deanox

My thinking: Baker and Hore probably unlikely to get a nod for next year, with Jetta, Jones and VDB probable retirees. Means Weid, Hibberd, and Lockhart probably get extensions. Would leave Lockhart, Hibberd, and Melksham in the gun for 2022. Most of this squad can stay together until 2024 without any key retirement risks, which is great.

It's sad because I think Tassie deserves better, and I think that the AFL place commercial benefits for the top couple of people (players, administrators) above their role as custodians of the game, and above looking after all the other people who make it happen (support staff who work really hard and get paid rubbish and less than market rate, as well as fringe players and 2nd tier comps.

No, I expect you are right on saying that a Tassie team would get more members and more active support than GC, but that isn't what the big commercial battle is about. GC might lose money in its own operations, but it has the potential to create more money than Tassie as part of the bigger picture. For example, the gate takings are worth nothing compared to tv rights. Queensland is a bigger tv market than Tassie, so having a GC team is probably worth more in the tv rights deal. Having two local clubs live on tv on Queensland each week also saturates that market and creates a tv product worth selling. Because Tassie is already "football heartland" they already have maximum eyeballs on tv. Putting a team in Tassie doesn't widen their market exposure or create more revenue for the broadcasters. But GC might. I also don't think you can underestimate the value the AFL place on blocking out the A-League and NRL. There is a finite pool of broadcast right money to be spent across all codes. Blocking or at least matching expansion of those leagues is a critical strategic action. Allowing tose competitors to get a foothold and grow now may mean their long term revenue may grow, making them hard to fight in decades time. Pyrrric victory perhaps, but victory all the same.

I'm not sure, I'd rather Port in Adelaide than coping Geelong at KP (regional crowds in Victoria) for week 1. I don't really rate Port (I think they are the weakest of the top 4 sides) and we have a good record at Adelaide Oval.

We've had a good run, but strange stat calculation. https://afltables.com/afl/stats/2021.html#12

That's counter intuitive deev. The areas that already support it already support it. They put their money in, they watch the games on TV, they play the game on Saturday. There is no return on investment in putting a team in Tas. But teams in growth areas have massive potential pay offs. Double TV exposure in NSW and Brisbane is worth big money. Capturing the hearts and minds of the western Sydney migrant population could add millions of fans in a few decades. Im not saying I agree with the approach, I'm saying it makes economic sense.

If you see me abusing umpires, please call me out. Tag me directly. If you see me doing anything that doesn't meet the standards, call me out. I'll reflect and try to do better. I'm not claiming I'm not racist or that I don't have conditioned biases; I know I do. But I don't need to be perfect to call other people out for their behaviour, I just need to accept that I too will be called out when I miss the mark. In fact, not walking by something unacceptable is part of improving myself. But bringing this up in this thread puts you on the side of the racist trolls, because you are derailing and diluting the message. Do better.

Nah not at all, Tassie is shored up. GC and GWS were/are contested regions (vs Rugby and Soccer), they needed a marketable presence as part of a 20-40 year battle. Even if GC never succeeds in itself, it has succeeded by stopping soccer from taking a foothold. The A-League launched a GC team in 2009, which subsequently failed: did the Sun's starve it of media and oxygen? Possibly contributed. The GC Yitans were launched in 2007 in the NRL. The AFL needed to be there. GWS had to come up in Australia's fastest growing population corridor. A Leagues Western Sydney Warriors were formed about the same time, so AFL needed to go head to head. NRLs West Tigers were there first in around 2000. In addition, theoretically these teams give "double" the local interest for media in these towns. A live local game every weekend. 2 games to broadcast in live on tv. 2 games to report on. To hold their slice of the media bubble, these 2nd teams were needed.

Seriously you are turning an anti racism thread into "but you don't like umpires discussion"?Y ou have demonstrated which side of the fence you are on, and unfortunately it's the wrong one. For the record I have no problem with any individual umpires. I recognise that they do their best despite the standard being relatively low. When I comment on umpiring, I attack the decision, but I don't attack the individual. They are workers doing the job under instructions of their employer, and it is the AFLs directions I have a problem with.

Macca surely you can see how takimg up space in this thread to discuss vilifying an umpire detracts from the issue at hand? I attached the clubs statement earlier. It doesn't ask us to "compare racism to other discrimination and assess which is worse". It doesn't ask us to debate whether what was said was really that bad (like posters who focussed on knowing the particular words tried to do). It certainly doesn't ask "why should First Nations people get special awards, isn't that racism itself?" (which one poster did). It asks us to play a proactive role in stamping out racism, to call out racism where we see it. If you are well intentioned, don't bring the topic down to this level. There are posters here who are pushing racist talking points, trying to sabotage the conversation. Tackle that issue, that's what it's about this week. Leave the treatment of umpires for another time.

Has never looked like making it for mine, and has been 6-7 years on the list for 18 games isn't a great outcome. Best of luck of he plays, but I'm not convinced he is the best reserve option.

Hawthorn moving to Tassie would be a dream come true.

Then every team can play every other team once, bringing balance to the league. Oh wait, no we'll still get 2 extra interstate trips and never play WCE or Geelong in Melbourne.

Anything is better than the Jack Jumpers.

This is an excerpt from the club statement this week. The majority of posters here are trying to live this. A small minority of you are choosing to attack, argue, defend against, "devil's advocate" or some other obfuscation tactic to prevent this happening. The club is calling you out on your behaviour and saying you are an anachronism.

With Dean Margetts retiring at least obvious crimes on the football field will reduce over there.

I agree that it should get done, but the current mob in charge won't do it unless there is competition down there. If the A League or NRL think about expanding down there, the AFL will swoop in. But currently they don't have any alternative so football in still no. 1. I would have thought that Covid was the perfect time to relocate a team. If the State Government is willing to chip in a higher than usual proportion of money, covid is easy cover for claiming "there isn't enough money to support 10 teams in Vic any more". I just don't know if Gil is up for that culture war.

I'm not sure that Weid has played much, and if there are any doubts about TMac, I would have thought match fitness was important?

Why don't we teach people not to be savage, offensive, [censored], rather than try to teach people to cop it sweet and move on?

Weid in, given we have no TMac? Or stay short given O'Brien is out?

I really feel sorry for you Cranky. Everytime someone demonstrates you are wrong you lose your mind. Your cognitive bias is so strong you can't actually engage in a rational argument. I don't think you are a bad person deep down but even if you don't mean to, you are contributing to the racist narrative in this country. I hope you can find a way to grow past it. Good luck.

Intolerance for the intolerant YW. If the rest of us want to create a tolerant society then intolerant views need to be blocked out and condemned. That's how it works.

But you realise that claiming they weren't farmers (in the European meaning of the word) was the legal basis for displacing the First Nations people? From Jagots address to the NSW Young Lawyers Conference: Cook saw plenty of Aboriginal people but, coming from the dense population of England which had been subject to intensive agricultural techniques for centuries, not evidence of a kind he would recognise as the hallmarks of permanent habitation or cultivation of the land – Australia was thus terra nullius and remained so until 1992. https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/digital-law-library/judges-speeches/justice-jagot/jagot-j-20171020 It is only in this current generations life that we began to recognise that "actually they were here". A nation of people, with their own laws, and rules and customs, just wiped out and a new legal structure - Australia - just placed over the top of them, which ignored them until recently. On the issue of Pascoe's aboriginality or not, who cares? I'm not First Nations, it's not my lane to comment on that, and I'm sure that community will sort it out, or not. But what difference does it make to anything?

Without realising it, you've just demonstrated how partisan you are on this topic. It implies you haven't read these books, or if you have you didn't understand. Pascoe's work is not an academic text to be debunked. It references historic sources that have been omitted from the general conversion deliberately as part of the terra nullis claim. He questions much of the narrative that white Australia teaches itself about our First Nations people (that they were completely nomadic, never built any structures, didn't do any agricultural work). Sutton and Walshe don't "debunk" anything. They argue that First Nations people should be called "hunter gathers plus" rather than Pascoe's suggestion that they deployed a type of farming/agriculture. That seems petty semantics when Pascoe's main thesis was that the modern western academic criteria for farming was Eurocentric, and therefore was too tight and restrictive to consider other cultures' approach to farming. Just as Sutton and Walshe critiqued Pasoce, others have since critiqued Sutton and Walshe for omitting evidence, for relying too heavily on colonial census data (probably skewed) and for sticking to outdated academic concepts. Have they been debunked? People can have conversations and discussions without being offensive to each other. But if you think the work was "debunked" and can therefore be dismissed, this might be why you keep finding that people take offence in discussion.

Nah, we won't agree to disagree, I'm going to keep holding you to account. I (and others) are telling you that people can discuss ANY topic without offending if a) you are respectful and b) you are not trying to impose your moral/ethics on someone else. You say that offending each other in discussion is unavoidable, but can't explain a reason why or a situation that doesn't fall into a) or b) above. I've been quite specific, the obfuscation is at your end. Either provide an example where offence is unavoidable (should be easy according to you) or accept that you're wrong. You may not realise or accept it, but your current line of argument is actually part of the problem that we are all trying to fix.