bad timing for Charleston to show up just as his rival (in my eyes anyway) had his best day. He's a contributor, but I don't know if we'd have been hurt by letting him bubble up in the Reserves for a couple of weeks.

The backline looked a lot more prone to collapse this week, but that's not surprising when North has better key forwards than a Hogan-less GWS. And if we let the ball get down there quickly before our talls defenders can set up then other sides are off to the races. It would help to keep the ball inside our forward 50 for more than five seconds at a time, and no I'm not just copying slabs of text from last year when we had the exact same problem. 

Remember when garbage bin enthusaist Greg Stafford got the sack and people thought all our forward woes were going to mysteriously resolve? He'd be pissing himself laughing at home watching this because nothing has changed. I'm still ready to fight anyone anywhere to defend the legacy of the premiership, but any doubt now about the importance of Ben Brown to that structure? He was fit for about five minutes with us but they sure came at the right time. 

Now it's amateur hour and I don't blame van Rooyen for not being able to do it all on his own. Jefferson might have blown the record books up last week but he's still awkward, with Turner included the first quarter was mostly them running into each other.  Eventually one of these collisions left Jefferson with a busted hand and the moral highground of leaving while we were in front and everyone else being responsible for what happened next. If we're dead and buried by the time May comes back then persist with him, and definitely give him more chances throughout the year, but I'm convinced that having McDonald down there (Melksham too?) would help - as they say - straighten things up while we've still got a pulse.

Other than Oliver, the midfield was obliterated. Viney's first two weeks make me nervous and I don't fancy Langdon in the centre at all. I'd like to remind you that at this point we were still winning. It didn't feel sustainable though. At the same time Brisbane was demonstrating how a good side can mow down an upstart challenger after giving away a start, but when was the last time we were an indisputably good side? Probably the fantastically grimy win over Geelong that briefly made you think everything was going to turn out alright before conceding six goals to nil in the first quarter a few days later. 

I desperately wanted to believe that we could continue to win by being boring but how many times did we hold opponents to reasonably low scores and still lose in the last two years? We've had some quality wins by strangulation, but I agree that it's not easy to win like this all the time. And what did we do to sizzle up an attack that was going to be without its most electric player for the first three games? Zilch. No idea if it's a good long term move, but I respect North for signing Jack Darling when they already had two tall forwards who have been outperforming the rest of the team for years.  I hope he thinks fondly of us for not drafting him due to going on a sex romp, because otherwise we'd probably be lamenting his disappointing #fistedforever era career and counting down Lucas Cook 300.  

As you may have noticed I'm a long-term Tom McSizzle fanatic, but playing on with an opponent right behind him was the opening ceremony of the rot. We'd already come back from quarter time trailing them all over the ground, and though that free kick missed, Oliver gave away a 50 and we were left wobbling until three quarter time when everything fell over. There were a few good minutes, including goals to Chandler and Oliver, but were we ever likely to stop them scoring long enough to win? Doesn't look like it now, but stranger things have happened. Getting the ball would have been a start. 

When pondering the changes last week I rudely forgot Daniel Turner existed, and he didn't offer any signs of life for the first half here. He finally had a shot here that he unconvincingly celebrated wobbling it through from not much of angle before it was overturned by another off-air video review. I dispute the need for replays to try and be certain that the ball deviated off somebody's fingernail, but fair enough enough overturning this when they've technology to prove it hit the post. Any chance of sensors/vibrating anal beads that can alert umpires to call a review, instead of wasting everyone's time having players return the middle first? 

If it's purely so Channel 7 can get a free ad in between 'goal' and withdrawal, can they activate the beads on Saturday only? I'm patiently hanging out for the day somebody thinks they've won a game on the siren before they're interrupted with bad news halfway through the victory lap. When it happens in a Grand Final (and I'm reasonably sure now that we won't be involved) don't forget who predicted the carnage.

When Gawn followed the goals by storming inside 50 a'la Perth '21 I thought we might be about to take off, until 0.5 seconds later when his wonky kick missed by miles. Never mind, as long as we don't do something stupid like letting the ball go straight down the other end for a goal eh? We still had chances but they were like pushing shit uphill, including Henderson's low snap towards what would have been an open goal if it wasn't for the North defender standing in the way. More astute analysts may want to nominate Charlie Comben as a prospective Kingsley, but his induction was helped by feeding him non-stop intercept marks because we had NFI how to craft goals.

In the future, everyone will remember this era for Gawn, Oliver, Petracca etc... but nobody represents our brief period as a good team better than Jake Bowey. He turned up just as things were about to exploded, played in a flag before losing, won his first 17 games... and has gone 23-23 since. And has he really improved that much in that time? By enormous default he and Salem were probably amongst our 'best' players here, but both are treading water. Sadly for Bowey, he only had one recorded clanger all but it was a ripper, storming through the middle of the ground and kicking it straight into a group of North players, with the ball helpfully sitting up for them to rocket it back down the other end for a goal. 

By the time Woewodin surprised himself with how high the ball came back to him after bouncing and cost another, we were all but dead. The only hope was for a throwback to those great days when North used to blow big leads in the last quarter. Not against us though, and if you thought the bouncing disaster summed up the day perfectly then let me introduce you to the opening bounce of the final quarter. Gawn got his hand on it first in the ruck, and even after North got the clearance it was intercepted by Petty. Who played on disastrously, causing us to turn a hit out and an intercept mark for into a goal against. That takes some skill.

Staying to the end of 186 earns me the right to flounce out once every few years, so once the third goal in as many minutes went through I'd had enough. On almost every other day I'd have taken my medicine, stayed until the end, and shuffled glumly through joyous opposition fans. This time I haven't had a decent night's sleep in six months and may be going a little bit bonkers so there was no need not to catch the early train. Fortunately, technological advances mean that I could still watch us being ruthlessly pounded. I think it topped out at six goals in six minutes, but they were nice enough to pull up there. It was their version of that game less two years ago when we only missed beating them by 100+ (don't forget the trivia question about Schache and Grundy as teammates, I'm sure it will be relevant one day) after slamming on the brakes in the last few minutes.

Other than that night we've struggled to beat them recently so I'm no surprised that they finally got us, just at the scale of the collapse. Whether North go on with it, or this is their version of us thrashing Sydney in 2010 is none of my business, but the alleged 'easy draw' that some people wanted to tank for at the end of last year means we get a shot at redeeming this disaster in ? May it be a repeat of when King Harley Race and the Eagles jumped us last year before a correction in the rematch 

This was an unspeakably putrid performance, but as the process of getting to a seat had already popped a valve in my brain so I didn't take it nearly as badly as I would have in the past. Life goes on. For about another month, then I'll probably chuck dignity out the window and start sulking.

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal
5 - Kade Chandler
--- A bit of distance ---
4 - Clayton Oliver
--- Immense distance---
3 - Xavier Lindsay
--- A bit more distance ---
2 - Christian Salem
--- Couldn't make a legitimate case for anyone so I outsourced this ---
1 - Jake Bowey

Leaderboard
Congratulations to Chandler, who had the good fortune to play well in a slopfest before the usual suspects really get going. And he would've grabbed the most unexpected lead in this competition since Kyle Cheney got five votes on debut in Round 1, 2009 until Lindsay came along to vault into first place. He wasn't nearly as good as last week but led our tackles, which either says something good about him or bad about everyone else. 

7 - Xavier Lindsay (LEADER: Rising Star Award)
5 - Kade Chandler, Max Gawn (LEADER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
4 - Clayton Oliver
3 - Christian Petracca
2 - Jake Lever (JOINT LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender), Christian Salem (JOINT LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender)
1 - Jake Bowey, Tom Sparrow

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
The Oliver one on the run was nice, but I'm going for Turner from the set shot as an encouragement award. He fails to dislodge mystery infection victim Windsor from the clubhouse lead.

Next Week
The glamour matches just keep on coming, as we welcome Gold Coast to the MCG. Their new logo looks like a 1970s British TV station, and thanks to natural disasters they've played one game three weeks into the season, and god only knows what's going to happen. The only certainty is the stadium will be empty but everyone outside the AFL/MCC will probably be stuffed into one confined space like the Black Hole of Calcutta. Not me, two straight weeks of live games is as much as I'm ever going to get these days and I'll be otherwise occupied so it's partially my fault when we're subject to public humiliation.

I'd love to unleash carnage at selection, but who are you going to bring in? I'll make the wild, baseless assumptions that Windsor will recover from 'TBC' status and May won't, because you can pump antibiotics into an infected foot but not a wonky throat. Nothing jumps out from the VFL stats, except that the Poor Old Tom Fullarton backline experiment must be over because he kicked two goals and took the most marks. Maybe he's the shock solution to our forward woes? Maybe I'll win a TV Week Logie Award.

Now that I've decided to champion the cause of Tom Campbell, maybe this is the week that you give Gawn some help instead of making him ruck 95% of the game while [insert whatever the hell Goodwin was talking about here] is going on? And even if he's not the remotest type of forward, if he gets within 10 metres of our mad long bombs inside 50 it'll be twice as close as anyone else. Johnson will come back but just let the guy play forward instead of as a 'just having a crack' second ruck.

I'd like one last crack at Hore before he's filed away as 'depth' (especially because it'll give a chance to bring up that goal against the Suns), and no matter what Langford did in the Reserves they'd be absolute flanges not to give him a start this time. What will actually happen is that they'll pick Billings and Laurie, neither of who will have a serious impact. But how would that distinguish them from anyone else?

IN: Hore, Johnson, Langford, Windsor
OUT: Jefferson (inj), Howes, Spargo, Woewodin (omit)
LUCKY: Bowey, Fritsch, Henderson (to sub), Sharp
UNLUCKY: Campbell

Two games in it's already hard to imagine winning, but it's a good test for everyone who thought GWS had an advantage against us because they'd played the previous week. Here's to their win in the Coast Derby being misleading due to shite opposition, and whatever level of blow torch we get this week inspiring a response. I'll piss myself laughing if we win but am buying White Flag Incorporated shares just in case.

In case you missed it
Some people would celebrate instant fortune by helping the needy, saving furry woodland creatures etc... I'd spend all day reading old newspapers and watching archive footage. Like the recently unearthed tape of Optus Vision's coverage of Merger Night '96, which I spent far too much time reviewing. The coverage is Hawthorn-heavy, mainly because their speeches were happening while our meeting was stuck in the sort of stalemate you only get by booking a criminally (quite literally if you believe in maximum capacity rules and fire codes) undersize venue but it's still worth it for the Hawks meeting featuring both the worst and best speeches in footy history.

Final thoughts
This was as much fun as doing your taxes while being punched in the face by Mike Tyson, but the answer isn't manbabies hanging over the fence yelling at players. Nobody's expected to be happy with it, but even as somebody who has carried on like a pork chop at the footy in a previous life, the idea of yelling in a professional athlete's face for not living up to my standards (sitting on the couch eating potato chips) never appealed. We'll stick to anonymous character assassinations on the internet thanks.