La Dee-vina Comedia

I agree with most of this post, but not the bit about Fritsch. I still expect him to play forward. The seven defenders can be Frost, Lever, McDonald, Salem, Hibberd, Lewis and Jones.

Wasn't there media coverage just a couple of days ago confirming Jones has renewed for one more year? Addendum: A quick web search suggests that Jones has yet to sign on but has apparently been offered a one year deal by the club.

You're understating it. According to the Demonland Player of the Year, he's currently our 7th best player and we all know that as a group, Demonland is never wrong.

Of course you can have an opinion without running for a Board position. My post was in the context of other posts in this thread that talked about 50,000 members and what they might choose to do. One of those options is for members to seek to make change from within. Conversely, we can criticise as much as we like from outside, but unless we're prepared to put our hands up to be involved, we shouldn't be either surprised or disappointed if the club doesn't follow our recommendations.

Jnrmac, there's nothing stopping you from putting together a group of like-minded individuals to offer up to members in a vote for Board positions. However, I don't agree with your thesis that 2018 was a poor season. We ended up fourth on the ladder. How we got there doesn't much matter. The facts are, that under the system in which we play we were considered to be the fourth best team of the year. To me, that counts as a good result. On the other hand, 2019 has been an on-field disaster. I'm still uncertain which is the "true" Melbourne. Until I see what we do in 2020, I am reserving judgement on where I pereceive the club to be.

But imagine the euphoric feeling if we win! (Make sure you imagine it well, because I fear the joy will only be in your imagination.)

Likewise. Ablett Sr is the only player I've ever made the effort to go to a game to see live. We have the same three top players, but mine's in reverse order (ie, Matthews, Carey and Ablett Sr).

Is that the correct phrasing? Wasn't it the other way around, in that if he had wanted to go we were prepared to facilitate the move with vandenBerg being the one who decided that he wanted to stay?

I'm not sure I agree, but if he has, it may be that it's because other teams are putting time into stopping him. I understand St Kiilda played Newnes on him in a purely defensive role. Whether that was the reason, Salem's disposals on Saturday were not as precise as usual.

The 50,000 members don't have to walk away. They can do something much more powerful. If they want, they can identify and vote for alternative Board members. But I bet they don't. I should add, I'm not advocating change just yet. I'd like more evidence to determine whether 2018 or 2019 is the abberation. If it turns out that 2019 is, then perhaps we don't need any knee-jerk recationary change that may actually send us backwards.

How very self-aware. Me? I've been stuck in the denial stage since 1965.

There was wind? I'm in the "leafy eastern suburbs" and there hasn't been a breath of the stuff all day.

Preuss was diabolical up forward last week but was handy as a tap ruckman. Unfortunately, Smith offered very litte up forward last night and absolutely nothing on ball. In my view, we may have won last night if we had Preuss, Weideman or T McDonald as the second ruckman. So, although he's only been out one week, I would bring back Preuss (particularly as the stats of the Casey game suggests he had a monster game). C Wagner isn't up to it and not worth persevering with, so I would also suggest he should be omitted. Baker and Petty were also poor last night, but have a future so could be persevered with, although a swap of Baker for Lockhart might be worthwhile. In should be Preuss and Melksham (if ready, if not, Lockhart). Plus May if he's ready. Out: T Smith, C Wagner plus O McDonald if May returns and J Wagner if Hore is back.

6. Gawn 5. Oliver 4. Petracca 3. Harmes 2. Frost 1. Lever Every one of the above has played better games than they played last night and all made mistakes or were poor in patches, but in my view, they were still better the remaining 16 players.

I hope you could see I'd written it using sarcasm font.

Ignore the presser. It's what he says to the players privately that matters.

Imagine sacking your coach and making finals in the same year.

Demonland haiku

Seems appropriately worded.

Confirmed. https://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-07-25/get-ready-for-ejx-legends-game-gets-new-format-and-new-home

There's some weird logic going on here. Usually the concern is when someone leaves an organisation in a worse state than when they found it. But blaming someone for events that occurred after they leave and for which they cannot possibly be held accountable is, well, bizarre. It's like saying it's John Lennon's fault that The Beatles never reformed after he was shot.

I have never believed that people booed Goodes for staging. Rather, I have always believed that people claimed they booed Goodes for staging to avoid having to admit that the booing they participated in was racist. (You will note I have deliberately phrased the above to say that the individuals themselves may not have realised that what they did was racist.)

This is just a guess, but I suspect concussion symptoms are completely unpredicatble with no way of assessing any likely timeframe. In other words, players have concussion symptoms until they don't. If I'm right, KK is listed as TBC because he's not yet right and there's no way of knowing when he will be. It doesn't have to mean that he's "done"...but until he's over the symptoms we also can't rule out the possibility that he may not play again.

I thought this thread was going to be about useless Demons rather than useless statistics. It's marginally more interesting than what I was expecting. Just.

Didn't I just read that Shaun Smith has criticised the organisation of the 2019 EJ Whitten Game for converting it to AFL-X in format? I've always believed that there's a place for AFL-X, but this isn't it. I see it as a simplistic game played overseas as a way of accommodating amateur players, where there are smaller numbers playing (so it allows for reduced team sizes) playing on rectangular fields. But I wouldn't care if it died a nautural death, either.