La Dee-vina Comedia

Wow. Geelong has taken the non-compete clause to a whole new level!

Was he specifically talking about changes to the playing group or other changes, such as changes to the Board and management?

I'm not sure whether it's a club or Ticketmaster problem, but the website for membership management is dreadful. It's impossible by using the website alone to know whether one's membership is paid up or not. The system should be so much simpler. Also, I don't know if anyone else had this problem, but the renewal process doesn't work online either. It just sends you into a useless circular loop. On the plus side, when I renewed a few weeks ago, I called the club and it was done quickly and simply. But I shouldn't have had to do it that way.

Speaking of Aaron Davey, it was nice to see him tossing the coin before the match.

I think there is another issue at play here. In a couple of years' time the Tasmanian Devils will be part of the competition. Tasmania could make use of the animal called the Tasmanian Devil, but they might also like to use imagery of devils in general. I don't know what the difference is between a demon and a devil, but if we want to own the imagery of demons, we need to make use of it consistently now to get ahead of Tasmania.

We need the "thinking" emoji 🤔 as an option to respond to posts!

"Handballs that bounce right at their toes". Hmm...does that mean they are deliberately handballing so the recipient has to work harder to get the ball? Or are they just handballing poorly?

While I agree, Max is the best since Flower, I'm not so sure it's a clear margin. It was only a couple of years ago that I would have said Oliver was our best since Flower. But Oliver's declining output in his last two years combined with Max's continuing dominance over the same period has persuaded me to put Max in second spot. (We've been blessed in recent years - Petracca doesn't even make my top 3 Melbourne players of all time.)

I can remember ruckmen back to the time of John Nicholls. The only one I consider that might be better than Gawn - and I'm not sure that he was - is Simon Madden, and that's because he was better up forward. Madden played 378 games and kicked 575 goals. Gawn is definitely the best tap ruckman I've seen, though. I can't recall ever seeing any other ruckman who could tap the full 360 degrees with either hand. And his ground work is quite extraordinary for a man of his height.

Mind you, should probably have been called for holding the ball. (Not the only bad non-decision yesterday, though.)

As is obvious from your name. Part chook, part hunter of chooks.

True. But it's been clear for many years that the club allocates lower numbers to "premium" players and numbers in the 40s to "fringe" players. I accept that for some players who receive a jumper in the 40s it may make them work that much harder. But it's also possible that players with numbers in the 40s might have their confidence shaken if they see the number allocation as an implied criticism of their capabilities. It's not helped, by the way, by "promoting" Langford and Lindsay from 19 and 20 to 4 and 5 respectively.

Approximately 10% of humans are left-handed. The proportion of left-handedness in competitive sport is far greater than 10%. There have been various theories as to why, such as the idea that because they are in the minority, left-handed people have an advantage when coming up against right-handed players who are not as used to competing against left-handers. A scientific paper has just been released with another theory. In short, the researchers believe left-handed people are more competitive than right-handed people. Here's a link to the story and another to a preliminary draft of the research paper itself. Are there any Demonland lefties out there who would like to comment about their competitiveness? And who are the lefties in our team? Would they be considered to be more competitive than the right-handers? I can see the argument holds up with (retired) Steven May. But does Bailey Fritsch strike anyone as being particularly competitive?

Do jumper numbers also reflect locker numbers in the changing rooms at the MCG and wherever we train? If so, there is presumably a limit on lockers available and therefore numbers. Also, that would mean there is some opportunity to put players needing numbers near particular players that may mentor them, should a vacancy be available. Having said that, and as I've said before, I don't like (1) players switching numbers during their careers and (2) the club allocating numbers in a manner that would suggest to players that the club doesn't have confidence in their ability. By giving draft picks and rookies numbers in the 40s, the club has already signalled to those players that it has a lack of confidence in them. If I were Kynan Brown or Taj Woewodin, I would have felt that I was up against it from the moment my jumper number was announced.

And my late addition: "The AFL and Channel 7 admit that Thursday night football isn't popular."

Even more outlandish would be "Zero media leaks about controversial shiite from with the AFL Commission""

I don't know who said it first, but he was described as having a voice like liquid chocolate. Thankfully, he didn't waste that voice and gave us so much to enjoy in the way he called cricket, football and other sports.

I agree when he's kicking on his left. It's a thing of beauty. However, I can't recall ever seeing him kick on his right foot. Is he completely one-sided or does he have a decent right foot kick, too?

Can't tell if this post is referring to dog v Fritsch or the back and forth between some posters on this thread.

I can't believe nobody has pointed out that if the biting had involved dogs and a Collingwood player, the medicos would have given the dogs rabies shots to protect them from being infected by the player's bite.

You also need to include the management of draft positions as part of his job. Trading is inextricably linked with the draft via the positions in the draft that Lamb engineers for us by the trades he makes. Jason Taylor then gets to make choices from those positions. I would have thought for this part of his job, Lamb has been exceptional.

Surely you're not being serious? According to Demonland groupthink, because a Melbourne player is the victim, there is no way the miscreants will be suspended.

If that happens, you'll surely have to change your name to GawnOfTheLiving.

In what way is he "completely unaccountable"? I expect the club have some KPIs he needs to meet. Whether they're the same KPIs that you or I might choose is irrelevant. The point is, I'm sure he's held accountable internally.

With the season about to start, I'm interested in people's views of what's ahead of us. But let's not be boring. I want one outlandish prediction per poster. It could be about an individual, a team (could be ours, but not necessarily), footy media, footy politics or the AFL Commission. To enable me to stick to the rule of one outlandish prediction, I'll start with a prediction I'll call "round zero" which is that many posters will be unable to stick to just one outlandish prediction. My one, true outlandish prediction is that wunderkind Sam Darcy will not make the All-Australian squad.