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faulty, my 'quite a tell' comment was related to the fact you watch Paul Murry every night, not the hospitalization data. Paul Murry is a Murdoch lapdog with zero credibility, and is someone i would not trust in anyway on any subject. But given you watch him every night i suspect i am not gong to convince you about how big a dill he is, how dangerous and divisive he, and his Murdoch ilk, are. A poison. So i won't bother. On hospitalization numbers, i have no idea what you mean by no leftist commentator wants to go any where near. Whcy would they want to avoid it. I can't recall the number but di we not have 800 deaths in Victoria last year? And just looking at the todays numbers from NSW they have had 171 cases in this latest outbreak. One of them is in ICU . People are fretting about the extremely small chance of getting seriously ill from AZ. Imagine if the odds were one in 171 of going to ICU. In those same figures NSW reports it has had 5, 637 cases of covid in total and 56 deaths, So one in a hundred (and it is worth noting they didn't have the same issues we di in aged care). Paul Murray and his acolytes might not care about those figures, but most Australians do. But lets not debate it faulty, coz there is zero chance we will come together on this topic.

On Paul Murray? Absolutely BB On the risk of lockdown versus hospitalizations? Not at all, except if the argument is coming from Paul Murray, or any of his Murdoch mafia ilk. Simply no point engaging in a discussion with those with such a clear philosophical agenda. It is both hilarious, and tragic, the knots the Murdoch mafia have tied themselves in over the approach by different states to lockdown, now that their exemplar has elected to also go into lockdown (many would say a week too late - not the Murdoch mafia of course). The hypocrisy and misinformation that has underpinned their coverage is staggering. Just one of thousands of examples:

I have a slightly different view on Ben Brown and what his inclusion will provide. Now that he is getting some fitness back and his work rate up and back the ground he will demand attention from good defenders and they will not be able to zone off so safely. That in itself provides a variation of pressure. Attention on him will free up others with a lesser defender and can help disrupt the opposition defensive zone which will allow the smaller defensive forwards to create more havoc as there is less support for their defence. If the opposition try to push more numbers back to rebalance this we get an outnumber around the middle. I think the structure will be better. Everyone will still have to apply manic effort and application for it to work as always, but I think it will work quite well, especially once it's settled after a few games. At the moment I don't feel the opposition defence is too unsettled, Tmac roams, they hold Fritta and we have to scrap for the rest of the goals. It may be working enough but it is not optimal. Ben Brown can change the dynamic and help others get into the game. He is also an accurate kick, which would be very welcome.

Taking my 6yo girls for their first game at the G - I think I’m more excited than them! Been waiting months for a day game to take them to, now that we’re good it’s been mostly night games. Was meant to be Queens Birthday, maybe dodged a bullet there ?. Carn Dees, do it for the kids!

I believe that this game will take place on Saturday night at Casey Fields.

It's good to have the VFL back...lol

would be great to play Port in Vic next week. even better to go to the game!

IMO, not that it matters, but Weid played far better than BB last Sunday. I thought Weid played very well around the ground and was more effective than Daw in the ruck and also had several goal assists.

A friend of mine does some work with a minor celebrity (maybe underselling him, he's quite well known) who believes the earth is flat. When my friend was asked what it would take to get him to change his mind and believe the earth was flat he said, 'evidence'...

Sounds a bit like B.Brown's first year with us is a bit like S.May's

Looking forward to a Melbourne home crowd again after the disgrace that was the Essendon crowd.

Don’t hang it on Brad Miller Not the most naturally gifted but he busted his [censored] for the MFC ! Played around 150 games and is deserving of respect

None of them have won a premiership.

Thanks RnB realist, after giving up this morning I had another crack at it this arvo and got some tickets!!! I'm stoked and can't wait to get to the game on Saturday, go Dees.????

I'm a bit bored today so I will engage with this a little longer... You are attempting to present as fact, or self evident and obvious, a poorly formed opinion based on absolutely nothing except perhaps your own pessimism. I would characterise the responses you are seeing here as not so much people being defensive, as calling bull$#it on your statements. There is considerably more evidence to support us making the top 4 than there is that we will get knocked down to 5th. To support your negative statement you provide the startling piece of evidence that you typed your opinions into the ladder predictor and got back the expected answer. You then jump into those of us who disagree by accusing us of not being impartial. Pot, Kettle, Black...

I've read a lot of this thread and in the main it's a good reasonable read. I've one question and one observation. Without getting political what is the criticism of the rollout? Is it that we backed the wrong horse or didn't spread our risk? Is it that we have vaccines and aren't distributing them or is it the poor messaging? Or something else? My view is all over 60 should get vaccinated. I'm over 60 and have had the first dose. I was (obviously) aware of the issues but took the view that as a communtiy we have a responsibility to that community. As a country we can't get back to anywhere near normal unless we are vaccinated. Therefore just do it. IMO those not getting vaccinated are selfish but that's understandable. They are selfish because of the pain and suffering they are inflicting on others in so many ways that have been well publicised for so long. I also think that the reporting of COVID is wrong. We should be reporting deaths and hospitalizations rather than cases. What would our reaction be if we reported the flu, colds or pheumonia the same way? We need to get our head around the idea that there is a potentially deadly virus out there that will be around for our lifetimes. By not getting vaccinated we let that virus be more active and mutate into more dangerous variants. Basically my view is we need to act as a country and not a bunch of individuals. This is a war, there will be casualities. FTR many of my 60* friends are waiting to get vaccinated. It's their right.

I cant believe this. Weeds has been bog ordinary,you have BB kicking 5 who clunked marks, had a hand in at least another 3, ran up and down the ground, displayed willingness to be involved AND who has kicked 60 plus 3outa the last 4 seasons. DONT waste more time in the magoos.GET HIM IN THE ONES.He is the missing piece to our tilt at the flag, I have NO doubt

Injury aside, I cannot envisage any scenario where Fritsch gats dropped

I'm surprised that more posters haven't realised that, by responding to Dr. D, they keep giving him the attention and cheap thrills he seeks with his baiting. The "ignore" function is your best friend in such situations.

Is that similar to your predictions that Goodwin will be sacked by round 8 and Essendon will beat us by 37 points?

watched the replay. We held those failed vaccinators to 2 goals per quarter. we dominated the first quarter but didn’t capitalise on the score board. Ess had no way through our defence. It took long bombs by stringer to do anything early. Kossie needs to keep it simple. Not every touch has to make Bruce cry. in the last quarter, our groundball and handling was way down. Missed many easy opportunities because of this. Brayshaw was fantastic. Gawn gets throttled so often, but was really good. Too many over the head outlet handballs. Better cohesion in the middle. on replay, the result was never in doubt! Got lots to improve- groundball skills, I 50 delivery and goal kicking. Was not really that close given the difficulty they had in scoring.

Pushing the AstraZeneca recommendation back to the over-60s was based on accumulated evidence that identified the drop-off in side effect incidence was much better from age 60+ on, rather than the original estimate of 50+. There is a drop in the number of people experiencing medically significant side effects in the 50+ age group, but 60+ is half the rate of even that. If you vaccinated, say, 3 million people aged 60+, the incidence rate would mean about 300-500 people having side effects requiring medical attention and within that 300-500 there would be a proportion that would be very serious and even fatal. On the other hand, just a few weeks worth of a Covid-19 cluster spread without either large-scale vaccine coverage or lockdowns would kill hundreds - and then it would really get going. If you do know an over-60 who feels like they are being given the off-cut vaccine, just make sure they know that it is being limited to over-60s because the side effects are much, much rarer in that group. Maybe also mention that if Australia was in the septic tank situation like 90% of the world is right now, we would be slapping AZ into people's arms as fast as we could go. Being so cautious about using it is a matter of great circumstantial luxury but if we slack off too much we are inviting disaster upon ourselves.

Over the last 10 weeks we have the following from the Federal Government. AZ is a good vaccine. People under 40 should not take it. People under 50 should not take it. People under 60 should not take it. Yesterday it is a good vaccine everyone from 20 up should gets shots and we will indemnify any doctor who gets sued when they recommended it. They wonder why take up rates are poor, it must go down as the worst public health exercise in Australian history.

Not having nearly enough to do and prompted by a Demonlander who suggested we had more young players than Essendon, I checked all top 8 teams playing last weekend plus Esendon and it appears we are in a great position for the future. Sorry about the formatting Team Players under 22 22-27 Over 27 Average games Melbourne 7 11 4 89.6 Dogs 4 12 6 95.6 Brisbane 6 12 4 90.4 Port 4 11 7 98.9 Geelong 0 9 13 147.0 Swans 5 11 6 100.2 Eagles 1 11 10 141.4 Tigers 2 9 11 118.3 Baby Bombers 3 15 4 74.7 Our demographic is actually closer to Brisbane than any other club. There are of course a number of injured players at other clubs who would be in their best 22. If included, it would raise the number of older players at each club and age demographic. Moreso others than Melbourne (who would only replace Petty with Tomlinson). I dont know what it means but we are either too young, in a great position to start a dynasty or alternatively it was an interesting way to spend an hour or so.

Faulty, as i say there is little value in us batting this one back and forth. That said, i have one question - do you really believe this to be true? If so what evidence do you have that it is the case. And by evidence I don't mean the Murdoch/Sky echo chamber. I mean hard evidence. Not a Paul Murray or Peta Credlin editorial. Not anecdotal evidence, or a vibe or all my mates reckon. Hard evidence. I would argue it is completely and utterly untrue. And there is a mountain of hard, real evidence to back up that postion. Public polling for one (google it). I'll be my bottom dollar that even in NSW polling will show very strong support for the decision to lockdown. The Western Australian election. The New Zealand election. Landslide victories on the back of hard health restrictions, border closures and lockdowns. The fact that that every state and territory, bar tassie and Canberra, has chosen to lockdown at some point. And will continue to do so whenever there is on outbreak. Well, until such time as the feds get their [censored] together and 70% of the population is vaccinated. The public support (again see the polls) for the country to be in a virtual lockdown and not allowing international visitors is more evidence. We love that [censored]. Shut the door. Stay away. We're an island The fact there is broad support (again see the polls) for us allowing Australian citizens being stranded overseas. Bad luck mate - we're in lockdown. Which is why a Liberal government not making any move to change the settings on international visitors and travel. Why isn't the coalition, who are all about the free market, doing everything in its power to open the borders to get all businesses humming and international dollars flowing? The answer is obvious - because they would risk being smashed at the next election because there is overwhelming public support for closed borders (again see the polls). If anything they are going the other way becuase narrow path to victory Scotty is a political animal and he knows the public love nothing more than being kept safe. Lock us down ScoMo. Do people hate lockdown? Of course But the evidence that the public support lockdowns to control outbreaks is incontrovertible. If you have evidence to the contrary i would be interested in seeing it.

The ABC has a full roster of pastisan zealots and yet you happily swallow every gulp of the tripe they feed you. Paul Murray is brilliant, as is Credlin. Kevin 07 must have palpitations every time they are on air. Defund the ABC and put the money into mental health treatment. At least the cash will find its way back to the newly unemployed activists. And Qanon is embarrassing garbage. Why bring that into an adult discussion?

On March 10 Australia first reached 100 total cases and just 23 new cases for the day. Two weeks later, despite rapidly increasing restrictions, the daily new case rate was wobbling between 300-500 per day while stalled in the first stage of lockdowns. When you consider further expansion at that rate of reproduction (>2000% growth in two weeks, which is in the normal range), then after another two weeks without tight restrictions we would have been looking at several thousand new cases per day and a thousand deaths a week by late April. That has been the experience of most the world, both as a description of events and as a statistical pattern. These aren't controversial or unsupported figures or claims.

I must have been watching a different game Weeds dropped chest marks,missed gettable goals and again at times got pushed underneath tha ball. Ive looked at the replay twice and Whilst he didnt play a bad game, BB did a whole lot more. I believe in Big Finals BB is a neccesity

My tip is Friday night at Marvel.

Given the AFL have got their SA teams on planes and into Victoria, the SA Government clearly expects the possibility of another SA lockdown or breach of their hotel quarantine set up again. It has to increase the chances that our Port game is played at Geelong or in Tassie.

Thankfully, I got mine sorted. I have a ticket now for the game. For those who need assistance I suggest calling the MFC membership department on 1300 336 667.

Everyone is busy just selling the narrative that suits them. 'You have to be able to dominate weaker teams', 'Defence wins premierships', 'The Dees can't score enough to win finals' In the end the only score you need is one point more than your opponent kicks. Everything else is just a narrative that we all apply after the fact to pretend that we knew all along it was going to happen a particular way. As for where we will finish on the ladder, not only is your statement negative and defeatist @Dr.D it has absolutely no grounding in fact. If you are actually a Dees supporter I just feel sorry for you. Even after we have beaten every top 8 team we have faced and lost to none, you still can't get a little excited and believe in the boys. Poor you.

Good for SA. Bad for us. Go to lockdown SA. You suck and nobody likes you anyway.

The SA cases are international arrivals, not community cases, so no shut border i assume: 'Health and government authorities approved a COVID-19 positive family to fly in from overseas to Australia last week on a privately-funded medevac flight' Interesting that the SA health and government authorities allowed a covid positive family to fly in on a privately charted jet given the seemingly ridiculously, over the top processes the Pies and cats had to endure to play a game of footy there (that the dees elected to avoid by playing the QB game in NSW instead of at Adelaide oval).

this is why i have dr. d on ignore; his doom and gloom is positively exhausting we'll all be 'rooned, said hanrahan!

Goodys presser. Few points, - Ben Brown right in strong calculations now. Could be potentially this week. - Club is happy with Kozzies work. Defensive work and running off the charts and club is happy with his performance. Confident he'll hit scoreboard soon enough. - Jones is really strong and is hungry to get back into the side.

The only way to find out if bbb is tge answer is to roll the dice. Tmac cant do it all and Fritta cant take a pack mark. With Lj rucking we need someone like bbb to at least get the ball to ground. He may not be the answer but hes a proven incredible champion that needs a shot.

Well I was being somewhat facetious to skewer those that suffer from the most negative of thoughts based on one bad loss to Collingwood… might be familiar… However, we have been a badly run club for so long that there is a rich history of failure to draw on. And it did all fall apart spectacularly 10 years ago. Has little bearing on how we go now tho, and I think that is one of the main points I was trying to make when I coined the term MFCSS; history doesn’t have to repeat or rhyme. We don’t have to be prisoners of our own worst thoughts. The other point that comes to mind is what President Roffey brings up - we are so worried about what could go wrong from our lofty heights that we don’t cheer with abandon as we are reaching those lofty heights until the last few minutes or until we are assured it can’t be taken from us (even spectacularly).

Watch it without sound. No prob with the free kick allocations on the night. By the sound of the bomber whining you would think someone had lost a limb.

Frankston are slated to play the Swans. Perhaps the fixture could be flipped so that we play the Dolphins. Both Giants & Swans have 8 games played. We've just completed 6.

I think there’s a bit of that in the way they speak about us, particularly channel seven. BT always sounds like the local drunk that keeps wanting to move the goalposts when they say “until you beat xxxx” or “you have to beat a team by xxxx points” or “you have to get player xxxx back to form before you’re really a threat”. I genuinely can’t stand both Hamish and BT with their calling of our games.

That's a sample size of two games. Against Essendon we did only score 68, which is low, but we also had 23 scoring shots, which is bang on our season average of 24.5 shots per game. The issue there being inaccuracy. Prior to Collingwood, our previous four scores were 97, 87, 95 and 94. The first two of those scores were produced against two of the best sides other than us, Brisbane and the Dogs. I am arguing that we can improve our scoring but that it's nowhere near the problem that is being suggested on here (although by clarifying your post it's clear you don't think it's as bad as I had thought you did). Well not the sentiment that we have the least potent forward line in the league. I also don't agree that our elite defence is irrelevant to considering the effectiveness of our forward line. It's essential, for context. We don't need to score big every week. Maybe some other clubs in the competition do (Essendon would be one example) because they're less capable of stopping sides scoring. In 2018 that was us. I also don't agree that scoring has been the primary reason for both our losses this season. We scored 95 points against Adelaide. The issue in both those games was that our opponents scored at a rate well higher than any of the other 12 sides we've played this year. But the key point remains: despite all of the so-called weaknesses, we have scored the fourth-most points in the league. We're 68 points behind Brisbane across 14 games, which is the equivalent of 4.86 points per game, i.e. less than a goal per game. Another metric is average scoring shots per game: Bulldogs - 27.57 Brisbane - 25.07 Melbourne - 24.50 Essendon - 23.76 Geelong - 23.07 Sydney - 23.07 Richmond - 22.64 Port Adelaide - 22.50 West Coast - 22.14 We generate the third-most shots on goal and the fourth-most points per game in the competition. If anything, these stats show me that our inaccuracy is holding us back. I agree with your final line, though. I'm confident this is a glass half full situation.

They'll be a joint suicide pact at Fox footy in melbourne win the flag and I for one look forward to it

All that matters in the end is who wins it...opinions then don't mean s...

Mmm, in poker terminology, this is quite a tell.

I hope we are putting together some vision and sending it to the AFL for a please explain. It happens every week without a free and yet if you so much as fart next to some players you get a free.

Yep, I think they were. I'm also getting concerned about how many times our captain gets punched in the back of the head due to faux spoils. He was down on all fours after copping another one on Saturday night. It happens every game without the whistle ever being blown. It can't be healthy for him.

well, it's as i have suspected for a long time. the health experts don't have the answers and they disagree with each often. they are becoming experts in supposition based on a lack of real data a bit of a "we don't really know" answer sometimes would be preferable to constructing fairy tales

Brisbane and the Dogs just had glamour wins against apparent contenders - it's no surprise they're flavour of the month.