La Dee-vina Comedia

If I were starting from scratch, I'd keep the VFL to 12 teams, one each for the 10 Victorian based teams and two non-aligned teams who could bid for a licence/franchise. However, I recognise it's not a greenfield opportunity and the various non-aligned teams have varying degrees of merit.

How do these changes, and the administration of the VFL generally, compare with what happens in the other States? At first blush, it seems to me we have too many VFL teams. A smaller competition might allow a higher salary cap per club and improve playing standards.

Given the importance of mental health, I would suggest any criticisms of players not returning early should be tempered by the thought that some players might be better off not being at the club at this time of year. I hasten to add I'm not speaking with any specific knowledge, but we need to be more aware that the needs of individual players differ.

The curious bit about this for me is how it happens. I would have thought the "Find My iPhone" feature (which I assume also works similarly for Android phones) just needs to be switched on and the club and ASADA would know where the players are at all times. If that's correct, does this mean players deliberately switch that feature off? Or maybe I'm just ignorant about how phones work.

Pity. We don't have anyone (do we?) with a zed in their surname. When we had Neitz, Yze, Schwarz, Bizzell we were a team to be reckoned with.

Is that a good thing? Sounds dangerous to me.

The photo makes it look like Jones has had a hair transplant or added a really bad wig.

I think this thread has the wrong title. Until Harley is officially a Melbourne player, he should be the "other Bennell".

Has Lewis done any of the formal coaching training courses? (My question is not a criticism. Far from it. I'm just wondering whether coaching is his long-term plan. Starting as a skills coach seems like an excellent strategy for his own development should he wish one day to be a full-time coach.)

We really do need a sarcasm font.

pre-season?

Thanks Saty. I've lost track of time. Is Oliver still one of the young players who were all expected back today or has he turned up voluntarily?

What's interesting is that instead of tinkering with the rules to try to improve scoring the AFL appears to have adopted a competely different strategy: rewarding higher scoring teams with more prime time slots. I don't recall that being a strategy used before and I welcome it. I'm not necessarily saying that I think the aim of the game should be more high scoring; rather, that achieving an aim by not playing around with the rules of the game itself seems to be a better approach.

This is where Demonland comes into its own. I suspect I spend more time on here in the period November to March than I do April to September. Thanks, in advance, to all out track watchers.

In the monochrome (blue/white) information sent out by the club, but prepared by the AFL, I had no idea which team the bird represented which turned out to be Hawthorn. Could have been any one of Eagles, Magpies, Crows, or Hawks. Clearly the marketing people at the AFL are idiots. But we already know that.

Should be aiming for 14 wins minimum irrespective of the draw. I hope the club doesn't indulge in Demonland Groupthink (Trademark pending) and start assessing the likelihood of wins and losses on the vagaries of the draw.

Maybe. But we might need one to stop us being one.

If he is able to play again, I hope all clubs agree to let St Kilda redraft him with their last pick in the draft of the relevant year. It would be even better if the AFL made a rule that players who sit out a year (or more) because of concussion can be automatically re-listed. In fact, the rules should change so instead of delisting him, St Kilda should be able to temporarily suspend his listing. The last thing he needs is the pressure of wondering whether he might be drafted by another club should he return and still want to play with the Saints.

I think supporters forget that when players are drafted they are most often still teenagers with the potential to grow. If Stretch had grown a few more centimetres he might have been more successful. Instead, he always seemed undersized and for that reason not strong enough to match it with bigger players. Both Stretch and JKH deserve credit for what they've achieved. I hope that they succeed with whatever they do next, whether it's continuing as AFL footballers or not.

The AFL should never have given the medal to Cotchin and Mitchell in the first place precisely because of the possibility that one day new evidence might have cleared Watson. Note that I am not saying the story today has necssarily done that, but it's a problem entirely avoidable if the AFL had decided when it stripped Watson of the medal to leave the Brownlow unawarded for that year.

I also think Josh Mahoney's media performances neatly find the right balance between telling the truth but not necessarily the whole truth. That's important both for members and supporters to know what's going on but also to enable him to keep his powder dry should other opportunities arise.

I just like the fact that we obviously had a plan for the trade period and have executed it cleanly and (compared with most other clubs) quickly. I assume much of the work was done months ago getting the players interested and negotiating terms, but the deals with the other clubs (ie, Freo and Hawthorn) still had to be done. The club deserves credit for its ability to achieve its desired aims.

Not quite. You've lost two rookie list spots which could have been used on other players

That makes sense. Thanks.

Can anyone explain to me what the blue dots are meant to represent that the colours don't? If the blue dots are meant to be possessions, do they add anything that the colours do not? And, if that's the case, I'm struggling to see why the colours are what they are. There seems to be plenty of inconsistency. Many of the blue dots seems to appear in areas coloured yellow/green (see the area just outside the forward 50m mark or the full back position, for example) which seem to have just as much density as some of the red/orange.