praha

This helps us in Jackson negotiations. Any player would be crazy to sign a contract beyond 2024 given broadcast rights will increase and thus push up player payments. 2 year extension and then revisit in 2024.

Was a good turnout by both teams yesterday. If Hawks can get up today we could well get 50k+ next week.

Give them a shot. I've rewatched every game except the Gold Coast game and they are all great gritty wins and much easier to enjoy knowing the result.

This is 2019 Melbourne

Worst quarter of the last 2 years. Easily. Tigers beating us at our own game.

McDonald was a given for Brown given Richmond's lack of height in defense and it being a dry night. Was the right decision. Weeds undoubtedly giving us more atm.

That's on the basis that they're only household close contacts and don't actually have COVID.

They have returned to a system of "just turning up". Big crowd events have always been "ticketed". The ticketing mechanisms in 2022 are back to normal, as they were in 2019 pre-COVID. All three of our home games this year have allowed walk-ups in AFL Members. They only time they don't is if ticketing exceeds 60% capacity. At that point, you must purchase a reserved seat. That's how it was pre-COVID.

Night games simply aren't as appealing as they used to be. Anyone that thinks lockdowns didn't have an impact are kidding themselves. I used to love going into the city at night but after two years locked down I want to be out and about during the day... waiting a whole day for a game is weirdly more tiring than it used to be. If that game were at 2pm on Saturday afternoon, 100% there's at least another 5k there. We got 38k vs GWS in 2018 at the MCG. Closer to finals and the crowd is definitely bigger. IMO COVID still plays a huge role. AFL Members was as dead as I've ever seen it at a Melbourne game and let me tell you the AFL Members is normally quiet at Melbourne games anyway but Saturday night was next level quiet. I'm part of an AFL Members facebook group and you're talking about a highly invested group of football supporters who attend multiple games a year as neutral supporters...if you think the clubs have stuffed around supporters with club membership, trust me they've got NOTHING on how [censored] terrible the ticketing and facilities have gotten for AFL Members. People have stopped caring. Richmond, Collingwood, Essendon supporters....all turning their back on the league. 20k isn't a Melbourne problem. It's a league problem. Confident things will pick up again though. Suspect changes in isolation rules will also have an impact. Read somewhere that it's something like 30k household contacts per day isolating... that's going to have an impact *everywhere* especially on a sport heavily invested in family memberships... one member goes down and you have 3-6 people who can't attend. My family all used to attend every week, 10-12 people. This year no more than 3 of us on any given night have attended. A combination of night matches, covid caution and isolation rules all impacting the decision. Last week I was the only one from my extended family who went. It wasn't that anyone said they "didn't want to" attend. They literally couldn't because of either COVID, or because they were away for Easter. Easter has an impact on crowds in a normal year. Add COVID and you have double or triple impact. The government has been kidding themselves thinking things can get "back to normal" with vaccination requirements and isolation rules still in place.

I don't think ANB has lost a contest in the middle all game.

honestly the umpires are being very liberal with the whistle but we make it easy for them. Many of the free kicks are *technically* there, it's being over officiated, but many of the free kicks are pretty lazy on our behalf.

lever done i reckon

I mean some of the calls are maaaaybe there but it's not like Langdons push impacted the result. it would have been a goal regardless.

lever boot back on and walking around

nevermind

is weidermam off injured?

crowd definitely filled out a bit in last 5 mins.

28k I reckon

Sydney game for me. Hardest fought win I think I've ever seen from Melbourne. Since then even with our loses I've not worried.

Give him a rest. Dunstan in.

lol May seemed [censored] we gave them a goal.

Don't let them kick a goal. Let someone else have a nasty record.

Oooof that has to hurt. Port really battling.

Jayden Hunt positions well and actually defends okay but his disposal just ain't up to it.

are these umpires [censored] for real?