La Dee-vina Comedia

There's a State election in WA on 13 March. On current projections, the incumbent government will win comfortably and primarily because of its "tough Covid approach". So, don't expect a change in the WA Government's quarantine rules before 13 March. I wouldn't be at all surprised, though, if Gil has received a "nod and a wink" that quarantine rules for porfessional sportspeople will change sometime between 14 March and Round 1 of the AFL season.

Does Gawn get downgraded because of his slow start? It's really only the second half of his career which has been majestic. Flower, on the other hand, was superb for his whole career. I'm too young (don't get to say that very often these days) to remember Barassi, but I suspect he was a gun from day 1.

I generally like your analysis Deespencer, but don't always understand it. What do you mean by "shape around the clearances"?

Thank goodness for Demonland. Some of us are working and can't be seen by our wives, I mean work colleagues, to be accessing the livestream. What's the relative strength of each side? In other words, which key players are missing for each team?

Demonland exclusive! Photo of Angus Brayshaw warming up:

lol

That doesn't look like Petracca in the #5. He's lost a lot more weight. And what's with his legs? The results of cupping, perhaps? What's that meant to do?

Wouldn't marketing/digital spend be part of the "soft cap"? I realise within the soft cap clubs will prioritise where they choose to spend their money but because of this cap I wouldn't have thought any club would be able to spend massively more on marketing and digital than any other club. If it's not part of the soft cap, then I agree with you.

It's all the fault of the players. In years gone by, the big off-season stories were about player misbehaviour. That line of storymaking has virtually disappeared (for AFL, not so much NRL) so the footy journos - and supporter bulletin boards - have to find something else to discuss.

Don't just take my word for it. Stephen Hocking on SEN this morning said, “They’re finely tuned athletes and they’ll adapt. We think with the kicking change with the guy standing the mark, the return to 20-minute quarters and this, all of it working together is about finding a better balance between attack and defence.” Here's the full story.

I also think that the AFL wants it to happen this way, but I'm not so sure it's "unfortunate". The AFL has had to find ways to overcome the "defence first" mantra of the coaches. It wasn't prepared to wait for a natural evolution which may never happen, so this is a rule change that deliberately swings the pendulum towards attack. Let's wait and see how it pans out.

Unless we're also happy for Larkin to go. (I have no idea if that's the case. I've never heard of the guy.)

We know the answer to this. What we don't know is whether this rule change will fix it. The AFL has been quite clear that it is concerned with the low level of scoring in games. Whether that concern is for the aesthetic of the product or because fewer goals means fewer advertisments on TV (leading to less valuable TV rights) is less clear.

I feel for the umpires. How can they be expected to intepret two contradictory statements? How does "minimal lateral movement" not contradict the next line which (in effect) says a defending player moving off the mark in any direction will lead to a 50-metre penalty?

Yes, awarded in 2015. Full list here

How do we know you're not a disinformation bot coming out of somewhere like Russia or China?

Congratulations to Max and Tom. However, I notice two other former players were also granted L"ife Membership". Given that both played for us in the 19th century how can "Life Membership" be awarded to people who have passed away? What does "Life Membership" mean?

What do you think they were smoking?

Tom McDonald might be either, but not both.

Am I the only one that had a schoolboy humour visual moment when reading this?

Pic #14...I refuse to believe Fraser Rosman is not yet 19 years old. That upper body definition!

Not everyone buys a membership to attend games. Some (many, perhaps?) become members for a sense of belonging to their club and also as a tangible way of showing their support.

Can't believe the auto-censor didn't "remove" this.

Hi Deespicable. An entertaining read but couldn't you at least have made something up? You know the drill...players training the house down, Daw's a big unit and seems to be fitting in well, good to see players using their wrong foot in kicking drills, Oliver is turning into a lobster in the sun. That sort of stuff. None of us would have known the difference and we would have had our need for training news fulfilled.

I will be interested to see how this rule works in practice. In particular, players supposedly "on the mark" regularly position themselves a few metres inboard to encourage (or force) the player with the ball to play along the boundary rather than going more centrally. If it is not now possible for the player on the mark to choose to be anywhere along the lateral line, but solely to a single spot, I expect a lot more attacking football through the middle. I think that's going to be a good thing for the game.