Rab D Nesbitt

Fair point '56. I just thought he worked so well with the Weid prior to his injury and is a good chop out for Max who still looks to be playing a little sore. Brown is a bit too beige for mine.

No Jacko. If we need to gain 50+ points on the Saints we better be hoping GWS make up the lions share of them as I can't see us doing it tbh.

Brutal. I thought Dom Tyson might've been on that list but I think he is still under contract and could be on half decent coin. How many will that be once you add required players that might want out ?

Hi DJ. Yeah, I think you might be right about that. I read somewhere that it's the other states that have closed their borders to Victoria and not us closing ours. With individual states having the whip hand we have to get our numbers down to a consistently low level for them to be opened to us again. I work in the travel industry and never understood why at the outset it wasn't made a requirement of travel by the federal government that all people boarding flights into Australia must be tested for covid and spend 14 days in hotel quarantine on arrival or be refused boarding at the point of departure. Every country has official entry requirements that all airlines must adhere to. I've dealt with plenty of people over the years that have been refused boarding because they have no proof of onward travel to a neighbouring country, don't have enough funds to cover the length of time they want to spend in a country without illegally working, don't have proof of the mandatory inoculations for a particular country etc. All airlines know that if they let that person fly and they are refused entry on arrival then the airline is fined around $10k and has to fly the person back again at their own expense. Therefore they take this very seriously. As all cases effectively originated overseas we'd have no virus carriers in the population and no need to contact trace anyone. I know that everything has to be seen through a political prism these days and making this happen would have seemed both expensive and overbearing on the public at the time and perhaps out of step with what other nations were doing but boy does it sound like great idea in hindsight.

Hi DD. I think people are also underestimating the length of time it will take to get the majority of not just Australia but the world in general inoculated against the virus. Your point about when we might see capacity crowds at the G may not be far off the mark but I hope you're wrong.

You make some good points there Pates. Whilst some of my own views take more of a socialist line (free health care & child care, public transport and utility companies to be publicly owned, no taxpayers monies to be given to private schools and religions to be taxes like any other business) I think there still needs to be a lot of scope for people to be creative and industrious as this is what makes many of us tick. From a football perspective it's a tough one to answer. The AFL own all of the club licences but the 18 clubs are the AFL. All with an equal stake in the game in a competition that's only as strong as it's weakest link. In the modern day only Hawthorn has been able to attain regular success in a competition designed to bring the best performing clubs back to the pack and give the poorer performers a leg up. Supporters can also be fickle and a year or two of poor on field performances can see fairweather supporters drop off quickly. Geelong being the exception where it's been mooted they earn $1 million per home game and have a local supporter base that far exceeds the capacity of the stadium. As for your double up point, yeah I'd happily accept meeting those five teams a second time. This year is really an outlier with the season having been turned on it's head so I wouldn't mind if the ladder placings were ignored for just this one time.

Thanks DD. You've saved me an email. So the discount for 2021 relates to standard members that have paid for the GF guarantee to be added to their season ticket ? It makes me wonder how many supporters collectively make up those four coterie groups. Not quite enough to fill our entire GF ticket allocation it seems.

Eddie McGuire made a good point (first time for everything) at the outset of all this when he said that we should just replicate what was supposed to be the original 22 game season for this year again in 2021. That way all the teams that were due to host marquee games can do so with fans (hopefully) in attendance. Yes it means we fly to Perth again for Round 1 but if the flip side is getting to host Richmond and Collingwood in our blockbusters then I think it's a price worth paying. I'll also get to reuse my Jetstar tickets to HBA for the final game of the season.

We must both be special. Regarding the people that have received two emails perhaps that's how we've raised close to the $1 million we need so quickly ?

That's interesting hardtack. I've no idea what proportion of the overall membership cost relates to that GF guarantee but will send them an email just to get some clarification on it. If anyone has the same membership as me (it includes away games played in Melbourne) without a GF guarantee and can let me know what they are paying then that should make it pretty clear.

Like everyone else a membership renewal notice landed in my inbox today. I only received the one email so it seems like the issues some of us are experiencing aren't across the board. I'm a trident member with an auto grand final guarantee and on auto renewal as well. They'll be taking something in the region of $71 per month from November which I think is the same as the current year. The only thing I'll be changing is from an electronic membership on my phone back to good old plastic.

Hi DJ. Having our three main draft picks become walk up starts in their first season is the big plus for me. Ed Langdon has been another so a big tick for the recruiters. Petracca coming of age and Viney reaping the benefits of an uninterrupted preseason have been pleasant surprises. Maysie has been immense and with him as our lynchpin in defence we now have the makings of a very stable back 6 or 7 in place. Bringing Burgess into the football department has been really beneficial as we've seen with the rehabilitation of Bennell and the good management of AvB. According to recent interviews he's also been attributed to psychological changes both on and off the field with Trac and May to name just two. One thing that disappoints is how in all the time it has taken us to get to this point a side like Brisbane have gone from a complete basket case to consistent premiership contenders and both the dogs and saints seem to have crept ahead of us, at least in the win / loss column. It's also a little soul destroying to see how Collingwood can have a finals position already sewn up despite having many of their key players missing for most of the season.

It's not a failed year if we don't make finals but we won't have met our objectives for the season should things not pan out for us this weekend. Considering we've had a dream run on the injury front compared to some I think we would all agree that 2020 will still have had some very disappointing aspects to it. Frustrating things that the football department seem to have been working on forever yet still haven't rectified.

Just let this week play out in bitesize chunks P2J. Forget about torturing yourself by watching tomorrow night and save that for Friday. Just check the scores the following morning like you would your lottery numbers. The odds of being pleasantly surprised will be similar. On Friday just will GWS to get over the line by hook or by crook. Cheer Toby Green if you find it necessary. Assuming the Giants come out on top then we have a window of time on Saturday where we are totally in control of our own destiny. Nothing that has happened in the preceding 17 weeks or in the following 48 hours will matter. We have one final opportunity to get the job done or go home. We get the chocolates but the numbers don't stack up ? We have one more go at the lottery.

If the Giants can beat St K by even a point then for the best part of 2 hours on Saturday afternoon our destiny is in our own hands as we'll know exactly how much we need to win by to overtake them and pilfer their finals berth. If that's 10 goals then so be it. We've done it 3 times this year already. If the Dogs win too then they can join us. If we fall short of what we need, be it by 1 point or 59, but still win our game then we're at least still in the mix until the Sunday evening. After losses to Sydney and Freo could we really have hoped for anything better going into round 18 ? No, I'm not expecting GC to do a number on Collingwood tomorrow night.

I think Clarko has just been visited by the ghost of Hawthorn yet to come.

Crows making a late charge for 17th place.

Grand Final day ? No. The closest I think is mine on the 18th.

My dad's birthday is on St Patrick's Day and his two brothers have theirs on St David's and St Andrew's Day. My brother beats them all though. He was born on 24 May 1972. The day Glasgow Rangers won the European Cup Winners Cup at the Nou Camp in Barcelona against Dynamo Moscow, 3-2. ❤️

Very much so Moonie. Or at the very least address the imbalance with something from the non fiction aisle.

It makes no less sense than having a day off for a horse race or a livestock meeting. If still having it this year means either a well earned holiday for those working in essential services or a higher hourly rate if they work then I’m not going to argue with it.

There’s a part of me that would prefer all of the games in the final round to be played at the same time, a la 1987.

OK peeps. Let's get this over with. I trust we're all sufficiently fortified enough to endure the next couple of hours. If not then you've only yourself to blame.

Likewise. It's been a depressing rainy day so this will be the cherry on the top no doubt.

Hi DD. Fraserburgh, or as we say in our local dialect, The Broch. Like a lot of small coastal towns it's seen better days but the beach is a cracker with a big sand dune the locals call Tiger Hill.