mauriesy

I love how someone starts with a supposition, and then proceeds as if it's a fact.

People are always falling for media-driven dribble. About game plans. About selective pictures shown of the coach in the box. About the non-importance of injuries and the pre-season. About contracts. About player values. About the opinions of personalities. About interviews. About everything really.

FCS, the biggest "veil of negativity" is right here on these boards. In the words of Fawlty Towers, "there's enough material here for a conference".

Not when they're a reason, albeit not the only reason. Under your "theory" does every player in the AFL have the same level of skill? So there's no difference between Patrick Dangerfield or Jordan DeGoey and the 44th player on the Gold Coast Suns list? If you don't recognise that, I guess you won't admit that having to bring a significant number players into your team who are not normally in your best 22 will have an effect. For an illustration, look at Colingwood's current injury list and the downturn in their play.

Agree with the OP. More often than not, we've faded from about half way through the third quarter onwards. That's a fitness issue. And when you are not fit and lagging towards the end of a game, skills start to go missing. When you get exhausted, both cognitive skills and physical skills go backwards at a great rate of knots. During the season, players can't make up the fitness they've missed through a bad pre-season, because they spend all week recovering their banged up bodies and general soreness. It's not like they can go for a 10km run the next morning. And I'm over the "yeah but other teams found a way through it" mantra, like we just can't bear to recognise the fitness deficiency and want to blame coaches, attitude and some whipping boys for the answer. No other team has had the surgeries, injuries and ongoing best-22 player loss that we've had. Nowhere near it.

Ian Johnson, past committee member and vice president of Melbourne Football Club, passed away overnight. He had a long career as managing director of Kerry Packer’s GTV9, and then in the same role at Channel 7. He was vice-president at Chirnside Park Country Club and at the Yarra Valley Country Club. He was a member of Kew Golf club before moving to the Peninsula when he joined Portsea Golf Club and was a great contributor to that club. When the Community Clubs Association of Victoria (CCAV) started, he immediately accepted the role of Chairman has been Chairman of the merged organisation, CCV, since its inception in 2014. When he retired from Channel 7, he and his wife Kim moved to Sorrento where he became an influential member of the Sorrento Football Club, initiating the very successful pre-game lunches with famous guest speakers.

The original article referenced in the first page of this topic says "The Herald Sun can reveal the ­Demons are eyeing a prized parcel of parkland, in the northeastern corner of the MCG precinct, for a full-sized football oval". The reality is not important when the perception is that open parkland, accessible to residents 24/7, will be lost and subsumed by a football club. The idea of a building over the railway line was never going to work either.

It was a silly idea and was never going to be approved. Too much loss of parkland, and too much local opposition.

Twice I heard Bruce the Statistician say that Geelong's first-quarter score of 0.2.2 was their lowest since 1957. Obviously couldn't remember the elimination final last year. ?

I think we should target the Saints this week.

We'll know after a year (or two) what the effect of 6-6-6 is. That's when we'll be able to dissect the stats to see whether scoring has improved or deteriorated, and whether 6-6-6 had a hand in causing it. I will also be interested to know what effect the constant need to speed up and open up the game has in the long run on player fitness and injuries. But it may take some time to get enough data regarding 6-6-6 on the issue. If at the end of the year or next, there is no improvement in scoring and a deterioration in player injuries, 6-6-6 should go. All it would appear to do in that case is consume time after a goal. I guess it allows television advertisers to slip in two ads every goal rather than one. ?

With the new rules and soft umpiring interpretations, the game has shifted markedly in 2019 towards an outside, skilful, fast, running game and away from contested, numbers-around-the-ball, slower-paced football. Can we adapt? With what looks like a new 2019 game style in the AFL generally, zoning seems less useful than one-on-one, especially after any 6-6-6 re-sets, and we're having trouble with it, especially when defenders like Frost and OMac are so poor one-on-one. We should be winning centre clearances with a dominant ruckman though and we don't seem to be. The pre-season and surgeries on a dozen or so players haven't helped, despite what Goodwin says, and I don't think our fitness level is adequate. We also have a lot of best-22 players missing. We're generally a mess everywhere, but our defence is the biggest mess. The players we recruited as a foundation of our defence, Lever and May, are not in the side, so we're relying on second-choice players. The positioning and adaptability is woeful. We also still seem to be adopting a higher forward press that doesn't work with the running and fast breakaway game that other teams are adopting. Opposition forward lines have been wide open and that's why they score easily.

Funny how five of the teams favoured to finish top four or thereabouts all lost in the first round: West Coast, Melbourne, Adelaide, Collingwood and Essendon. Guess they're all thinking their season's finished.

Not wanting to prematurely judge a player or anything.

The teams should be the Indigenous, the Hipsters, the Tatts and the Manbuns.

More like an AFLX-traction.

The Melbourne Facebook page is calling it a "minor knee procedure". Relax.

It could still lead to possible inequities. You could play all the good teams at home and all the weak teams away.

Why am I not surprised that the first response is an attack on the person, rather than analysing, even if briefly, what he says?

According to Chris Pelchen. 2. MELBOURNE The second half of 2018 saw Melbourne emerge from the shadows to show they are a genuine force on the AFL landscape. The Dees have been "coming" for several years but a combination of shrewd trading and continued player development over the off-season has ensured they have now arrived. The addition of Gold Coast duo Steven May and Kade Kolodjashnij further strengthens their back half while allowing Tom McDonald to play as a permanent forward. Their midfield is both young and dynamic with a good balance of inside and outside players. Max Gawn, Jack Viney, Clayton Oliver, Angus Brayshaw, Christian Petracca, Christian Salem and Alex Neal-Bullen should represent the best midfield in the AFL over the next three to four years. With improved ball use and a greater sense of belief, this team has the attributes to finally win another "grand old flag". Movement from 2018 rankings: up three spots (5th) Three-year projected list ranking (2022): 1st CHRIS PELCHEN'S 2019 AFL LIST RANKINGS 1. RICHMOND 2. MELBOURNE 3. COLLINGWOOD 4. ADELAIDE 5. GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY 6. ESSENDON 7. WEST COAST 8. HAWTHORN 9. GEELONG 10. SYDNEY 11. NORTH MELBOURNE 12. PORT ADELAIDE 13. BRISBANE LIONS 14. FREMANTLE 15. WESTERN BULLDOGS 16. ST KILDA 17. CARLTON 18. GOLD COAST CHRIS PELCHEN'S PREDICTED 2022 AFL LIST RANKINGS 1. MELBOURNE 2. GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY 3. COLLINGWOOD 4. ESSENDON 5. RICHMOND 6. BRISBANE LIONS 7. WEST COAST 8. ADELAIDE 9. SYDNEY 10. CARLTON 11. HAWTHORN 12. WESTERN BULLDOGS 13. FREMANTLE 14. GEELONG 15. NORTH MELBOURNE 16. PORT ADELAIDE 17. ST KILDA 18. GOLD COAST CHRIS PELCHEN'S PREDICTED 2018 AFL LIST RANKINGS (Acutal 2018) 1. GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY (6) 2. SYDNEY (7) 3. GEELONG (8) 4. RICHMOND (3) 5. MELBOURNE (4) 6. PORT ADELAIDE (10) 7. ADELAIDE (12) 8. ESSENDON (11) 9. WESTERN BULLDOGS (13) 10. COLLINGWOOD (2) 11. WEST COAST (1) 12. HAWTHORN (5) 13. ST KILDA (16) 14. GOLD COAST (17) 15. FREMANTLE (14) 16. BRISBANE LIONS (15) 17. CARLTON (18) 18. NORTH MELBOURNE (9)

Every company has a "reverse" logo in their specifications for placement on a dark background. The circle could be either their corporate blue with a white Z, or a white circle with a blue Z as in the training guernsey. There's no rectangle integral to the Zurich logo.

Gambling is just taxation for the innumerate.

That headline is so 2017.

I thought the whole idea of the sponsorship was to increase the visibility of a brand and improve sales to a reasonably affluent audience. Silly me.

Has anyone watched our team since 2016?