whatwhat say what

Our conversion of supporters to members is, historically, the best in the competition We have a small supporter base

Cough, tanking, cough

from my understanding they are still the footscray football club; they just 'trade as' western bulldogs

that's a pure baiting article i refuse to believe relegation will ever happen in the afl

it's easy to watch highlight games and go 'wow, footy was so much better back then!' show me a dour slog between fitzroy and melbourne in the early 80s and tell me football was better yes, football has evolved, and become increasingly defensively-focused, but that is typical of the evolution of nearly every sport worldwide cricket is one of the few games that now favours attacking (batting side) over defense (fielding side) with the evolution of bats >>>>>> non-evolution of bowling and the ball

excellent, and sobering, post from my understand the afl WILL be imposing interest on their loans, but NOT for the season as is stands i struggle to see how 18 clubs will exist for the longterm - the reckoning that covid-19 has had with how fragile the football industry is is a reflection of us being a domestic-only proposition, i guess, but also that we were over subscribed and how tight the margins actually were

only 103k registered users? that's somewhat surprising - i would've thought bf was way bigger than that

the carpark roof will remain shut for the entirety of 2020

can't wait for the next exciting update i've only just read this thread and the anticipation in have for our glorious premiership is strong

ultimately it doesn't matter as the income would not have been coming in from pokies at this time worse still, their value as a sale opportunity would have fundamentally disappeared for the time being, and likely diminished for what we received for the license pert and bartlett were hopefully honest in the podcast - if it's even worse than that let on, then we're in trouble we're not the only ones, but i imagine with the two northern franchises, north, and st. kilda we're the fifth club under serious future threat

i can happily watch them all if the margin is +/- 24 points or thereabouts, but if it's a blowout, it's easy to lose interest fast judging by the numbers last year, drop off after quarter time and then half time was significant, so i'm not alone there too many teams, too many ordinary footballers, too much substandard football i know gil said today that they won't look to bring in shortened quarters permanently, but i think the afl will do anything to fiddle with the game "improve the product"

harmes has already shown he can play forward and thru the mid - but i'd rather have him playing as a key run-with player who hurts his man going the other way - cos, as @Demon Dude said, cripps is a bit of a plodder defensively - than i would have him across the back flank as a mop up and rebound salem has been tried further up the ground and he just doesn't get involved in the play enough for mine, while brayshaw is even worse stationed in the forward line than he has on half-back; he's a mid, and a bit of a potato rivers and sparrow are a long way off being best 22 you'd hope, if we're play well i tend to agree with the first bit - head to head to begin, then harmes is a run-with option if cripps is absolutely dominant and they're doing well...i'm personally fine if cripps gets it 40 times and we win by 42... brayshaw SHOULD be guaranteed a spot in the 22 but he's super, super lazy between the contests and ultimately we have a two pure mid only types - oliver and viney - who are significantly better than he has been performing over the last season and a bit

what has always been said is that the cost of gc17 and gw$ >>>>> the benefit of the 9th game, but it's a sunk cost that will benefit the competition long-term which i get, but....eh.........franchises..........

bartlett and pert are on the latest official mfc podcast pretty dark: increased debt of $6-10m in 2020 expected ongoing debt for the next 3-5 years clearly we are a club reliant upon afl funding future of the vfl program uncertain aflw likely to have same investment as previous years no change to aim for a 'home' precinct but have been in 'crisis mode' for the last few months, so it's obviously on the backburner casey is only a short-term training option environment

if we don't have harmes go to cripps, who does? viney? head to head with oliver? i just can't fathom how we have a player who is one of the best run-with mids in the comp and we're going to position him across half-back that's the thing tho - trac and harmes can play multiple roles, whereas gus has only showed capability in one role, and one to a high level for less than a season

it would seem to be inevitable that this will happen once it comes in, it won't go away i'm not a huge fan personally, but - like others - if it helps survival then all the better the thing is, though, it'll help the rich get richer and the weak continue to survive i really wish the afl had gone down the full-socialist model of taking all revenues generated and splitting em equally between clubs, but the likes of hawthorn in particular worked hard to block that

we're going to have to cut at least ten players from our list - as are all clubs - so it'll be interesting to see what value, if any, many of the players likely to be on the way out have you'd think of those on the uncontracted list, only viney, fritsch and to a lesser extent hunt would be potentially attractive to another club anyway, i would hope the first two are going nowhere at the end of the year...although i guess we should wait and see how 2020 plays out before making any list management murmurs...

de koning was injured at training earlier in the week and won't be playing

yep to everything @TeamPlayedFine39 said i don't care about being closer to our 'spiritual' home of the mcg the only time we need to be there is every second week, when we play a home game, and every last saturday in september (in a normal season) while the notion of having a custom-built cbd-adjacent training / admin base is a lovely one to have, i just can't see it happening

pittonet is a good honest toiler will work hard but we should clearly have an advantage in first takeaways, regardless of how good cripps and their other midfielder is

you forgot the singing

get used to 16 min quarters plus time on it'll be the norm going forward i reckon

'brackets' mcgovern's one wood is his aerial strength - no way i'd want hibberd conceding a couple of inches to him hibbo is not a 'third tall' player really - he's a run and carry and boot it indiscriminately forward player

isn't the vfl not happening in 2020?

weed wasn't fit for rd 1 - nasty rolled ankle in the last winnie blues cup match blues have a relatively small forward line, i think, with curnow still out - is mckay the same? for mine it's a choice btw: IN: jones, salem, weideman OUT: bedford, o mac / hibberd / lockhart, brown the other one skating on thin ice for rd 2 alongside hibberd for me would be tomlinson - his one good escort wizard series game saves him from the chop for rd 2; if bennell really is fit and they chance the arm on him, he'd be the one to go for mine