La Dee-vina Comedia

Well, that's just ruined my productivity for tomorrow. (Looking forward to it, even if I know I'm no chance.)

Back in the 70s I used to see Ken Emselle for about 45 minutes every weekday for the best part of a year. He was my maths teacher. I still remember him explaining integral calculus to the class.

No chance. But if Jack Watts was still around...

I haven't seen enough of Bedford to know whether he's good enough, but there's a chance that someone might take Viney's spot. Whether he's lacking fitness or has another lingering injury, he's not playing well. He was given the task of tagging Wines on Thursday which is hardly an endorsement. However, while the bigger Wines brushed Viney off like an annoying blowfly, he (Wines) was not at his most dominant, so Viney should get some credit. Nevertheless, if Goodwin persists with using Viney as a tagger rather than as a creative player, I suspect Viney's days might be numbered. I hope Viney can get back to his best and be the creative beast, albeit with disposal flaws, that we all want him to be.

Forget forecasting wins at the beginning of the year. Did anyone pick 6 or more winners for the round just completed? If you didn't, then what's the point of predicting any other future results? And if you did...you obviously know nothing about football!

I assume the English team can take some learnings from the result.

Respect. I wouldn't watch a replay of a game if I knew beforehand that it was a loss.

Do you watch replays of losses as well as wins?

I have a concern with this post. Why isn't Carlton in there with Collingwood and Essendon?

I'm not a fan of Kevin Bartlett calling games. However, kudos for this comment (paraphrased): "I'm tipping well. It's just the teams I pick are letting me down".

Have we ever won on a Thursday night before? In fact, have we ever played on a Thursday night before (other than Anzac Eve)?

Was he? I have no problem with Viney's efforts, but I thought he was too small to handle Wines. Nevertheless, to Viney's credit, although Wines still got a lot of the ball, I didn't think he was particularly influential overall.

I wondered about that. I remembered him as President but never as a player. Then rather than correcting it, they just made it sound like he was both a player and the club President over the same time period. Nevertheless, on balance, it was better that they made the effort to remember him than to have ignored his passing.

Worked alright for a bloke called William Shakespeare.

The best special commentators on Seven are (in no order) Leppitsch, Watson, Bartel, Pearce and Hodge. They all have one thing in common. They're all only recently out of the game (or still even involved). It shows that the passage of time makes other callers redundant because they don't understand the finer points of the way the game is played today. I like Matthew Richardson as a person. His goofy style is engaging. But he and Carey (who you will notice I haven't said I like) are too long retired to be valuable as commentators any more.

Didn't think he'd ever left I think this is our best team. However, at some stage we might want to get more games into some fringe players such as Sparrow, Melksham, Jones and even Bowey so they are on the pace should we need them in September. However, I don't think the next game is the right time to do so.

6. Petracca 5. Salem 4. Oliver 3. McDonald 2. May 1. Petty A toss up between Petty and Gawn for the final vote. Still not sure I've chosen the more deserving.

I can see a new useless stat being produced by Champion Data: Goals per km. Back of envelope calculation would suggest that a 60 goal season at 15.5 km per game would equal about 5km per goal. Now, all we need to work out is whether a high or low number is better! Then David King can go beserk with his analysis.

I saw the picture before I read the post. I thought it was fluoro green zinc cream on his face and wondered what sort of weather conditions the game was being played in. (Good practice for the World Cup in Qatar, I suppose.)

Makes me wonder whether the forwards with all that running actually end up doing more kms than the onballers? Do I recall reading somewhere that in his North days, Ben Brown ran more kms than anyone else?

My favourite story about Wales and the UK. Made me laugh when I first read it. Now I'm not sure whether to laugh at the ignorance or cry at the implied racism.

I appreciate your comments and on reflection I was probably mistaken in suggesting the people of Sydney were more anti-authoritarian than elsewhere in the country. And you are quite right that Melblurnians have themselves not all covered themselves in glory. Nevertheless, I still think the Sydney-based media is a huge problem for not just Sydney, but the whole country.

I suspect TOG is, in itself, not significant. More important measures are likely to be heart rate (compared with the player's baseline), kms travelled and speed, which are all measurable in real time. In addition, TOG does not tell us how much is onball and how much might be "resting" in the forward line, although I accept that "resting" is probably not the right word to use.

I know we now live in the world of Big Lies and allegedly fake news, but unless people here have facts at their disposal, I suggest they be very careful about claiming specific individuals are biased.

I think "an element of manipulation" equals "rigged". And I don't think it happens in AFL or NRL. (However, I note that Peter V'Landy's idea for NRL splitting into two conferences, one with all Sydney teams and one without, would ensure a Sydney team plays in the Grand Final every year. That's structural manipulation.)