demosaw

Yes also development pathways.

Think he’s got to worry about Bobbitt’s razor

AFL footy operations - culture specialist?

Good to see Rick in footy boots and noted that Goodie looked as dressed up as if he had just come from a wedding….

More people than slitheras today and no reports 🤷‍♀️

Crickey! They wouldn’t have a coach and would have to forfeit or play a few short.

Yes we have one and he is the 2nd great love of my wife’s life.

They don’t shed fur, they shed chaos!

I hate it when that happens

You can water a gift horse but you can’t reuse the wrapping.

You can lead a gift horse to water but you can’t return it.

Yes he has loads of talent. We’ll find out whether he has everything else he needs to be elite over a long period. I hope so and wish him every success. His mentor Shane Watson thinks he is every chance of making it. Ponting at 19 was pretty cocky too from memory. Turned out OK 👌.

If he met the height requirement he’d be overqualified!

He wants to be called ‘Hoodie’ from now on

Once there was this position called the wing. Wingmen don't exist any more, having been merged into the collective we call the midfield. Back in the days of wingmen, the game was slower and there was more space on both sides of the ground. Often, there would be no one else in the contest but the two wingmen, which meant their "duels", as they were called, were highly visible. Wingmen had to have all the skills: they had to be swift, they had to win the ball on the ground and fly for marks. The best wingmen were a pure expression of what was best in the game. Robert Flower played with a bravery at odds with his slight build. Mick Malthouse said last year that Dougie Hawkins was the most talented player he ever coached. Dougie played on the wing for the Dogs. Dancing Dougie Hawkins, as they called him, was a knockabout bloke with the common touch and the outer side of the Western Oval - a gravel standing area with a tin roof - became known as the Doug Hawkins Stand. Dougie grew up admiring another wingman, North Melbourne dual Brownlow medallist Keith Greig. Greig played with an impassive face but the rhythms of his game were fluid and elegant. Another great wingman was West Coast's Peter Matera – he had grace, searing speed and a booming kick that was accurate over 60 metres. These are some of the game's great stylists and Melbourne wingman Robert Flower, who died last week aged 59, was their peer. Advertisement Flower was skinny, wore glasses and looked like a laboratory assistant. But on a football field he had superb balance and an awareness that was repeatedly shown to be superior to that of his opponents. He played with a bravery that was at odds with his slight build and regularly outmarked bigger opponents. When Ron Barassi returned to Melbourne as coach and sought to alter Flower's game by playing him in defence, the Melbourne members nearly rioted. In 1986, I went to see Melbourne play with singer-songwriter Paul Kelly, a Melbourne fan prior to Adelaide (his home town) entering the AFL. Something happened right in front of us involving Flower that startled him and he wrote a lovely article about it. Here it is in part: "Robbie Flower has always appeared to be playing in slow motion. He does this by slowing down time. He makes the players around him look even slower. This is his magic. Everything he does is seen so clearly because he gives you time to see it. He slows down the whole world. "But today something has gone wrong, terribly wrong with the magic. Sure, Flower has slowed himself down, hovering like a dragonfly in the sunshine, but the rest of the world is still hurtling at the same speed. Two North Melbourne players catch him, one from the side, one from the front, as Flower, suddenly human, tries to handpass at the last minute. Down he goes in a heap, collared, dumped, the humiliation total: the umpire's decision – holding the ball. "Now every champion player gets clobbered at one time or another. They are often subject to close checking and any player can be at the wrong end of a hospital handpass. But I had never seen Flower start in the clear and end in a tangle. Usually it was the reverse – conjured from the pack into space and the ball unerringly delivered to a red and blue jumper further downfield ..." Advertisement But, in one respect, Flower was even greater than his peers because for a time Flower was the reason for his whole club to exist. People went to watch Robbie play. He was the silver lining, the hope, the pride. Yet, by all accounts, around the club, he was just another person. When Melbourne's long-time doorman Arthur Wilkinson had a period when he couldn't drive, it was Flower, the Melbourne captain, who picked him up each night before training and took him home. We are now in the era of free agency, which is going to lead to the competition dividing into first-world clubs and third-world clubs. To the players utilising free-agency rules, I'd like to say there is something you'll never know. You'll never know the feeling people have for Robbie Flower. You're a professional sportsman and you'll be cheered for winning performances and, if you're lucky, you'll get professional satisfaction from your efforts. But you'll never receive the gratitude and respect, the depth of feeling, that's going to be at the MCG on Monday at 2pm when people gather for Robbie Flower. GALLERY Remembering legendary AFL player Robert Flower Ironically, Paul Kelly's 1986 piece about Flower was ultimately an intimation of mortality. It concluded: "Flower did many good things that day, directing traffic along his wing in statesmanlike fashion. But somewhere up in the stands, a man thought of time and death and diminishing age and on the fence two young boys in red and blue scarves and beanies were cheering younger, fresher-faced heroes." Paul Kelly is singing How To Make Gravy, Robbie Flower's favourite of his songs, at Monday's memorial service at the MCG