La Dee-vina Comedia

St Kilda and WCE are using the "individual privacy" line to avoid answering the question. But given the obligation, that's not going to hold up forever. If a player remains unvaxxed by whatever their specific state's deadline is, the clubs won't be able to avoid the question because any players missing from training will need to be explained.

I don't think any team is ever more than 4 years away from winning a Premiership should everything go right for them. It is because everything rarely goes right, that clubs are forced to revisit their strategies, their recruitment and their coaching talent every few years. Having said that, if you are a betting person (and I'm not) by all means back the option of neither Essendon and Carlton winning a Premiership in the next 5 years. They are just as likely or unlikely as any other teams, except Melbourne (not said out of loyalty but because we're the current best team in the competition).

I notice from Demonwiki that Brent Croswell played 48 games for us. Was his son, Tom Kavanagh, recruited under the father-son scheme in place at the time? If so, what rules were in place about eligibility for selection? After all, if Kavanagh was eligible to play for Melbourne he must also have been eligible for Carlton and North Melbourne as well.

Bingo...

I know that it's the off-season and the Herald Sun is scrounging around for AFL stories. I also appreciate that it's November, so the Herald Sun is desperately trying to find stories with a link to the up-coming draft. But re-ordering a draft held less than 2 years ago is fatuous. At least, that's what I would have written in any other year to justify why no Melbourne players made the top 10 or moved upwards in their personal ranking. (Let's be honest, it's a meaningless exercise given the brief opportunity these players have had to show their talents.)

I've often wondered whether clubs who have had considerable success through the father-son recruitment process, such as Geelong and Essendon, were just lucky or whether they actively helped develop the sons from a young age knowing full well that the club may be the ultimate beneficiary? A long, long time ago I remember Melbourne making a big song and dance about putting on contract one of Ken McKaige's sons when he was still very young. (Was it Andrew, who subsequently became a TV soap actor?) But apart from that story - and I'm not even sure it was anything more than a PR stunt - I can't recall the club actively monitoring or developing sons of fathers until Chris Johnson.

Three languages in one 5 word sentence. Impressive.

If Howe had stayed at the club and been coached by Roos and Goodwin, he, too, might have been just as selfless and disciplined as the rest of the current team. We'll never know. He made the choice that he did and lives with the consequences. In the dark days, he was one of the few players who made watching football a joy. I hope he's happy with the decision that he made.

While it is a precedent, there is also a significant difference. AFLW is not the main job of AFLW players. In Varnhagen's case, I believe she's still working as a registered nurse. For the men, AFL is a full-time, professional career with a lot of potential earnings at stake. In other words, while I hope all the AFL men are vaccinated, if one or more don't want to be, get ready for an expensive legal challenge.

Part of the script was written about 425 years ago. Just look at the parallels in Richard III. It starts with the line, "Now is the winter of our discontent...". The murder of the two nephews in the Tower is an obvious reference to the destruction of Grimes' and Trengove's careers by making them captain too soon. And the immortal line, "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse" is clearly Roos asking his recruiters to draft a stallion called Petracca.

I may have missed it, but has anyone said what it was that Burgess said to Goodwin during that discussion on the boundary line during the Grand Final?

On the other hand, the club hasn't prepared me to deal with success. I don't mean that flippantly. I enjoyed the game and I'm still thinking about it, but I'm not sure whether I'm making the most of what might be the makings of a dynasty or perhaps just a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Do Stephen Armstrong and Matthew Bishop qualify as "ship jumpers" or were they made to walk the plank? (By the way, when I first read your post I thought you were making some reference to Frawley having premiership success with a club with a sh*t jumper.)

This is Demonland? I thought it was Facebook under its new name which reflects more truthfully what everyone believes it to be.

I appreciate everyone's emotions are different and it might be very tough for some if we'd lost. However, I've become so conditioned to mediocrity as the best to hope for in the preceding 50+ years, that I think I would have been OK if we'd lost. Supporting Melbourne for all this time has conditioned me to accept disappointment. Perhaps the whole club had operated that way for so long, that the achievement by this group of players is perhaps even more special - that is, they overcame emotional hurdles that might not have been in place in the more successful clubs.

The end of lockdown brings with it the chance to catch up with friends and colleagues I haven't seen for what seems like forever. Some are footy tragics, although not Melbourne supporters. When we next catch up, probably next week for the first time in months, I'll get a chance to re-live the whole season but especially the Grand Final.

Let's not confuse science with myths, irrespective of how popular the latter are. Science deals in facts. I'm not sure what "so-called science" is intended to mean, but I would happily put my faith in science if it is used properly.

More fine work from AFL Media. Look at the date at the bottom left of the photo.

The AFLX trophy is beyond compare

Absolutely this. It was obvious how he completely changed his style when he moved from Saturday night to Friday night. On Saturdays, he was clearly being asked to impose his blokey style to suit that particular format. On Fridays, he is much more "straight" albeit without losing his essential style. I don't think he's a particularly good caller, but he's also not particularly bad and he's certainly not biased towards or against any team. The style of commentary is very much dictated by the expectations and requirements of the program's producers and always will be. And I give him credit for two things. He's very good at promoting (and sometimes critiquing) the umpires, rather than allowing them to be ignored. And he put in a surprisingly good acting performance as a fictional NT footy coach in the movie "Last Cab to Darwin".

Great article, although I have to admit I can't remember some of those games. A more challenging story might be identifying which games we lost which were also drivers leading to this year's Premiership. Surely, as much as we would like to forget it, the 186 debacle kick-started the process by shaking up standards. And there's probably a key Neeld era game which lead ultimately to his demise and the recruitment process which resulted in Roos' appointment. I'd also throw in the 2018 Preliminary Final which served as a reminder as to how much more we needed to improve to go further.

Even before this year, I've always thought that the VFL/AFL Premiership Cup is the best looking trophy in world sport. It's got just the right amount of gravitas along with dimensions that make it look weighty (literally) and worthy. The horse racing Melbourne Cup, on the other hand, has tradition on its side but always looks inferior to me, probably because of its size. It almost looks like a toy.

Impressed with the veggie patch

For years I've been travelling from the south-east to Melbourne airport along CityLink past the Toyota Melbourne HQ where they have 18 flagpoles with the team flags flying in ladder order. I've been used to us being toward the western end of the flagpoles. This year I haven't been on that road once so missed seeing us positioned most of the time as the first flag you see when travelling west. I hope our team flag is up there now and still there until at least Round 1 2022, and hopefully longer.

You're expecting him to play in another 19 premierships?