9 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

Surely Seven can spare one of its four (or is it five?) FTA channels for AFL coverage? (Apologies to regional viewers - I have no idea how many channels Seven makes available outside the big cities.)

My understanding is that its mainly ( and only) the Sunday 3.20pm game that Channel 7 (FTA)  AFL coverage is not available. Some other games may have to be altered by about 2 hours forward  to fit into the Olympic broadcast schedule.

44 minutes ago, Demonland said:

Didn't he play on the weekend? I understand he has twice tested negative but if he has to isolate for 14 days despite the negative result why aren't his teammates or the opposition in isolation too?

Shhhh we are a bigger chance of losing the the dogs VFL squad than their AFL squad.

43 minutes ago, Demonland said:

Didn't he play on the weekend? I understand he has twice tested negative but if he has to isolate for 14 days despite the negative result why aren't his teammates or the opposition in isolation too?

They all would have had to isolate if he returned a positive result. Luckily for him and the bulldogs he didn't. 

It would have been awesome playing their reserves side!

Doggies haven't been playing well, so happy for us to beat them and then lock ourselves into top 2. 

Bring it on. 

49 minutes ago, Demonland said:

Didn't he play on the weekend? I understand he has twice tested negative but if he has to isolate for 14 days despite the negative result why aren't his teammates or the opposition in isolation too?

Since Dunkley isn't a confirmed case I presume that they'll be treated as casual contacts and would only require to isolate until they return a negative test result.

14 hours ago, hardtack said:

I bet you said the same after the Adelaide, Collingwood, and GWS games ??

Exactly what I  am asking. Looked the same. Complete over reaction but we must start getting some cohesion going to build up for Finals snd to launch from Top2 or if not then Top4 to give ourselves a rest in the second week if necessary.

Tom Morris reporting that we're playing the Dogs on Saturday night:

Friday

Port Adelaide v Collingwood (Adelaide Oval)

Saturday

Carlton v North Melbourne (Marvel Stadium)

Gold Coast v Brisbane (GABBA)

West Coast v St Kilda (Optus Stadium)

Adelaide v Hawthorn (Adelaide Oval)

Melbourne v Western Bulldogs (MCG)

Sunday

Sydney v Fremantle (Metricon Stadium)

Geelong v Richmond (MCG)

Essendon v GWS (Metricon Stadium)

1 hour ago, Demonland said:

Didn't he play on the weekend? I understand he has twice tested negative but if he has to isolate for 14 days despite the negative result why aren't his teammates or the opposition in isolation too?

Great question, I attended a workplace on Monday last week which later had 3 confirmed cases. I woke up Thursday morning to a lengthy text message from NSW health, I am currently in a 12 day isolation because the Tuesday and Wednesday are considered to be days 1 & 2, days 1 & 2 while I’m still at work and was at a shopping centre potentially spreading the virus. Received a call from NSW health, my family and workmates have to return 1 negative test and they are free to roam around as per normal. They weren’t interested in anywhere I had been because my first test was also negative. My work was proactive and notified other work places I had a attended and my fellow work mates. This is why it will be so hard to reach 0 cases, that and the refusal to close international borders.

Comical at best.

Can’t see how it works, if we play dogs this week who do crows and gc play given they aren’t playing each other again this year. With so few games left I can’t see how it works unless you change the draw completely and have crows gc play 

4 minutes ago, Garbo said:

Can’t see how it works, if we play dogs this week who do crows and gc play given they aren’t playing each other again this year. With so few games left I can’t see how it works unless you change the draw completely and have crows gc play 

It's very simple and brought about by some very lucky fixturing.

Melbourne, the Dogs, GC, Adelaide, Hawthorn and Brisbane all play each other in the original Round 19 fixture, and the original Round 20 fixture.

So the three games are flipped, because they can be, and it doesn't affect any of the other clubs or games. So GC now plays Brisbane this week instead of next week, and Adelaide now plays Hawthorn this week instead of next week. That allows us to play the Dogs this week, and then next week we return to GC v Melb, Hawthorn v Brisbane and Bulldogs v Adelaide.

NSW announced over the weekend a hard lockdown on 3 LGA’S which include about 40 suburbs and 900,000 people also the halt of all construction work for 2 weeks. Essential worker got replaced with Emergency worker, that has to be quickly changed when they realised that a significant percentage of the people in the affected areas work in parts of the food supply chain.

18 hours ago, kev martin said:

is living in delusional states, creating non realities

So not too different to being a Dees supporter and thinking we will account for lower tier teams easily.

could there be the possibility the we play the cats after the dogs? then hub in another state for Adel, suns, eagles?

I’m assuming the Dogs v Dees will be a night game… 

Has anyone done any look at the stats on how many night games we’ve had this year? Must be a record and good for us considering most finals are now at night. 

I remember being worried that one reason we may fall over in the 1998 Prelim was that we had played few games that year at night. That wasn’t the only reason we lost that one ? but I reckon it must help at least in a small way. 

 

2 hours ago, cookieboc said:

could there be the possibility the we play the cats after the dogs? then hub in another state for Adel, suns, eagles?

Depends how confident the AFL are that we'll still be in lock down by 15 August which is when we play Adelaide at the MCG.

5 hours ago, Diamond_Jim said:

that's a good point

First night of the swimming which is where most of the eyeballs will be.

On reflection a competition pause for a week or two makes sense but we know how one eyed the AFL can be.

PS: I assume our game is Saturday... if it's Friday it'll clash with the Opening ceremony

The Swimming finals are on in the mornings - 10am onwards (catering for the US market - money talks) Only the heats in the evening

However, the Track & Field finals will be on in the evenings with only a 1 hour time difference to AEST

But they've got 4 channels (7, 7Two, 7Mate & 7flix) so it will all fit in somehow

Not sure whether 7 are covering any of the footy on the Sunday's ... might be just the footy on Friday & Saturday evenings on FTA during the Olympics (over the next 3 weekends) To be confirmed of course

 

Finally, a game vs a top 2 team. I can relax. 

Dee's by 5 goals. 

Just great.

Have been looking forward to this game since we played them in an empty stadium in round whatever.

Games in front of no crowd are awful, even on TV.

Was also going to the President's lunch for this game.

A zoom event does not have quite the same appeal.

I've got to get a life. I'm now getting agitated by reading the previous three posts and grumbling to myself that only one out of the three has used the apostrophe correctly.

What's worse, I've likely been guilty of similar mis-use in the past, making my grumbling unworthy.

So this will make it 11 night games and 3 twilights. I reckon this has to be the record for Melbourne playing under lights in a season. With high chances our games against the Eagles and Cats will also be at night too. Amazing what being on top of the ladder does for scheduling. 

Least Josh Dunkley isn’t playing as he is having to quarantine for 14 days…

Officially official.

 

Only problem with this is that we most likely will not be allowed to go.