Tony Tea

In today's Top 8 system Adelaide (13 wins) would have played Essendon (12 wins), who finished 8th, in Adelaide.

Judd leaving has got more than a trace of "made him an offer he could refuse," which suggests we weren't prepared to keep him at all costs.

Melbourne: feeder club.

What upsets me is not that it was entirely predictable, it's that anyone who said so was fobbed off by the AFL and its echo chamber in the footy media.

This is slightly off topic, but I keep a close eye on the scores of around a dozen leagues and while this year had an amazing number of close prelim and gf results, the scores were often in the 40 to 60 pt range. I wonder if zone defence is killing local footy. Once upon a time high scoring full forwards ruled the roost, for instance Ron Best around Bendigo. But now local footy is a bit of a grind. I guess the people playing now don't mind so much as they've grown up with it, but I don't want to see an arm wrestle in mud and rain. I miss the days of the hundred goal kickers.

The bottom half of the comp will continue to have to pay overs to keep players - "I want to play in a premiership" or "I want to strengthen my brand" - and by paying overs will operate with less room in the salary cap than teams in the top half who can pay unders but offer a better chance of a premiership (and other, ahem, opportunities.

If Petracca moves to Adelaide, he can become an authentic Croweater by changing his surname to Petracca-Beischer.

Maybe it's not her brief here, but Caro loves to pot the Bombres, too.

Is that right? He will be able to put it down as a clerical error.

Very well thought of as a coach, but will probably white-out "Coach at Melbourne for 2024 and 2025" from his CV.

And of course, the footballers' favourite pundit, S. Redemption.

Haaaa! Salem's Lot liked your post. When will Cujo, Carrie and Christine chip in?

... and Sean Charles wrist, Prymke back, Pikey booze.

Definitely a Demons supporter.

The original Trampoline Hands.

Does any club get told to delist players more than Melbourne?

Footy is lies.

Played for us. Coached North. This week is the Brian Dixon Cup

Lever needs to show that he can contribute if oppositions deprive him of third-man-up opportunities by continuing to spread our defence with short kicks to a variety of forwards. Being the "extra" at the drop is the easiest gig in footy if oppositions don't spread it around. You've got no better example than last weekend when Adelaide was careless with their entries and kept picking out our free defenders, but when the Crows started looking for multiple short options, we had defenders out of position. Either Lever improves his man-on-man game or our on-ballers put more heat on delivery to force dump kicks and disable the short options. Last week we were one small defender short, and as a result, lacked ground cover and rebound zip.

Dawes had trampoline hands, JvR has a trampoline chest.

We need to get Dennis back. He loved us.

I'll temper that slightly, I'd love to know what the recruiters saw.

Gee, who knew Choco had been our goalkicking coach for 60 years?

It's simple, innit - NO trade.

Who wants perceptive and insightful analysis when you can have BT making mistakes.