Axis of Bob

That's probably the worst of the lot. He's making out like he's also a victim of "this constant race debate". You're not a victim, you've just presided over a culture of systemic racism of which Lumumba was a prominent victim. I agree that Lumumba didn't stand up against the racism to be placated about "the constant race debate", he did it because the club culture was racist and he wanted concrete change to that culture. It's clear, based on this, that he was never going to be able to change the culture by working in house. He needed to create the race debate at the club, and the reason that this debate has been ongoing is because the club was too busy telling itself that it wasn't racist rather than addressing the problems like Lumumba wanted in the first place. If you throw your arms around an employee that does a knee or loses a close relative then you'll be appreciated. If you throw your arms around the person who has suffered directly from your behaviour then you'll be rightly told to f### off. Imagine being consoled by the person who just king hit you on the street ..... pretty galling and blatantly transparent. Eddie clearly doesn't understand the report or what the intent of it is. He's trying to save his reputation, but these are the desperate throes of a dying man. For this to work, he needs to get out of the way so that the club has the space to make real change.

The first line is to put media spin on a report about racism, which had as a key finding that the club too heavily focused on media spin when dealing with matters of racism. It's certainly not a great sign for their ability to deal with the issues presented in the report. Eddie doesn't get it.

I agree that it's a big change. Having an active person on the mark cuts down the angles you can kick on until it just ends up being sideways or long down the line. This should allow for teams to be able to chip pass their way up the ground more easily than they have been. There may well be less playing on from marks now, as a set mark against a set defence may not be as much of a dead end as it has been. This ease of chipping the ball may have one of two effects: 1- Teams pull their players back behind the ball more and defend inside 50 where they can compress the ground more, rather than relying on slowing the ball down and forcing a long kick down the line to defensive numbers. Or, 2- Teams actually push their defensive players further up towards the ball to defend the shorter kick, at the expense of camping numbers behind the ball for the long kick down the line. It provides more options for attacking teams, although it may be quite frustrating to watch the chipping game.

I'm sure it would have many similar strands, with some clubs worse than others. What I don't think you'd find is the amount that the racist culture is driven actively from the leadership. That's the really troubling bit. The Emperor-as-president nature of Collingwood, and the 25 year tenure of it, means that the culture hasn't renewed as society has evolved. I would imagine that most other clubs would have created more inclusive cultures since the Allan McAlister reckoning in the mid-90s. I'm more inclined to believe that Collingwood's culture of racism is worse than others, as the many incidents have alluded to anyway. We would have said that in the mid-90s too when Eddie took over and his unbroken tenure since means that it is far less likely to have changed than at other clubs. Lumumba had a really hard time of it when he stood up to this culture in a hostile environment. It's taken some time, but I'm glad he is finally being seen more broadly as being on the right side of history. I'm also happy to see that even the most stubborn and outdated club cultures look like they will be eventually dragged into contemporary society, and fewer people will have to experience what Lumumba did.

That review is ..... pretty damning. It suggests that racism isn't just a few poorly handled incidents but rather a club-wide culture of racism that has followed it from a very checkered history. It shows why Eddie is leaving, as it heavily insinuates that Collingwood will always have problems with racism whilst it has elements of leadership that have "an unhealthy degree of influence over club culture", and calls for the leadership, "particularly its board" needing to drive structural changes. It'll need some pretty hefty responses but at least having a 'rock bottom' report can be a way for the club to finally become a better reflection of society.

Wrecker, I think that (unlike P2J) you are very genuine in your beliefs about this and data in the US has shown that there are many people in your position too, especially on the Republican side. However, I think that many of the facts that you've been bringing up are incorrect, which is skewing things. For instance, the quoted statement is not true. There has been no evidence (even through the many legal cases) presented that scrutineers were not allowed in to check votes. The legal fight on the night was about how far they could stand from the votes. The 'blue shift' depended entirely on when mail in votes were counted. Some states (like Ohio) counted them first, leading to it appearing that the Democrats were winning, but as the in person voting occurred (which skewed Republican) it showed that the Republicans were going to carry the state comfortably. The opposite happened in states that counted votes the other way around (most states), such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia etc. That isn't an indication that there's fraud, it's just the way the elections normally work .... but COVID meant that many more people voted by mail that had previously. Like I said before, it's simply too hard to rig enough elections in the US to change the result. The voting systems of states are just too stupid and convoluted to make it work!! There are ways to rig the election (voter suppression, gerrymandering, electoral college) in the US because they have a terrible democratic system, but their presidential election is really difficult to rig in the ways the GOP are claiming.

@4_Kent_Watts I think this is the major takeaway from here. This site has a cross section of people from real life and overwhelming majority are, at their core, really well intentioned even if we make mistakes. There are a couple of posters who might make that difficult to imagine, but sometimes you need to ignore some of the loudest voices and realise that those voices only reflect a small minority.

No, it's not plausible to have different states coordinating with each other, as you stated, because they are separate elections. It's not like Australia's, where the AEC runs the whole federal election, but rather it's about individual states running their own elections, then sending their college delegates to a final election to vote in the president (which is called the electoral college). As a result, a legal fight to overturn multiple state elections requires separate legal wine in each state, likely on very different grounds. They're independent events. So if the likelihood of overturning a state result is 5% (likely very generous), then the likelihood off overturning two states is 5% x 5% = 0.25%. The likelihood of overturning the 4 different states the GOP needs is 0.05^4 = 0.00000625 = 0.000625% Two things are implausible: 1- Multiple states coordinating with each other on election night as they run entirely separate elections. 2- Overturning the results in multiple states, as is needed to change the presidential election result.

It's actually about 50 different democratic processes. A different one in each state. Any argument you have that has states coordinating with each other is flawed from the outset, as a result. That's why overturning the results in one state is plausible, but multiple states is not.

You don't see the contradiction? So Twomey 'had no idea who was going where', but you say that we were definitely into Holmes because Twomey 'seemed very strong' that we were interested? Also, this is what Twomey actually side in his phantom draft: "The Dees have been linked to Holmes for his running power and he would get a look under certain scenarios." That, according to you, 'seemed very strong'. We wanted him so desperately that he 'would get a look under certain scenarios'. Effectively you don't know. Nor do I. But I'm not claiming to either. And if you are, then you should provide at least half decent evidence. Especially since it's probably wrong. Given that several of the picks after ours were pacy forwards (like Holmes), whilst we prioritised high IQ players with elite skills (unlike Holmes) it's probably a more likely scenario that Geelong was trying to get in before they likes of GWS, Adelaide, St Kilda, Freo and Hawthorn, rather than ahead of us.

Luckily for them, given the case against them, it would only need to have been written by a 9 year old.

Given how little clubs have seen of players this year, giving players a preseason to judge them makes a lot of sense. Once you can answer the questions you have with them, you can just offer them a contract.

That's not in any way relevant to what I posted. The result of the 2016 election was not challenged by Clinton. The FBI instead investigated the Trump campaign's conduct during the campaign, especially in regards to Russian collusion. The result of the 2020 election is being challenged by Trump. Trump is struggling to overturn the result because he needs to fight each state individually because each state has its own election (which is run differently from other states). This makes it extremely difficult to rig and also means that the Supreme Court has no say because they are state issues, which Trump has struggled to comprehend. He tried to have it heard at the Supreme Court, however they took all of 34 minutes for them to deny a hearing (because it had nothing to do with them). Nobody doubts the results of the 2016 elections. In the same way, there is no credible doubt over the results of the 2020 elections.

Yes I do. Please tell me how you think I've got it wrong.

The idea of Rosman as a player is so interesting because he's big, extremely athletic but so raw. I think the comment by @Fat Tony is really telling because the scope of what he can be is much greater than most. However he does have a lot of different pathways to making it as an AFL player, especially given that he seems quite switched on. He may start being tried as a wingman, or forward, or as an intercepting defender .... or if none of that works out, as a hard running defensive tall. There are a lot of possibilities for a 6'5 running machine to make it as a footballer, regardless of the development of more conventional football skills (like kicking etc). He may become a great footballer, like premiership player Adam Goodes, or a fringe footballer, like premiership player Lewis Roberts-Thompson. Obviously Goodes is an all time HOF great and LRT was an honest toiler, the point is that they can both be part of premiership teams. It would be great to get vision of his practice game at the start of the year where he reportedly dominated. We saw the goals from it, which were all wingman/flanker style goals streaming past the play, but I'd love to see how he played aside from that.

Clinton didn't challenge the legitimacy of the vote. The FBI launched an investigation on separate issues related to the Trump campaign's dealings with Russia. These didn't affect the legitimacy of the election, there were about campaign related matters. The Democrats were upset with the dealings of Russia with the Trump campaign, but the results of the vote were accepted. Trump is doing something entirely different, where he is trying to overturn the results of the election. The US has 50 different states running 50 different electoral processes. This is really annoying, but it also makes it really hard to rig. In effect, you'd have to rig 50 very different elections, rather than just one. Trump is playing the theatre, knowing that he has lost, but trying to portray the image that he isn't a loser. I can see what's in it for Trump, but it's harder to see what's in it for the rest of the Republican Party.

The ESPN guy is Knightmare, who is a Collingwood supporter on BigFooty. He puts in a huge amount of work which is of value, but he isn't a professional recruiter. He's just rating teams against what what his ratings were, but his ratings are usually just the exposed, high production players rather than those that require a bit more development (or those who are less exposed). I wouldn't take the ratings too seriously, as nobody knows how well everyone went because everyone has different players they rate ..... just look at the AFL article about who recruiters rated as number 1 pick!

No. Well, I did some work there years ago, but effectively no.

Nobody ever said Spargo was quick.

Just a few of the NAB Youtube games. Nothing live. I guess we all need something to do during lockdown! ?

Runs like the wind, but is still very raw. Would have been interesting to see him with an extra year of footy but there's a lot to work with. But that speed/endurance combo is rare, especially so at 6'4-5.

I've been pretty strong on our poor balance up forward, especially regarding our lack of small forwards. Well now we have picked 3 players in the first round (including Kozzie) in the past 2 years of different types, that can address that need. Considering our smalls in the last round were Kozzie, Spargo and Hunt .... there's definitely significant scope for improvement. Plus they're two of the best users in the draft, so they have scope to play higher up the ground.

Very good player. Extremely clean and a great, quick decision maker. He's small but still tough and an excellent kick. Played wing, mostly, last year but could easily play as a small forward with his quickness and ability to create goals.

They sucked in the contest this year without Cunnington, who looks near the end.

North are going the Melbourne route for building from the inside the contest with Phillips and Powell. They needed to.