Dr. Gonzo

It's not poor management at all. They're setting standards. This isn't about Watts it's about the MFC. I'm sure other players wouldn't be happy seeing him get a game ahead of them if he's been training as has been speculated.

He's a massive collector of old games, has tonnes of stuff going back to the 60's

Agreed but we have to make sure we can hear all the witty banter between commentators. That is why people tune in after all

Please let him get some c in him, would be fantastic

Yep it's the Barassi method - go harder on those with the natural talent because they have they potential to be elite players. Talent is nothing it's what you do with it

1) probably, they'd be wanting to set an example of the required standard and bs isn't tolerated 2) even if they didn't you think you could keep something like that under wraps amongst a footy team?

Points 2 and 3 I agree with but point 1 I can definitely see happening. Hell Robbo does it and he's the leading footy journo of the biggest paper in the state, I don't think it's beyond a young and/or relatively unknown journo to pick up something and run with it. Whether it's true or not it eats up airtime and they'll hope to provoke a response from the club which they can then discuss and analyse and the media just keeps feeding off itself.

I didn't think of pies and skinfolds when the rumour was mentioned

McLachlan/Cotchin style?

It is, no free replays this year

Of course they do and all the other footy forums too. It's called "research" these days

Not unusual around these parts sometimes

Hopefully he got the message because he proved last year he is one of our most valuable when on song.

This is based on champion data stats - I've been working through this years AFL Prospectus and what this means is he is performing 60% than all key defenders his age since 2010. Others who had notable "relative ratings" (ie ratings relative to players in their position at the same age) were Gawn at 74% and Oliver at 31% (as a comparison I think Parish was around 20%). OMac also had a good rating but I can't remember what it was off the top of my head

Huh? I've always seen Salem as a hard nut

He's shed the Spencil tag, he's Jake the Snake now

Pretty sure most of those services are international ones just like the afl has. The local ones have local games blacked out - so if the afl had a similar service here you couldn't watch any games in Melbourne live (assuming you live in Melbourne)

Watching the women's game last week it was obvious that the redback jumper would solve our clash problems. Perfect solution, the club needs to push for this as THE clash jumper. Most of the clashes come when you are viewing two players from behind. Today's GWS game as an example was ridiculous. However when viewing two players face on there usually isn't any issue

We have 1 Friday night 3 Saturday night plus ANZAC Eve and Queens Bday. Saints don't have any other locked in "marquee" games.

Sheedy

If we maintain +5000 we would get over 40k which is a good result.

That's definitely happening. Teams play the interchange side so it's easier to switch players on/off the ground. Interchange benches on opposite sides of the ground would help.

Instinctively I don't like this rule but thinking about it you may be on to something. A good idea that could work with some evolution.

Don't believe the hype. Check the stats for attendances particularly the return games. The "big" clubs rarely rate higher than most other big games.

AFL website article "Research has shown that attendances and ratings drop off when games involve two teams who no longer have a chance of making the finals." [censored] rocket scientists running this game