Gabba Gabba Wahey

For distance between expected margin and actual upset result, this may have been the most baffling victory since the 2015 'Gawn's Gone Wild' game at Kardinia Park. Brisbane had been held to a draw by North last week, but I put that down to the culture shock of playing in Hobart and expected a savage bounceback here. It didn't turn out as expected.

I thought we might hang around for the first half, before slowly losing ground, then fold like a house of cards in the final term again. It looked like the script was being followed to the letter when the 3/4 time margin was 14 points. Hardly an insurmountable gap, but hard to imagine any sort of life-affirming comeback when we've been playing final quarters all season as if heavily sedated. Then, plucked from the thinnest of air, our best final quarter of the year. I won't mock the Lions because they'll still be going when our players are applying the all-important 'offensive or not' test to Mad Monday costumes, but for a generic win that might not mean anything long-term, this was extremely satisfying. 

Thank god we beat a quality team interstate because during the week I'd got a bit sulky about our issues outside the Melbourne metropolitan area. To be precise, the bit where GWS won their fifth game in a row at Geelong, which is the same number of times we've beaten Geelong away since 1983. See also the semi-pros of Southport taking the unusual Gold Coast - Tullamarine - Cranbourne route to beat a side with about 18 listed MFC players. "Everyone else can travel" I silently wailed, "what's wrong with us?" Usually the answer to that question would be "how long have you got?", but Sunday's wacky result means we don't need to be gloomy fit a bit, even if I still don't understand why we make going 100km down the highway more difficult than scaling Mt. Everest when the AFL generously lets us practice there every year.

This makes four wins in the last five, but I'm still not prepared to entertain a miracle finals run. Mathematically we might romp in via winning every game for the rest of the year (before departing in straight sets), but until the probability on AFL Live Ladders rises from 4% into the mid-teens I won't be raising a sweat worrying about blowing it all in humiliating fashion against you-know-who in Round 24. I'll just be happy to keep working on the anti-Essendon Spitebury plan, and any slivers of hope of a critic throat stuffing revival will be a bonus. There's a 96% chance that we're only playing for spite so I'm sticking with that for now.

This was a weird game, but what do you expect against Brisbane after the last few years? From the high point of our modern existence coming less than a minute after Alex Neal-Bullen violently puking, to Lever's twirling disaster in the finals, the night the lights went out in Woolloongabba, Melksham finishing the big comeback, and more ANB content when he dived for touch last year. The strangest, still never fully explained controversy was the Petty vs Zorko debacle in 2022, which kicked off a bit of half-hearted spite between the sides/fans that quickly fizzed out. 

There was a little spark when some wanker did the 'boo hoo' face to Petty last year, but once he went on to play in a flag all normal people decided to move on. Not some simpletons in this crowd who booed Petty, not realising that incident was a turning point in the fortunes of the two sides. They went from being beaten senseless that night to two Grand Finals and a flag, while we proceeded to lose four finals in a row and fall off the face of the earth. Form an orderly queue to say thanks you bozos.

I tuned in fully expecting us to cheerfully go to our graves, but the good news was that it would be called by the sensible and professional Jason Bennett and Matt Hill. Unfortunately not on the same channel, as each was partnered by half of the buffoon power couple BT and Dwayne. At first my viewing was so low energy that I couldn't be bothered pressing several remote control buttons to access Kayo and wore the 50% sensible, 50% idiotic Channel 7 coverage until the ads were giving me the shits more than Taylor talking shite. 

After going to the trouble of digitally adding the putrid new Gold Coast logo, AAMI has changed the end of their commercial to the dickhead dad discovering for a second time that bad kicking is bad home maintenance. He's still able to calmly head straight for their app to make a claim, as if he wouldn't be paying an excess much more expensive than fixing one poxy window. They've obviously got a big budget for this campaign, give us something a bit more dramatic like footy hits tree, branch makes contact with electrical wires, catastrophic fire breaks out etc... Let the kid make 'cute' comments when the family home is burning to the ground.

In a battle of the lesser of two evils, I appreciated Dwayne sitting back and letting the adult in the commentary booth/remote Fox studio speak for large parts of the game instead of just blathering on over the top of everyone else. He still had to jam in the usual pre-planned 'Rivers to cross' style gags, but seemed much less offensive in partnership with Hill. Meanwhile, watching the highlights of the remainder with the Seven commentary makes me wish Bennett had taken to his partner with a headphone cord at quarter time.

Meanwhile, it's that time of the year when we rebrand as Narrm. The idea has been argued left, right, and bloody centre since we pioneered it (in the AFL anyway) but whether you're madly for it, madly against it, or like me and don't really care but wish everyone well, only unreasonable arseholes have a problem with the indigenous jumpers. I rated this year's version as one of our best yet, and still think there's something in using one these designs (preferably 2021) on the back every week. Brisbane's looked fine, except that it made all their players look like Simpsons characters with exposed buttocks. 

Given how I expected this to go, kicking the first goal was nice. Especially when it came from a fantastic Melksham contested mark. Last week it was Sparrow and Langford doing this, and is there any danger of a key forward taking similar grabs? We seem to do better with players who can get a run at the ball inside 50 than anyone trying to stand their ground and mark overhead.

One player who wouldn't be taking marks of any sort in the first quarter was Bayley Fritsch, relegated to substitute for the first time in his career. Things have mostly gone well since the Essendon game, but I still say it was a mistake dropping him after that when he finally looked to be finding some form. Fair enough being relegated to the bench after stinking it up last week though. I've got faith that Fritsch can still kick goals if the rest of the forward line can draw enough attention to get him some space, but it's been a good old fashioned slog this season. Lucky for him nobody else is kicking bulk goals either, and he's only five behind Pickett in the quest to lead our tally for the sixth consecutive year. For now, the race is on for somebody to beat recent humiliatingly low top totals like Brad Miller's 26 (2008), Chris Dawes' 20 (2014), and Petracca's 22 (2019).

This kicked off one of Melksham's best games, and after being written off several times since 2019, and at the stage of his career where he's being heavily 'managed', he's timed his career revival perfectly to go out with everyone lamenting that he couldn't go on for longer. To be fair, until now he'd only kicked two goals in five games, but it's the contest, and the opportunities laid on for teammates by taking smart options. In a team where nobody looks particularly dangerous, if you're not kicking them yourself at least set them up for somebody else. But he did both here, with only his sixth haul of four goals in 121 games.

Not sure Melksham gives a fat rat's clacker about what anyone else thinks (except Steven May in a fancy restaurant) but if we'd gone on to the presumed battling but ultimately demoralising defeat, his antics throughout the game would've given your Agenda Setters and associated content-hungry shockjocks seizures. Giving away a 50 for piffing the ball past his opponent at high speed was a bit unnecessary, but once we'd confirmed victory I was right into his mouthing off after marks, and responding to Harris Andrews' attempts at manly jostling by squirting him with water. 

If you're surprised the Anti Fun League didn't fine him for misconduct, don't worry they've extracted $1000 out of Clayton Oliver for being the latest player to have a light, unpublicised collision with an umpire. This is the exact same amount a West Coast player got for targeting an injured player, and $1000 more than the fine for threatening to get an opposition player bashed.

More important than his jovial attitude to the contest, Melksham also negotiated their best intercept defender. If you're not meant to trust somebody with two last names, I don't know what you're supposed to do with somebody who doesn't have any, but Harris must've been rubbing his hands together in anticipation for this game until sparks appeared. Surprisingly the record for intercept marks in a game is only 10, because I'm sure we've given away more than that in single quarters before. He'd have been waiting to shatter the world record by picking off a dozen of our panic kicks inside 50, only to be held to two, one fewer than noted aerialist Judd McVee. But he did get a free hose down from the water bottle so it wasn't all bad news.

The problem in this game, at least for the first three quarters, was that when we didn't kick goals the ball was flying down the other end as if heaved from a medieval catapult. Brisbane's effortless transfer of the ball and chains of free players lining up for their turn to move it forward gave the indication that there'd be no way to cover whatever they were going to score. 

It's frustrating how close we are to being a good team, but where most weeks you could say "if we only had a forward line", the obvious difference here was ball movement. One side was shifting it goalwards at warp speed with opponents getting within the same area code. The other was Melbourne. I remain confused as to how they were only 14 points up at three quarter time. When they helpfully kicked it long towards the square our defenders were holding up well, but they'd regularly have multiple players camped on their own about 40 metres out, and should be kicking themselves for stuffing this up.

Not only did we struggle to get any speed on the ball early, but there was also a few horror turnovers when exiting defence. This included McSizzle having a go at kicking in after a point, only to make connection that was flatter than a plateful of piss, then stand in a line of players who acted like Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men as the recipient of his gift casually wandered towards goal. We did not need to be giving up seven point plays in the space of 20 seconds if there was any hope of keeping the game alive into the last quarter. 

Petty took a solid mark in attack, but presented with near enough to a sitter he reverted to 2024 form and missed. Having said that, like last year his best work was when forced to play like a defender and chop off bad kicks. I'd still prefer Turner forward, but he looks good in defence so I've got absolutely no idea who'll be playing in our attack by the end of the season. I've tried my best but Tom McDonald probably won't be involved. But there was something here for members of the defunct Send Sizzle Forward campaign, when a 50 brought him within range for what is hopefully not his final career goal.

This was all very good, but the problem of Brisbane turning defence into attack in under five seconds was still there. Due to not giving a shit about other teams, I didn't know who Logan Morris was until stumbling upon an article suggesting we recruit him. After he'd kicked back-to-back goals I was ready to reroute the Armaguard truck that was once set to try and keep van Rooyen out of West Coast's hands. 

Morris' cause was helped by silver platter service, and being paid a mark that went about eight metres, but I felt bad for JVR sitting on the couch at home watching a young key position forward being fed marks in acres of space but it's not like he didn't also completely butterfinger some easy grabs earlier in the year.

Until these goals, we'd done well enough to keep it close. Even with Gawn taking advantage of a second choice ruckman and multiple wins out of the centre it felt like this was the dam walls bursting. Usually I think sports betting companies should be invited to FOAD, but would be interested in how short favourites the Lions were with a three goal quarter time lead, at home, against a side who have been finishing like Greg Norman at Augusta.

They'd have been unbackable after kicking the first after the break. It was bad enough letting Darcy Gardiner kick his 10th goal in 169 games, but by the time he had four the alarm at Kent Kingsley Manor could be heard from Norfolk Island. Kingsley nominations are usually reserved for players who have average careers highlighted by one (or more if you're Brad Dick) ripper games against us. This was a special category induction for a perfectly good, premiership winning player who has had a long career but pulls off random acts of heroism at the wrong end of the ground. And yes new readers, I know old Kent had plenty of good games against other teams but the name stuck 20 odd years ago so we're not changing now unless he sues.

Nobody would've been surprised if the floodgates burst open at this point. I'd already morally conceded de defeat before the first bounce (accusations of cowardice to the usual address) so was less upset by how the game was going than the sun which made it difficult to watch. Things picked up for us when it got dark, maybe they just couldn't see the waves of Brisbane players legging it into free space around them.

The recovery began with Melksham, who may not be welcome at French restaurants but is free to hang around on our list until he's completely crocked or a replacement turns up. Then Chandler squirmed out of an attempted tackle that looked more like he was being vigorously felt up and snapped a goal. This was unpopular with the locals, who haven't grasped the idea that you need to either hold the player or force them to dispose of the ball incorrectly.

After the latest edition of Gardner's Tony Lockett roleplay we rode our luck a bit as the Lions missed a couple of set shots. About time somebody else self-harms in front of goal. This left the door open for Petracca and Rivers to spelunk their way around the boundary, and for Rivers to trip over the goalpost on his way through. It was still not nearly as spectacular looking as Pickett getting legged by Hawthorn. That goal made it interesting at half time. Not yet very interesting because I was still expecting to burst into flames at the 0.01 minute mark of the last quarter.

Credit to Fox Sports for their novelty approach to a Robert Walls tribute during the break. Instead of wheeling out the same footage as everyone else they played the highlights of Brisbane coming back from the dead to beat Hawthorn in the early 90s. I was hoping for bonus footage of him grappling with Darren Kowal but that was probably considered inappropriate under the circumstances. Surely Channel 7 did something, but they also had to make room for a 'comedy' segment and multiple repeats of Darcy Moore being squirted with tomato sauce.

I wanted to believe in a famous come-from-behind win, but it wasn't easy when the first bounce of the second half went from us bursting towards goal to conceding at the other end seconds later. But we hung around to irritate the home crowd.

It's impossible to judge Tom Sparrow's contribution this season when he's been dumped in starvation corner to do defensive jobs, but in the spirit of our 'anyone, anytime, just not very often' forward structure he was on the end of a rocket pass from Melksham that probably left an indent on his right tit. Dayne Zorko then tried to leave a mark on the rest of him in the follow through, making certain of the goal with a 50 metre penalty. We responded to this gift by nearly giving it straight back, forced to extract the ball from the top of the square just seconds after the restart. This is why I had no faith that we could score enough to win. It just felt like we'd toil manfully for goals and they'd rip them out of thin air. 

Say what you like about Goodwin being incredibly stubborn about trying to make his tactical fantasies come true, but you can't say he's not persistent. See, for example, the violent smashing of a square peg into a round hole that was our 2024 forward line. Once Viney returns we'll find out whether Oliver as a tagger is this year's version of 'surely he'll kick goals eventually', or if it was just a cameo while waiting for the incumbent to return. I hope so, because even if he's well down on his best using him like this feels like when you see ex-celebrity musicians reluctantly playing the Doncaster Shoppingtown Hotel. On the other hand, you feel better about Viney ending his career like this because he clearly enjoys stalking opponents and trying to take their limbs as trophies Ben Roberts-Smith style.

If this was the last time Clayts is sent on a hunting mission it worked a lot better than last time. This time he followed a Brownlow Medal winner to where the possessions were and it paid off so let's bank the happy memories and stop doing this unless there's an emergency. 

Oliver also kicked a crucial goal to stop things getting out of hand after two in a row for Brisbane. The first came courtesy of a truly pissweak downfield free against Lindsay, who arrived late and simply tackled the guy. Usually these are paid when somebody gets pushed over and otherwise violently dealt with after disposing, but this was penalising a player for not getting there quickly enough. That handed surprise hero Gardner his third, and the Lions may have had another immediately after if the goal umpire wasn't 100% convinced that a shot missed. The commentators, including not quite impartial boundary rider Alistair Lynch, didn't believe it and there was talk of a replay that I can't remember ever being shown. Unlike a goal, there wasn't a minute for the reviewers to pick over the footage trying to find a reason to overturn it, but it was suspicious how quickly we restarted the game before some busybody field umpire could run in and snitch on us.

We had the chance to strike back, with Fritsch being welcomed back from exile with a pass from Spargo that seemed to expect he'd picked up Inspector Gadget robotic arms during the afternoon. Charleston had a shot of his own and missed the lot, and given that he's kicked all of one goal this year I'd like a look at somebody else please? He does some nice stuff, but five and a bit kicks a game + a decent number of tackles don't justify automatic selection. You can argue he's got more intent than Fritsch but in the end scores matter. 

After Melksham got his third you could squint really hard and clobber yourself over the head with a frypan to have visions of winning, before we let in a truly shit goal at the end of an otherwise decent quarter. Turner was very good but completely flubbed his efforts to rush the ball, leaving who else but Mr. Kingsley 2025 to boot a fourth and take the margin back into double figures.  

If the tables were turned I wouldn't have trusted us to hold a 14 point lead against players teleported in from 1897, but didn't have the slightest bit of faith in us outscoring the Lions by 15 before the final siren. Always happy to be proven wrong in situations like this, but you have to admit historical precedent was on my side.  

Our last quarters have been so bad that even missing a pair of opportunities right at the start felt like progress. Less so when the Lions were having a set shot not long after. Perhaps looking forward to a great future having the ball booted over his head inside our 50, Morris didn't even score this time. And that, bizarrely, was pretty much it for Brisbane. It took us a while to overturn the margin but once we finally found a solution to their pinballing from defence into attack a level of panic set in and they started doing stupid turnovers or booting it straight at Gawn despite not having anyone likely to challenge him in the air.

By the time scores were level I was in full close game mode, walking backwards and forwards behind the couch and muttering incoherently like a complete lunatic. There was actual climbing on the back of said couch when Johnson toe-poked through the go ahead goal. I still don't see what you get from him that van Rooyen can't also do, but he continued his career record of 100% goals kicked wildly off the ground and there was now a genuine sense that we might win it. Then Melksham kicked a fourth and I was on the verge of having to breathe into a paper bag.

When Lindsay stormed the 50 seconds later and missed what would've probably been the sealer I yelled out an obscenity just as A. Random knocked on my door to collect something (NB: not a drug related transaction), so there was a bit of awkward "sorry about that, just watching the footy" while trying to get him back out the door with as little chit-chat as possible. There was even more bad behaviour when the Lions responded with a goal. After claiming last week that we didn't qualify for 'it's the hope that kills you status' I'd have jammed my head in the dishwasher if we'd lost from here.

If you'd presented me a two kick game with a few minutes left earlier in the afternoon I'd have said we'd concede two slingshot goals to lose in horrifying circumstances, but Brisbane were in total disarray by now and helpfully wound the clock down by kicking it back to us at every opportunity. Pickett missed a chance at whacking a big fat exclamation mark on the result, but unlike certain other games this season we didn't just let the other team plow down the ground for a vital goal from the kick-in. He had ball in hand again in the dying seconds, narrowly missing an odd attempt at nine-ironing the ball through an unguarded square but the important work had been done. 

Once the excitement of a big upset wears off this won't challenge for our top 10 wins of modern times, but everyone involved deserves congratulations for weathering the early storm and pulling off a fine victory. It ended one of my more successful recent weekends - Wimbledon won a vital playoff game, Melbourne lifted the Veil of Negativity for a bit, and Demonblog Towers successfully hosted a four year old birthday party without being destroyed in the process.

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Jake Melksham
4 - Kysaiah Pickett
3 - Max Gawn
2 - Christian Petracca
1 - Trent Rivers

Apologies to Bowey, May, McVee, Oliver, Salem, and Turner.

Leaderboard
The Max rampage continues, and as long he stays upright I think the only person likely to poll consistently enough to catch him is Pickett. Watch this space. No alterations in the minor awards.

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

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Apologies to Oliver, Chandler slipping away from a groping, and the sentimental favourite of Johnson's big boot through it at the end, but I'm going for the Petracca/Rivers. It involved precision running in confined spaces, and out of respect for Rivers not breaking his ankle on the post at the end. Chandler vs West Coast still leads.  

Next Week
By ripping a fine win out of our arse here we get to apply 'danger game' status to playing Sydney at home. They're only ahead of us on percentage (albeit considerably ahead, due to not losing back-to-back games by 10 goals), and are coming off a win but expectation is bubbling so there will be some sour people if this doesn't go well. I've run out of gas to explain my changes, but under this plan Petty and Turner both play forward, one of them has an honest crack at second rucking, and Johnson is on the bench in case something goes tits up in defence and we need to send one of them back there.

I'm not taking a repeat of this performance for granted, but just for something different I predict we'll win.

IN: Fritsch (to start), Lever, Viney

OUT: Johnson (to sub), Sharp, Spargo (omit) 
LUCKY: Nil
UNLUCKY: Brown, Laurie

Final thoughts
How have I never seen this picture before? 

Dubs against the reigning premiers away on their own patch 🤌 pic.twitter.com/GtT67Q4Ae2

— MyHeartBeatsTrue (@melbournefans) May 18, 2025

It's a work of art that deserves to go alongside 'Grimes in bath next to a horse', the six-handed marking contest, and 'Juice, Bate, Dunn WTF' in the Melbourne Football Club pictorial Hall of Fame.

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Yes dear reader, there is a post coming. I've just got a bit going on at this end.

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Shoot straight you bastards

So, after a three week break from misery we're back where the year started. To the credit of everyone involved, the margin was about as expected but came via three quarters of doing everything right except playing with a forward line, and a few bonus minutes of "surely they couldn't..." excitement during the third quarter. They couldn't, but it didn't qualify for 'it's the hope that kills you' status. We're not going to finish last, we're not going to make the eight, so it was more a case of being gently bruised by hope. A win pulled from the arse would be nice, but in a few weeks nobody except Goal of the Year voters and fans of shithouse umpiring decisions will remember this game even happened. 

But before our usual incisive and analytical matchday coverage, a moment for the AFL's moral compass, which is currently spinning around as if thrown into a magnet factory. Imagine Trent Rivers sitting down to write his $1500 cheque for minor, otherwise unnoticed collision with an umpire, and looking up to see Willie Rioli getting the green light for threatening to set unknown thugs on an opposition player. Sure the AFL belatedly banned him for a match, but not until after Rioli had already announced he was going to sit this week out anyway. Then there's the wild and wonderful world of Clayton Oliver, who inadvertently helped kick off the week with a game dedicated to men's mental health, by having a microphone jabbed in his face and being asked to give candid comments on his own mental health while trying to walk through the park. I wish a teammate had jumped out from behind a tree and drop punted the microphone onto Punt Road.

The non-stop quest for content in footy, featuring Kane Cornes and his terrifyingly rigid eyebrows, will eventually end in tragedy, followed by half-genuine "we've got to be better" penance from the media before returning to the normal service of parkland ambushes and carrying on like they're at the moral pinnacle of society. For now they're comfortable sooking up about Brad Green cracking the shits on Twitter, accusing him acting too much like a fan as if supernuffs Eddie McGuire and Jeff Kennett weren't the most successful Victorian club presidents this century. I salute all the journalists going about their business professionally, without putting on fake outrage like they're auditioning for Sky News. The rest can far cough.

Anyway, back to the MCG, where our last unbeaten streak dating back to the Good Old Days (2021-2023) is kaput. After eight wins and a draw, this was an orderly transfer of the baton. We made them work for it, and Hawthorn would want to play a lot better against top sides, but a Hawks win/white bloke elected Pope double was the biggest certainty of the week. It was white smoke at the Vatican, and (eventually) white flag at the MCG, as we got a reminder of being simultaneously not all that far but also miles off the top sides. 

When the sides came out I felt bad for Jacob van Rooyen, who returned after watching a couple of half-decent wins from the couch, only to see Jake Melksham going the other way, depriving him of one of the few teammates who can convincingly deliver the ball inside 50. Fair enough to manage Melksham at his advanced stage of life (a decade younger than me), but it didn't bode well for delivery to the forwards. Pickett can usually put the ball where you want it, but we need one of him across half back, one in the middle, one to be kicking at, and another waiting to Hoover up spilt crumbs. 

I said during the week that Spargo's kicks were good but he only gets about five a week, and he showed me by dialling that up to seven. Unfortunately, the remainder were turnovers but he wasn't alone, team disposal efficiency was above season average, but the "kicking it straight to an opponent standing on his own" rate was the same as every other week.

By the time we'd kicked the classic late-period Goodwin score of 7.14.56, I still felt bad for JVR. Not because he'd put in some heroic single-handed performance that narrowly failed to carry the team over the line (e.g. Petracca vs Carlton last year), but because the poor lad has now officially been Melbourned. He's got time to overcome the handicap of being drafted to play in our forward line, but for now his greatest performance was one half against the worst West Coast side in history. When they go around the circle at the support group for other promising MFC careers dragged down like an anchor, Sam Weideman should probably keep quiet about helping win a landmark final in front of 90,000 people or he'll look up to find everyone else has jumped out the window.

van Rooyen was just one cog in a forward line that misfired as badly as ever but was still briefly in the frame to play in a massive upset. With Melksham and Petty injured, we had the option of finding another defender and trying to get Turner to do a repeat of his three goal performance last week. We declined, and while he did well was there really nobody else who could free him up to try and continue the momentum as a forward? NFI if Jed Adams is any good but he might be contemplating his future after not scoring a game in a lost year where all of May, Turner, Lever and Petty have been injured at some point

Instead, we reintroduced Matthew Jefferson, who I suspect will be remembered for kicking a goal 16 seconds into his debut and not much else. He didn't look remotely comfortable, had a bit of the Billings (remember him?) Resting Terrified Face and it's a mystery how he got in the side to start with. He's had five quarters of AFL experience and hasn't done much at VFL level, especially last week when Casey didn't have a game. The house must have been trained into dust. Then there's Fritsch, who has been stripped naked by the rest of the forward line disintegrating around him. He would still kick goals in a good side, but at the moment I'd rather play Petty '24 forward.

It was also the (temporary) end of Viney's tag-heavy renaissance after he fell victim to a mystery mid-week head knock. After getting away with several false alarms clutching his shoulder as if it was ripped from the socket, only to be jumping on opponents five minutes later, this is how nature got him. Even better, because it apparently happened on Thursday he can't play next week either. At the risk of white-hot sacrilege, I think it's impressive that Jack Crisp toppled Jim Stynes' consecutive games record given how easy it is for players to miss games these days. In the same way that you adjust Lance Franklin's goals for playing in a lower scoring era and he's every bit as good as Tony Lockett, Crisp has arguably done better than Jim to go this long without a miss. 

Turns out the second game in Crisp's streak was the day I had a meltdown because the Stefan Martin Experience was BOG for an equally putrid Brisbane after we'd traded him. Obviously, turfing the SME cleared a path for Max Gawn and - even if by accident - is by default the best thing that happened to us in 2012 (2nd place - Carnival Of Hate, 3rd place - keeping the lights on). I wasn't taking it well at the time. But when you're not winning it takes a few years for the context of shit results to become interesting - that was the last time Sam Blease, Luke Tapscott, or Dean Terlich played for us, and seven years later we were beating Martin in a Grand Final while he was playing for a different team. So see you in 2032 when we'll look back on whatever weird twists and turns have taken place since this slopfest.

Quoth myself from that day, and this is as true as ever, "Defensive sludge looks so much better when you're in front". That's somewhat true of this game, especially the sludge bit, but while the defence held up ably for three quarters, there were plenty of chances at the other end. Normal disclaimers apply that if any of them went through the course of the game turns out differently and we might either win or concede the next 24 goals unanswered, but I'll take my chances with accurate kicking and see where it goes from there.

I don't think the Hawthorn players were 100% into this at the start, which allowed us to do all the early attacking for two points. Then, without ever getting out of first gear they took the ball straight down the other end for a gaol at the first opportunity. So far, so predictable. Less so, Harvey Langford responding with the sort of key position-ish mark you'd love our key position forwards to take. You were probably already considering sliding off your seat over Harvey when he took an equally solid grab at the other end. 

None of us knows what happens behind the scenes at the start of the year (and this was around the time of the famous Goodwin press conference meltdown), but playing Langford as sub in Round 1 behind the VFL All Stars, then immediately dumping him from the team comes across as the wackiest decisions of the season. By half time of this game people will be arming themselves and forming vigilante posses if he's dropped again. 

The good thing about the club being spread over so many venues is that the armed gangs won't know whether to lay siege on the MCG, Casey or AAMI Park. On a related note, I see the league is considering a dedicated training facility in Victoria for interstate clubs. Any chance we can horn in on this racket and get dedicated oval/administration buildings/spy cameras for opposition training sessions at an inner-city venue instead of having to find $70 million just to play in the middle of a racetrack? Knowing our luck, we'll build Caulfield, discover the greatest player of a generation, then he'll be trampled by a runaway horse.

There's an alternative option to spend $20 million buying Waverley off Hawthorn, who basically got it for free, which should happen in 2026 just to tie in with the 30th anniversary of them being the literally poor relation of the proposed Melbourne Hawks (insert cheap plug for our review of the Merger Night '96 TV coverage). They've done well for themselves since, but hopefully their move to Dingley will have the same effect on draftees and superstars alike as us making highly paid, professional athletes train in Cranbourne.

We'll never get back in front of the Hawks financially, but had them under the thumb for sporting purposes for a while. I was already convinced that was coming to an end, but more so when they got the second goal. It looked like we'd struggle to get that many in the game, so couldn't afford to be handing them out to somebody going around as 'The Wizard' who is approaching Glenn Maxwell levels of "I have no reason to dislike this person except their nickname". I'm not upset that he's swiped Jeff Farmer's gimmick because wizardry goes all the way back to Merlin, but let's have a little less fois-gras style forcing of the name down our throats by commentators thanks. It was also good when he gave the Richmond cheersquad the finger, only for the babies to snitch him out and land Watson with another fine that was more than you'd get for threatening opposition players.

At this point I'd never have believed we'd have been in this game up to our necks at three quarter time. For now it just felt like damage limitation against a team who may actually turn up and start playing properly at any moment. The 'we're just holding on' atmosphere wasn't helped by the once great Clayton Oliver trailing former mid-season draftee John Newcombe around in an attempt to replicate Viney's recent success. I understand what they were trying to do, but don't believe their claims that it was Oliver's idea for a minute. The idea didn't work, but some of the hysteria about it was over the top. We tried something, it sort of failed/didn't offer enough benefit, I'll get upset if they try it again next week.

While I'm pro-Oliver, I wasn't crazy about the 13th minute Clap For Clayts Campaign. Not because it isn't a nice token thing to do (I've been in the middle of the MCG with the speakers fanging at full volume and you couldn't understand a word of it, he's not going to hear a light round of applause), but because of the potential for looking like a bunch of hypocrites when he leaves and gets booed by the 'our players good, your players bad' flanges. For historical precedent see Mitch Clark, who went from "you've got to do what's right for your mental health" to "but not like that" when he joined Geelong. 

The good news is that when Oliver finally got a touch it was a good one, the problem was it was well after the first 13 minutes. He finished a nice handball chain along the boundary with a kick perfectly to Sparrow's advantage, and under the circumstances we won't ask why he was the one required to pull down a mark 20 metres out from goal. We were ok, but not in a way that suggested the Hawthorn code would be cracked and let us pile on a winning score. Let's start with a competitive score, we're up to 73.2 per game but are well beyond the level where you can expect a Lever-less backline to turn that total into anything but random wins.

We might have been within a point if van Rooyen pulled down the mark he nearly took at full extension (and the extension is important, because otherwise he'd be subject to butterfinger allegations) in the last minute. The commentators tried to will themselves into it possibly being a mark, which was bloody optimistic. But that was ok, because in the dying seconds James Sicily walked straight into a Fritsch tackle (then had the nerve to whinge to the umpire about it), leaving our many time top goalkicker with a close-range shot after the siren. Sam Mitchell was shown cracking the shits Clarko style when it happened, but we continued to take a suicidal approach to taking chances by missing. There must be some measurement that combines inside 50s + set shot accuracy in recent seasons to prove that we're at historical levels of waste.

With the defenders holding up reasonably well for three quarters, we had a fair go at winning with a rancid score. In the second quarter this involved the innovative strategy of keeping the ball down our end by missing shot, after shot, after shot. I was just about to go into media blackout mode for the drive home when Jefferson used his big chance to checkside OOF and decided to just listen on the radio instead. 

I've got no idea when I last rejected watching on delay to listen while driving, but it wasn't safe, and there was definite high speed swerve when Spargo got one of the seven in 1.7. Fortunately the radio didn't properly convey how disgraceful the unpaid Pickett trip was or I'd have been left cartwheeling down the Tullmarine Freeway with the car on fire. Nobody will remember this game for anything else (except, possibly their last time playing for us) but the gratuitous, obvious, hand-to-ankle interface as Pickett ran into an open goal will be the go-to "what about..." awful decisions reference for the next 10 years. 

You'd almost accept that the umpire was blinking or looking into the sun if the whole season - including earlier this game - hadn't been littered with out of zone umps sticking their nose in where it wasn't wanted. It led to the inevitable calls for a challenge system, but you don't see botched free kicks like this often enough to make it worthwhile. We don't need people demanding unnecessary, hopeful challenges to kill momentum late in a game, we need somebody to pay blatantly obvious shit like this. Imagine being the goal umpire guiltily signalling for a point knowing you'd just witnessed one of the most obvious infringements of all time and couldn't do anything about it. Lucky they weren't located in front of our fans, who would no doubt have provided vigorous feedback at anyone in authority.

This was a disastrous decision that 99.9% cost us a goal (it's not like players haven't hit the post from that range before), but carrying on like umpires cost us this game is an old school pirate level of one-eyedness. If the Melbourne Football Club took up piracy we'd spend all year raiding and come home with $4.30 in five cent coins. No matter what happened in the first 2.5 quarters, there was a point in the third where we were in front and every possible chance of overcoming perceived rorts. But that would require playing a last quarter. 

I wasn't fooled by laying the boots into West Coast's corpse last week (and still letting them kick five), we'd have needed a miracle to stay alive long enough to win this. Which is such a shame because we were matching them in every other element of the game. Jefferson eventually got the arse for Tholstrup, who didn't do a lot except get a sore ear from Sicily yelling nonsense at him, but was probably more of a chance of taking a contested mark.

The only part of the second quarter I was disappointed to miss was Langford taking advantage of a defensive meltdown to snatch a second just before the break. Maybe the solution is to give up on having a traditional forward line and just run a confusing string of players in and out of the 50 so the opposition never know who's going to turn up next? One minute Langford's there, the next it's Fritsch, then of a sudden Steven May has legged it the length of the ground to randomly pop up in a contest. This would end in tragedy the moment the ball went the other way, but a) any sort of interesting development in our forward line would be appreciated, and b) it doesn't matter if it tires players out by the last quarter because you won't be able to tell the difference anyway.

Aided by Hawthorn's shit goalkicking (relatively speaking - compared to us they were laser accurate),  matching them in the contested game, and another fine performance from Gawn. Langford's third and Sharp running into an open goal half-fooled me into thinking we might go on with this but deep down only the most deluded believed it. One day we'll unexpectedly beat a better side from a similar position again but until then I'll be even more cynical about leads than usual. 

We celebrated the Sharp goal by missing two more chances, and of course when the ball went down the other end Hawthorn rediscovered their accuracy to take the lead at three quarter time. You could bet a kidney on how this was going to end, but when Gawn had a shot to put us back in front early in the last quarter I was open to making a game of it. For eighth time in nine scoring shots this season he missed, and that prompted the brown light to go on. 

They went practically right down the other end for a goal, which was soon three in a row and it was nearly curtains. Pickett cancelled the last one out with a tremendous running goal out of the middle but it was just a temporary holding back of the tide because we were collectively shot. The top shelf goal-led recovery couldn't drag any further life out of the rest of the team, and once we needed four goals in as many minutes there was more chance of money falling from the sky. 

Any mad comeback theories were terminated by Jack Gunston casually walloping one through from distance. Then they got another one from the centre bounce and a margin I'd have expected before the game now looked harsh on us. After playing like shite for most of the game, Gunston kicked three when it mattered, which is a key difference to our forwards who were shite for most of the game, then shite for the rest of it.

This rampage was partially because we'd belatedly sent Turner forward, leaving Hawthorn's forward line to do as they liked. Fair enough I suppose, not like percentage is going to make any difference to us. Just wish they'd played him there from the start.

As Hawthorn went into full 'crush, kill, destroy' mode in the last few minutes, effortlessly adding two more goals, my only intellectual thought was whether Changkuoth Jiath has ever been whacked in the plums during a game so somebody could do a 'Jiath's Crackers' headline?

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Harvey Langford
4 - Max Gawn
3 - Tom McDonald
2 - Jake Bowey
1 - Kysaiah Pickett

Apologies to May, Petracca, Rivers, and Turner

Leaderboard
The Gawnslide continues, but while you could see that coming, a potential podium including Bowey and Langford is weird. Harvey creates a commotion in the minor awards by snatching the Rising Star lead. Otherwise carry on as usual.

28 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
17 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
10 - Harvey Langford (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Kysaiah Pickett
9 - Clayton Oliver
8 - Kade Chandler, Ed Langdon
7 - Xavier Lindsay, Tom McDonald, Christian Petracca
6 - Jack Viney
5 - Jake Melksham
4 - Tom Sparrow
2 - Jake Lever, Harrison Petty, Christian Salem
1 - Harry Sharp

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
There was going to be slight controversy if the Langford goal I only saw on replay later won, so good thing Pickett went full NBA Jam turbo mode to give us a quickly extinguished glimmer of hope in the last quarter. Windsor still leads, but once I'm over this game I might reinvestigate whether this was better despite being followed by 100% dreck.

Next Week
It's Brisbane away, and yeah that's not going to end well. I don't care that they just drew with North Melbourne, that probably only makes it worse for us because they're not going to let the same thing happen at home. We did nearly pull one out of our arse there last year, until Neal-Bullen was pinched for doing a rugby try over the boundary line. I don't like the chances of a repeat, but am open to something weird and wonderful happening. Not if we score 56 again. The challenge is to get that much.

We can't have Viney back but I assume Melksham's refreshed from having the week off because he's coming back for Fritsch. The only reason van Rooyen's not going too is because I complained about dropping them both at the same time earlier in the season. Jefferson, on the other hand, needs to rumble a few VFL sides before I'll even think about having him in the senior side again. Tholstrup will be welcome back later, but he could also do with (hopefully) beating up on some underlings.

In the great deckchair shuffling of our forward line it's Petty back, Turner forward, and abandon all hope ye who enter. They can do what they like, we're going to lose by lots.

IN: Melksham, Petty, Laurie
OUT: Fritsch, Jefferson, Tholstrup (omit)
LUCKY: van Rooyen
UNLUCKY: Anyone whose life depends on us kicking accurately.

Final thoughts
For legal reasons, I can't accurately sum up how it felt to watch this until the Erin Patterson murder trial is over, but I can say with certainty that there will be no Bradbury Plan this year. In its place look out for the Spitebury Plan, where we aim for mid-table mediocrity just to devalue a draft pick.

'Mons Party

As a confirmed NQR, the only thing I like as much as obscure footy stats is elections. Don't particularly care who wins because it's basically an intra-club game between crooks but percentages, swings, gains, and losses violently trigger the giant 'nerd' switch in my brain. So even though this is the first time since Saturday night games were invented that one of ours has intersected with a vote count, I still felt a bit cheated at having to take my focus off the obscure distribution of numbers to watch us play a piss boring brand of footy against a truly awful team having the worst run in their history. But I successfully managed to do both, and the biggest swing of the night didn't involve Gawn's set shot kicking so happy days.

Both viewing options included a recent powerhouse who are down on their luck due to chronic mismanagement and failure to develop new talent, represented on this channel by West Coast. May we gracefully spring off the bottom instead of the traumatic barrel-scraping that the Eagles have been in for years. Even we were only truly putrid from 2012-2014, they're now in a fourth season of rebuilding at a glacial pace, and after winning five games last year they've swirled straight back down the toilet in 2025. Having gone through this sort of trauma I know that you eventually look back and laugh at the absurdity of it, but it's gruesome at the time, so I'd really appreciate one more half-baked, fruitless swing at finals (not exactly setting the bar high there) before going into another potentially years-long death spiral.

Like us, the Eagles followed a flag season by going finals/finals/mediocrity, but even if there's not much to be said for favourably comparing yourself to them we've won more games in the last three weeks than they did in all of 2022. I'm worried that sort of blowout is still coming in a couple of years but am enthusiastic to be proven wrong. 

While this was by no means a classic victory, it was a more successful MFC/federal politics crossover than our previous appearance in the genre, when Hansard dutifully recorded still unproven allegations that we were being run like the Cali Cartel. I prefer achieving Peak Stereotype by electing a former Liberal leader as President, a few years before he became the last Melbourne fan to die happy until 2021 by carking it mid-pump. 

The never-to-be-defeated master of mixing sport and politics is Brian Dixon, who was elected to Victorian Parliament and played in a 113 point win on the same day. Stranger things have happened in politics (including 'winning premiership coach speech sceptic' Basil Zempilas becoming the leader of a major party), but imagine somebody trying to pull off the Dicko Double again? Even if it was done for pure comedy value, the footy media's self-obsessed shock jocks would have a coronary. Besides, in 1964 it meant Dixon got to collect two pay cheques, these days most players would be taking a pay cut to sit in the Senate. 

What chance has a surprise Gawn-led ticket got of getting the respect it deserves when some plonker on the radio tried to explain Clayton Oliver's absence this week (get well soon xoxo) via the most pissweak anecdote in footy history. Apparently some bozo interrupted him on the way into the Richmond game to ask if he was going to have a big one and being told "I wouldn't have thought so". And he didn't, so Clayts is certainly a man of his word. Any chance he was just throwing out an off-hand reaction to crap fan chat rather than issuing a public cry for help? He's got things going on, but if this is the best contribution you can make then perhaps just speak about the matter in general terms?

Unnecessary investment in the 'nothing happening yet' phase of election night caused me to botch the start time of this game and arrive after Petracca's opener. On replay it was a lovely one too, and naturally reminds us of another game at this venue where he was first goalscorer. That night we got all our scoring for the next few years out of the way, and less than four seasons later were reduced to some of the most putrid attempts at placing the ball between the centre posts by foot that you'll ever hope to see. 

Things got better as the inferior outfit ran out of petrol, enthusiasm, and fit players, but in the first quarter West Coast played about as badly as any non-expansion team since the Neeld era and still had more scoring shots. Like last week we eventually battled to a three goal lead before leaving the door wide open, with a sign saying 'come in and take what you like', and our address posted on a Facebook page in the style of Corey Worthington.

Even when we had the good fortune of an Eagles goal being reversed (via an unnecessarily long mandatory review that left players wandering around the ground looking confused for a minute we'll never get back), and instantly going down the other end for the rare five point play, there was no sense of imminent floodgate bursting. The clearances were 10-0 at one point, but the lead still didn't look safe because of how laboured every attack was. Albo's first game as Prime Minister was the end of our 17 game winning streak, and for his entire first term we've never had a settled, dangerous-looking forward line. Forget the cost of living, promise key forwards and quality delivery and I'll commit electoral fraud on your behalf.

When it was revealed that the Eagles came in with the equal worst start for quarters won in VFL/AFL history, level with two sides who didn't win a game, I went on full Sydney '93 banana peel alert. Bog average team a couple of years out of finals starts the season winless, battles to two wins in a row, then goes interstate as hot favourites against shizen opposition. The difference is that in 1993 I was a naive near enough to 12-year-old who hadn't yet been broken by footy or real life, and parked myself in front of the TV on that fateful Sunday afternoon 100% sure of a win. 

I've never been that optimistic since, and as bad as the Eagles are I wasn't going to shift policy in an era where we're eventually going to finish a game on 3.8.24. We shouldn't have lost this, and didn't, but not without a scare on either side of half time that had me breathing into a paper bag about everything we'd clawed back in the last fortnight going up in smoke. That could happen as early as next week, but it won't come as the first victim of a winless side.

I don't hold any great affection for Andrew McQualter after one season with us, somehow turning a year in charge of a midfield that wasn't as good as it used to be into a senior job, but he's got to coach a win eventually and I didn't fancy the limited irony in it coming against us. He's been handed a flaming bag of shite on the way into the job, but his insights into our midfielders didn't translate into any info the Eagles players could use, because they may as well not have been there in the first quarter. 

Throwing emerging ruckmen against Gawn is like pinging pebbles at a battleship, but that wasn't a problem when they caught us by surprise in the corresponding fixture last year. This time we didn't fall into the trap of letting King Harley Race do whatever he liked, sending Viney to continue his tag led recovery, removing Harley as a serious threat. We still had to see the highlights of him fending off Oliver and Petracca, but you'll never get away from that footage now. It's better than that shithouse vitamin (?) ad he's in, which is second only for bad footy commercials to Petracca being used as a homoerotic smiling stepladder by him from Sydney.  

If Harley doesn't want to play for us after inevitably walking out on the Eagles in the next couple of years, we need to direct him towards whichever club is most likely to get Petracca so we can shut that escape hatch and force Trac to reluctantly/heroically go down (in almost every sense of the word) as a one club player. He's not the same player as the one who went boonta on 25/09/21, but who is? Gawn, Bowey, Lever when fit, and Pickett only because he did bugger all in the Grand Final. I'd be satisfied if Oliver went now just to remove the media circus element, and am resigned to Pickett legging it in the next couple of years, but I really want Petracca to stay and realise that it's morally better to live and die as a one club legend than play a handful of big games elsewhere and be treated as an afterthought in retirement.

Surely with competition from an unpredictable election and a game between top teams on the other channel, not a single neutral was still watching this game by the first break. Especially with commentary from our old friends at the Western Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I was invested in this game and they still made me want to jam foreign objects through the eardrums. Don't let the Will Schofield novelty interview with Gawn at the end detract from him being the worst special comments man since Doug Hawkins. West Coast fans wanted to get rid of Don Scott, but the call is coming from inside the house now. 

At one point he was sooking about some sort of cheapshot behind play that was so earth-shattering and consequential that nobody bothered to replay it. I think it was Spargo bumping into somebody, but as the Match Review Officer managed to ignore this while plucking out a fine for Rivers running into an umpire I'll just assume he was auditioning for a gig on Sky News by putting on fake outrage. I know interstate people bleed from every orifice about Victorian commentator bias, but we're not pretending Taylor, Russell et al are any good and would be happy to bin them for almost anyone else, so don't pretend this guy is any good. While you're it, sit Matthew Pavlich down and assure him that he's got a job for life in WA footy and doesn't need to tarnish his reputation by carrying on like Ted Whitten at a state game. In isolation, Adam Papalia is good, but he's being dragged down by association with these knuckleheads. 

Thanks to West Coast being inept, we got to quarter time in front and without conceding a goal. It wasn't for want of trying, including a free against Tholstrup at the end that wrapped up the worst quarter of his senior career. He's learning, was probably overexcited to be playing in front of a home audience, and got better as the game went on but it was a rocky start. Koltyn (!?) got the hook last week, and was likely only saved from a similar fate here when Petty went off concussed. Never mind, the best thing now is to get games into him. He was ripped off blind at one point but umpires who had serious problems judging distance, trying to create an 'outside five' situation by standing about 10 metres off the player with the ball, but being called to stand and left wobbling around one leg like somebody playing Twister.

I've got a McGuire-esque radical plan to help take some of the controversy away from estimating distance, if you intercept an opposition kick untouched it should be a mark no matter how far the ball travelled. Even if somebody boots it straight into your guts from one metre away and you hit the deck clutching the ball on top of your shattered ribcage it should count. It's rude when a player intercepts a dud kick by the other team and gets instantly clobbered in a tackle, penalise teams for giving the ball away more. Laura Kane and the other bloke, you can contact me for rules consultancy via the usual channels.

Speaking of controversial decisions, it's a rare win for common sense that Jake Melksham wasn't held liable for injuring the player who was flattened by an unrelated pair of players after being nudged out of a marking contest. They had to come up with a long, flowery explanation to stop other teams from citing it as a precedent but it came down the obvious fact that he was watching the ball the whole time, and couldn't reasonably have known that trying to mark the ball would cause injury. It's not like he deliberately shoved George McGovern into oncoming players like somebody being lobbed into the path of an express train, and I'd argue that the West Coast player with the meth dealer haircut contributed just as much to the contact.

Despite all that I was surprised that he didn't get three weeks, following on from the league's 2025 policy of panicking about players running into each other. I thought the match review would take the easy way out and suspend him, knowing we'd obviously challenge. Goodwin's view that it wasn't even a free kick is a bit inflammatory, but let's have more harking back to the Maynard vs Brayshaw wankfest by declaring it a 'football act' at every opportunity. It would've been a disaster to lose him for several weeks just before playing the good teams, because after being written off multiple times he's still the best kick inside 50 that we've got at nearly 34 years old. If Spargo got more than five kicks a game or Pickett could kick to himself they might challenge, but for now Melksham makes our often invisible forward seem a lot better.

Maybe it helped Melksham's case that the poor man's Kane Cornes instantly started waffling about how many weeks he'd go for. The MRO probably heard that and decided he didn't want to be associated with anything Schofield had to say. I'd have done a deal where we accepted a suspension for Melk as long as Schofield was banned from involvement in twice as many Melbourne games in Perth.

The collision left McGovern making wacky expressions that indicated either concussion or a broken face. Either way you knew he wasn't coming back, and he didn't but there was a suggestion by the Eagles' in-house broadcast team that while he was subbed off, West Coast wasn't admitting he had a concussion. This didn't sound very realistic, but I was waiting for Melksham to be rubbed out and McGovern to miraculously return next week, like a modern version of Trengove dropping Dangerfield on his head then sitting on the couch the next week while Danger struggled so severely with the effects that he only kicked six.

I'm not wishing injury on anyone (except retrospectively on all the players who turned out to be nonces/wifebeaters etc..), and we didn't yet know that Petty was going to depart due to the same incident, but it helped our cause that the Eagles lost one of their few senior players who remembers what it's like to play with his dignity intact. This was especially helpful when we went from kicking the first goal of the quarter to being on full mega upset alert by half time. As usual, there were chances to lay the boots in but we missed set shots, and in the traditional manner, our opposition went on a 10 minute bender that might have been fatal if done by nearly any other team. 

I don't know if Jayden Hunt kicks goals against anyone else, but for the second year in a row he got amongst it against us. I've still got happy memories of his time with us (especially the underrated highlight of early COVID, when his car started after being left in the MCG carpark for months), but the poor guy went out looking fresh-faced and joyful, and now has the grizzled appearance of somebody who's come back from war permanently scarred by seeing untold atrocities. 

That's probably how it feels to be a Victorian who willingly joined a Perth club just as they turned into a natural disaster zone, giving him a lot of time flying back-and-forth across the country to think about it. After playing in 10 wins to start his final season with us, Hunt is now 8-43 since joining the Eagles. I propose a kidnap scheme to save him when the Eagles come here for the rematch in Round 21. He might not get a game with us, but maybe Richmond needs an experienced player to go with all their new recruits. It won't stop the unmerciful beatings, but he'll get home quicker.  

The sixth of Hunt's eight wins came against us, and there was genuine fear of lucky #9 when they finally got the ball out of the centre, and hit the lead. We got away with them missing one late in the quarter, but that was made up for a minute after the restart when a couple of usually hapless Eagles forwards nearly stuffed up an easy goal via "you first, no you first" hesitation before one of them finally just decided to punt the bloody thing through. I was feeling lower Peter Dutton at this point, third quarters have been our best all season but the idea of pouring on a string of goals that effectively killed the game seemed far-fetched.

In a throwback to the GWS game (which seems a lifetime ago now), Windsor kicked another wonderful third quarter goal to the right of screen after pelting through the middle of the ground. The tight zoom meant I couldn't tell if the roar after was towards teammates or opponents, but it seemed a bit early for the latter. He obviously knew better, because this was the green light to commence our match-winning burst. 

A four quarter performance eventually would be ace, and probably necessary to beat any of Hawthorn, Brisbane, Sydney or a St Kilda side that's rediscovered Ross Lyon's joy of slow-strangulations in the next month. And the fixture doesn't get much better than that after, so if we're going to rest on this performance and/or rely on Herculean backstory-free performances by Gawn, the three wins on the bounce might be the last you see for a while.

Speaking of Supreme Leader Max, I don't think anyone was upset when Langdon played on from a ruck free instead of letting the captain have another set shot. He finally snuck one home in the last quarter, but I make no apologies for constantly talking about how astonished I am that he converted the famous one in 2021. I'll still be pondering it on my deathbed. Might reference it on the headstone. Before that, Max has definitely qualified for an autobiography to be released around Christmas in the late 2020s, and I demand a chapter on that kick that's not as gratuitously ghost-written as the Captain's Diaries. I'll do it this time, as long as the publisher is willing to go for 500+ pages.

There was more broadcasting gold when Petty departed with concussion and we were told that "both teams are down a key defender" when he'd been playing as a forward for a month. You could claim to have been talking about Turner going forward, but they obviously weren't. The manpower balance went back in our favour when one of their players had a random ankle blowout, but as we were still only a point in front it made a potential loss even more embarrassing. A week after saying that there's no such thing as a shit win at the moment, I was ready to take the shittest of victories here if required.

Straight after the Langdon goal, we flung out of the middle and Fritsch took his best mark in years for the immediate double. There was a brief interlude for the Eagles to kick a goal (PS: I don't think it bodes well for us how often they scored when going inside 50) and for Tholstrup to miss twice, before Chandler kicked an absolute ripper. He gathered a loose ball on the boundary line, ran past two defenders, then had to do a high angle finish, on the run, from a slight angle to get it over a defender standing between him and the goal. It was a great finish, but the secret ingredient was crime, because the ball only got to him thanks to a ripper of a push by Turner, back in the forward line after Petty's demise. 

Turner then got one for himself, via another solid forward 50 mark. You've got to adjust for opposition and surprise element, but on 1.5 quarters of evidence I'm convinced Disco is a better key forward than Petty. Yes, this again. Petty had a good couple of weeks before barely going near it here, and it's good to have both options available so we can move players around at the drop of a hat and try to blind opposition sides with science, but Turner has my vote. 

Petty will miss next week with concussion, and we've got to reintroduce JVR at some point before he blows up and tries to join Freo, but Harrison please proceed back into defence until either Lever returns or we need to spring a mid-match surprise. I appreciate that he did more in two weeks than about 18 last season, but if he can avoid injury or knee-jerk selection decisions for a few weeks in a row, Turner is the man. Now watch him kick 1.5 in the next month and end up back in the VFL.

For unknown reason we're tedious for 75% of every game but get exciting in the third quarter. The fun continued with a freebie, as Viney was lightly whacked around the bonce during an attempted spoil and a 50 made certain of the goal. I was happy to take it, but thought the 50 was a bit harsh when it came as part of the motion of trying to spoil. So, in a rare bit of concern for other teams, I'm outraged that he ended up being suspended for a week. It's one thing if somebody takes a mark then you round-arm them in the chops on the way down, but this was simultaneous so I'm offended. Obviously they changed the rules after van Rooyen spoiled that Gold Coast player into an alternative universe two years ago. West Coast is still rich enough to pay for a challenge and they should do it just to make a point.

Once the margin was out to five goals I was as comfortable as I'm going to get that far below the Chris Sullivan Line. If Fritsch converted after Melksham hit him with a delightful kick I'd have been ready to quietly declare victory. Still pretty good, considering how we were going a minute into the quarter, and even with our traditionally putrid final terms I didn't think there was much danger of the Eagles running us down.

My target was to kick more than one goal in the last quarter, but I didn't expect six, which is only one short of our total from rounds 1-7. That's also Gawn's record in front of goals this season after finally converting at the eighth attempt. He didn't need a goal to be best on ground by a country mile, but it was a nice bonus. Out of nowhere, this was his record for possessions in a game, and the first time he's ever had +30 in a win. Once he retires we'll ponder his greatest games, but off the top of my head I'll have the 2021 Prelim or the Hawthorn game earlier that year when he was pulling down contested marks like an absolute madman. It was more than good enough for a game like this though, and when he's done I'll push granny down the stairs to be present for the standing ovation during his lap of honour.

Just when you thought it might be time for full feet-up relaxation or maybe even a rare landslide finish, we conceded the next two goals to bring the margin within "surely not, but wouldn't be horrible if..." range. Then Spargo rumbled long-term hostage Hunt holding the ball (even if the ball did accidentally land on his other foot after the umpire had already made their mind up) and an unpleasant fiasco was officially off the agenda. Could've done without conceding five in the final term, but I'll take it as a trade off for kicking six. Here's to getting another six across the next four weeks in total.

The good news is that we've won three in a row, and I very much appreciate that. The bad news is that we've now played the three bottom sides, and some of the ones at the other end of the ladder are going to absolutely ROOT US at this rate. But that's a next week problem, for now I'm just content to avoid losing.

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Max Gawn
4 - Jake Melksham
3 - Jack Viney
2 - Kade Chandler
1 - Daniel Turner

Apologies to Fritsch, Langford, McDonald, Petracca, Spargo and Windsor.

Leaderboard
He's had to contend with Oliver, Petracca, and natural midfielder bias, but it seems a touch rude that Gawn has only won the Jakovich once. But like 2019, he looks likely to salute by way of carrying the team through a shit season. Not a cracker of progress in the minor awards, other than Max making the Stynes even more secure.

24 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
15 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
9 - Clayton Oliver, Kysaiah Pickett
8 - Kade Chandler, Ed Langdon
7 - Xavier Lindsay (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Christian Petracca
6 - Jack Viney
5 - Harvey Langford, Tom McDonald, Jake Melksham
4 - Tom Sparrow
2 - Jake Lever, Harrison Petty, Christian Salem
1 - Harry Sharp

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
The originally unseen Petracca goal and Windsor's cover version of Round 1 would be winners in most weeks, but I loved the Chandler goal so much that I'm promoting it to first place for the season. Chandler is such a good guy that he even gave his boots to some kids scabbing for them over the fence after the final siren. I don't think this sort of behaviour should be encouraged, but who am I to argue with Chandler continuing to be one of the most cheerful players in the league? Better than the Eagles players having to go around the boundary line handing out footies when they probably just wanted to curl up in a ball and die. A few weeks ago they lost a thriller then had to go around giving easter eggs to fans, which felt like the biggest pisstake ever visited on a group of professional sportsmen.    

Next Week
I'm sure one of the clowns on commentary said our game against Hawthorn would be in Tasmania, as if they don't still play home games in Victoria. Or indeed that it may be our home game, which it is. After two good but not great wins against dreck, this is a massive test. I'm not expecting to win but would love some evidence that we really have improved in the last three weeks. If there was ever a week to manage Gawn this would be it, but we're committed to running the great man into the ground so it's not time for the Tom Campbell 'Break In Case Of Emergency' button yet.

We've got no Reserves game to base changes on because the VFL is a shit competition, so I've got NFI if Oliver is coming back this week, next week, mid-August, or never, but am hoping for the best. I'm going to do something novel/unique/shithouse and start him as sub. This will not happen in real life. To make way, Sharp goes back to the Seconds for a full game after being the sub four weeks in a row, and I don't know how I'm going to balance JVR replacing Petty but Turner still playing as a forward so lucky none of this needs to be justified.

IN: van Rooyen, Oliver (to sub)
OUT: Petty (inj), Sharp (omit)
LUCKY: Tholstrup
UNLUCKY: Laurie

Final thoughts
According to AFL Live Ladders, there's still a .01 per cent probability of finishing in the top two, but you'll need to be over .05 to think there's any chance of that happening. Our current three per cent chance of making finals is more attractive, but have a cold shower because it's not going to happen. However, the dream of finishing above Essendon and wrecking the value of the trade that delivered us Lindsay is alive and well. When you've got nothing else to do it for, do it for spite.

Throw back the little ones

Don't cancel your alternative September plans yet, but for now the time to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo has passed. We're no longer the worst team in Victoria, and even if it's probably just the eye of the storm, I have a dream that if we can just beat one more dud team next week the door is open for a return to mid-table mediocrity. And because there's nothing else left to play for, at that point we we will say to Essendon:

I'm still not willing to think about this season beyond a) avoiding humiliation, and b) ruining the value of pre-traded first round selections, but at the moment there's no such thing as a shit win so I'm prepared to take this result as a good thing and get on with trying to finish in the top 13. We've had wonkier wins in this fixture that meant nothing for the future (e.g. the 3.12 first half snoozefest of 2022), but I still don't see us beating enough top sides to make this year interesting. Other than being spiteful towards the Bombers, the best we can hope for is to be the case study for bored journos to try and introduce a wildcard round when they're scrambling for mid-season content. Don't be fooled into thinking this would be a good idea just because it might benefit us, if you start 0-5 and can't turn it around in 18 games then bad luck, try again next year.

After the elation of an alleged premiership contender letting us do whatever we wanted last week, this was a return to core values of toil and slog. Which is fine when you win, but until half time it was a lot like the North game. We'd been on the verge of kicking away a couple of times, were holding onto a suspect lead, and had to rely on the idea that the underdogs didn't have four quarters in them. 

This time we played it safe and killed the game off in the third quarter, which was important protection for another final term that had all the energy of somebody coming out of a long-term coma. For once the fade was partly self-imposed and we never remotely looked like losing, but it's still concerning that we're averaging one goal per last quarter. And the only game in six with multiples was against Gold Coast, who were gleefully caving our skulls in at the other end. The BurgessBall era is long gone - and may have been a myth anyway - but I wouldn't bet five Zimbabwean dollars on us winning from a three quarter time deficit anytime soon.

Now that the Anzac Day eve game is established (unlike the concept of an actual 'Anzac Day Eve' which is not now, and will never be a thing) and unlikely to go anywhere, all it's lacking is a close game. For not having to hang around with Pies and Essendon fans it shits on the actual Anzac game, but they've had plenty of drama over the years, while the nearest thing to a thriller in this fixture has been Richmond winning by 13, and us by 17. Stiff shit neutrals, we've still had some memorable moments - the birth of Hulkamania, the Bugg shhhing incident, Nathan Jones' 300th, on the night I really started to believe we were good, and Disco Demolition Night livening up an otherwise putrid game last year. In this time they've also won three flags so I'm sure they'd have a few fond memories too, but refer to Tigerblog for that sort of thing.

Another advantage the actual Anzac game has is that no matter how shit the competing clubs are, it will always draw a big crowd. This has had a couple of random spikes above 80k, but has settled in the low 70s for the last couple of years. Lucky both sides won last week, or we'd have been subjected to the usual demands from clubs not interesting enough to have a 'blockbuster' game that we hand over one of ours. I was hoping that we'd get the unique situation of our fourth home crowd single-handedly outdrawing the first three combined but it just fell short. By the state of the crowd during the post-match presentations I think opposition fans did a lot of the heavy lifting in the 71k total.

I missed the pre-match commemorations due to watching on a savage delay that left me eight minutes behind at the final siren after skipping all the breaks, but it's safe to assume there was another round of gushing about how good the New Zealand anthem is. It might be better than ours because it never says 'girt', but at the risk of being expelled from the Melbourne Football Club for going full commo, the top anthem from the winning side of either World War belonged to the Soviet Union. Anthems only really work if the people are mad with self-belief for the system, you can change our song to anything you like and it'll always seem cringe to a country of cynical bastards like us.

In a week dedicated to honouring brave people who put their lives on the line, the big controversy of the week was over somebody not being allowed to play footy at night after beating the suitcase out of somebody in a pub carpark. Instead of being pleased that Noah Balta isn't spending the rest of the season making licence plates, some Richmond fans invoked the 'I only feel this way because he plays for my club' rule and went full nuff. One wanted to pick Balta, sub him off at 3/4 time, and send him to a nearby apartment to beat the court-imposed 10pm curfew. Somehow this was supposed to spite the Victorian Premier, whose unconvincing 'tough on crime' gimmick required having an opinion. Her poll numbers suggest bigger problems to worry about, but I wish they'd gone full cooker and done this then had an injury in the opening minutes and played the last quarter two men down.

I'm glad Balta didn't play, but not because of his off-field shitblokery. I'd just get extreme cultural cringe seeing our fans lustily booing him when the same people would tear a hammy off the bone trying to argue why one of our players was hard done by in the same circumstances. I can see the arguments for putting him in the side last week when sentencing was imminent, but it's the stiffest of legal shit for player and club once the verdict is in. And if they can pin anything substantial on the MFC player allegedly involved in pub shenanigans over summer then he can also wear whatever the judge hands out. You don't get a moral discount for being a good guy at sports, and by not being the first team to play against this guy post-sentence, we've been saved from reacting in a way that will look massively hypocritical in the future.

But who gives a continental about social issues when the 'mons are unbeaten in consecutive weeks. Shame about the five games before that, but you can only beat who they put in front of you. After the joy of breaking through against Freo, my biggest worry was that we'd revert to making goalkicking look harder than climbing Mt. Everest. I'm sure it was an advantage for Adem Yze to have coached a lot of our players, and alongside Goodwin, but even with a team full of kids they were never going to let us get away with the same sort of free range antics that Freo did. It's not much of a spoiler to say Gawn gets the five votes this week, but there was an obvious plan to stop him from doing the old pluck 'n kick at stoppages, and Pickett was never allowed to reach peak electrical mode. We got there in the end, but I hope the coaches consider this a stepping stone and not a revolutionary moment in our development.

The early stages looked familiar, with multiple inside 50s generating stuff all good chances. In recent years Richmond has been dominated by unheralded goalkickers Weideman, Petty and Turner so I was open to the prospect of Tom Fullarton having the day of his life but alas no, this time we had to rely on a range of obvious goalkickers rather than a zany wildcard option.

As a middle-aged man I've obviously become interested in Steely Dan, and was disappointed to find that Richmond hasn't moved heaven and earth to get the player technically named after a steam-powered strap-on dildo into #19. Sorry Tom Lynch, thanks for the flags but we're doing a gimmick here. Steely (good thing his parents weren't mad for certain other bands) did us a couple of solids in the opening minutes, giving away two 50 metre penalties. The second allowed Langdon to kick a settler, but I'd prefer to create goals off our own bat rather than relying on assistance from overwhelmed opposition players.

In a scenario we've seen many times before, relentless attack for little reward was fine, but eventually you'll have to deal with the other side getting the ball. After blowing their first few attacks by booting it down Gawn's throat, I was a bit nervous when they finally moved with some speed and went from one end to the other untouched, before Lynch beat his old Suns co-captain May all ends up. He missed, but looked more capable of putting a poor team on his back and carrying them to victory than any forward we've had recently. 

Once it was clear we'd win you had to have some sympathy for Lynch, who was trying his heart out to try and make a difference for his team. The pressure of being their only decent forward was obviously weighing on him, and it was a shame that they didn't force him out for another kid because if he could generate three opportunities (including one from the same spot where he nearly beat us after the siren in 2016) from some of the slop delivered by his teammates, he'd have definitely have made a difference in our forward line.

Now that everyone knows we're probably heading down the gurgler in the next few years, it's probably too late to fill our list by ramraiding the list of truly underperforming teams (though paging Nick Larkey if he gets sick of losing against everyone except us and wants to risk a surprise reversal of fortunes like The Other Nathan Brown), and we're stuck with what we've got. So far so good on Langford, Lindsay and Windsor (though the latter had a bit of an issue with punting the ball straight to Richmond players here), and I'm still hopeful on van Rooyen even though he's recently been Melbourned. I'm still terrified by the gaps that will be left when Gawn, May etc... retire or fall apart, but that's something for future me to worry about.

When we got to three goals in front via a lovely snap by Chandler (followed by a much more convincing heart sign to his loved ones than when May accidentally called for the Diamond Cutter last year) I started having sick thoughts about an easy win. This is pure madness when watching us, but literally every other team in the competition seems to smash somebody else occasionally so when do we get a chance again? My reward for optimism was for things to go temporarily tits up. 

Conceding one goal was understandable, but the second annoyed me because the free happened about one second before the siren. Not that the players were to know that, but watching the clock tick down with the ball at the opposition end is like seeing Jason pop up behind Expendable Teenager #11 with a chainsaw and holding your breath waiting for them to be cut in half. I'd be annoyed with Viney holding onto Tim Taranto at the stoppage for dear life if he hadn't also done 15 legal tackles (just one short of his own club record) and a solid tagging job. His kicking is getting more butcherous with age, but I'm willing to trade some of that for animal defensive efforts like this. 

For now it just looked like we'd blown half a quarter of dominance by not taking advantage of our chances, and when a couple of misses at both ends to start the second finally turned into Richmond taking the lead I saw a grim future of losing 57-49 and plunging back into the pre-Freo misery. We were briefly back in front via a charitable off-the-ball decking of Bowey that gifted Petty a downfield free and goal, but it looked like this was going to be a live game well into the last quarter. 

Enter Nick Vlaustin, who may have personally won as many flags as we have in total since 1964 but had a couple of truly naff moments here. Richmond premiership players have done worse on camera in the last few months, but his kick-in straight down the throat of Petty was the ultimate gift-wrapped goal, just when we really needed something positive to focus on at half time. Vlaustin would later get mowed down holding the ball in front of goal, and we thank him for his service.

As expected, Petty's performance lacked the same surprise value as last week but even if both his goals came on a silver platter he played his role. I still think his long term future is in goal, but when our tall forward stocks otherwise are Jefferson (undersized), JVR (out of form) and Fullarton (out of depth), I'll concede that he's done more as a forward in two games than anyone (including himself) since van Rooyen looked on the verge of something massive in the first quarter against West Coast last year.

The best thing about belatedly turning up in the third quarter this time is that we did it before going five goals behind. We started to win clearances, Oliver appeared out of nowhere to play a great quarter, and in the space of a few minutes it was goodbye Richmond, who were unable to cope with us playing like the actual finals-ish team we could be. The three goals all had something to recommend them. The first was born from a dodgy free kick in the middle, which is nice, then Chandler created a goal for Petracca with solid attack on the ball, before Fritsch kicked a sick snap which gave the impression that we were about to run away with it. And we were, but not before Lynch briefly stemmed the tide as part of his one-man show.

A 37 point lead wasn't quite the Chris Sullivan Line, but adjusted for the opposition and what we'd seen in the first three quarters I was reasonably confident that they weren't going to catch us. Last week they set up an unassailable lead then put the feet up and let the other side kick a bunch of pointless late goals, so I was hoping we might go on to crush them and make some sort of futile statement to the rest of the competition. We raised hopes of a landslide with the first goal, before but that turned out to be our traditional only goal of the final term. There was another overturned on the flimsiest review footage of all time, after being cleared by field and goal umpires, and with the teams back to the middle and waiting to restart before Mr. ARC woke up and realised he had something to do. I think they just made up a decision because everyone was waiting to restart the game and they knew it would have no bearing on the result.

Sadly we didn't piss it in, but I'll settle for premiership points as a consolation prize. There was a lot of 'cue in rack' about the end of this, including Gawn sitting on the bench for the last 16 minutes. No argument there, it's about time we started protecting the man instead of running him into the ground every week. 

Even if it cost us three or four goals on the margin it's worth it to keep him upright for as long as possible, just in case the end of the year does get spicy (NB: It will not, but I'm prepared to humour the idea to make this point) and we need him at peak fitness. In an ideal world you'd 'manage' him for a couple of random games, but we haven't got that luxury yet. Later in the year, when finals are well and truly off the agenda, we might hit the Tom Campbell 'break in case of emergency' button and try and preserve Maximum's body for the future but right now he's too important to leave out. 

Answers on a postcard PO Box 999 in your capital city for the "What did Gawn say to Goodwin at the final siren?" competition. Maybe a quick reminder not to make unfortunate panicky comments about his private life at the press conference? It didn't cost him the BOG medal, with the voters/awarders sensibly realising that he'd done his best work when the game was in the balance so it would be bonkers to hold it against him for avoiding some of the junkiest junk time on record.

Not much else to say, this was a welcome result but it doesn't mean anything medium/long term unless we go on with it. I'm not expecting to beat the top sides - and am already cringing at the prospect of being rooted sideways in front of a national audience on King's Birthday - but I'd like to think if we played North again next week there'd be no repeat of that afternoon's white flag debacle. So we've got that going for us.

2025 Allen Jakovich Medal votes
5 - Max Gawn
4 - Jake Bowey
3 - Tom Sparrow
2 - Jack Viney
1 - Kade Chandler

Apologies to Petracca, Langdon, Langford, May, McDonald, Oliver, Petty, Pickett, and Salem.

Leaderboard
What looked like a potential battle royale for the main prize has been nuked by back-to-back Gawn gold. I'm mad for the Bowey campaign but can't see him keeping up with Max for the rest of the year. Speaking of Max, I've seen enough to provisionally declare the Stynes over. The only other ruckmen who have ever scored 19+ in a season are White 2007, Jamar 2009-2010 and Jackson 2021, so fat chance of catching him. 

There's also Gawn Watch on the all-time Jakovich Medal leader. He's now up to 367, trailing only N. Jones on 379, and Clayton Oliver on 390 so that race should provide some token late season entertainment value. With three players polling for the first time this year, we've now had 142 people in the votes at some point since R1, 2005.

19 - Max Gawn (PROVISIONAL WINNER: Jim Stynes Medal for Ruckman of the Year)
15 - Jake Bowey (LEADER: Marcus Seecamp Medal for Defender of the Year)
9 - Clayton Oliver, Kysaiah Pickett
8 - Ed Langdon
7 - Xavier Lindsay (LEADER: Rising Star Award), Christian Petracca
6 - Kade Chandler
5 - Harvey Langford, Tom McDonald
4 - Tom Sparrow
3 - Jack Viney
2 - Jake Lever, Harrison Petty, Christian Salem
1 - Jake Melksham, Harry Sharp

Aaron Davey Medal for Goal of the Year
Fritsch's snap gets the 'welcome back from exile' nomination, but Windsor maintains the overall lead. 

Next Week

After 1x surprise and 1x expected win, the decider comes against the rotting corpse of the once great West Coast Eagles. On paper it should turn out a lot like this, but I can't forget King Harley Race shoving our players around as the rot well and truly set in over there last year. We tonked them in the rematch, but I'm still wary about making any premature claims about this result. The word 'should' will be doing even more heavy lifting than it did whenever somebody asked me about this week's game.

Barring any surprise suspensions, or May succumbing to another ankle related groin complaint, there's no need for rampant changes. It's hard to know how seriously to take the Casey game when they bollocked Richmond by 118 points (still NFI why it was an 11am Tigers home game in Cranbourne), their biggest win against an AFL-affiliated side since shacking up with/eventually being taken over by us. It makes sense that if Richmond's seniors are relying on kids galore that they've got bugger all in the tank, but before this the Tigers were 3-1 so let's just take it as a good thing.

All I need to know is that regardless of opposition quality, van Rooyen kicked five and alas Fullarton hasn't grasped his chance so there's a straight swap. Otherwise, I have no faith in Laurie as a long-term senior player but he's done enough to deserve a return. After three weeks as sub I'd like to give Sharp a full game in the seconds, but as usual the VFL is run like a Tijuana whorehouse and Casey have the bye two weeks after they called a round off for semi-pro state of origin. So Laurie starts and gets the comedy hook for Melksham if things don't work. Everyone else who didn't make the senior side can get on the cans.

IN: Laurie, van Rooyen + Melksham (sub)
OUT: Fullarton, Sharp (omit)
LUCKY: Nil
UNLUCKY: Johnson, Turner

Final thoughts
I'm still not sure how many degrees things are looking 'up' on the 1-90 scale, but it's better than the gigantic flashing DOWN arrow that was hanging over us after the Essendon game.