La Dee-vina Comedia

My big thanks to all our trackwatchers. It's so good to have you back. By the way, is Satyricon in attendance? (Saty, if you're reading this, I miss your reports, although I can understand why you may have chosen to withdraw.)

The Collingwood players should enjoy Bairnsdale. It would put them close to their supporter base at the Fulham Correctional Centre.

Reminds me of Melbourne in the Neale Daniher era.

Grading the draft in isolation of other list management decisions, such as trading and making use of free agency, is a bit pointless. Grading the whole shooting match from go to whoa is far more interesting...albeit we need to see how the individuals actually play. In other words, wait three years.

I wonder about that. When the Essendon players were banned, they basically couldn't attend anything. I seem to recall the ban extended to Dustin Fletcher being unable to attend school football games in which his son was playing. I recognise that there are different circumstances, hence my question.

On my monitor, the opening post includes this line, "our recent recruits who have yet to play a senior game, who he thinks will be the next Judd" with Judd being the last word on that line. I think that's a great question just as it is.

Just on players who are not at training, what's the situation with Joel Smith? Is he still "provisionally suspended"? And what does that even mean?

??? And you forgot Amp (from Ampere)

You're not a member of the English men's Test cricket team, are you?

Close, though. I'm sure someone there will have written Coburg Sux.

Adonski is our winner. Picked both Windsor and Tholstrup with the first response to the opening post. In hindsight, many might say "but they were the obvious choices". Except that of about 60 suggestions made, only two or three actually got both selections correct.

Let's stay away from Nazi sympathisers. I'd be happier with Prince, King or even "House-of"

And have we ever had a Caleb?

Apologies. Google let me down. (To be fair to Google, I may have misread my search results. I'm convinced I read that there are regular direct flights from Melbourne to Esperance, but given I can't find that same information today, I'll assume the mistake was wholly mine.)

Suggests to me he wanted to meet someone in Perth. Otherwise he could have flown to Esperance directly and saved a lot of time.

Melbourne to Esperance and back is less than 6,000km if fly direct (which is possible). So, either the 8,000km figure is wrong, or Taylor went via Perth. Relevance? If he went to Perth, who else did he speak to?

Think you know what will happen on Monday and Tuesday? Are you prepared to show the rest of us you really do know what's happening? Here's a thread for you. Just tell us all who we'll select at next week's draft. Simple. No justifications are necessary (but feel free to expand if you wish). If you're really courageous, don't qualify your selections by saying it depends on who else is selected first. Just give us the names of the players who will be on our list by Tuesday night. Closest the pin will win something from Demonstone's prize cupboard. I have no idea who is who, so no names from me.

Do we know whether the horse's name is in any way linked to Jim Stynes?

It seems to me that "raking" is only ever used to describe left-footers. If that's correct (is it?), what's the equivalent adjective to describe right-footers?

Umm... "valuable time on the ground and Hore..." . Am I close?

Sorry, can't help. I had to open the thread, though, to see whether you were looking for the Football Record (ie, magazine) or pieces of vinyl with music on it, such as that made by Peter McKenna. Good luck with your search.

The business section of today's "The Age" has a whole page article devoted to SEN. https://www.theage.com.au/business/companies/craig-hutchison-s-sports-and-media-empire-on-the-ropes-as-directors-auditor-sound-alarm-20231108-p5eij3.html It's paywalled, but, in essence, the headline says it all: "Craig Hutchison's sports and media empire on the ropes as directors, auditor sound alarm". Other interesting points in the article refer to the questionable strategy of owning sporting franchises (SEN owns a netball team and at least one basketball team); while SEN in Melbourne rates between 3-4%, its ratings in Brisbane and Sydney are dismal (0.9% and 0.7% respectively); SEN's horse racing coverage is apparently a "cash cow" for the company; about five people, including Hutchison own about 60% of SEN; Nine Entertainment (which also owns The Age) holds a small piece of SEN through 3AW. To be fair to SEN, I think the headline might be a touch dramatic. It's correct that the financial performance of SEN has seen it burn through cash, but that has been during a period of acquisitions. Now that SEN has a national footprint, the acquiring stage would appear to be over, so SEN may now be making money.

Or the argument that you have to be your team's best player. Sometimes that works (James Hird) and sometimes it doesn't (Gary Ablett Sr). Conversely, some of the best captains were clearly nowhere near that team's best player (Tom Harley, Nick Maxwell).

Flawed argument given captaincy is not just about 3 hours or so on gameday. My view has always been that the gameday component of captaincy is only a small part of the role.

Thanks for forcing a horrible visual image on me.