AshMac

The sooking over the location of Casey has been one of the most telling things about the culture of this footy club than anything that's happened over the last however long. It's so precious and short sighted. Dingley is not exactly in the heart of Melbourne. If you're leaving at 7:30am getting to Hawthorn's new facility from Brighton it'll take you half an hour; from Hawthorn will take over 35 minutes; and if you're a little hipster player living in Fitzroy it'll be a 50-odd minute drive to get there. If you're an Essendon player training at the Hangar and living in Fitzroy it'll take you over half an hour at 7:30am; 35+ minutes from Hawthorn, over 45 from Brighton. Moggs Creek is about an hour from GMHBA and I've never once heard Patrick Dangerfield complain, nor anyone suggest that Geelong's location is anything other than a huge asset and benefit. Casey should've been bought into years ago, developed into a world class facility (likely with the backing of the state and federal governments), and become the envy of the league. NFL and EPL clubs don't train anywhere near their home stadiums, Brisbane's new facility in Springfield is miles from the inner city suburbs like New Farm that players would be living. That we allow this absurd narrative of players not liking driving to training is one of the most embarrassing things about this club.

I was there and you're correct - it very obviously is not for the crowd at the game. All I could see was people dressed up as trees!

One minor point - the spectacle at the stadium for the halftime show is atrocious. Bad sound, only shown on one of the digital screens, intricate dance moves etc that are great for tv but absolutely putrid for the audience there. From what I've heard, it was awesome for people watching from home, but as a live spectacle it was utterly woeful. And that's fine because obviously tv audience eclipses live audience by a hell of a lot, but had to pull you up on the notion that the in-stadium spectators got a great show, coz we definitely didn't.