Mel Bourne

Last year a friend from England was staying at our house. I had 360 on the TV, and after a few minutes she asked me in all sincerity if “the gentleman on the show was part of an inclusiveness policy”.

I mean, it’s not like there’s a stipulation to post only verified information here.

He will be if we win the flag.

Don’t underestimate what our new coaches are capable of. Seeing so many players such as Hunt, ANB, Salem, Spargo, Tmac and Tomlinson lift the way they have this year, should tell you that Harmes is not to be written off. And if he doesn’t lift? Well he doesn’t get a game. This is another thrilling aspect to this season; that players are fighting harder than ever to earn their spots.

I really don’t get the negative vibes towards Spargo.

A bigger problem is that a lot of people who wouldn’t fairly be described as stupid often fall prey to this too.

One has to be pretty vigilant taking in news these days, unfortunately. The term “false-flagging” refers to media organisations concocting outrage that centres around supposed “debates” that in actuality, really aren’t occurring in any real sense. Recently Ch 9 ran a story about how the Golden Gaytime was being targeted for a re-naming by the LBGTQ community. Turns out it was just somebody who started a petition and managed to get a few hundred idiots to sign it, but that didn’t stop Ch 9 hyping it to the point that it’s Facebook page was full of furious and, worst of all, hateful language from it’s viewers/readers towards a community that never even picked the fight in the first place. In reality , the overwhelming majority of the gay community are either genuinely uninterested in the issue (there are bigger societal issues they face than this) or wholeheartedly embrace the name. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. These media companies know this, but rather than searching out genuine issues with that difficult, draining and meddlesome stuff called “journalism”, many have discovered it’s just so much easy to create the wheel AND the grease out of thin air. It gets people interested in their crappy product just as effectively as any journalism could, at a quarter of the price. The downside? A society being further divided by skewed impressions of the world they live in. So next time you see an article saying “they bloody want to change the name of Smarties because it’s not inclusive of stupid people” ask yourself “Is this real?” The answer is invariably “no” or “not really”. And sure there are occasionally very worthy examples where a call for social change is very loud and absolutely warranted, but it’s important to know how to differentiate and not conflate these things. The narrative that so much of our media pushes of “outraged, whingy, lefty snowflakes” is a dangerous one, because it’s purpose is to dilute other more crucial progressive thought. Anyway, sorry for the essay. Got on a roll. I’m of to Perisher Smiggins for a cognac.

Have also noticed that the AFL app gives us nothing but crumbs in terms of news coverage. Though Cornes did just utter (along with Mitch Clearly) that Petracca could likely win a Brownlow AND a Norm Smith this year. Not exactly faint praise.

Had a chat with an Uber driver who did crowd security at the MCG for over 20 years. Very illuminating. Worst fans were Richmond, followed by the Kangaroos. Richmond were so bad that extra security were hired for their bigger matches. Very difficult thing for a club to directly address though. Can’t exactly say “Hey we’ve heard our supporters are total [censored]. Can we do something about this?”

As much as I’d like to agree with this, Maxy isn’t afraid of a chat with the umpires from time to time.

In my defence, I did point out the “drunk” bit. Some of us are having a Friday night, Teach.

I might be looking at the diagram a little bit drunk, but wrapt to see Mark Jackson back in the team. Oi!

He’s done nothing to get dropped. There’s just an unfortunate reluctance around these parts to get on the Spargo train. I for one boarded a while back. I can see him becoming our Caleb Daniel (who at 24, has three years on our Charlie).

Yep, any talk along the lines that Richmond are not a threat is quite ridiculous.

If Fritsch does get named, steel yourselves for some horrible vision of Grimes punching at his hand off the play, all night.

He was a standout under-performing player in the team last week. There would be no discussion of that nature this week, if that weren’t the case.

Let me preface this by saying I have a depressive-personality disorder and am currently trying to wean myself off one type of medication to swap to another, so maybe shouldn’t be on Internet forums lol... It’s possibly down to some deficiency, or perhaps ascribed to just a different way of seeing things, but I’ve never found myself particularly moved by individual milestones in AFL. Further to this, have always viewed the particular importance humans attach to having a zero or two at the end of an amount or age as somewhat overstated. It’s not how we measure the actual worth of a life or career, so why the hullabaloo? Every year we live (and every game they play) is just as important as the last - basically it’s just a number. And in a team sport, the importance of an individual’s effort to keep themselves on the oval for x amount of years is, though highly commendable, nothing to get into a lather over (I’m unable to anyway) I’d be far more excited about a win over the Tigers without NJ in the team, than a loss with him in it. But sure, both would be particularly nice. I’m sure plenty of folks here will think I’m a bit crazy or miserable for saying such a thing. The first paragraph was merely to let you know that indeed I officially am, yuk yuk yuk. Anyway back to the couch... Ps. I also found it pretty odd that Goodwin effectively named him in next weekend’s squad straight after the match. Is there not a selection process to follow?

To the people who are suggesting we blood Ben Brown in one of our biggest games of the season: did you actually watch him play the other day? He is clearly not ready for a game like this. If we’re going to go for a sentimentalist approach by including Jonesy in our starting 22 this week, could we please not take any other needless chances?

I keep seeing this suggestion and cannot understand it. The best wing players have pace. Tom MacDonald does not.

Yeah I don’t think too many people actually watched him play. It was a great first game back in the 2nds. But he needs at least one more.

Really don’t think our wingmen need replacing.

Don’t think it’s fair to label Jones as “cooked”. But next week is huge and we need our best 22, and on today’s performance I’m not so sure he’s in that team.

Yeah, there’s this other ruckman who’s actually better than McEvoy....

Isn’t it more a dearth of dedicated forwards, rather than like-for-like physicality? Indeed, Melksham will have to step up (and it’s a big step) to fill the more nimble-forward role. But who steps in for Melksham to play the...whatever role he played last week.

Drag. Who comes in for him? Mitch Brown?