monoccular

I am very concerned regarding the forthcoming Australian Open Tennis - bringing in hundreds from overseas hotspots, putting them in Victorian run central city quarantine hotels, and allowing them to mix for training and practice seems a recipe for disaster. IF they must have this event, surely the incoming players could be quarantined out of town at a resort with outdoor tennis courts, live in security, and decent catering, but with no contacts in central Melbourne at least until their events.

Understatement. And Derwayne is too dull to realise that Jackson isn't just a ruckman - he could play just about anywhere, including as a midfielder.

Surely you are exaggerating - missed the decimal point - 1.9 In the mid 1950s the greatest coach of all time had a brilliant and totally innovative idea. Instead of running two lumbering ruckman and a rover follow the ball around all day, of course with “resting” ruckman in the forward and back pockets, he had this young athletic guy named Barassi who would run around doing a bit of ruck work and a bit of roving, and a bit of goal kicking when “resting” forward. The first ruck-rover was invented. Young Jackson fits the rôle, and hopefully takes part in a similar age of success as did young RDB.

As I recall, Hawkins was in year 6 or 7, in a regular finals team with a dominant midfield, before he “took off”. (Please correct me if I am wrong).

My point is that it is a dynamic situation, and if the ball is coming your way you will go for it, without having to think "am I crossing an arbitrary line". Totally out of the spirit of our game.

19th and 20th man - we won our last spate of 6 flags with that set up ... so it must have been good Sort of a nice idea, but how absurd would it be seeing Kossie dashing up from the pocket, only to find the incoming ball stops 52 meters out from goal. Instead of going hard for the ball, would he have to look across the ground to see when and if someone else enters the 50 on the other side of the ground, and stand like an [censored] waiting for his opponent to catch up with him?? daisy - tend to agree with most of these. I would also consider regarding kick in from a behind, that the defending team not be awarded a mark until the ball has left the 50 meter arc. It would keep the game moving and reduce negativity.

I obviously didn't read the detail..... docking rotations as a penalty!! How about in the dying moments of a close game - who cares about rotations at that stage?

rjay - can you elaborate please? If you are referring to zones like in netball where players have to give up the chase if they come to a certain line, it would be a huge NO from me. Or is this a certain number of players in a zone at stoppages, maybe, though if umpires cant adjudicate the current rules then how could they enforce yet another complicated rule correctly.

As Aaron's ancestor once said:

My MFC paranoia tells me that the AFL will see this MFC player having something of his own that he can now use to help us, so will change the rule to our disadvantage. How did this get onto the Ben Brown thread? I know their coiffures are similar. Should we rename the thread ugly hairdo players?

Well you might P2J ...... I’d rather give current day Robbie Flower a contract ...... problem is where are these “I’d rather” players coming from?

I am ambivalent about Alex. I love his work ethic and second efforts, but he remains very inconsistent.

Do we, you, or anyone know that we are not interested? Maybe “we” are just being cagey and professional?

Yeah. I am sure that neither he or the coaching staff could possibly have considered that without the prompt from our esteemed colleague here. We are indeed fortunate to have such folk here, guiding out players and coaches. Surprising with such expertise we haven’t won multiple consecutive flags (well, not since the 1950s anyway).

Only the Australia Post executives anyway. Brilliant. And good fun. But we have one already. ?

DeeSpencer - you must not be a 60 year Demonfan.

basil - what juristriction are you in? I am current;y in WA and it was a joy to be able to walk unmasked, seeing other people's faces (even the ugly ones). Sit down for a coffee. I feel so bd for young kids in particular, who pick up so much socially from seeing people smile, or not ... there could be a generation of psychologically / emotionally 'flat' kids. P2J .... those, in fact most other jurisdictions in the world, had contact tracking sorted out before our second wave appeared. NSW learned very quickly from their Ruby Princess debacle - but at least they learned. Sadly our tracking was archaic, and still was at least until a couple of weeks ago.

Does anyone have anything new about Aaron? Is he still listed? Is he walking? Running?

Well said Billy. Not that your words will daunt then.

Surely you couldn’t be suggesting that the AFL, Gil’s AFL, would be involved with any shonky underhanded manipulation of the rules, to favour one particular club?? ???

Maybe their departing chief pharmacist has left “something special” in the bottom drawer that will cure Tom’s mystery injury?

I love his enthusiasm and his preparedness to run, hand off, run to receive and hand off again. His second efforts are great considering his inexperience. Agile as they come Plenty of signs of a future B grader or above.

Absolutely brilliant, WJ. One of the best. Anyway, and I didn’t want to say it when he was a possibility to join us, but I find him very unlikable; almost but not quite on the Goddard level, but close. (Maybe it was the smug look on his face at the last huddle when we beat them in that final 2018.)

OMG - I saw there was an even number of teams and breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that would mean no byes. So, I presume that will mean a late start to the season, and bye or byes all meaning no work for the fringe and recovering players. Not at all good for player development, though (hopefully) a lot better than 2020 "scratch matches".

I thought that I had observed that he had a lot of score involvements, but those numbers are even better than I could have dreamed, (even given that numbers ain't everything). There was actually no opportunity to impress, or otherwise, at Casey this year. Of the three, Spargo certainly seems to have the best "footy smarts".