Donations of over two goals are tax deductible

It's been another big season of disappointment for Carlton, but things are finally looking up for them. After winning our last three meetings by a combined seven points, they've blown us away by eight here. I'm sure that will please the sort of nuffies who show up outside Princes Park to eyeball players when things are going wrong. Just don't mention how the other wins were in games that had major implications on the season, while this was just two average sides who can only beat North Melbourne 50% of the time fulfilling contractual obligations.

Despite this game being officially designated a slopfest before the first bounce, I'm more upset than the time they beat us in a sudden death final. That night ended in death by failure to take opportunities, but not without some good performances (including Joel Smith's best game as a forward right at the same time his urine test was setting off alarms at the lab) while Saturday night involved us conceding goals to such a wide variety of randoms that Jamie Shanahan would've fancied his chances of getting one. 

Meanwhile, after the muted highs of last week we went back to moving the ball with the grace and poise of a Little League team. Like most losses this season we avoided brutal defeat, but the clock must be ticking towards an opposition getting serious and using us for target practice. But not Carlton, who deserved to win but showed about as much to get excited about for the future as we did last week. Like us, they should be happy to get any sort of win at this stage of this season, but I'll eat Bruce Doull's headband if this thrilling rivalry isn't relocated to the bottom four within a couple of seasons.

Thanks to Pickett's one man operation inside 50, we were still a chance of winning late in the last quarter, but the final result didn't leave me with any sense of one that got away. With limited exceptions we're such a flat, tedious side that even losing thrillers no longer excites passion. I'm against messing around with the season to eliminate dead rubbers (ask a Richmond fan if they enjoyed thrashing West Coast), but it's hard to watch us ebb away slowly. This side is like your granny going from robust health to a nursing home in two years, and while old Ethel is hanging on for dear life you get the feeling there's sad singing and slow walking in the near future.

Maybe there'd be a bit more light at the end of the tunnel (refer to the title of this post) if Oliver wasn't robbed blind out of a potentially decisive free in the final minutes, but maybe start by not letting the VFL All Stars run riot for 3.5 quarters. This also requires suspending your disbelief that he wouldn't have punted the ball straight into Jacob Weitering's hands like most of our other inside 50s. We were jibbed on that decision but you've got more oomph left than me if you can muster up the appropriate level of anger. We're so boring as an organisation that Carlton fans had to punch on with each other to fill in the time.

After one week as a normal person it was back to watching at home, and having never watched a second of the 2023 Semi Final highlights because why would you, I had no idea how close the winning goal was to hitting the post from an open goalsquare. Talk about sliding doors moments, we'd have lost the Prelim just as badly as Carlton but what's his name would have been #1 seed in blooper videos until the end of time.

There were about 100 more grand clangers and cock-ups in this game but none that anyone will remember/care about other than Steven May going through an opponent like a freight train. It would have been piss funny if we'd snatched an undeserved win at the end, but the overall vibe of the evening was sadness. The only signs for either side were all some variety of "Danger, cliff ahead". Maybe all the previously unknown characters who had a field day against us will go on with it, but they'll never get a more welcoming opposition than this. If Voss doesn't send Goodwin a hamper to say thanks then he's got no manners.

Even after 12 losses I still can't bring myself to fill up the hump of hate. The only truly dreadful ones (though watch this space) were in rounds 2 and 3, and since then we've been the blandest losers in AFL history. I still think our coach should pull the pin before the ugly losses begin, but it's just cruel pinning the latest loss entirely on him. He did a token playing of some kids, and the players had plenty of opportunities to execute, we're just lacking zing, and even though the Blues have been disappointing this year we couldn't just wait them out like North.

The Sunshine + Rainbows faction will howl that we only lost by eight points and stop being so miserable, but you may as well try citing Expected Score to prove that if XYZ happened differently we'd be in the eight. Cobblers. Maybe we could squeak out another couple of wins (e.g. St. Kilda in Alice Springs), but the whole experience has been such a soulless struggle that I refuse to believe there's an alternative universe where our season is still alive. 

The official margin was eight, but the famous 'feels like' margin was about four goals, and as Carlton are only slightly less shite than us I don't know how you'd get anything from this match other than a full scale chub (or equivalent) for Kysaiah Pickett. I'd obviously have been cheerier if we'd come back to pinch it, but the joy of laughing at combustible opposition fans would just mask what I still expect to be a grim future.

Fair to say everyone in the media was secretly going for us, because while it wouldn't really matter if we lost by a sensible margin, they were guaranteed a spot of carnage if Carlton lost again. Unfortunately for them none of the sides which might take advantage of a diminished, lineup battered by months of disappointment were available. Instead, they took on the AFL's equivalent of the Make A Wish Foundation, and we bent over backwards to make them comfortable. Like Charlie Curnow arriving without a goal for a month, then kicking one inside the opening minute after finding our backline had more open space than the Mojave Desert. 

When Curnow also got their second I had visions of him kicking 14 in the greatest return to form ever seen, but to our credit we slowed him down from there until he was gifted the sealer. Unfortunately this came at the cost of a bunch of people who may as well have been called Mr. X having a jolly old time of it. For two hours on Saturday night there was more activity at Kingsley Manor than Heathrow Airport. 

For once we were efficient in converting inside 50s, mainly because there was only one. On a night of dropped marks, this one worked in our favour because Pickett got to have his shot on the run instead. Mind you, considering some of the mad shit he did later it might have been one of those games where he'd plonk them from anywhere. Our only problem was getting it to him, because he's not going to drag down pack marks and most of the kicks forward were being chopped off with the greatest of ease. We tried the Melksham/Harris Andrews scam on Weitering and it slammed the brakes on Milkshake's hot run of form. He couldn't beat him in the air, had no room for outmanoeuvring in one-on-one contests, and at one point van Rooyen cut across his lead in a way that made it look like they'd only just met.

Melk did get one after playing up front on contact against a different opponent as if he'd been bashed in the upper body with a cricket bat. Whatever's going on in the Carlton coaching box, they weren't silly enough to let that happen again, and while Melksham had a red-hot go all night he was never a serious factor again.

Things got better once we stopped looking like conceding every time the Blues crossed halfway. Pickett got a second after a beautiful kick from Windsor. He didn't do a lot more, but this was enough to make me genuinely hostile to the idea of playing him at the other end of the ground. It seemed like they tried to fill that role with Sharp, which was a noble attempt at doing something different in an otherwise pointless game but I can't see that catching on.

On the subject of things we can stop doing ASAP, enough of van Rooyen as second ruckman. It's not his fault we won't pick a second ruckman, but he spent the first quarter looking awkward around the ball and being flogged in ruck contests by Mark Internet. Just park the guy inside 50, kick it at him and let's judge what happens next.

Now that we'd gone beyond Carlton looking like they'd kick 27 goals from 30 forward entries, we were very much back in the game. So what more could you ask for than gifting a goal right at the end of the quarter after Chandler wandered somewhere in the vicinity of the theoretical protected zone. He wasn't having the slightest influence on the kicker, but that's the half-baked, randomly adjudicated rules for you. How about a 25 metre penalty for the administrative shit that nobody really understands? Keep the 50 for egregious crimes like poleaxing your opponent after the mark or threatening to eat the umpire's dog, but have a lesser penalty for any offence based on the umpire interpreting angles or distance. Greg Swan, if you're reading I am available to join the competition committee and will not be nearly as annoying to sit in a room with as Patrick Dangerfield.

We had a chance to wipe that unfortunate goal out in the final seconds, but as usual a long, hopeful kick landed 30 metres out directly with a key defender and no Melbourne player in the same area code. You never know when we'll rip 10 minutes of glory from our arse and kick a few goals on the bounce but it always comes as a surprise, because for the rest of the game we make it look unwatchably difficult. I promise anyone who can't watch Saturday footy now that it's off free to air that you missed nothing here. 

There were air fryer infomercials on other channels that were more entertaining than watching 22 of our players. Even Petracca and Oliver aren't really worth watching these days. I don't doubt either of their efforts but they've reached the limit of what can be done in this side, and I've come to terms with letting both go if that's what they want. But not at any price, we're hardly going to be attracting top free agents at the end of the season so I'd rather slap the golden handcuffs on them than be swindled into paying huge chunks of their salary to regain a love of life elsewhere.

I've always said if given the choice I'd take Petracca over Oliver (despite him trailing 4-2 in Jakovich Medal wins), but the highlights package for Clayton's 200th game was a great reminder of all the iconic stuff he's been involved in over the years. Obviously nothing's ever going to beat that goal in the Mad Minute, and subsequent appearance in the most iconic MFC photo of our lifetime (NB: not this one) but his sixth sense handballing and ability to duck and weave in traffic like The Matrix was ace. Now, like so much else post-2022 he's just diminished. I appreciate the regular coalface extraction, and he has played decent games this year but since whatever happened off-field a couple of years ago the star power is gone.

Petracca seems to have more to give, but I think his life force for doing it with us is fast disappearing. After that Sydney game when he was beaming and his mum was dropping the magic on national TV I thought we were close to the big "Fuck getting more followers on Instagram, I'm staying" speech but we're getting closer and closer to him slamming down the fresh start card. You'll know it's coming when stories that paint the club in a bad light for the King's Birthday 2024 fiasco conveniently start appearing in the media around Round 24.

We achieved peak tedium in the second quarter, and it was an almost entirely forgettable quarter other than somebody called Moir putting Moir pressure on the already jam-packed Kingsley kueue by equalling his previous career goalkicking tally by half time. The answer to the traditional question "Moir, Moir, Moir, how do you like it?" was "not in the slightest". Our response was a set shot from  40 metres out by recent first round draft pick Jefferson which helicoptered into the hands of a defender barely half the distance to goal. 

I feel for him because he's got Billings style Resting Terrified Face, but later in the quarter he dropped a sitter of a chest mark and I was ready to chuck any notion of preparing for the future and play McDonald, Petty or Darren Bennett at full forward instead. The spilt mark formed part of an all-time putrid bit of play where the loose ball was kicked to van Rooyen, who didn't hear the umpire saying it (allegedly) hadn't gone far enough, then having to panic handball to Windsor who wasn't ready for it and could only let off a hasty snap for a point. 

After a first half that was as much of a spectacle as that Richmond/Essendon disaster, I'd have thought all 36 players on the ground at the siren would have slinked away as quickly as possible. Instead they did some fake fighting that was so weak it didn't even attract fines in a year where the MRO has already pirated $36,000 from our players for various crimes. All we learned from the footy equivalent of drunks going through the motions in a pub carpark was from the slow-mo replay that showed Oliver has really yellow teeth. If I was a dentist that would've been the final straw after already enduring pure sporting slurry since the first bounce.

We were 19 points down and struggling to score against a side who have been leakier than a ferry in the Philippines, but Kayo did their bit to lift spirits by playing the clip of Harley Reid kicking that goal against us last year about seven times during the break. I know they can't sell all the ad space during breaks, but would you not either: a) get a wider variety of clips to play, or b) plug some of your thousand footy preview/review shows. Unfortunately, one of the spots they did flog was a reboot of Toyota's Legendary Moments with even more punchable 'comedians' than last time. 

By the time I'd seen Reid's goal in every break I was scared about playing West Coast, even as the score in the corner of the screen showed they were in the process of losing comfortably to Richmond. I don't suppose the timing is going to work for us to bring Yze back once his apprenticeship is over. And why would he want to come? Coaching us now would be like buying a decent looking house that's about to have the roof collapse.

The game couldn't have been much worse unless the ground was accidentally covered in sewage at half time, and the third quarter was time for our once a week outburst of exciting football. First JVR outmarked somebody who appeared to be named after former NSW premier Barry O'Farrell, then Fritsch continued his relatively Fritsch vein of form (fingers crossed for a job calling from the Fox Footy studio with material like that) and the margin was back under 10 points. Appropriately, the main character for the few minutes when we were worth watching was Pickett. First he kicked a set shot from a ridiculous angle from the left side, then did a checkside/banana/spinny thing from the opposite spot and you could imagine him single-handedly carrying our corpse over the line. At least for the 30 seconds until we let them kick a steadier. 

And that was pretty much the end of the non-clobbering related excitement. Tholstrup got the hook five minutes into the quarter, and I don't understand why you wouldn't just make the change at half time and save the departed player from having the camera focused on him looking dejected. He was hard done by to have to warm-up and go back out there for a token appearance, but can't have had any argument with being taking off because he'd done nowt. 

In came Lindsay, the only Round 1 debutante still yet to kick a career goal, who failed to extend his record of 0.5 due to a shot missing everything. Meanwhile, the Carlton guy with 0.0 in his first three games ended up having three shots, and was mobbed after a goal like he'd just won a Grand Final after the siren.

The only remaining item of interest for the quarter was May absolutely killing somebody improbably called 'Frankie' in a collision. There was no bump or leaving of ground, so I understand he'll probably get a life ban but am keen to hear what alternative options he was supposed to have considered in the 0.1 seconds available. Rather than saying "what was I supposed to do, let the guy run on to a loose ball inside 50?" I'd claim to not have even known the Carlton player was there and claim that he got in the way of my very normal running for the footy.

On the famous 'football act' scale, running towards a loose ball outranks leaping in the air to smother a handball, but Frankie went to Concussionwood (including a flying tooth) so in conjunction with the sight of blood pouring from the victim's head, May's stuffed. I'm not going to demand Supreme Court action if he gets rubbed out (and ironically he'll be out next week with a concussion of his own), but let's not get excited and pretend this was done with the same savagery as that time he shirtfronted the SME into an alternative dimension.

A 10 point margin is nothing, but I had serious doubts that we'd a) score, or b) stop Carlton from scoring. There was a spot of excitement when Pickett set up Fritsch's second, before we rolled over and died for a few minutes and let them kick two goals - one to a defender, one for the player's first in league footy. And that should've been it, except Pickett punted one through off the ground to keep the prospect of a wholly undeserved win alive.

I'm not sure it ever really got 'interesting', but the margin was dragged back under a goal when Jefferson dropped a mark but got a free after being caught in a Jake The Snake Roberts style DDT. I honestly expected him to kick into the man on the mark or OOF at right angles, but he chipped through an unconvincing set shot and we were a chance of either nicking this in comedy fashion, or Laurence Angwin was going to magically teleport onto the ground and kick the winning goal. 

We never got the chance to grab the lead and somehow get rorted, because the rorts came first. I despise blaming umpires for losing, especially considering all the dumb things we'd done for four quarters, but Oliver was absolutely ransacked out of a free after a rundown tackle at our end. His reaction verged on dissent, but the umpires were obviously too embarrassed to pinch him for it. They had their revenge down the other end when he was done for hanging off Curnow at a stoppage, allowing the once out of form spearhead to wallop through the winning goal from Jeff White 2005 territory.

Technically there was time to pluck two goals from our arse, but while they have some similarities to the 2022 edition Carlton that was prone to falling for things like that, we're connected in name only to the 2022 Melbourne that may have taken advantage. I'm sure everyone associated with Carlton enjoyed it, but I missed seeing Voss reach back and yank a couple of knives from his back by unsportingly turning the TV off with a few seconds left, safe to assume we weren't going to benefit from some mad 50-50-goal-free-goal insanity. We didn't, and thus ended another game that doesn't look bad on paper but makes you think about moving to a lighthouse in the Galapagos Islands.  

Can somebody please come up with a one-off finals gimmick that means we don't have to play the last three weeks of the season? I'm convinced all of Hawthorn, Footscray, and Collingwood are going to pay off a season of 'not quite there' performances by unmercifully rooting us.

Next Week
Just as we've rediscovered the joy of kicking set shots (and not much else in this case), it's a chance to redeem ourselves against St. Kilda after the off chops insanity of our previous meeting. You couldn't honestly blame the conditions last time, but now it'll be happening under a roof so there really is no excuse. We've got to create the chances before they can be missed, and our old pal Ross Lyon will be rubbish his hands together in glee at the chance to salvage something from a season that's somehow been even worse than ours (for now) by eliminating all avenues to goal. I suspect he'll be happy to win 30-15, so there's a chance this could end up as the all-time lowest rated Channel 7 game between two Victorian clubs.

The obvious omission is Tholstrup who has tested the 'play kids' theory over the last two weeks. I still blame them for dropping him after an encouraging performance on King's Birthday, but considering the players who have slogged all year in the Reserves for minimal opportunities (hello Bailey Laurie), it would be a violent extraction of piss to pick him next week. If Laurie can't get in the starting lineup next week then why in god's name is he signed until the end of next year? Whether he's a long term player or not doesn't matter anymore, you've got him for another season so give him a go.

Had Jefferson's game ended on his double blunders I'd have directed him to the VFL so vigorously my thumb fell off, but I'm almost seduced by the idea of keeping him in the side but nah. Even if there's no obvious replacement let's just put the last few weeks down to development and try something else. I don't know what that is considering Turner will be required in defence, but it might force us to go against core beliefs and try something different. 

I've got a revolutionary idea, pick some sort of second ruckman so van Rooyen can concentrate on playing as a forward. Before watching Casey mug Carlton in the VFL I'd have continued the campaign to give Verrall a game, but Johnson kicked four goals in the first half so he'll definitely be back at the front of the queue. Not much of a ruckman, and doesn't help my fervent belief that we're going to break Gawn by playing him in a bunch of pointless games, but if they're not going to give Max a rest then JVR may as well benefit. Besides, in a classic case of overreacting to minor details that you don't know the full story of, Verrall didn't even start as first ruck so I doubt their interest in playing him. Not getting a touch for most of the first half didn't help his cause.

The only other thing I learnt from the VFL is that Carlton had a player called Stirling Phipps-Potts, who may be the most Melbourne-named non-Melbourne player since Rochford Devenish-Meares. It was party time for double barrel surnames when their first goal came from Denver Grainger-Barras, before Casey proceeded to win in a canter. I suppose if the senior side had that many unknown players their Reserves were always going to be fill-in heavy.

I've got NFI what's going to happen. St Kilda are crap, but we've already made them look good once this year. It may come down to which side's senior players can muster up the enthusiasm to play like the game means something. I think these changes leave us one short on the bench so it's reader's choice on who you want to fill the gap.

IN: Laurie, Howes, Lindsay (starts), Johnson
OUT: May (one reason or the other), Jefferson, Sharp, Tholstrup (omit)
LUCKY: Chandler, Viney
UNLUCKY: Billings, Culley, Kentfield, Petty, Sparrow

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Kysaiah Pickett
--- Light years ---
4 - Bayley Fritsch
3 - Judd McVee
2 - Clayton Oliver
1 - Max Gawn

Apologies to Langford, McDonald, and Salem who may have scored a slice of the action due to lack of competition. 

Leaderboard
It's ever so slightly on at the top of the leaderboard, but Gawn must remain favourite when Pickett would need to overcome a 13 vote gap with only 25 left to hand out. No change in the other awards, though the Seecamp will probably be down to Bowey vs Turner once May falls victim to the footy culture wars.  

47 - Max Gawn (WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
34 - Kysaiah Pickett
24 - Jake Melksham
--- Abandon all hope ye beyond here ---
20 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
17 - Christian Petracca
16 - Clayton Oliver
15 - Daniel Turner
13 - Steven May
11 - Harvey Langford (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Tom McDonald
9 - Kade Chandler, Ed Langdon
8 - Bayley Fritsch, Christian Salem
7 - Xavier Lindsay, Jack Viney
4 - Tom Sparrow
3 - Judd McVee
2 - Jake Lever, Harrison Petty, Trent Rivers
1 - Harry Sharp

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Take your choice on Pickett from the boundary line, but the one on the right side was so beautiful that it's unlucky not to replace his goal against Port as the clubhouse leader. Neither happened in a win, so the one he kicked from the square last week before going on to do bugger all is ultimately worth more than either of them. 

Final thoughts
Where else would you rather be? Actually, don't answer that.