La Dee-vina Comedia

Every time people worry about size, I remind myself that of the 4 players who have played 400+ games, two of them were genuine smalls in Kevin Bartlett and Boomer Harvey. If you're good enough, size doesn't matter.

Works independently with both names, too. "Won't you come home Bill Bailey?" and "Bill Lawry"

We must have been going through a phase of recruiting players with graceful names, perhaps assuming they would play that way. [As an aside, I had a cousin who played in the amos and was invited to a trial day where prospective new recruits were looked at. It was the same day as Robert Flower. My cousin told me that Flower was so obviously suitable to be recruited that they only allowed him to train for ten minutes to ensure he didn't get injured. Everyone else had a full two hour session. My cousin didn't make it but enjoyed his 200+ games in the amos].

I'm in my early 60s so don't remember Barassi when he played for Melbourne. Is there someone out there older than me who can remember Barassi in his prime and provide an opinion as to which of Barassi and Flower was the better player? Barassi, of course, was involved in 6 premierships while Flower shone in generally poor teams. I would genuinely love to read the reminicses of those Demonlanders who can remember both in their prime. I was privileged to have watched Flower who is unquestionably the best Melbourne player I have seen. Those who saw both play in their prime have been more than doubly privileged as they've seen some Premierships along the way.

Yes...but hopefully you realised that I meant it satirically.

Of course he is. If he hadn't put so much effort into winning four Premierships, he would have had a team much better placed this year. Possibly finishing as high as the bottom half of the eight.

I've been on Demonland for about a decade. This is the best post I've read in that time. Gold, assuming you meant it ironically, of course.

All I can see here is Baker playing guitar and Petty on drums. Not sure either had the required capabilties.

Always makes me nervous when I see statements like this. We've had so many players drafted who were said to be great kicks. The problem was that they couldn't get the ball in the first place. Examples include Blease, Strauss, Maric, Toumpas and, to some extent, Watts.

This is the valuable information I come to Demonland for.

I'd like to add "Let's wait and see for a few years before any of us jump the gun".

Reminded me of Phil Krakeour's kicking style. It looks unorthodox but on close inspection seems to be due to him keeping his arms down so the ball drop isn't far. I'd assume that's sensible for a tall player.

Falls at the first hurdle! Just within this team there's a repeated name.And the repeated name doesn't even extend beyond one player. I also wonder if Aliir Aliir is the only AFL/VFL player in history with the same first and last name? Donald McDonald gets close.

Read the Herald Sun. That automatically makes them taller. Whereas The Age has Bowey and Laurie as 175cm and 179cm respectively, the Herald Sun has them both as 180cm. How the two papers can have different information astounds me. I would have thought the AFL would provide data on each player which the media would all use. Having said that, it's also quite possible that any 18 year old hasn't finished growing anyway.

I can't believe that 14 hours after Old Dee posted this no-one has responded with the obvious rejoinder: "Too many Cooks spoil the broth". There. It's done now.

And we'll say that we took Charlie Winner because he was clearly "the best available" with our first pick; that Hundred-Gamer "comes from a great family"; and we "couldn't believe our luck" that Depth was still available at our third pick. I accept that I may have those statements in the wrong order, though.

I have always believed that to be a Premiership contender, a club needs to have people in key positions who have been part of a Premiership before. We now have a Senior Coach who won two Premierships as a player, an Assistant Coach who was an Assistant Coach at Hawthorn when they were Premiers and a Development Coach who was himself a Senior Coach of a team that won a Premiership. Perhaps there are others, but that's a good start.

It's a sad state of affairs when we can no longer trust the statements of public figures.

It's your prerogative not to do so, of course, but I'll accept what the President has said, as helpfully summarised by Neil Crompton a couple of pages back. "- the initial phase (to analyze option sites, establish the requirements for the new development, and recommend a preferred option) has been completed - the second phase of the development is now in full swing - ie focusing on the preferred site only, and finalizing the Concept Master Plan for this site."

I could imagine that a potential site may become more expensive to buy or lease should it become clear that it is in consideration for all or part of a redevelopment. I expect that much of the land will likely be Government owned, but some could be privately owned. I wouldn't want us to have to pay over the odds (to buy or lease) because it leaked out that we were considering that site.

I apologise if this has been posted elsewhere, but is there a list of players expected to have delayed starts to training because of surgery or other reasons? If so, who? And for how long will their starts be delayed?

I know the internet is full of conspiracy theories, misinformation and, unfortuately, personal abuse. What astounds me is how much appears on a site like this one where everyone who contributes is essentially on the same side!

I was thinking the same thing. Webster was a high-profile (some might say attention-seeking) psychologist used by clubs (Richmond was one, I think) in the 80s or perhaps 90s. There was some scepticism about his value back then, but I think that was more a distrust of the concept than the person. That we can remember his name probably points as much to to the aforesaid attention-seeking behaviour as to how unusual it was at the time to have a psychologist working in the VFL/AFL.

I was directly asking Cranky Franky. I'm curious as to why he would use "Harry" when Lumumba himself has made clear that he wants to be known as Heritier Lumumba. It seems to me that anyone should be called by the name they choose. To be called by a name that one has deliberately changed and moved away from, for whatever reason, seems insulting to me.

Why do you keep calling Lumumba "Harry"?