Skuit

This a great sponsorship pick-up but everything just got super-seedy. We just ditched gaming. This one feels way off. I won't bag the product, but in a high-performance sports arena? Seriously?: “Across a number of my previous clubs, we used Red Bull as part of our match day and high-performance programs,” Burgess said. “I believe Red Bull can provide our players with the ability to sustain energy throughout both training and, crucially, matches. “It’s a product I trust and when coming to the Dees, I wanted to introduce as part our program mix.”

Tarax Club is our NT correspondent from memory. If you're reading this @Tarax Club, I'm currently stuck in Darwin if you know of somewhere the locals Dees' supporters go to watch? I doubt there's many more than 100 of us rusted-on up here - so should be within recommendations.

Good thinking Demonland. Exclude the older folk who can't operate those fandangled new telephones and internet machine very well and rejuvenate our membership base.

Just to be clear - I'm borderline millennial and can't stand 20-20. I would also love to see epic six hour footy games.

Those bloody millennials again, ruining everything.

Eh? Is there some two balls per customer limit that I'm not aware of?

Scratch that. I refreshed the Google ladder and it seems to be randomised. Melbourne just moved up to 10th! Maybe this is how we can follow the footy this year if it's cancelled - just google the ladder every Sunday night until the last weekend in September.

I have this horrible feeling Richmond will tonk Carlton and then the whole thing will get called off - with Richmond forever sitting atop of the 2020 AFL ladder with a % of 300. A current google ladder search has us sitting second to bottom for some reason, with Port on top (maybe because they get to play Gold Coast in the first round and Google have done some sort of AI modelling?)

Whatever the heart says, winning the *premiership puts us in good stead to follow up with an asterisk-free cup when normal transmission resumes (or if it doesn't, then we will be defending champions forever, or at least to the end of the world). However compromised, the confidence boost of a flag would be invaluable for our young guns. If Richmond win it however, it will forever be meaningless in my mind, just like their two recent premierships in an era of crappy football.

So I understand the justification of playing shortened quarters to support a possibly condensed schedule. But that's so the AFL can squeeze in as many games as possible to partly cover the broadcast deal, right? But then they're shortened broadcasts anyway . . . Surely the contract is x number of games at x length? I guess by having a greater number of games, peripheral content opportunities are increased?

With the women's team having evidently contracted the Norm Smith Curse, I was fully expecting the original six-team finals system would be cut back to four - right on cue after we'd just given up second spot. So the eight-team announcement came as a surprise. Then it became clear as day: we will lose to one of the fourth-placed teams in the grand final. MFCFFS

I was factoring for future pandemics and a misspent youth.

Hey Demonland, If you flick me an international membership I'll unlikely ever opt out in the future. (Pretty sure I'm still set up for automatic deductions to Blockbuster). I've probably got a good 30 years of MFC watching misery ahead of me, so it could triple your investment in one shot.

A similar thought crossed my mind re. some sort of conference system - now would be the perfect time to roll out any such sinister intentions, as it would certainly help with inter-club containment. Let Adelaide and Port bash each other silly for the next six weeks in an endless series of derbies, and if one of those teams falls foul we can all maybe watch West Coast and Freo keep going at it.

Can we pass the hat around to ensure we can keep Darren Burgess on the books in the event of a season-long stand-down?

I've realised now one of the really valuable aspects of an internet forum founded on the basis of mutual random support for a football team is that it exposes one to the world outside of their normal social circles and media echo chambers. Scary stuff.

Served cold as per common or do you have something novel in mind SWYL?

What a mess - similar to above was my first thought also. Basically just a supplemental top up system where clubs can freely sign replacements for retirees etc. Draft pool has to wait a year or enter the state leagues. Throw in even more academy and father-son prospects in 2021 and it's going to be chaos. Have no idea what would happen with trading this year. Free agency will a hot ticket.

Cheers Lord.

We've yet to experience a scenario where Clarry is absent from the team-sheets, and it may be that we underestimate his importance. Yeah - heaps of inside mids, but that's precisely why he's important - we play a contested style of footy and Clarry is a congestion-breaker. He may not have missed through injury, but I know what it's like watching Melbourne when he's having a flat patch on field - and also when he fires up. Here's a convoluted stat: Across twelve occasions, we've only lost two games of footy by greater than a goal when Clarry has achieved double-digit clearances. Jack Viney has achieved the double-digit clearance feat on six occasions for two wins and four losses. One of those was the West Coast prelim - where JV racked 11 and Clarry managed his equal lowest (post-2016) tally of 3. We've never won a match when Clarry has had only three clearances (not the case with JV).

Is there any way I can watch a replay of last week's match against Hawthorn?

I think you will probably have have to pivot to the mitigation phase now on this one above any containment efforts.

Spoke to my Italian sister-in-law last night (from Napoli no less) - quizzing her and joking about the concept of keeping a country of Italians indoors. She said everyone is actually being super-well behaved, as a matter of proud nationalism.

No worries LH - I think we will continue to have a difference of opinion. But I would agree that young Clarry has matured a great deal since joining the club. I still struggle to understand what he's saying though.

I've decided, after very little consideration, that I'm probably on board with some of the more demented contributors on this site. The deaths from corona should restrictions be eased will be less impactful I believe on the balance than the pain and misery brought about by the economic hit to the majority of the world's poorer citizens (and please note, I'm an old-fashioned leftist who has long desired the dismantling of our present economic model). It will be impossible to quantify, but I'd venture so far as to suggest that a greater number of people will die due to the measures currently being put in place. Anyone who has spent a decent amount of time in third world or developing countries should be able to see this fairly clearly. I lived a long while in Cambodia, and know that if those who scratch together a meager living selling coconuts to tourists or what-not lose their income, they will return to having absolutely nothing. They can barely afford anything resembling medical care as it is - let alone rice to survive. People will undoubtedly die due to travel restrictions, and what follows is a wildly unpredictable landscape of potential civil unrest, and the additional deprivations that stem from renewed warfare or the like. Multiply that across the globe, and it's better - both locally and at the global level - that some of the older citizens from advanced economies don't survive. My girlfriend and brother have already lost their jobs (my brother's was as an AV and conference manager at Adelaide Oval), and we are all pretty much hand to mouth as it is - and I would definitely consider us among the lucky ones. I'm not heartless - my father is 75 and just had his flights to Bangkok cancelled - but even parochial Australians will be hurt worse in the long-term by an economic collapse. Australia basically just lost its entire tourism industry - some $50 billion off the books to begin with. Please note: I haven't been smoking anything, despite residing in Amsterdam. Anyway, back to the MFC and round one.