If strikethroughs on post titles worked, the word 'comfortably' would feature above. We ran away with this in the last quarter, and 10 minutes into the last quarter the only storyline left was Kysaiah Pickett's victory lap, but there were some ropey moments in the first 75% of the game. We'll find out next week if it matters. I'd say "you'll never beat good teams playing like this", but this was an encore to rumbling the reigning premier, so I've got even less idea than usual what's going on. Better to be in this situation at 5-2 than 2-5.
For those of you who are crusty enough to have owned Hotter Than Hell on VHS at some point in your life, we've now got the same record as the gold standard 'first year coach leads surprise revival' season 1998. We've come at it from a different angle, winning in the first game, then a couple of individual losses, instead of the five match winning streak that had us all saying words to the effect of "Blimey!"
For the first time this year, we check in with the season predictions of our very good friends at AFL Live Ladders. They're still predicting an 11th place finish, which will come in handy for "I never wanted to be in your stupid wildcard game anyway" coping strategies. And just to show we don't have to play Collingwood to suffer last round disappointment at their hands, the anticipated ladder has them tipping us out of the wankfest on percentage. Could happen, but there's still a whole bunch of weird scenarios - good and bad - before then. For the authentic Spirit of '98 we'll need two putrid mid-season losses, before the feelgood factor returns with a big interstate victory.
After a stern reminder less than two weeks earlier about why it's mad to expect a Melbourne win against anybody, I enjoyed beating Brisbane on Monday, then went back to bulk-buying brown undies. Imagine following a team you could reasonably expect to beat up on underdogs. Not only has Geelong never won fewer than seven games in a season during my lifetime, they'd have turned up on Friday night and gone full [insert inappropriate war metaphor of your choice] on a winless opposition consisting of kids and glory era veterans clinging on for dear life. Yes, I know Geelong just lost to a duddish Port Adelaide, but when it happens to them it's a surprise.
I was not heartened when they lost a bunch of players to injury, then another from the selected side due to the imminent birth of his child. You could wheel any collection of AFL listed players out and I'd get the sweats. They don't even all need to be alive, park the coffin of Wilfred 'Chicken' Smallhorn in the forward pocket and I'd expect the ball to bounce straight off it and into the hands of an elderly Rochford Devenish-Meares standing on his own in the goalsquare six times.
There's nothing to be said for the pre-match commemorations because it's the same thing every year (please note: this is not a bad thing, no need for a cancellation), but on the subject of national anthems, have a crack at Algeria's, which is both musically jaunty and has the opening lines "We swear by the lightning that destroys, by the streams of generous blood being shed". There you go Tasmania, rip that off for a theme song. Stay tuned for more random anthem chat next year. And hopefully another cock and balls banner.
So, out came 23 men of Melbourne good and true, to defend their honour against a lot of players with numbers between 40 and 50, and a makeshift ruckman opposing Gawn almighty. And for the first few minutes they did as they liked. It's been a refreshingly long time since we've been winless after six rounds, but I've seen us start games in the same way. You stop the opposition getting their hand on the ball for a bit, rope yourself into thinking the Great Leap Forward has finally arrived, then normal service resumes when the better side starts to get a kick.
We'd usually fold the tent much quicker than the Tigers did here, and for all the understandable "shouldn't we be better by now?" complaints from their fans, they've timed their run of being shit perfectly before Tasmania turn up with their Algerian-inspired song and stuff the draft up for a few years. Usually, I wouldn't care less if opposition sides caught fire and dropped dead, but I'm invested in Adem Yze's personal success. The Norm Smith style "Warm up elsewhere, then come back and win shitloads" scenario I was into last year is no longer valid, but of all senior coaches who used to play for us, I'd rather he succeed than Clarkson or Beveridge. Looks like they've drafted some shit hot talent, but you'd want to with the number of high selections they've had in recent years.
You can't apply the same "I hope they do well, but the team loses" philosophy to coaches as beloved ex-players, but as long as it doesn't come at our expense, best of Albanian luck to him. After 12 straight losses, he's lucky that the evidence of him hanging shit on Dean Bailey in 2011 disappeared with his Twitter account.
At the start of 2021, I thought it would be 'Yze By Anzac Day' if we didn't get off to a good start. Then we chose the more pleasant timeline of winning nine in a row, finishing top of the ladder, and doing you know what on the greatest evening in the history of western civilisation. Now, for as long as he's in charge of Richmond, every year will be his chance to stitch us up before Anzac Day. It'll have to happen one day, as will a close game and a Richmond player winning the medal. But not this year.
Like a footy version of the Salvation Army, our men's team charitably dedicates itself to helping others through difficult times, so was anybody surprised when plummeted giant Richmond got off to a hot start? In the theme of the night - and season - centre bounces were a death or glory experience where it was a lottery about which team was going to clear the ball with the greatest of ease. You'd think in the case of Gawn vs Phil Inn, our man would leap like an Atlantic salmon and start a modern version of the time he had 80 hitouts in a VFL game but alas no. We had good midfielders - especially 80s cop show duo Sparrow and Steele - but it wasn't the equivalent of Jamar stuffing the ball down Moloney's throat 18 times in one afternoon that you may have hoped for.
Cue several minutes of bridge jumper negotiation-style reassurance to the Tigers that things weren't as bad as they looked, and there was still hope. I took the first two Richmond goals personally due to obscure connections to my favourite old man bands - first The Fa(u)ll, then the player named after the band, named after the dildo. Sandwiched in the middle was our first Umpiring Wheel of Fortune win of the night, as Jefferson was gently jostled right in front. When you make decent contests in the forward line, it increases the probability of random free kicks from the 0.0% of panic long bombs straight to a defender.
Opposition supporters can submit a comprehensive spreadsheet of the times they were jibbed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. I still think unless the shit decisions happen right at the end you're still a hope of overcoming them if good enough. Doesn't help a young side, and while I'm in no way sorry for them, I do accept that we got lucky more often than not. But that's life so stiff shit. I'm sure the switchboard at Finey's Final Siren was in meltdown with claims of conspiracy, as if it wouldn't be better for the AFL if Richmond was successful, not us. It would help the crowd for this fixture, which dropped below 70k for the first time since 2021's pandemic-affected Nathan Jonestown Massacre.
The report on the AFL site goes full nuffy by saying "Richmond fans will also feel hard done by the free kick count, with Melbourne finishing with nine more free kicks than their opponents", as if the count was more important than where the frees happened. This is even more ludicrous if last disposal frees are included.
In the interests of fairness, probity, and keeping otherwise hapless opposition alive, van Rooyen missed a sitter from 25 metres directly in front. Better now than in the last quarter against Brisbane. Later, there was another case of LOLumpiring when Heath was halfway through complaining about a ruck free before realising he was getting it. He missed the shot, but looked a lot more comfortable at his day job than last week. And got free developmental opportunities courtesy of Gawn being kneed in the lower buttockal region in the second quarter, forcing us to bench him for longer than usual, then go forward for comedy value once the game was done.
Until proven otherwise, I'm claiming we've only had two players nicknamed 'Moose', so your updated all-time M(oose)FC leaderboard is:
* Heath, Max - 2
* Henwood, Wayne - 1
After years of winning/losing narrowly via defensive stodge, I can't come to terms with the idea that we might kick decent scores and go into full emotional turmoil when the opposition start moving the ball with ease. I'm sure allowing uncontested marks galore is part of the masterplan, but is there a way to get both goals and that short but wonderful era when opposition defenders looked up to see a brick wall of defenders ahead of them and lost the joy of life?
And not to detract from the glory of this decent but quickly forgotten victory, but my rank amateur view is that we're a key defender short. Now, I'm not saying this should happen so, calm down, but if somebody had a long-term injury (*sob*, it's coming *sob*)/retired, could Steven May come back, considering he's still technically on our senior list? If it helps, replace his name with Mr. X and look at the same scenario.
In a worrying repeat of the Essendon shambles, it took until the last few minutes to finally impose ourselves as favourites. Except for the bit where Langford stuffed up a Gawn mark close to goal, as part of a quarter that was about as far as you could get from the highs of his BOG against the defending premier. I've got manly platonic love for him as a footy player, but he may have the worst footy moustache since Lynden Dunn.
Sparrow continued the form of his life by kicking a set shot (and every week he looks more like Todd Viney's lost son), before we gave that straight back out of the middle, and conceded two early in the second quarter. I was reaching for the "Get ready everybody, he's about to do something stupid" graphic, and when Langford was run down in front of goal while trying to baulk around Richmond's entire defence I was getting Gather Round PTSD.
Somebody called Ralphsmith (who the allegedly sensible Foxtel commentators kept calling 'Ralph Smith' in the style of Leon Celli) and that bloke who used to play for Casey kicked a goal. It seemed the Tigers were capable of overcoming the dastardly conspiracy against them. In a great piece of misdirection, a boundary umpire took the heat off deep state plotting by tripping over a grassy knoll and breaking his wrist.
Because I think umpires are fine, upstanding members of the community who never put a foot wrong, I felt bad for the poor bastard standing there clutching at it in 90% discomfort, 10% embarrassment, over a million people having just seen him go arse over. Channel 7 kept showing David Rodan, but as the Fox commentators had no idea why, they had to awkwardly talk over it. I thought he was going to be called on to have a go at boundary umpiring, in the spirit of a suburban footy game where randoms are plucked from the crowd to umpire. Could watch their version of the replay to see what it was all about but I'd rather eat asbestos.
The real injury tragedy of the second quarter was Jai Culley's doing his knee. You get recovered from the scrap heap to play for the team you followed as a kid, establish a spot in the side just as things are starting to look up, then this. Apologies again for saying he was my new favourite player. He'll be back next season, but we'll miss him and even if it's a part of the game blah blah blah I'm sad about it.
Culley's injury was a flat spot in an otherwise much improved quarter. After a few minutes of original recipe Pickett's usual riot running being curbed, he burst back into life with a turbo run and checkside goal. This was followed by Chandler doing one of the best kicks to a forward's advantage of all time for Langford, and Pickett getting another via high contact free that was quite *nervous adjustment of collar*.
When Mihocek added another, for once we weren't the team pissing off early for the half time break, and I thought that was probably it for Richmond. Then, in a cancellation of one whinge-worthy goal from a free, Pickett (L) got done for a high tackle after grabbing a guy around the upper torso. When the graphic showed the kicker had 0 goals from 18 games, I think we all knew the ball's next destination was straight through the middle.
This was too much life in the contest for my liking, and when they got the first after the restart I said a phrase that ended in "s sake". Our response to this challenge was to play a few minutes of failed Hollywood football which would have been a lot better received if we didn't have a long history of botching it against lowly sides. You can raffle the worst moment between Fritsch's awful snap, Langford handballing over his head, and Fritsch's slightly less awful snap. We were saved by the Richmond player who failed to realise he was supposed to stand at a particular latitude/longitude on the mark, leading to a 50 and goal that calmed things down. Until they got a goal right after.
After his only previous goal of the season came from questionable circumstances, I was pleased to see Jefferson get a real one via a nice pack mark, then Pickett got one after end-to-end excitement and those of you who don't have a nervous condition were welcome to calm down slightly. With a four goal lead, a good record at finishing games this season, and opposition who were either young or old with nobody in between, I liked to think we were going to win but tried hard not to assume anything because that way lies madness.
I'm pleased to report that this time we did what the status of the teams suggested and had a trauma-free win. Nobody else got hurt, Gawn got to try his full range of set shot options (two), and it was time to stuff the premiership points up your jumper and leave casually.
In the last few minutes the game was deader than the proverbial nuts, but Pickett did his best to keep people watching until he won the medal by pulling down a screamer. Melksham against Gold Coast didn't even win Mark of the Week (probably because the start of the clip is a commentator blathering on with unrelated nonsense), so this might be our best chance of winning the award - for what that's worth. It was the best thing involving a player wearing #50 since the 2021 Grand Final.
KOZZY PICKETT THAT'S AN OUTRAGEOUS MARK!!! 🤯 #AFLTigersDees pic.twitter.com/tzni966fZu
— AFL (@AFL) April 24, 2026
It's easy to enjoy the finer things in life when you're nine goals up in the last minute but he deserves excitement for having this team miles ahead of where we expected to be at the start of the year. His greatest moment is still, by some distance, ringing up the bench just to yell "Fucking beautiful!"
I'm all for the combination of exuberance and success, but I'm turned off by comments like "it's good to see a coach showing passion", as if the last two years would've turned out differently if Simon Goodwin made obscene phone calls. Besides, that one time he did go off in the box, Stone Cold Craig Jennings looked like swatting him.
So what I'm saying, in a TL:DR summary that comes deep enough into the post to be irrelevant, is that things are going pretty well, thank god we didn't hire Buckley as coach, and once again I apologise wholeheartedly to Culley for cursing him with my support.
2026 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Kysaiah Pickett
4 - Tom Sparrow
3 - Caleb Windsor
2 - Jack Steele
1 - Daniel Turner
Apologies to Chandler, Gawn, Howes, Lever and Sharp
Leaderboard
It's on at the top, as the 'Gawn Gets A Rest' era opens the door for the other guy you'll still be talking about on your deathbed. Pickett shuts the gap to just over one BOG, with Steele a clear third on the podium. There's still time for anyone down to Oscar Berry or [Mid-Season Draftee] to win, but it would need Gawn and Pickett to miss shitloads of games so let's not do that.
In the minor categories, Turner takes the outright Seecamp lead, and if you think Max Heath is capable of closing a 23 vote gap on the greatest ruckman of all time he's now averaging 17 hitouts per game and is Stynes eligible. 'No Eligible Player' still ahead in the Rising Star.
23 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
17 - Kysaiah Pickett
14 - Jack Steele
7 - Tom Sparrow
6 - Caleb Windsor
5 - Kade Chandler, Ed Langdon, Harvey Langford
4 - Jacob van Rooyen
3 - Koltyn Tholstrup, Daniel Turner (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
2 - Bayley Fritsch, Blake Howes, Jake Melksham, Brody Mihocek
1 - Jai Culley, Jake Lever, Harry Sharp
Next week
As a tribute to the mercy killing of Opening Round, it's back to where it all began at the SCG. The only good thing about that night (other than being so boring we never got invited back to Round 1A again) was the all-time great Teammategami of Jack Billings and Josh Schache playing one MFC game together. As usual, reports of Sydney's demise have been premature and they're good again. We did our bit for footy in NSW by keeping Grundy warm for a year.
Somehow, we've only played five games at the SCG in a decade, and one was against Collingwood. According to my 2026 edition of the Big Book O' Footy Stereotypes, the ground dimensions will test our style. Except that it's only five metres narrower than the ground we've won 5/5 on this season. Maybe the real test was at the Adelaide Oval, which is 13m narrower than the SCG. Sydney also has one of the highest percentages of all-time at this point of the season so that might help them too.
Bowey survived his return at Casey so he's welcome back in at the first opportunity, and even though Moniz-Wakefield does a similar thing let's have both. Out goes Culley (*sob*), and after spending plenty of time whinging about Laurie not getting a go, he's had it and meh. He got better after the first quarter and is welcome back for another crack later in the season, but let's have something else. I'm happy for Taylor and L. Pickett to participate in a 'learn on the job scheme', though I still think the latter would do well to get his eye in by teeing off on some rubbish in the VFL. There's also an argument for McDonald coming in, because after Turner there's not much in reserve for key defenders.
Meanwhile, is Xavier Lindsay on the Trent Rivers mystery injury plan? Managed one week, doesn't play for Casey the next, surprise injury announcement when? In other injury news, there's still no answer to Harrison Petty's condition so he's not coming back this week. There has, however, been a breakthrough in Shane McAdam's permanent 2-3 weeks away saga. But only because he's now listed as 'TBC'. Tom Campbell is reportedly about to retire - joining Robert Campbell and Majak Daw as experienced ruckmen who were on our list without playing a game - what chance they come to an 'agreement' with McAdam as well? I'd like closure on whether he could ever make the distance from a 40m set shot, but otherwise what's the point? Have a payout, put your Achilles up and rest. I'm open to him coming back, kicking six in a final, and telling me to GAGF.
I watched Casey struggling to beat a glorified suburban team masquerading as Richmond VFL (except when somebody knocked the plug out and we got Teletext updates instead), and my key takeaway was that if we have mid-season drafting to do, could we please have Tairon Ah-Mu, because a) he's a massive unit, b) we'll have Roo, Moose and Mu, c) the perfect goal song already exists.
I've got the same pre-match expectations as the Brisbane game, where we give a decent account of ourselves but fall short. A repeat of the actual result would be nice, and may force the lid into orbit. After that, we play West Coast, so your guess is as good as mine as to whether we'll win the first and lose the second, vice versa, or the dreaded OTHER.
IN: Bowey, Moniz-Wakefield
OUT: Culley (inj), Laurie (omit)
LUCKY: L. Pickett, Taylor
UNLUCKY: Henderson, McDonald
Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Apologies to Windsor in the first quarter, and for the second consecutive week, a peach of a Mihocek set shot finishes on the podium BUT it would be downright stupid not to choose Pickett's curling, outside of the boot whatever the opposite of a snap is.
Final thoughts
I still don't know if this year is real, but it's far better than the previous 1.5. I'm flustered about our depth and expecting things to go tits up when injuries hit later in the year, but we're so far ahead of expectations that I may as well live in the now and enjoy it. See you next week for 'end is nigh' moaning and microwaving threats.
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