sue

I don't think that is right. It seems to me obvious that at some level there will be no congestion. It's just not clear what that level is. Clearly 2 players per team means no congestion. What about 4, 8, 12, 14, 16. But it is also clear that with too few players the game will be nothing like the sport we know. We've seen 16 work in the past as maintaining the look of the game, though that was in a time and league of less fit players so I'm not sure that is much evidence in support of 16 now. What about no interchanges, just 2 reserves. As well as tiring players, that would force players to pace themselves at least until latish in the game for fear of losing a player to injury earlier on.

I agree. While I don't think the scoring needs to increase (there is a limit to how many ad breaks I can stand!), I totally agree that the congestion needs fixing. I'm not sure how best to achieve that. Obviously reducing the number of players would work - it would be very open with 12 per side (not serious, just indicating it is a certain solution at some level. Maybe 1 less would work as well and introduce interesting tactics). But maybe other things should be tried first.

May be so but doesn't change my view that we don't need more scoring now.

That says a lot about how bad the commentary is. Too much about viewers can see for themselves interlaced with mutual ego building and irrelevant stuff.

Who knows. But there may be an advantage to being called the Hermit Kingdom.

Scoring like soccer? We are so far off that that any talk of having to increase scoring is stupid IMO. Personally I find basketball boring because it is too high scoring. AFL has the balance about right.

One thing is for sure - there won't be anyone throwing toilet rolls to celebrate a goal. Though if things don't turn out too bad later in the season some people may have an embarrassing number of rolls they wish to get rid of quickly.

more likely that Fox etc will just be rubbing their hands with glee. (Does glee kill viruses?)

I'm not able to get to all but one match a year, so my views on game plans are based on ignorance. But was it not the case that we were the highest scoring team in 2018? We still managed to lose a lot of games, so presumably the defense wasn't up to it. With a new solid backline and wings in 2020 maybe whatever forward game plan worked in 2018 might look a lot better this year? I don't buy the line that it was easy to beat the aging cats and hawks in the finals and met reality against WCE (who we did beat a few weeks earlier, albeit not in a final.) While we may not have beaten them in any case, I suspect we were buggered physically and after a few minutes, mentally.

Consolation? Watch out. There are posters who would prefer him to be at the peak of his ability and doubly fired by having been injured.

Sadly bad interviewing is not confined to sports journos. Very often they just read through the list of questions they or a producer has already prepared. It becomes blatanly obvious when the interviewee says 'the sky was blue' and the very next question is 'what colour was the sky?'.

jest it was. And I expect supporters of any team would make the same weak jokes

If his desktop is any indication thank God he doesn't organise the interchanges.

You don't need to convince me that the MRP is wickedly inconsistent and effectively corrupt. But clearly there are some tackles very likely to cause concussion or worse and these should be banned. But the AFL needs to clearly define them and then enforce them as impartially and consistetly as it can. Not easy because there is a grey area somewhere between picking someone up and dumping them vertically on their head and a tough tackle. With Viney I don't think there was a clear secondary action to dump the player, so I think Viney should be OK. Since I think the action is more important than the result I'd have said that even if the opponent was injured. Would anyone argue there was a clear secondary action? Maybe.

Without commenting on the specific case, I disagree that lack of injury should get a player off. If I push someone off a cliff and they happen to land in a bush which breaks their fall and they suffer no injury, surely I should pay a penalty for performing a dangerous (possibly murderous) act. The degree of injury may be relevant in determining factors relating to the level of 'badness' / intention and of punishment. It is unlikely to throw much light on whether the act itself was 'bad,' though I suppose it could in some cases, so it should be considered. But not as blindly as saying 'no injury, no problem'. By letting players off when the victim is not injured (which is usually a matter of luck) the AFL has been sending the wrong message for years. Need to discourage bad acts even if the transgressor is lucky enough not to have hurt the opponent. (Of course the MRP has been so corrupt that this has been the least of their problems.) In the current Viney case, I don't see much evidence of a bad act though I'm open to argument and need a clear definition of what is 'bad' by the AFL.

I agree. But it does seem odd that you didn't object to the political posts that I was calling out.

For a start, what SWYL has posted is political - see his conspircy theories. Second, I was just illustrating how easy it is to postuate one. If you read what I wrote you will see I said I didn't believe it. Do you only complain of the intrusion of politics when you sniff politics of which you don't approve? I suspect so.

True - in which case we must have sinned badly.

No one here is advocating that. So why do you keep banging on about it? We all know there are silly people buying toliet paper and masks. It seems as if you are trrying to prove you are more educated than everyone else. Are you?

By who?

SWYL - you can bang on endlessly about how useless masks are, but have you not noticed that no one here is saying everyone should rush out and buy one. But you see a conspiracy. Who exactly is behind that? (Personally I suspect Morrison is making a big issue about Covid-19 just to drown discussion of his blatant sportsrort corruption. Actually I don't - it just has that effect coincidentally.) Stick to football - you know more about that.

Perhaps you could give us a lecture on virology and show us that flu=covid 19. Symptoms may be similar but they are different. Glad you are not in charge of developing a vaccine. As for China, I doubt they'd be the only country to poo-poo someone saying the wolf may be at the door. Sounds like they initially took the same attitude as you! But their response subsequently was praised by the WHO report, though they'd be riots here if any govt tried to impose the same measures. We get carried away by toilet paper. forgot to add re your first sentence. You were caught out on your stupidity about gloves, so rather than say 'oh yeah, missed that', you suddenly are the only person on the planet who never touches his face. Tut tut.

Boy that's a good conspiracy theory! Secret illuminati stocking up of gloves but deceiving the riff raff to buy masks. When I have my gloves on I must remember to not touch my face till I take them off. More impeccable logic from SWYL.

best to ignore him and just hope he doesn't mean it. If he does, I may have to take up a religion which believes in hell and punishment in the afterlife. Also with his inimitable grasp of logic, he should realise it's not much point in killing off the old (unless your aim is to destroy the membership base of the MFC). It's the young who are the population problem long term.

No, the 20 times figure is indeed mortality. Current flu's are around 0.1%, this seems to be 2% but this is uncertain at this stage (and cetrainly age dependednt as if the flu).