La Dee-vina Comedia

https://www.afl.com.au/news/608379/fixture-update-start-time-changes-and-travel-arrangements-for-r8

Hopefully it's only a hypothetical, but would the AFL require the Swans to play if the players were OK to do so but the senior coach was not? I would have thought so...it's no different from the Senior Coach being ill as we saw with Clarkson a few years ago when Bolton took over.

When we last played at the MCG the ground announcer instructed that anyone who had been in Perth in recent days or on a particular plane flight between Melbourne and Perth had to leave the ground immediately. There was any way of enforcing that instruction, though. It may be the same this weekend for anyone who has been in Sydney in the last few days - Swans players and officials excepted, of course, subject to each passing a recent Covid test.

There seems to be an assumption in many of these posts that Michael Christian watches every game and decides on his own what should be the subject of sanction and what shouldn't be. I would have thought (without any evidence to back this up) that it is done another way with a small team of AFL employees who watch every game and identify potential issues of concern for MC to consider. If that's correct, MC is more like a judge with the evidence being presented to him by the AFL employees acting as prosecutors. Anyone know how the scheme actually works in practice?

How disrespectful. You could have at least suggested I was his son, rather than father!

Actually, I have a great deal of respect for Michael Christian, even though I may disagree with some of his decisions. He has taken on a thankless job knowing that every decision he makes will be scrutinised endlessly by the media and the general public. In addition, he knows every decision can be appealed and many will be overturned. It takes someone with grit and a true love for the game to take on this role.

Haymes Paint. (Just bumping this thread to give Haymes Paint a bit more value from its sponsorship dollars. If it's not going to get exposure from the MFC, Demonland will have to do.)

I don't think it's been officially decided. Rather, someone in the media has found out the results of the survey and assumed (wisely? unwisely?) that the AFL would respond to the 95%.

This one I disagree with. I find I'm not ready on a Thursday night for a game of football.

Humorous Tweet about our sponsor, Haymes Paint:

If you watch it at ordinary speed, it looks like an inconsequential push. It's only in slo-mo that you see the elbow connecting with the head. If we had the choice, I would say don't watch it in slo-mo or frame-by-frame. I hope Fritsch's appeal is successful for the simple reason that I believe it was an unforseeable accident. Just like head clashes. It's a game where people sometimes get hurt, and while I am all for protecting the head, I don't think this is an example where Fritsch could have predicted his action would have resulted in his arm connecting with the victim's head.

It's a bit academic in this instance. It will be 10.5 months, or thereabouts between now and the beginning of the 2022 season, so the real question is not whether 6 months is long enough but whether 10.5 is.

He'll have more time to complete his Masters degree in whatever it is he's studying. (Anyone know what it is?) Mind you. I'm sure ACL re-hab is a long and time consuming process for professional sports people.

Um. How is this different from any other time?

Sam Edmund tweeting ACL confirmed. Unsurprising but definitely most disappointing.

Hey @Demonland. Any chance you could tell us the weekly votes for each round as well as the cumulative totals?

We've still got Gold Coast's measure.

Seems like there's a fine line between sophisticated algorithms and alchemy. To be able to "score" player actions in real time - which must be happening for Fox to be able to state what a team's pressure rating is - there must be a panoply of specialist statisticians at every game. As interesting as this data is, in these days of Covid-induced cost cutting, I really wonder whether it's necessary.

Jean Shrimpton hadn't yet turned up to Flemington in a mini-skirt and with bare legs.

On the commentary yesterday, we were given information about each club's "pressure rating" during the game. Anyone know how that's measured? And is it related to individual players' "pressure points" included in the Herald Sun players' stats?

What about throwing in the fact that his contest for the pack mark saw the ball end up out the back for Jackson to kick a goal? Or throw in the fact that his presence allowed McDonald to go into defence to replace Tomlinson? Or throw in the fact that it was his first game for the year and the first game with his new teammates? Or that he kicked 2 goals.

As Lesley Neilson would say, "Surely you can't be serious".

I must have been watching a different game to just about everyone else. I thought Melksham played well - not well enough for me to give him votes, but certainly in the top 10-12 players. The only questions for me are: does Weideman come in for Tomlinson with McDonald going back or does Petty come in? does Baker get another week? He wasn't good, but he wasn't awful, either. The answer may be decided by the Petty question. If Petty comes in McDonald might go to the wing and take Baker's place does Jones get "rested", replaced by either Sparrow, Harmes or Bedford? does Fritsch get suspended?

6. Pickett 5. Fritsch 4. Jackson 3. Salem 2. May 1. Jordon