If we're doing a cover version of 1998, this might be the dud mid-season result that makes you think it's all over. In a Choose Your Own Adventure feature, you may blame it on a) selling games to the Northern Territory, b) the opposition unsportingly not letting us score freely, or c) going full Classic Goodwin and having bulk inside 50s for fuck all benefit. Surely even the nuffies who always think the umpires are at fault can't claim they were to blame for a performance that was in some ways loose as a goose, and in others, more congested than a Shanghai traffic jam.
I don't know if we'd have won this at the MCG, because I'm not sure we'd have been playing it there. This fixture has 'home game at Docklands in front of friends and family' written all over it. So, we took the usual shitload of money, put in the usual shizen performance, and nobody's any wiser about what the rest of the season holds. After being half-sucked in by the Hawthorn win, I'm willing to reset my expectations to 'average'. Yes, we came back from the dead to nearly win last week, but there's enough evidence by now to suggest any team capable of fast ball movement and competent defence will do us in.
I'll give it a couple of weeks to see if the MCG is still the happiest place on earth. Yes, we did have a stench-fest of similar proportions against Essendon before coming back to beat multiple 2025 finalists. This performance had an air of "what do we do now?" panic that drained me of confidence. But the fact that there's confidence to lose halfway through the year is proof that things are going a lot better than expected. Fat lot of consolation that will be if we go tits up from here, so let's hope the '98 comeback tour gets going, and we can go all the way to losing a Prelim against North.
In a case of 'start as you mean to go on', we conceded the first goal after doing multiple stupid things - first giving away a free for not handing the ball back to the umpire, then Langdon was trapped on the last line of defence and kicked it anywhere to escape, which turned out to be straight to a Giants player. Then Petty celebrated his return to defence by casually wandering around in traffic before being caught holding the ball. Result - two goals in two minutes, by which point our only kick had been the shitbox one that led to the first goal.
So that wasn't going well, though Pickett (L) did well to mark a wonky, hopeful kick, which ended up being one of our best inside 50s all day, by virtue of how SHITE the rest of them were. You had forwards who wouldn't/couldn't find space, leaving us kicking to the old clump of players 20 metres out and expecting anybody to make something of that. It's what we recruited Mihocek to help with - once it became clear nobody under 30 can consistently do it, and he returned here to kick the first two. Probably while thinking about how he wasted his career with Collingwood, never getting to play at a ground with a truck parked behind the goals.
The second came via back-and-forth shenanigans, including Sharp being run down once, then almost doing it again. That didn't last long, and for most of the quarter, it looked like GWS was warming up for a training drill against cardboard cutouts representing Melbourne players. Which they were, but not without a spot of bad luck involving Latrelle being jibbed by a snap that bounced 50 centimetres from the line, then took a comedy bounce and didn't score at all. It would be inappropriate to say "it was that kind of day" because our issues went much deeper than one oval-shaped object pitching in random directions. What about all the times we had said item in hand and booted it straight down the gullet of a defender?
Your chances of understanding what was going on in this game were already reduced by having Dwayne on commentary, but were not helped by Channel 7 zooming in on everything, so neither the home viewer, or the guy calling off a TV in South Melbourne was sure of what was going on outside what was visible on screen. I'd say Seven do this deliberately to take the piss out of their competition, but Fox also has directors who think they're filming the Battle of Guadalcanal, so they're all as bad as each other. Russell also keeps going on about "the top 10" in a completely irony-free way that suggests he thinks it's the greatest footy innovation since the drop punt. He later called West Coast vs Essendon a "huge game". Come on man.
If Dwayne's random non-sequiturs and forced one-liners weren't enough for you, Nick Dal Santo's analysis of the GWS forward line was the all-time great mixed metaphor: "They're like islands, they've all got their own territory to hunt in".
This season has repeatedly shown that no matter how dreadful our attack looks in the moment, you can't write off a run of goals to make things interesting/very interesting. But not in this game, where the only remaining first quarter entertainment was provided by Pickett (K), surely breaking the record for warmest weather a long sleeve jumper has ever been worn in, kicking a ludicrous snap while running towards the boundary line. Can we just leave him forward a bit? I'm well aware of all the good he does around the ground, but he really is wasted anywhere behind the centre circle. Play him at bounces, then send him inside 50 to try and introduce a bit of terror for the defenders?
We were about as threatening as an episode of My Little Pony here, and just miserably went to our doom with JVR and Jefferson taking to the AFL like two fill-in Casey players taking on peak Lever and May. And god only knows what Fritsch does these days, but no doubt we'll be handing him a nine-year contract extension at some point. Yes, welcome to the part of the year where baby and bathwater both dramatically go flying together. And refer to any number of posts from the past few years for discussion of how failing to keep the ball inside 50 leads to the other side belting the other way, with a cavalcade of free players standing on their own.
If we didn't start kicking goals regularly, there was no chance of winning. Which sounds pretty bloody obvious, but the point is that there could be no 50-45 submission victory. We obviously weren't going to stop them teleporting the ball from one end to the other, leaving the backmen trying desperately to cover any number of opponents standing on their own. For the case against Alice Springs, it was a lot like last year, only without as many good scoring opportunities, and Bailey Laurie not hanging out on the bench for three quarters waiting to make his entire contribution to the season.
Other than the Pickett wondergoal, it was another flat performance without any standout players. A lot of them did good things, some strung it out for more than a quarter, but there was nothing you could point out and say "we lost, but at least..."
In our reunion with Clayton Oliver, I'm glad he's still going with the trademark two minute noodle hair. That was one minute more than the number of effective possessions he got in the first quarter. He got into it after that, courtesy of however many millions of dollars we still owe on the contract. But, to start the second quarter, the damage was done by an ex-Demon we weren't paying for the privilege. Enter Toby Bedford who, you will not be surprised to find, was standing on his own in the square.
The margin was only seven, but felt like it should be plenty more. Gawn recognised this by taking a great defensive mark, then getting excited and sitting a kick up to be intercepted for a goal. Then they got another straight from the middle, featuring Greene outmarking Tholstrup and giving him a shove that I guess doesn't qualify as 'taunting' because it wasn't on the head. It came close enough to goal that I wish Tholstrup let him have the 50 after being grabbed by the jumper and hurled as far as possible towards goal, like an Olympic hammer thrower.
Mihocek hit back from a tricky angle. The ungrateful bastards who were unhappy about Langford not marking at the end last week may wish to note that Mihocek's third never happened without Harvey risking death with an intercept mark. And it was all worth it for the 'steadier' that survived about 19 seconds. We were winning contested possession, but that means dick all when the scores are coming from players running around in acres of space under no pressure. The sense that it was all a bit of a shambles was furthered when a snap by Sharp was touched through by Gawn. I don't think he was trying to swipe the goal, he just looked up to see a footy coming at his head and tried to take evasive action. Could've just handballed it to him, standing there on his own, anyway. Goodbye to our full membership upgrade at The Entertainers.
If you're going to let free players run everywhere, best to do something when the ball gets inside 50. Finally, Jefferson got a free and converted, just after Russell (D) commented on the colour choice of Pickett (L)'s undies. Then, out of the middle, Chandler did tremendously well to keep a loose ball alive long enough for Langford to miss a snap. But the goal that made the margin a positively generous 12 was still there, after Oliver introduced himself to Latrelle with a high tackle. I'm not convinced by Pickett yet, and was preparing to defame his set shots when this went through.
We'd been comprehensively outplayed, but were still in it. Not for the first time this year, so you never knew. To be honest, I knew. I can be guilty of gross cowardice at times, but for us to win this GWS would have needed its entire side to come down with the mystery shits at half time.
Didn't take long to find out where this was going, even after you-know-who called an alleged "brilliant snap by Daniels" which rolled out of bounds in the forward pocket. It did prove a good set up, leading to Cross being pinched holding the ball after a tackle on his hand. There's something you don't see often. More common, in this game anyway, was us labouring through about 12 disposals to move 50 metres, then finally getting the ball forward, only for it to come back the length of the ground in about three kicks.
Inside 50s are a piece of shit measurement, except when you have twice as many for infinitely fewer goals. They got up to about 4/6, by the time we were 0/14. Instead of well-constructed goals involving forwards, Trent Rivers had to run around an opponent and boot one from distance. A minute later, Gawn got manhandled out of a boundary throw-in for the reply. How did it even get down there so quickly? Christ only knows. 34 points may as well have been 74.
Sparrow snapped one at the end of the quarter, but it was only there because Mihocek's shot at goal missed the lot. Cross had a shot after the siren, but in a week where a player was done for running off his line in similar circumstances, he was never going to be able to scam enough extra distance to kick it.
Technically, a 27-point margin was gettable, but I'd have eaten Ed Langdon's sweaty headband if we'd been able to outscore the Giants by 28 in the final quarter, the way we'd been defending ball movement. For anyone hanging onto the dream of a comeback, we started the last quarter with our best transition all day... and then botched the kick into attack. Said it all really. This was followed by the Giants kicking it around to free players long enough to open the door for a leading forward to run onto a pass under zero pressure. They got another from the middle, and our status was downgraded from 'probably rooted' to 'officially rooted'.
All that was left was 15 minutes of the Giants running around red and blue traffic cones. Some hopeful people will try and claim we were beaten by the Giants' accuracy. It just saved us from seven, eight, or more point plays. Steele kicked a good goal on the run in the last, but it was shuffling deckchairs on the inland Titanic and I couldn't have been less interested in the last 10 minutes while still watching. Stuff happened, I saw it, and didn't care. Get on with next week and show us you've either a) learnt lessons, or b) we can only play on the MCG.
After the match, Steven King let himself down by bringing up expected score, which is about as relevant to this result as my unscientific 'feels like' measurement. It felt like we got pummelled here, and I'm not sure whether we should get grudging credit for keeping the margin to just 49, or GWS should be disappointed by not walloping us more violently.
2026 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Daniel Turner
4 - Jack Steele
3 - Jake Bowey
2 - Brody Mihocek
1 - Koltyn Tholstrup
Hardly anybody deserved votes, so insincere apologies to K. Pickett and Petty for being next closest.
Leaderboard
Nothing for the top two, so the only move of note is Steele back onto the podium. In another week of nobody going close in the Rising Star, it's starting to look like an issue that I didn't have an 'Any other player' option. Cross just made it onto the list in time, but how was I supposed to know we'd end up with three mid-season draftees?
32 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
25 - Kysaiah Pickett
19 - Jack Steele
17 - Tom Sparrow
15 - Daniel Turner (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
10 - Ed Langdon
9 - Jake Bowey
8 - Kade Chandler, Jacob van Rooyen
7 - Harvey Langford
6 - Caleb Windsor
4 - Brody Mihocek, Harrison Petty, Koltyn Tholstrup
2 - Bayley Fritsch, Blake Howes, Jake Melksham, Harry Sharp
1 - Jai Culley, Jake Lever
Next week
Get your Steven King's Birthday gimmick headlines out, time for our annual attempt to prove ourselves to Collingwood when they couldn't give two shits about us. In theory, they're on the skids, but we usually find a way to cock this game up, so I'm expecting to do something silly. I don't expect my proposed hatchet job on the forward line to be adopted, but they have to do something. You can't just say "it's the MCG, everything will be ok". Time to dump a few people. I could almost go Fritsch as well.
After a couple of down weeks for the midfield, I'd like to get the express inclusion treatment for mid-season draftee Joel Fitzgerald, who found out he was drafted after training at Williamstown, transferred straight to Casey, and had 40 possessions. That's the sort of resilience you need to play for Melbourne. So much better in front of 90,000 people. And for the love of all that is holy, can they just give Kentfield a crack already? Might have NFI in senior company for all I know, but surely he's done enough to get a go in front of one of the other misfiring forwards.
We'll lose, and a Pies player you've never heard of will join the Oxley, Dick x2, Cox x2 (these are real people, I'm not doing a bit) Monarch's Birthday Kingsley Club.
IN: Fitzgerald, Jiath, Kentfield, Lever, Melksham
OUT: Cross, Laurie, L. Pickett, Jefferson, van Rooyen (omit)
LUCKY: Fritsch, Moniz-Wakefield
UNLUCKY: McDonald
(UPDATE - Let the original text stand, but poor AMW is anything but lucky as he's done his knee again. Absolutely shithouse news).
Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Apologies to Miami Vice-style crime-fighting duo Sparrow and Steele, but obviously it was the ludicrous Pickett one from the boundary line. I hated this game so much that I refuse to dignify it by appointing a new clubhouse leader, but the good news is that he already leads for the goal against future chaos to premiers via wildcard round success story Carlton.
This site has been going so long, it started with Neale Daniher's third last season as coach. Nothing I'm going to say will adequately pay tribute to him, but if you're going to have the misfortune of coming down with an incurable illness, the best you can do is fight it to the bitter end and do good for other people along the way. From a footballing perspective, I thank him for the 1998 and 2000 campaigns, two of my all-time favourite seasons. Remember '98 with our Hotter Than Hell retrospective, and remember Neale with your generous donations to fight MND.
Final thoughts
This was like waking up and having a cup of piss thrown in your face, but if we do the right thing next week, I'll forget it happened.
