Not Like This

With a bumper class of Ansett/Norwich/NAB Rising Stars this season, Team Bone, Team Buckets and Team Muzz face off in a re-draft of this years' crop. Will Little Nicky or Jason Home-Sickness go with the coveted number one selection? Will the panel prioritise genetic development over peroxided hair? Which supporter base will be insulted the most? A fun, punchy episode for all AFL nerdlingers!

Rich, Muzz and the Bone settle into their new digs with a bumper episode, celebrating the return of Nic Nat, the Bombers' victory over the Swans in the Dylan Shiel Squib Cup, the Pies great escape, the weakest of weak sauce from Blues fans, the game's best 'leg drivers' and even the advent of TikTok(!), before Richie launches/degenerates into one of his all-time rants about the too-cool-for-school Kangaroos.

Contrasting emotions on the podcast this week, as Richie Buckets and T-Bone's love for the Pies reaches fever pitch after a sixth straight victory, while Muzz's Saints plunge deeper into despair. The panel also delve into the barn burner between the Cats and the Tigers - giving their thoughts on Meatball's murder - before lauding the Hawks' new 'meat and potatoes' hero, lambasting the Lions for trading so close to insolvency and declaring their undying love for Sam Walsh.

T-Bone's 104 best players of the AFL era continues with Rich, Muzz and the Bone turning their attention to small defenders. In this episode there are fights and fights and fights, as the panel sift through back pocket plumbers, used car salesmen, hitmen, authors, painters and the biggest of big dancers on their way to determining whether Gavin Wanganeen or Andrew McLeod should be number one.

Richie, Muzz and T-Bone do their best to bring the ruckus to a horrendous bye round of football, freestyling on GWS's new brand of party football, Shai's candy shop, Meatballs in the sleet, Grub love, Horse hate, 'Wild Man' Scotty's premiership delusions, Adam Saad's bounce addiction, T-Bone's growing fear of the Tigers and the Bombers' destruction of the Saints' soul (twice!).

Muzz returns to the podcast to face his worst nightmare: a fired-up T-Bone and Richie Buckets, fresh off the Pies' victory over Melbourne, drunk on glory - and a rare RoboCox masterclass - flagrantly taunting the football Gods, avenging the disrespect shown by the Dees to King Melk. Never mind 'Teflon' Kenny's medicos, Peter Bell's smugness, the top-of-the-pops Lions or even the Collywobbles! A premiership now, surely, is a cakewalk.

T-Bone continues his Paddy McCartin-like transformation from funny man to sublime podcast host, leading Stavros and Richie through the finer points of round 12: Flag-mantle's first world Fyfe problem, the Rising Suns, Tex's suitors, North's 'holistic' approach to football, the Dees' mid-season freefall (from top to top), the historically bad Eagles and, for dessert, the Pies' victory over the Hawks in the annual T-Bone Blood Feud Cup!

Richie and T-Bone come in hot, straight after the Pies' victory over the old enemy, savouring the Subway Suns' demolition of Hawthorn and Dimma's Twitter tantrum, and Dees tragic Stavros picks the (im)perfect time to make his Not Like This debut, with Melbourne's 17-game winning streak coming to an end at the hands of the Dry Weather Dockers and their evil genius coach.

After 73 episodes of Muzz-induced tyranny, Richie and T-Bone are free at last to explore round ten in their own puerile way, lauding the Pies for their wet-weathered win in the west and Max King for his six democracy snags, before turning their attention to the major issues in the game: the headband epidemic sweeping through G-Town, Essendon's talking heads, the return of King Melk and, of course, the Subway Suns' employee of the week.

Rich, Muzz and the Bone farewell Leon Cameron, the old dog who barked all the way to the end, with no regrets (apparently), and get stuck into the major talking points of round nine: Matthew Lloyd's Sunday Footy Show plea to the Bombers, the Subway Suns' franchise-inspiring victory over the Dockers and Adam Treloar's shock speech to his former club. A ninth business will bite the dust and stay tuned for a special guest appearance from a Channel 7 newsbreaker.