Mel Bourne

Let’s just say I prefer your phrasing.

Make it more obvious.

When are people on this forum going to finally understand that being able to attend games is a privilege, not a display of commitment? I would love nothing more than to be there today, but I will have to watch from home, for reasons I don’t owe anybody here an explanation. Stick your “shame” up your [censored].

Indeed. I try not to react to the millions of online opinions which like to simplify the world’s problems into an “us or them” scenario, but I think everybody needs to let go of the trope that drug abuse is essentially a bit of a “lefty-hippie” thing. When an otherwise affluent city is allowing the kind of degradation the initial poster took issue with, the culprit is almost always the corporatisation of essential services - aka the outsourcing of conscience. Sadly, something both “sides” of politics embrace wholeheartedly.

Sure, it’s the “liberalism” that’s destroying the city. Perhaps we should embrace conservatism and become more like Baton Rouge, Louisiana or Tampa Bay, Florida. As for “liberalism” equaling drug abuse, the highest drug use in the USA is in Nebraska, a conservative state.

My blue-bagger mates are very confident. I’m also noticing a few neutrals making the call that the Blues will be the come-out-of-nowhere premiers this year. We need to put a hush to this malarkey.

He’s a great player, but not sure how much I can “like” somebody who bashed the hell out of someone because he was refused service at a nightclub. As for a tough background, I dunno, private school boy who grew up in Ashburton. Not exactly from the dark side of the tracks

https://youtu.be/Z0Q3E2F65vM Five minutes is all you need for a quality game analysis.

Anyone genuinely angry at Sparrow for “causing” this injury is as sharp as a beanbag.

I think I’d rather the club’s doctors come up with the definitive info.

It’s a blow, but to all the wrist-slitters might I gently remind you that we beat Collingwood with not only Oliver out of the team, but Petty as well.

That’s a decaf.

Agreed. Any argument that resting players might mess with form is somewhat negated by the existence of an interchange bench. In any given match a team has to perform with several combinations of players on the ground. Resting players such as Gawn or Viney (or whoever could physically benefit from it) provides the team with the opportunity to sharpen their form when those players are ordinarily on the bench in a “normal” game.

Gawn Petty Viney Melksham ANB Rivers Could have happily given votes to Lever, Pickett, Brayshaw, JVR and Pickett too.

Great time for Kayo to siht itself. I hate this frigging app!!

No “might” about it. Very serious charges, and previous form. Have there been any other examples of someone playing who’s out on bail?

Yeah, fair enough. I’m just thinking how odd these matches would seem in hindsight, should it go south. I can’t recall another example of an AFL player taking the field under such circumstances, but maybe it’s not unique.

Still a bit unclear on why Marlion Pickett is allowed to play matches right now. Will be very strange if he’s found guilty.

Activate the sub, and get Harmes off and on a one-way bus to Casey.

Cripes. So many upsets this round. I don’t want any upsets tomorrow. I want a……downset?

This kind of loss can rattle a “premiership contender” to the core when it’s this close to finals.

Sadly, not the state of merely sports-journalism. I’m a big supporter of the ABC, despite it being such a grind watching their increasingly-amateurish journalists struggle. The Age used to be a tolerable read, but that was a while back. Internationally, it’s a complete mess as journalism suffers under the powers of mass consumption paired with minimal financial input (as has happened in my industry-music). While genuine journalists are asking themselves some big questions about the tenability of their vocations, they are being replaced by people who just want to partake in some vague version of “entertainment”. But I always struggle when trying to recall any sports-related interview that gave me something resembling genuine insight, and wasn’t just guarded, predictable musings from the same old script. I think we need to exhume Jack Dyer and Lou Richards and get the coaches answering some of the real questions.

Look, I love Bowie. He’s been an inarguable legend and made a lot of his supporters very happy over the years. But he is very prone to massive dips in form. In fact it’s fair to say that the thirty years between “Absolute Beginners” and “Blackstar” were, from both an artistic and AFL perspective, a real walk through the desert.

Have been entertaining visiting relatives all weekend, and have not had a chance to watch this game. They’ve just left (I had to be consciously-aware not to actually push them out the door) and I am about to settle in and finally feast on two delectable hours of AFL.

I promise I won’t start hammering you about the quality of your AD converters.