Mel Bourne

It’s the latter.

Hibberd has been a huge contributor and his AA inclusion was a proud moment for the club, but Lockhart is the future and must be played as often as possible. Hibberd is depth now, but quality depth indeed.

More referring to “dud”, “spud”, “poison”, “richard cranium” etc to (74 pages later) “finally an elite player! Yay for our new hero!” It’s a wild ride. I hope the “drugs r bad” people I was engaging with a few months back are a little more enlightened by the whole thing.

Understandable, sure. But if he ends up becoming on of our star players, then their justification is somewhat nullified. Anyway, what his success (and to get this far I'd call it a success of some notable degree) tells us is that there are people at the club who are way ahead of us when it comes to assessing a player's potential to make positive changes and put the work in. This is obviously a very good thing, and perhaps gives us a reason to put some trust in the people making the decisions next time a contentious player is flagged.

Wowsers. I accidentally opened up this thread on Page 1. Some verrrry interesting posts from some you folks!

I’ll freely admit that I’ve held much doubt and displeasure in the coach’s performance over the years. But I will also happily eat a slice of the most delicious humble pie on earth if he can take us all the way. As for calling Melbourne supporters “damaged goods” well....yeah.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of the supporter base has faith in the coach at this stage. The closest thing to praise he seems to receive these days is a respectful changing of topic.

Melksham and Lockhart are not VFL standard. And the name you've given yourself is wretched.

Yeah, when you factor the pandemic in with what’s happening in the States right now, the saying “dysentery happens” seems more fitting.

Perhaps I got the context wrong but I read it as “it’s important the club has ethics so that young woke hipsters will think it’s cool”. If I got that wrong, I humbly apologise.

It’s a bit of a bummer that you see something as admirable as the club parting ways with the gambling industry in this way. I’m guessing you’ve never really experienced the damage poker machines cause, up close.

Well you obviously rate it as a way to have fun, so maybe I’ll give it a crack.

A couple of things here... Being critical of capitalism doesn’t automatically make a person a lover of handouts, or a believer in any other kind of commie-centric ideals. Any economic system that has produced 1% of the world’s population controlling over half of the world’s wealth is not deserving of a big pat on the back. And it seems you’re suggesting I can’t be a supporter of a certain football team, while simultaneously having an issue with unchecked capitalism. I’m not sure I really need to say a anything about that, except that I don’t see it that way. I was merely addressing a certain poster’s attitude that morality shouldn’t affect bottom line, which even you must admit is a pretty prevalent and unfortunate tenet of modern-day capitalism (and one which depresses the [censored] out of me). It’s this particular attitude that has kids making your clothes and oceans full of plastic. I would rather be talking about football, but the nature of the topic we’re discussing here requires us to express certain beliefs that go beyond the game. I’m glad we don’t rely on gambling for profit. I have many reasons for this, which I think are valid. And I refuse to accept this line of argument that selling off the pokies (or other highly-questionable source of revenue) was poor management and direct threat to the club’s survival.

You don’t want to be bored by people? Don’t write [censored] like this.

Playing well and having integrity aren’t mutually exclusive concepts. If they were I’d have to re-evaluate my feelings for the game itself.

Powerful comment.

Since when did taking a genuinely moral stance on a serious public health issue get reduced to this term “virtue signalling”? If everybody adopted the attitude of “Well it won’t make a difference if I take a stand on this, everyone else will still do it”, we’d probably still be living in a feudalist society Virtue-signalling, if we must examine this Tucker Carlson/Andrew Bolt-esque term, is generally reserved for people who talk big and do little. Sacrificing a significant amount of revenue because you’ve decided to take a moral stance, should never be reduced to such a pithy buzz-term. And all the people here saying the club has shown some kind of libtard weakness by taking such a stand make me sick

Yes, you could. But those other vices you mention weren’t bringing revenue into the club. What’s your point?

Not sure if you were intending to summarise the decline of society during late-stage capitalism in one sentence, but well done.

The difference is in the two ways his name is being pronounced in that Ch 7 report. The caps are indicating the emphasis on which syllable. I’m going with benn-EL cos it’s sounds cooler.

So is it BEN-nell or ben-NELL? Or does nobody know?

Help me out here... Tim Watson says “ben-NELL”, whereas the reporter immediately calls him “BEN-nell”. Which one was correct?

Somewhere between 1861-1862.

Trying not to think of it actually.

The fact is our coach can’t even smile without making a mistake.