Smokey

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.

@Rodney (Balls) Grinter I will say this though - Omacs form early in the season can be attributed to jake lever covering the space omacs man was leading to. I thought omac got more exposed with lever gone and that’s where my original came comment came from. Hibbo and nev are wonderful but they can’t do it all. Other than that we’re basically singing from the same sheet of music I think.

I tend to agree with a lot of this actually. Especially re: nev and hibbo.

I think saying "most teams would be jealous of our back line without lever or may" is a bit of a stretch when Omac and Frost are the two tall's. Talk about rose colored glasses lol ... Frost only learned how to hit a target in his last few games last year. And while Omac is serviceable, to say he is enviable is borderline insanity. Agree we are in a good position now and that competition for spots will indeed be fierce. Also baffles me that some here think the answer to a struggling back line last year was to remove our leading and most accurate goal kicker from the forward line.

The fact we made the prelim without him for most of the year is quite remarkable really. I hope he isn't being rushed back. Get that knee right Jakey, we need you in September.

I live rural near Bungendore in NSW and am forced to use satellite based NBN services. For the most part, it holds its own and only sometimes do I experience temporary drops in picture quality. I normally watch sport on my big iPad, so I can't speak to the quality of accessing the service over my connection via a browser.

Leverage can be a powerful force. The wrong angle and even the slightest of acute pressure can end in many ways.

Have been giving kayo a whirl for the past few weeks watching NCAA football. Foxtel has now been cancelled permanently. Highly recommend this service, it's simply incredible.

And just like that, Hawthorn miss the 8 in 2019.

Chris Tuckers' character in the movie "Friday"

Please, no click bait here. There’s enough of it on the internet, DL Is my sanctuary

Wow no Kent? That goal made me cry

How on earth do they have jones on the ball ahead of Brayshaw or Harmes? Meaningless list I know, but seriously?

Let your hair down and live a little norm!

Excellent contribution PD lol