Good Times Grimes

When he's up and running he's exactly what we need, and is far from mid-paced. It's a big "if", but if Burgess and our medical team thought they were capable of getting him on the park, I would absolutely take him; he's capable of being one of the best players in the competition.

Where do you propose they would've played in country Victoria where they could have suitably isolated the players while providing adequate facilities? Keep in mind, they would've had to have had enough room there to host multiple teams at a time. When you factor in the quarantine laws of every other state, it would be a logistical nightmare hosting any matches in Victoria. Having matches in a non-footy state like Queensland is perfect for this season as players can walk around with relative anonymity (limiting the interactions that they have with fans, which absolutely could not have happened in regional Victoria), while also working towards one of the AFL's goals of growing the game in Queensland. In terms of crowds being loss makers, perhaps that's true on the surface, but they have been phenomenal for member acquisition and retention for all clubs playing games there.

The season couldn't have continued in Victoria, and probably not NSW either without COVID scare after COVID scare. Every time that happened, players would've had to have gone into isolation, which would've led to further matches being postponed/cancelled and the season being even more compromised than it already is. They gave the AFL warning about border closures before the public so that teams could fly in and the season wouldn't have to go on hold again. They absolutely saved the season.

The last thing anyone needs is another Meth Coast premiership, and I fear that if it's held at Optus there'll be 60,000 booing mutants willing them (and the umpires) over the line. In addition to that, Queensland has saved the season and deserve to host it.

I'm glad these guys have challenged each other to this sort of thing. Both players have had issues with their diets, with Brayshaw struggling to resist soft drinks in his first couple of years and Oliver's noted penchant for parmas (please don't try to tell me that it's "parmis") and chips. Hopefully this challenge will see continued improvement with their fitness.

There’s the confirmation. Happy that McDonald’s pulled out; I have fewer concerns about Fritsch’s durability.

Not sure if this has been posted yet (not overly interested in reading through 16 pages of AFLX discussion), but I've got strong word that McDonald is being replaced by Fritsch.

Thank God! May has an injury, so we don't have to worry about him playing AFLX and getting injured!

I think that injuries dictate a lot of this. Richmond (ranked 12th in 2017) has has a very good run with injuries and this has been reflected on the ladder over the past two seasons. GWS (ranked first in 2017) have had an awful run with injuries and haven't advanced as far as they would be capable of had they had a full list to pick from. I think that if we have a good run with injuries, we do have very close to the best list in the competition. Things change drastically as soon as good players start to go down, though.

Thanks for the reports....always greatly appreciated. How did Natalie Portman go?

It's taken three days for them to determine that's their best offer? What a waste of everyone's time.

I always liked him when he played, but there's no point matching a 3-year offer to somebody who can't get on the park. Good luck to Kent, but I really can't see much sense in this for the Saints.

I don't see much point haggling over deals like this when we've got bigger fish to fry (May, Hogan, Kolodjashnij, Preuss, etc). We were never going to get much more for Kent than that. Edit: I managed to spell Kolodjashnij correctly on the first attempt, but stuffed up the spelling of Preuss...

The Williams/Daw comment was obviously (or apparently not), a bit of a joke. I'm aware that North have some very good players, but I don't think that they're in a position that they can't afford to add a couple more big names. I don't have any knowledge of North's current cap situation or whether they've got players who are signed for unders, but I'm sure that there are ways that they could make it work if they were able to get both Kelly and Gaff to commit. Like you've said, players at Richmond have taken cuts to allow them to sign Lynch and Dusty. Who's to say that Ziebell, Brown & Co. wouldn't sign for unders if North had already reached some sort of agreement in principle with Polec/Kelly/Gaff/whichever other names they're trying to lure over? They also could have front-loaded the contracts of some of their current big names to allow them to sign FAs in the coming few seasons. Anyway, this post is all just speculation. What isn't speculation is that North is in to Kelly, and they're confident of getting him at the end of next season. I don't know how they plan to do it and I don't know what they're offering up, but my source is reliable.