In the name of Good, go

The status of our season has already dropped to 'lowered expectations', but don't try and convince me that anything positive came out of this debacle other than not losing by 130 points. Melksham having 11 scoring shots was a novelty, but otherwise a side that had a week off to think about how things were going responded by being outscored 37-1 in the first quarter. Hooray for the fruitless late comeback against opponents in self-preservation mode, but you'd need religious fervour to think that anything points to our season getting better from here.

The players are as much to blame as anyone, but while I'll never go full Carlton fan at our only living premiership coach, it's time for a dignified departure. Anyone holding onto the dream of rolling the clock back to 2021-2023 is wasting their time. The club won't do it, so while sitting on the couch with a big fat payout might not be the best thing for Goodwin it's up to him to put himself out of misery. Do the right thing, call Brad Green, say "how much to pack it in now?" and take the rest of the year off. I was all-in on him pulling off the coaching comeback of the century, but it's just not going to happen is it? We're still not awful but it could happen at any time, get out while you can. 

Of course, none of this will happen so strap yourself in for a truly fugly end to the season. It's over to the players who can't decide between nearly beating Collingwood and looking like Fitzroy 1996 to try and escape this year with their dignity intact. I've abandoned all hope, and like how we treat young players at selection the Spitebury Plan has been dropped after one week. If we're not doing our bit it's silly to expect others to help. Gift Essendon a top pick and cross your fingers that they make it retrospectively funny by horrendously botching the selection.

Speaking of selection, I restrained myself from going feral when the teams came out on Thursday night. Partly from surprise that the game was on Saturday not Sunday as I'd prepared for, but also because they picked a couple of kids. Jefferson and Tholstrup went on to do stuff all (cut to Bailey Laurie contemplating quitting footy because he still can't get a game), but it was the right thing to do. I'll reset the feral clock until they get booted out after one week again, as if there's anything to lose by giving them a few games in a row.

The outs were a bit weird though. van Rooyen wasn't great against Port but he did kick a couple of goals so would you not try to get his confidence up with a couple of games in a row? Instead, he'll probably be passing one or both of Jefferson and Tholstrup on the Casey - Melbourne selection shuttle service and playing with the knowledge that he could be dumped back to the VFL at any time. He's had a bad year, but what have they done to help him? Tom McDonald may not be the future, but as if you wouldn't get some benefit playing him as protection/distraction for JVR. Instead, a developing player has to deal with shit forward entries like he's Carlton era Fev, spends part of the game in the ruck just because nobody else can do it, then gets the arse after kicking goals. Maybe he won't be as good as we thought, but good luck finding out either way after the way he's been Melbourned.

Lever was a more contentious omission, but even if he hasn't been much chop since returning from injury he also came back to find we were no longer playing to any of his strengths. What did they expect him to do when the ball teleports from one end of the ground to the other all day? Remember when teams would lose the will to live trying to work out where to kick into our forward line, then panicked, punted it madly inside 50 and let him chop it off? Now it arrives so quickly they're all left in no man's land. Drop him if you want to make a statement, but it's not addressing the main issue.

If it suits you to find explanations for this loss, there is the small matter of losing a defender and somebody who should be a defender to concussion before half time. Unfortunately, the damage had been done long before Howes and Petty departed. For once we were the side that played better with one less on the bench, and this may have been more of a factor if we weren't SIX BLOODY GOALS DOWN AT QUARTER TIME.

The first quarter here looked like the end of the North game, except they kicked straight and let us boot a couple of meaningless consolation goals. In that game we also had the flimsy excuse of players losing interest after three quarters, in this case we stank from the first minute. There was a good chance to set up a scoring shot early, but to nobody's surprise all our players were otherwise engaged while a defender floated in, said "I'll have that" and whisked the ball away. And the only time we went closer to scoring for the rest of the quarter was a hopeful shot touched on the line. 

It was not very good, and it would be kind to only say we were uncompetitive. Gold Coast kicked for goal as if stoned to the bejesus belt but this was a case where you can imagine the Suns they would've scored more even if the ball went back to the middle. They'd have been back in attack seconds later while our players stood around with their tongues hanging out as if they'd gone to Queensland on foot. As we got better with less players despite some of them cramping up so badly that it hurt to watch (and, you know, the bit about just having a week off) I guess their shocked reaction to the start was less about fatigure and more due to the ball being passed around them like they'd been drafted by the Washington Generals.

After half an hour of non-glove laying, patron saint of talking nonsense Dwayne Russell said Melbourne fans watching in their loungeroom (as opposed to Fox callers in their studio) would be "stunned". Not really, it was a bit more savage than expected but not hard to predict we'd fall apart eventually. I'm more stunned at keeping the final margin in double figures.

Playing Viney in the forward line at the start was a bomb but points for having a crack. The problem is that the real midfield was Oliver having half a crack, Petracca having a full crack but kicking like he was on crack, and not much else. Pickett was well held, Gawn couldn't do everything on his own this time, and the rest did a convincing impression of thin air. Langford even managed to get busted open running into an umpire's elbow at a ball up. It was whatever sits on the flatness scale below a plateful of piss and a shitcarter's hat.

Against the odds things got better after quarter time, which is better than losing by 4x36 but not much consolation in the grand scheme. Petty missed a set shot, then pulled out a snap out of his arse for a belated first goal but his reward for being our only half-likely forward was to crack his head on an opponent's hip and go off with concussion.

That left an already outmatched Jefferson trying to get a kick without any tall forward cover, no emergency second ruckman and christ this was looking grim. So grim that we didn't even get to sub Petty off because Howes was ahead of him in the concussion queue.

The only positive was that the Suns had temporarily stopped clubbing through bulk goals. With May diminishing under the weight of shit being flung at him I thought Alistair Lynch said "he just got a fisting", which would've been appropriate under the circumstances but was likely "fist in".

The next cab off the injury rank was Oliver, who did a Superman dive into an opponent's back, whacked his head on the way through and came up pissing blood like a wrestler who'd just gone his own forehead with a razor blade. Now that we've crossed the Rubicon for dropping beloved flag heroes, he can have a rest too because he's not adding much. By full time he'd have made a bigger contribution to the blood bank than our performance, left wrapped in more and more bandages until he looked like Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Not for the first time this year, it was Melksham to the rescue. I appreciate that, but we're a bit rooted for alternatives. He kicked three goals that didn't qualify for making it 'interesting' but occupied valuable time/territory that stopped the Suns from scoring.

There was also a rare accurate set shot from Gawn. I think we all thought the same thing when he lined up 40 metres out directly in front, but courtesy of a run-up that started aiming in the direction of Hawaii it went right through the middle. Then we got away with Viney doing a textbook dangerous tackle for a one-booted Pickett to stuff a kick straight down Melksham's throat and almost offensively, the margin was now just 23. 

That lasted a few minutes, until we kicked the ball to former MFC academy player/draft theftee Mac Andrew, and the next thing you know Max King was pulling down a mark over Gawn and May at a range even he couldn't miss from. Still, when Melksham got his third we remained in alleged range. 

It came just as the clock hit 1.30, do when Dwayne said we were "almost guaranteed to win the quarter" you knew Demontime hadn't made it to his list of fun facts. Should be #1 on the list because we still had to survive dual inside 50s, including one after Petracca had a kick smothered while bursting through the middle.

Jefferson looked like the least threatening forward physical presence since Tony Notte but credit for making the contest that allowed Pickett to snatch the first goal of the second half. That's roughly where the fun ended, especially after May kicked off a brawl by belting somebody around the head in a marking contest. With all the earlier umpire contact fines, this is going to put us in the box seat for our all-time most expensive season for players. Hopefully they get to deduct them from tax as a work expense because they haven't much other benefit.

Strangely, while players were doing expensive fake manly jostling, the person who'd been belted in the first place was allowed to pluck the ball off the ground and run into an open goal. He seemed to have one bounce in the 40 metres covered before kicking but they were obviously just going on the vibe of this otherwise farcical game.

Do you think there's any correlation between the pressure being off after the first quarter and a sudden outburst of decent set shots? Fritsch got involved, but can thank Melksham for assisting by wedging Andrew behind the goalpost. Our once vaunted midfield nearly gave it straight back, only for King to horrifically shank another set shot OOF. Never mind, they got it soon after via a 2-on-1 in the square, and despite the sploogiest fantasies of the lead commentator it was over even before the Suns got another 15 seconds later. Now we were back to trying to avoid losing by a sad margin.

All the game lacked was the guy who has never had a scoring shot in 200+ games to get forward for the laughs. It would likely come via a 50, as we continually failed to twig that there was a random crackdown on the good old protected area. Alas he never got the chance because we pretty much did all the attacking at the end.

With fat chance of a win, the last quarter was all about Melksham battling his own body to play a lone hand up front. At one point he got a free 20 metres out, tried to play on quickly and missed the snap. I thought maybe he didn't want this otherwise vile game remembered amongst his career best outings. 

After setting one up for Pickett he did get a fourth, making the umpire work excessively hard for a set shot from two metres out. And if he'd kicked a fifth not long after the margin would be back to 14 with enough time left for something funny to happen. The problem was he could barely kick 20 metres by now, so there wasn't much hope of carrying 50. He did not, and Gold Coast soon went the other way to make sure of it. Melk did get #5 despite being in obvious cramp distress, and his final total of 5.6 was the only memorable thing about this otherwise shizen game.

The final insult was Turner ending the game hobbling around like his foot was about to explode. He'd already been busted open by a boot after beaten on the lead, but didn't even get the courtesy of acknowledgement of his injury on commentary because they were busy waffling on about the rituals and customs of Swedish people. Hopefully like everyone else his body had just had enough and wanted it to be over. Either that or he's on the Mitch Clark plan and will only ever be briefly seen again.

So, this was a complete waste of an afternoon that could've been spent [insert pretending that I had something better to do]. Considering the awful start I appreciate them pulling up and not being violently disembowelled but that doesn't bode well for the remaining eight games.

Next week
This time it really is a Sunday game, allowing an extra day to recovery from Cramp 'O Rama 2025. We're going back to the Adelaide Oval, because that's worked really well for us twice already this year. There's a remote chance of doing better than the Essendon or Port slopfests, but as Adelaide's forward line will be forming an orderly queue to get on the end of pressure-free silver platter service the only hope of avoiding a massive score is them getting overexcited and crashing into each other several dozen times. We're going to lose, so hopefully our old friend the Anal-Bullet is best on ground.

We're already risk averse at selection (and don't have much in reserve anyway) so the two enforced changes from concussion will probably be enough to convince them we can't possibly make sweeping changes to the team. I'm assuming Viney gets suspended for his tackle, but Turner recovers, Melksham hasn't run himself into a managing, and May survives spoiling somebody's head off. Maybe they'll be out and we'll have to start picking any fit player. 

Casey lost to a previously rubbish Gold Coast reserves so do your own research on whether any of the performances warranted selection. Didn't watch a second of it, but considering who's out you'd be mad not to pick van Rooyen and one or both of Lever/McDonald. In a week where he got a new contract, Kentfield kicked three but surely the bar is not set so low that a one-off half decent performance gets you a game. And Billings had 30 something touches so I'll admit he's unlucky not to get a run but what's the point at this stage? Pick some newish players, pick some older players, hope Adelaide forget to turn up.

IN: Laurie, Lever, McDonald, van Rooyen, Windsor
OUT: Howes, Petty (inj), Viney (susp), Oliver, Sparrow (omit)
LUCKY: Jefferson, Lindsay, Salem, Sharp, Tholstrup
UNLUCKY: Billings, Campbell

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Jake Melksham
4 - Kysaiah Pickett
3 - Jake Bowey
2 - Max Gawn
1 - Jack Viney

Apologies to Petracca and Turner.

Leaderboard
Pickett is slowly eating into Gawn's lead, but with only 40 votes left it's still unlikely that he'll overcome a 19 point gap from here. In the minors it's good news for Bowey's Seecamp-aign, but the Rising Star has hit a troubling slow down in the last few weeks.

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

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
I appreciate Petty's goal and hope he remembers it but it's not within 500km of Pickett's clubhouse lead.

Heritage Round
Never got around to doing the 1964 Grand Final watch and post. It will appear at random one day.

Final thoughts
I'm a bit over this season but unlike sensible people I can't stop watching so please give us something to make it either worthwhile or funny.