sue

Surely you have seen him not continuing in a contest because he has stopped to whinge to the umpire? That's the main thing I'd like him to stamp out. As for showing displeasure with bad delivery, he is not alone in the AFL for that, so I don't particularly criticise him for that. But in my view it never sends a good team message. The player doing the bad delivery usually knows it was bad. What is this forum for but for trivial criticisms? What we say here is not going to effect his development. I don't think the personal trials he has had to endure means as a player he should be immune from discussion here. We all hope he will turn into to an AA++ player and stay at the Demons.

Loved the stadium commentary and the flashing goal posts. If only they'd add soem clowns and trapeze artists and a few lions and elephants I'd forget normal AFL, this is unmissable.

yes and I hope you are right. It is unfortunate he does seem immature relative to other young players (eg CO). It can't help his game and the sooner he stops reacting that way the better since he is pretty good already. I have no desire to defend the earlier poster who labelled him a drama queen, but I re-read his post and it doesn't directly imply he was ever dropped or should be dropped because of that. If he did mean that, then I'd disagree with him and say his current immature behaviour is minor and nowhere near a level to justify that.

Well I wouldn't go as far as drama queen, but you must admit that his reaction to not getting a free, a bad pass etc is not what it should be.

surely the poster was just referring to the way he sometimes behaves on the field when things don't go his way, not the dramas in his life. I doubt if it was meant offensively at all.

I don't see why players can't go to the boundary. Perhaps that may be hard on those lining up for a centre bounce, so perhaps a single run through of water carriers from wing to wing could be allowed when goals are scored.

Think of it more as an advantage having a mole in the umpires camp. I trust he will threaten the umpires with endless 100x100 metre runs if they give any free kicks against us.

If this statement from our Great Helmsman doesn't make you nervous about what AFLX might do to pre-season preparations, nothing will: "It means that we could go to Hong Kong in November next year not only with two clubs, but we could take six clubs and play a mini-tournament.

While many of your points makes sense, you are effectively arguing for the elimination of all pre-season games. No games = no injuries (during games)

You are probably correct. The best solution would be for the commentators (and journos) to make pariahs of players who misbehave. But sadly at the moment they applaud it loudly and proudly.

Trust PF to bring his usual boring politics into everything. Personally I'm in two minds about it. The standard is abysmal. That may be understandable at this stage, but it is painful to watch. Some seem to find the uncertainty of endless fumbling exciting, I can't see why. I doubt they'd watch such a low standard match if it wasn't for the novelty of women playing. Great if it gives females encouragement etc to play and support football, but fortunately it's not compulsory to watch. The fact that it is a MFC team is the only point of interest to me. I watched perhaps 70% of the match whereas I only lasted 5 minutes watching the Carlton v Collingwood match. As a compulsive watcher of AFL matches regardless of who is playing, that says it all.

Just additional incentive for him to win games so we get the odd Friday night game in 2019.

They could try honesty and just say we're funding this more, bending our usual rules etc because ..... <whatever>. The reason given may just happen to be reasonable, or at least discussable.

While I generally agree with all that, it does come down to interpretation of words. For example you could say that Gawn was picked on form and fitness even though his fitness was not 100% . His fitness may have been judged as sufficient (wrongly as it turns out). Ditto for form which is even more elusive to judge. If you had to pick a full team of players who were all 100% fit, you'd have trouble fielding a team. You pick some players who are not 100% because you think x% is sufficient for that match. But surely Saty is not denying that sometimes a player will be picked with an eye to future personal and team development above another older player who plays the same position and may be in form (by his standards) and fit? Particularly when the time of the year, state of the ladder, likely opponent is taken into account. I haven't followed this blue closely, but I thought all Saty originally meant was that there is no guaranteed spot for players out of form (as many allege we did do in the past). Saty? That doesn't mean there will be no players picked for other reasons, or even an out-of-form player may be picked because the coach feels in his gut that the player is about to turn the corner.

So how do supporters stop giving so much slack? Are you suggesting we should have boycotted buying memberships in the last 10 years? Would that achieve better on-field performance? A few posts on this forum giving the club an easy ride has bugger-all effect on what actually happens.

Of course that is right. I'm only saying the inept R23 performance was not the be-all and end-all of the sponsorship (now non) problem. That in response to some who said no sponsor would ever touch us because of that.

Being in the 2017 finals gives no exposure to the sponsor signing in 2018. If missing out on the finals gave us a worse draw in 2018 publicity-wise, then it is one of the many factors that would influence a sponsor's decision, but not R23 per se. Once 2017 is over, the situation is as it is and the sponsor makes a decision looking forward, not backward like some MFCSS obsessives do.

Just supports the argument that R23 would only be a very minor consideration in the minds of sponsors, however hard it was to bear as a supporter.

re game plans I wonder if the game plan includes the players behind the player doing the accurate short pass getting into an appropriate position in case the foot pass is a disaster? (Not being facetious, just hoping such things are planned for).

There are 2 issues here. One is whether AFLX an appropriate way to expand Aussie rules (assuming that is a higher priority than other issues related to AFL). The other is the effect on existing teams on their pre-season preparation. As I've posted I have strong reservations about the latter. If there was a way of running something like AFLX without involving AFL listed players I'd be more relaxed.

Outrageous after R23. They should toughen up like at a boot camp. (Is there an emoji for being ironic?)

The proposition I disagreed with was that the lack of spirit etc which supposedly caused the R23 debacle in itself would scare away sponsors. The point I have been making is that compared to all the other factors, that would not in itself weigh heavily with sponsors. If you can't see the distinction I'm not going to try to explain it further.

You miss the point. Of course if we had got into the finals (or won the flag!) we'd be in a better position with sponsors. But we were discussing the impact of the R23 debacle itself on potential sponsors as things stand now. I maintain the method of our failing to get into the finals now carries little weight with potential sponsors.

Even if we were after a sponsor whose decision makers were AFL fans, I rather suspect that selling a potential sponsor that we are a team on the rise which only missed the finals by a tiny percentage would carry more weight than the tackle count in Q1. Factors like the draw, TV etc would weigh far more heavily than supporters' dismay about that last game.

You'd still be happily working a 56 hour week with no holidays with that supine attitude. Earlier you said you were surprised the boss hasn't resigned. Now your'e saying if the players were employees in your workplace, the players would have been sacked for going to their union. So it sounds like there should be no one left at the club - neither resigning coach nor sacked players.