Mel Bourne

Regardless of whether it’s a good idea or not, this ain’t the week to do it.

Since you’re covering some proper depth in this list, do you think Lockhart will come through this year?

Fine line between being passionate and being a turkey. And yeah, you see people cross that line often at games.

Saying things like “diluting trade value” is horribly disrespectful. Why should somebody play well for the team you support if that’s all you’re going to reduce their contribution to on an off day?

Not a pretty win, but I’ll take it. Some really rubbish posting going on in the match day thread. Some folks need to put their phones away during the game and have their meltdowns in private.

Oh do cram it.

I can’t really see him worrying about the wording. Surely this possibility would have been flagged to him. It’s understood he needs the rest more than Melksham does. And Melksham needs to lift!

Yeah I think he’d be less upset about having a rest than a lot of the posters here.

This “Melb” you speak of doesn’t exist anymore.

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.