Rab D Nesbitt

Northorn. I like it. I especially like that the president of one of those sides wants teams that can't pay their way relegated to a lower tier of the game. That same team may finish 17th and receive zero income from the Tasmanian government this year. Imagine it though. At the Camberwell Town Hall you'd have the sight of Don Scott tearing a velcro skid mark and wee stain from a North Melbourne guernsey.

I'd have no problems with this as long as we don't get stiffed on where and how often we have to travel interstate again. Perhaps an interim move towards a 34 game home and away season where everyone plays each other twice. Brisbane and GC should get no home games to help even things up from this year. Hawthorn & North could have so many games down in Tasmania that they may as well move down there permanently.

Best bet is for the dogs to lose one and we win both. That should see us earn a flight across the Nullarbor for a date with WC.

True. Far better he sign with an underperforming nonentity that would treat his return like the second coming of christ.

The only synergy between him and Collingwood is the regularity that both manage to create headlines off the field. I think he would crumble under the expectations of the magpie army.

Hi there Pates. Yeah. Definitely not a fan of the more is better argument. I guess my post was about the juxtaposition (and frustration) of following a mediocre team within a competition that actively rewards mediocrity. At the end of the day someone mediocre will finish in 8th place. What makes another mediocre side more worthy of that place than us and who gets to decide that ? I remember being fascinated by the concept of a finals knockout system at the end of a home and away season when I first moved over here. Elimination finals, qualifying finals, preliminary finals baffled me at first. Surely if you finish top then you win! I then came to really embrace how unique the final five system was to what is a unique game. Then we entered an era where everyone has to be seen as a winner and five expanded to six and now eight which appears to have more to do with eliminating dead rubbers at the bottom end of the ladder (and money) at the expense of some integrity at the top end.

The whole debate about whether we deserve to play finals is a bit of a moot point because by having a final 8 the AFL are rewarding mediocrity. By finishing 8th we will have proven to be the best infuriatingly mediocre team over a 17 game season and therefore worthy of a place in the current finals system.

What odds the crows overtaking us in a 22 game season.

Now that the AFL have caved in to West Coast's plea for the Thursday night game hope they don't get a home final. Unless it's against Collingwood of course.

I'll be making the most of my 3 month Kayo trial and watching the NFL which commences this weekend. Go Packers!

Well that's another 2 hours I'll never get back.

I feel like I’m watching a 2nd division VFA game. Our season looks to be over.

We can debate whether or not we'd just be making up the numbers this year but our club should be one that can at least be trusted to play finals every year. There is only one way to gain experience as a finals side and that is to play in finals. I really hope our guys leave nothing out on the ground in these last three games to make it possible.

My concern about tonight is that we're now rotating guys that wouldn't be automatic selections through the side at a time when we can't afford to drop points anymore. It would have been nice to have a little buffer before landing ourselves in this position but I guess that's just not the Melbourne way. If nothing else I'm sure the media team will be able to put together a great documentary on how season 2020 unfolded. To Hell in a Handbasket ?

I'm no tactical genius and I've found that the Game plans, tactics and all that jazz thread on DL to be far more informative than anything I've heard from any tv pundit this season. I wish we had someone with Steven May's presence and drive to win on each line of our team to help drive standards on game day.

As a lot of the side seem to average one good game in every four perhaps we could get Burgo to work out a system that can calculate when each would be at their most, ahem...'fertile'. It beats throwing darts blindfolded.

James Brayshaw is excruciating to listen to and by far the worst of all the current day parodies of Rex Hunt we have to suffer.

One positive is that he didn't say learnings.

So disappointing again. You could tell we weren't playing with the same intensity as Sydney from the outset and when the penny finally dropped in the last quarter we couldn't convert. Some terrible decision making forward of centre with the wind didn't help.

This is pathetic. We’re making this lot look like the Harlem Globetrotters.

I'd have thought all of the chat down Lakeside Drive these days would relate to whether South Melbourne Hellas might ever be given a licence to enter an expanded A League. It's all greek to me though.

I watched that thinking geez we had some serious talent in our side back then. Then I saw Simon Eishold at the end. I was behind the goals at the outer end and it felt like the last 5 minutes of that game was played in that forward pocket, right next to the point post. That was a season where we won a lot of close ones I think. The running joke was that we never felt comfortable as supporters until there was less than a kick in it. I used to love going to all of the away suburban grounds but gee Moorabbin was an absolute pig sty of a place.

Hey McQ. I was kinda hoping yourself, ET or Pennant St would give me an insight into what things look like from behind enemy lines so to speak. I can understand the mindset up to a point but it's all a bit self defeating if it all it does is make us scratch our heads and shrug.

Yup, agree with all of that LH. It would have been a visiting team's nightmare if they came up against the coasters but that's beside the point.

Perhaps it's viewed differently from across the Nullarbor but to us it's always seemed that WA and SA have a hatred for Victoria that knows no boundaries. Certainly on a sporting front. This might have been justified in the time when the VFL poached all of the best talent from the WAFL and SANFL but those days are long gone. Where we've always viewed it with indifference we still see it play out over there with the incessant booing of the opposition on a match day (particularly in Perth) and the tense and intimidating atmosphere experienced by visiting fans in both cities. For me the reaction by Victorian football fans to the announcement that the GF won't be at Optus Stadium is perhaps just giving them a little return serve. Mark McGowan quite rightly has put his citizens ahead of football in his job as premier which as it happens has played out well on both fronts. I think his media skills do need a bit of a polish though and on the evidence so far I think he would have enjoyed putting in the knife and turning it should they have been successful in getting the GF. A once in a lifetime opportunity to kick a Vic that would that have gone down well with his constituents. That all said I still think they would have got their prize if they could have guaranteed a 60,000 sellout.