Smokey

Thanks ET - my exhausted brain was unable to complete the list

1. Had my first child 2. 3.

It makes sense to me. Whilst I enjoy Jack Viney's leadership on the track, I think he is pretty average in front of a camera. And by pretty average I actually mean quite poor. With all due respect, he doesn't have the tools to be able to reflect on questions and answer them meaningfully without repeating the same old cliches like a broken record. Tmac on the other hand is extremely well spoken, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him follow the post-career media personality route as many before him in recent history. Re: him not being leadership group, I think it would have come down to him or Nev. Both were excellent and deserving options.

I love his media appearances. Unlike other Melbourne players, he doesn't start every sentence with the word "obviously" which pleases me.

Racist behavior should always be called out, with perpetrators named and shamed. The problem with this of course is that in calling it out in this fashion, you are giving the people responsible for the comments exactly what they want - a reaction and exposure. Psychologists have long established that so called "trolls" seek exactly this. And in reality, media outlets jumping on anonymous comments like this almost glorifies the action and encourages others who may be inclined to behave in this way to do so. I've long been an advocate for the diminishing of any rights to be anonymous on social media platforms, and this is one of the reasons. Given how entrenched the internet is in our daily lives now, I see a lot of value in persuading the giant social media platforms to enforce policies of positive identification for the creation and use of social media accounts. People will inherently be less likely to behave in this way if there was no mechanism to remain anonymous, and could be held to account for hateful speech like they would outside of social media. Some of the numbers around youth mental health issues directly correlated to online bullying is nothing short of heartbreaking, and frankly an issue no generation has had to face until now. Social media anonymity should not be a basic human right, therefore should be treated as any other privilege is in that it is subject to checks and balances that prevent human beings from intentionally harming others. We are living in unprecedented times and a more proactive approach in terms of legislation is required in these areas, or we will continue to provide the soap box of a lifetime for people who want nothing more than to get a reaction out of people. As a cyber security professional (architecture) you could argue my opinion here is biased, and perhaps it is, and I appreciate the logistics of what I am suggesting is incredibly complicated and difficult on many levels. I only suggest that we start to open the doors to these discussions around long term strategies that deal with these new ages problems, because things like the increase in youth suicide rates directly attributable to social media anxieties won't go away on their own. Feel free to pick apart my opinion, I enjoy the discussion this normally generates.

Sorry but I think you are way off the mark here. Harmes has displayed far more than the two you mentioned combined. The scalps he claimed last year speak for themselves, and when combined with his average possessions and score contributions its hard to argue that he is an unproven commodity.

I really hope May lines up on Hogan this year and the many months of arguments on DL are put to the test

Are you suggesting a statement cannot be arrogant because it is a "genuine personal opinion"? What planet am I on today lol

And I think you mean pastime ... how awkward Feel free to read my comments more carefully. I think you'll find our opinion on UFC and eSports are actually the same. (spoiler alert, I don't like them either). I just don't see the need to cast other peoples interest's as irrelevant because I'm not interested in them. Live and let live is the moral I guess.

please elaborate my point stands. just because you don't understand the appeal of something, doesn't make it a "silly past-time". its actually quite hilarious watching you older blokes band together like this and aggressively defend your opinions on things you clearly don't understand, or even care to understand on any level.

nor does a single persons opinion in most cases

I'm not a fan of either of them actually, but I'm also not arrogant enough to assume that something isn't worthwhile simply because I don't like it.

Multi-billion dollar global empires in UFC and eSports are silly past times? What cave did you just emerge from after a 25 year nap?

I see what you are saying, but don't think it takes a "super human" to be taught to block out distractions and focus on playing your role for the team. In fact if a player can't be trusted to do that simple task, maybe we'd be better off not having them on the list, no matter how talented they are. Pretty sure Goody has weeded out the individuals that fit this profile now (YOU READY, @nocontractrenewal)

The game has grown quite a bit since the 90's man. Players weren't expected to be anywhere near the level of professionalism as they are today. Footy ain't a part time job anymore, and players are now coached accordingly. Training isn't just physical anymore, players also have their minds trained. This is why I find it hard to believe that a professional footy player these days would take any cues whatsoever from myself or any other fellow fan of the club. In fact that just sounds downright insane to me. With all due respect, I think your MFCSS is so deeply ingrained that this feeling of expectation from the team simply doesn't compute with you, and your mind is desperately looking for ways to prove to yourself that this will all come undone and we will soon return to mediocrity (which you may strangely feel more comfortable with). Clutching at straws would be a huge understatement here if your honestly trying to convince me that my arrogance could start a chain reaction that would see the Melbourne footy club back on its knee's.

I get it. My point remains - if players are seen to be becoming comfortable with our position and "believing the hype", then I have an issue. Fans sharing their opinions on DL has no bearing on how the team will perform, therefore it's not up to you to tell people what they should and shouldn't think. Have your opinion (which you obviously feel strongly about), but allow to others to have theirs. I choose to be arrogant and I'm enjoying every minute of it!

And please accept my apologies for the over-the-top sanctimonious speech I agree with this, and would be concerned if I saw any indication that the players were showing signs of arrogance. The original comment in question was around ET saying he thinks we'll win by 10 or so goals. How have you decided this is "arrogance" and what metrics are in play here? Are we not being a little sensitive here?

Wattsy may also require surgery to a damaged septum. More to follow.

Yes. Comments on an internet fan forum have a direct correlation to how the team will perform. The players probably look to DL to gauge how confident they should be and we therefore have a great responsibility of ensuring we never get excited or portray any sort of confidence whatsoever in the boys. Thanks for handing us a round 1 loss with your irresponsible comments @Ethan Tremblay. Calm down and stop trying to be everyone's dad Sydee, we are allowed to be excited and expect greatness this year. Enjoy the ride, or at the very least, allow others to be excited if you insist on being a wet blanket.

if you are actually offended by this, you live an utterly depressing life and I feel sorry for you.

Rational me: Perhaps they should, but these are young men and whatever outlet they choose in their small amount of time off of an incredibly difficult job should not be dictated to them. Most of the time we would hope that common sense prevails. Me after learning Clayton Oliver hurts himself badly water skiing in December: Keep them in cages during the off season

"The subtle art of not giving a f#$k" by Mark Manson. Brilliant read so far, highly recommend

Any action that removes even the smallest amount of autonomy from the clubs is a bad move IMO. Let them focus on ruining the game by changing multiple rules each year without sufficient analysis. I think the problem with the AFL, and even society in general, is that they constantly feel the need to legislate against perceived problems. I'm reading an interesting book at the moment which suggests that the solution to any problem only causes new problems. In this case, lets say we enforce these clauses in all contracts. Great, now players are legally obligated to not partake in dangerous activities. Now here are the new problems - how is this stuff enforced, proactively or reactivity and how much time and effort will need to be allocated for that? What are the outcomes for a player caught wake boarding in December? Who does the initial assessments of what a dangerous activity is? What happens when players are found to be getting injured doing activities that weren't deemed dangerous? (duty of care now comes into it). I dunno, that seems like a lot of effort and resources simply because a handful of players have accidents over the off season. At some point everyone should accept that you can't prevent everything, bad things happen to people with good intentions and that life is full of problems that don't necessarily need to be addressed with more legalese.

The problem is, the term "dangerous activities" is completely subjective. Riding a motorcycle for an inexperienced rider is quite dangerous. But someone who has been riding motorbikes for their entire life? Not so much. If we proceeded with something like this, we then have the potential danger of entering the territory of being a "nanny" football club. Some players may take issue with that, which then has the unintended outcome of damaging the culture at the club. So then the question must be asked, whats more risky - allowing players to, for example, ride motorbikes if they so wish, or exposing the team to cultural issues that may arise from telling grown men what they can and can't do in their spare time? I have no answer for this.

And here come the armchair high performance managers to tell us that Petracca needs to lose weight.