Finally, after years of losing games in exactly the same fashion, I've been tipped over the edge by a perfectly ordinary defeat. Since mid-2021 I've largely taken finals thrillers, one point losses and near triple figure disasters with good grace and humility, but this of all games really tested last week's outrageous claim that I'm too old and placid to tip the couch over.
No need to go fully postal yet because there could be a lot worse on the horizon, but the big mistake was deluding myself into thinking we'd take care of a side that has lost three games by 70+ points this year. We responded to this challenge by not even scoring 70 and ending the game like a derelict car you're just trying to keep running until the trade-in goes through.
Like most of our losses it wasn't by a huge margin, and there were fleeting moments of playing like a team good enough to exit the finals in straight sets. In this case we also got a bonus 45 minutes of Kysaiah Pickett threatening to celebrate his winning the midweek mega jackpot by playing the greatest game in the history of the sport. In isolation, the performance wasn't all that bad, so why did this generic disappointment irk me so much? Possibly seeing the very obvious frustration of the players who have realised for the second time that they're over this woeful season, probably much more to do with conceding goals after the siren three times, slaughtering our momentum multiple times with multiple acts of petulance, and continuing to treat putting the ball through the middle posts as optional.
On that note (I initially wrote on that 'point', which looked sarcastic), kicking 9.14 looked like dead-eye accuracy compared to the insanity of the St Kilda game, but our attempts to kick goals continue to provide a family-friendly metaphor for conception - millions of attacks are launched, only a handful reach the target before dying. Still, with all the usual "if X happens, then Y doesn't follow" disclaimers, we're 27 goals behind parity and it's hard to see how that's going to get any better. We're on track for a record here, if you look at the 18 team era it's surprisingly rare for a team to kick fewer goals than behinds over a season. In 2022 and 2023, every team in the league did it, but can we bust into this group of wayward maniacs?
- -45 Fremantle 2021 (-1 off the boot, the rest rushed)
- -41 Gold Coast 2018 (-8)
- -37 Essendon 2016 (+1)
- -37 Footscray 2017 (+20)
- -31 St Kilda 2018 (+8)
Lucky I gave up on a Mighty Ducks finish to the season after St Kilda (and please, Fox Sports, burn the tapes of the intro to that game), because otherwise I'd have busted my foot kicking inanimate objects over the last two weeks. At least losing to Collingwood was disappointment at nearly pulling off a Buster Douglas d. Mike Tyson upset, this was like watching two pissheads grapple in a pub carpark before one loses by repeatedly punching himself in the face.
After giving coach and friends the benefit of the doubt after our brief return from the dead, the spirit of late 2024 is back. I don't want to turn on our only living premiership coach but Jesus H Christ how long can we go on doing the same thing over and over again? I'd be shocked if he got the sack, but am convinced that in the years when lowly paid semi-pro coaches still managed factories during the week, Goodwin would choose manufacturing over his legacy for everything other than September 2021 go down the gurgler.
I can never fully turn because the 2018 and 2021 finals are still 50% of my all-time favourite memories (and you can argue amongst yourself what proportion of this mess goes to down stubborn coaching, shithouse recruiting, or players failing to go on with it) but the window for seeming stable enough to lure half-decent recruits is closing. A few weeks ago it looked like we might finish high enough to make it look like the only way is up, now you're not joining us unless it's for slabs of our cold hard cash that probably don't exist anymore.
There might still be a second second coming. They could spend bye week doing emotional bonding (NB: best to avoid seaside pubs and French restaurants) and/or coming up with some exciting method of kicking goals that inspires a respectable finish but I'm not holding my breath. After some light stirring of the loins after the Sydney game I've psychologically crashed out again. An orderly, polite, hopefully no blackmail required coaching transition doesn't mean success, but even if we reach Round 24 playing like this the only reason people will turn up is to set themselves on fire in their seat.
Reputable analysts can look at the obvious stuff, I'm more interested in enthusiasts-only topics. For example, how do they boot Tholstrup entirely from the side after playing one of his best games to date? Not to mention how he showed an admirable passion for the cause which contrasted nicely to some teammates who look like they're being led to the gallows. Unless he joined in the King's Birthday final siren fun and told somebody senior to GAGF I don't get it. Punishment for going against team orders and kicking that set shot from 50 metres out instead of aiming it at the behind post? He didn't even get a run as the sub here and didn't play for Casey, so what's any of this done for his development?
It's an even more offensive version of making Laurie play on suburban slop holes for three months before being given a chance, then dropping him after playing one quarter where his teammates didn't turn up. I'll cop picking an out of form van Rooyen over Jefferson because he can play second ruck, but how have we ended up in a situation where he's only the best man for the job because somebody who gets about four kicks a game is suspended? Our recruiting post-flag has been so bad that when Lindsay, Windsor and Langford are off my first thought is not "the poor ducks are young, they must be tired", it's "oh christ, they're being Melbourned".
My turning point may be post-bye selection. Last year I reluctantly went along with picking the same side week after week (NB: but not doing stupid things like making Turner the sub) when the season was obviously shot, but now that finals are a 'full sex with a supermodel' level of fantasy away I'll blow up if they don't demonstrate some interest in the future. I'll compromise by not trying to include Tom Campbell and Forward Sizzle, so if the name Billings is presented instead of Jefferson, Laurie, Tholstrup etc... I'm going to (reluctantly) become a hater.
I thought we might win after showing improved form last week, but was also confident in Port doing something stupid coming off an unexpected win. Now we'll never know how bad it needed to get before Ken Hinkley zipped his big puffy jacket up over the head and stopped watching.
There's always novelty in a Port home game because they've got community singing and the first few rows reserved for people best described as 'units', but this time the gimmick levels were turned up to 11 by them fielding a mid-season draftee with one leg in a compression stocking who we were reminded at regular intervals used to be an air conditioner salesman. Not since James Magner's previous career of building a freeway has a player's unusual work history had such a run. It was a win for fans of obscure 1970s political references, because just as George McGovern wraps things up at West Coast, here's G. Gordon Liddy to take over.
According to Dwayne, GGL is "known as The Leg Sleeve Guy", which is like somebody being known as "The Wheelchair Guy" or "The Hearing Aid Guy". It's also about as likely to be true as Kelli Underwood's unconvincing 2021 claim that "they call him Slick Fritsch". On this call he'd have been "Slick Fritz", because for all of Matt Hill's admirable qualities as a caller, he had the same impairment that always caused people to say 'Trengrove'. I thought somebody might have a word at half time, but it kept going as Fritz (also known in Victoria as Devon) had his most prominent game of the year. After years of their callers blathering on as if possessed by the devil, I'm not surprised at the lack of a producer with the authority to go "oi, you're saying it wrong".
It wasn't just a good week for Port players hoping to get a cheap Fujitsu split system, against all odds we got something in the middle of experienced players having a tiff and another limp defeat. It'll take a while before we find out if Pickett to the AFL's longest contract in exchange for a pile of cash resembling Mt. Everest was a bad idea, so for now let's just treat it as a good thing. In the context of world sport, $12.5 million for nine years isn't much, but it's obviously enough to cure homesickness.
Now the trick is to go against 130 years of history and successfully keep him upright and exciting for another nine years. Not that we need him to being going full pelt until the final siren of 2034 to make it worthwhile, if we get six years of wild shit that no other Melbourne player will match in our lifetime then I'll be happy to take him on a lucrative three season retirement tour. I'm just going to enjoy the show until his career goes tits up, we start losing other key players due to lack of cap space, or he's forced into retirement after a 'football incident'. Hopefully he doesn't crumble under media-induced pressure to save the joint single-handedly when the veterans start disappearing and Tasmania (maybe) turn up to swipe the best draft picks.
While we had some decent moments in the first half, the only ones worth committing to memory are those involving Pickett. By the time he'd kicked a third goal while playing more as a midfielder than a forward I was ready to devalue the currency so we could give him an even more impressive sounding $25 mil. I don't know about the second half or the next nine years, but this was definitely worth bulk cash.
Life should be so simple that you can just sacrifice the most electric small forward in the country to the cause of hoovering up centre clearances like a magnet attracting metal, but what you gain in the middle you lose forward. Even if he barely touched the ball in the second half, three goals, all rippers, is a good return at any time but we still need one of him in each third of the ground. Fritsch and Petty (not in this game though) have also done their best work all year pushing up the ground, which is fine except for the question of who's the final kick inside 50 going to? In a repeat of last week, the answer was 'take your pick of three defenders'.
For no good reason, before this game I rewatched the all-time classic Open Mike with Mark Jackson. When not tormenting an obviously stressed Mike Sheahan and calling various people "false alarmers" for unclear reasons, he made a sensible point that is as relevant now as it was in 1981. The job of big forwards is to mark the ball or bring it to ground for smaller forwards. I know intercept marking hadn't been invented yet, but there must be stat involving intercept marks per inside 50 which conclusively proves we're pound-for-pound the most haphazard attacking team of the modern era.
It's a problem that goes all the way back to Adam Oxley's famous Queen's Birthday Kingsley nomination, but defenders are forming an orderly queue to pad their stats when playing us. Harris Andrews must be distraught thinking about what Melksham did to him that day when he sees Howe, Ratugolea etc... pulling down easy marks and dispatching nearby opponents with the greatest of ease. At the other end, Lever's come back without the quality that made him so good and now just looks like any old blah defender. Even as a Sizzle fanatic I thought the angst over dropping him for Lever's return was over the top but if we were miraculously teleported into a Grand Final tomorrow I'd easily pick McDonald.
I'm not writing Lever off, we've been through spells where other teams rumble him before and it's always turned out alright in the end. Still, there were holes in our defence here that you could steer a battleship through. And that's with Turner, May, and Howes all having decent games. The problem is that one-on-one defence doesn't mean dick when a forward can lead straight up the middle to a kick plonked right into his hands. You may recognise that move from the three or four times a year we successfully pull it off. It's a milestone in our development when I can hang shit on our key positions at both ends. Now watch us find the next great full forward then start conceding 130 points a game.
It was obvious from the start that we weren't going to take advantage of Port like all the good teams, but I was happy for van Rooyen to land a nice set shot from the boundary line, and for Melksham to set up Pickett via a great tap-on for his first goal. That was about as good as it got for Melk, who spent the rest of the game trying everything that worked so well against Brisbane to no avail. We were already showing signs of letting their only good forward do as he liked, but scores were still being kept to the levels that we need to win games these days. At least until Bowey tried to tempt May into another outburst when his kick-in fell short and cost a goal, and after conceding to a 'Miles' we let a 'Darcy' get the next one, and it was like being beaten by the cast of a Jane Austen novel.
Port's players may have posh names, but their fans are still the most likely to stand up and complain about umpiring decisions while nearly frothing at the mouth. They had a point when pinged for insufficient intent, even though one of our players got 99% of the way to the ball then slammed the brakes on and it let it go out of bounds. The usual 'throw shit at wall, see what sticks' forward entry made its way to van Rooyen for a second. He had to play on so it was rushed, but lucky there were no defenders (or teammates) between him and the line because it came off the boot awkwardly and would likely have crashed straight into anyone in the way.
Good way to end the quarter though. That's what you might think if you'd never seen one of our #demontime masterclasses. Instead of comfortably playing out the quarter and breaking even, Gawn was done for an alleged dangerous tackle that ended up being completely ignored by the Match Review Panel. It was some distance out on the boundary line though, so as long as we didn't do something silly like concede a mark in the middle of a massive pack with two seconds left everything would still be ok. And you can guess what happened next.
Mitch Georgiadis was not a Kingsley kandidate, but looked like he was on the way to being the first player to kick 10 against us this century. He got the first of the quarter, and should have added another shortly after Judd McVee tried to get a couple of extra weeks off post-bye by jumping off the ground to bump an opponent in the head. Nice try, but Mr. Match Review wasn't falling for it, even though it was nearly identical to what scored Johnson two weeks off in Alice Springs. The difference was that the St Kilda player had to go off for a concussion test (FO to 'HIA'), but as he passed it I can't see how one got suspended and the other got off scot McVee.
Not long after, the usually reserved Judd McSpree played a part in what may have been the first three goal turnaround in league history. First, Petracca slaughtered a kick to Melksham that cost us a goal, and set up Port to go the other way, then McVee gave away a free kick in the aftermath for whacking somebody in the guts and we were officially on the brink of disarray. He must have compromising photos of league officials, because unlike Pickett in Alice Springs he got away with this as well.
Meanwhile we've had half a dozen players fined this year for making contact with umpires that nobody saw, and Lindsay had to write a cheque for 'tripping' against Collingwood when he did nothing more severe than hold on for a second too long when his tackle slipped to the ankle. If you need proof that they're just making this shit up as they go, play the bumps and stomach punches side-by-side. Speaking of fines, for the second time this year an opposition player had to pay up after getting away with gratuitously legging one of ours in the square. It's like the good old days of Early Gawn when the umpires had a blind spot for the regular clawing of his face at bounces.
There was briefly a bit of oomph in the game after this, including Petracca nearly having a mark reversed for 'afters', and Petty doing the old fake headbutt towards Aliir to zero reaction. In the middle of all this Pickett had departed after he'd been left face down on the ground looking dead, bringing a screaming halt to a quarter where he'd played like several million bucks. His first goal of the term was an absolute ball-tearer, intercepting and checksiding it through from the boundary line, causing me to leap off the famous couch, slap the floor in excitement and yell "pay him more, pay him more" to the absolute bemusement of family members who barely know who he is, let alone about the big money contract.
He survived the concussion test, came back after half time and barely got another touch. Whether this was down to the collision or Port thinking "geez, this guy is good, maybe we should try to stop him" I don't know but if it was the latter then they were one step ahead of how we treated the guy who ended the half on four goals. To be fair, the last one was a bit shit considering it was May being penalised for putting his hand on the back of a player who was already jumping into a visibly over it Gawn.
This was one of those games where we got a lot more free kicks but still had some cause to whinge about umpiring under the 'it's where you pay them' clause but I'm yet to see a loss this year where we couldn't have overcome the umpiring to win anyway. Still didn't help that they got another goal after the siren, and even before this things had turned to drizzling piss before the three goal turnaround - including the ball bouncing off JVR's chest because he was so shocked that it reached him on the full.
With Port defenders pulling down intercept marks at world record pace, this week's Plan B envelope featured Turner going forward after half time. This made sense, but still didn't really contribute to the key metrics of kicking a winning score or stopping the other side doing the same. What I don't get is how one of their key defenders went off injured at three quarter time and we left both Turner and Petty forward, leaving our attack a congested mess, and further improving the chances of their key forward kicking seven. I freely admit to having NFI how footy tactics work so if there was a good reason for doing it this way please explain.
There was a bit of interest in this in the third quarter, we started with two goals in a row, Gawn went some way to fulfilling my plan for him to play forward and kick 0.14 with a pair of behinds, and our very good friend Mitch charitably sprayed a couple of set shots. It all came to a screaming halt when May was pinched for doing nothing more than winning a test of strength in a marking contest. We countered with another couple of dud set shots, and Oliver failing to make the distance with a snap from 20 metres before wouldn't you know it, Port got a goal after the siren.
Just to prove that the Brisbane comeback was an out of the box fluke, we rose to the challenge of winding back a 15 point lead by kicking one goal, well after the game had achieved junk time status. There were chances - of course there were - but it was back to the final quarters of earlier in the season when everyone looked like they CBF. By the looks of it they could BF a little more than the white flag extravaganza against St Kilda, but the forward line had been in the witness protection scheme since half time and never emerged.
One of the many things that gave me the shits about this game was going back to a Little League style 'team effort' performance where you can't even make yourself feel better by focusing positively on one or two standout performances. Spoiler - everyone in the votes this week is guilty of something. The 5-4-3-2-1 has to go somewhere, don't blame me I'm just following the royal and ancient rules of the competition. If they were held back every time we lacked standout players some years would have been won with single figure scores. We were flatter than your choice of a plateful of piss or a shit carter's hat, and I've run out of premiership related loyalty to players like Rivers and Sparrow, time to explore whatever limited options we've got.
Rivers can't have had much argument about getting the hook, except in comparison with all the forwards who were doing nowt at the same time. JVR's return was a good start by our recent standards, but he barely went near it after the two goals, and a week on from coming around to the idea of Petty as part of the forward line he was flailing here. Took a nice mark to get the final goal, but I'll assume the Port players were already thinking about chasing groupies at the post-match function because they didn't let him get near it when the game was on the line.
The only outstanding matter was for May to do something silly so we could get the "Gawn should yell at him LOL ROFL" content out of the way, and maybe that's what he was thinking about when giving away a pointless 50 to facilitate Georgiadis' 7th goal. Good luck with that, it's like when a team is pinged for deliberate and fans are still screaming for vengeance 17 boundary throw-ins later. He made a dick of himself last week, and we're still waiting for the rozzers to allege that he belted the suitcase out of a random citizen in the off-season, but fark me the way some ungrateful pricks are carrying on you'd think he'd desecrated war graves. He may not be the sort of person you'd be chums with him in real life, but unless you're old enough to remember when Norm Smith was coach, there goes the best and most successful defender of your lifetime so show a bit of respect.
Port had the ball at their end in the dying seconds, sadly not having another shot after the siren that would provide me content for years. It was as flat a finish as you'll get while barely losing the last quarter and avoiding a thrashing. I sympathise with players in the process of realising they're about to play 10 weeks of dead rubbers, but that might be as much of a problem if we'd rotate occasionally instead of picking young and (presumably) hungry players for one week then immediately dumping them.
I don't think we're going to end the season stripped of dignity, handing over pick two, and with both Richmond and North passing us at speed, but a week after nearly rumbling the premiership favourites I'm back to wanting proof of life. Given the relatively thin margins in the losses it feels like somebody's going to write in and chastise me for being too negative (like after barely holding on to beat North last year, and how well have we gone since?) but it's reached the points where I'll take wins but want them to mean something for the future. Maybe it's time to start planning for a future where Viney and Oliver aren't in the same side? I know we got spooked into handing out long term contracts to all these people (what could possibly go wrong?) but even if we continue to pay them it doesn't mean they're obliged to play every week.
2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Max Gawn
4 - Kysaiah Pickett
3 - Daniel Turner
2 - Bayley Fritsch
1 - Steven May
Apologies to Bowey, Howes, McVee and Petracca, who only didn't deserve votes a little less than those who got them.
Leaderboard
The Gawn walkover continues, but forget what's happening right now, we're on the verge of a major milestone. On the all-time leaderboard he now has 392 votes, within one full game of Oliver on 395. Let balloons drop from the ceiling when he conclusively hits the lead, and what about a run-through banner when Max becomes the first man to crack 400 career votes. If you'd rather think about AFLW I've only just realised that the spreadsheet is missing a season and the leaderboard hasn't been updated since 2022, which goes to show how long I've been in decline for.
44 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
23 - Kysaiah Pickett
17 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year), Christian Petracca
14 - Clayton Oliver
12 - Daniel Turner
10 - Harvey Langford (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Jake Melksham
9 - Kade Chandler, Ed Langdon, Steven May
8 - Tom McDonald
7 - Xavier Lindsay
6 - 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
Regardless of the final result, or the fact that he disappeared off the face of the planet after half-time, the Pickett goal from the boundary line was so exhilarating that I'm vaulting it over the top of Chandler vs West Coast and into the clubhouse lead. There's no truth to the rumours that an extra perk of the new contract is that he has to win this category every year.
The week after that
OUT: Petty, Rivers, Sparrow (omit)
LUCKY: Lever, Lindsay, McVee not to be suspended, Oliver, Viney, Windsor
UNLUCKY: Johnson, Sharp, Verrall
The Spitebury Plan
North d. Carlton (reverse if you think we're more chance of going down than up)
I didn't mention the epic discovery of the second half of the 1964 Grand Final last week because a) the post was already Unibomber Manifesto length, and b) once I realised we had another week before the bye I wanted to save it for viewing during the break.
Final thoughts
I've nearly reached the important post-premiership milestone of being miserable about footy again. It will never be the same level of misery, but I reckon in a couple of years we'll be scientifically testing people like me to see how close you can come to replicating the empty pre-flag feeling.
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