La Dee-vina Comedia

I'm not sure how a Bill of Rights would help in this situation as the players have provided their consent. If they don't like those conditions, they don't have to be professional sports people.

Has there ever been a definitive explanation as to why "permission to train" is even necessary? One possible reason is insurance for injury and another might be to stop draft tampering (although I don't know how).

Wouldn't surpise me to see Nathan Jones in that role this year.

My interest is not in the fine per se but the mechanics of how the failure happened given I can't imagine any player travelling anywhere in the world without taking their phone with them. It is possible, of course, that they may be in a remote location without phone/data access, which might require additional care by players to ensure their whereabouts are known to whoever needs to know for what I'll loosely call "ASADA purposes".

Not quite sure what privacy has to do with it. Players have impliedly consented to the ASADA requirements which includes the right for ASADA to know where they are at all times. The implied consent derives from the obligation to abide by the ASADA rules if they want to compete in the AFL system.

Hi TGR. I'm still interested in your response to the above question. I, too, would like to know what you meant with the above. And, while you're at it, who's the trash? Or am I just wasting my time expecting you to substantiate your commentary?

Adds about 15 years to his age. I thought he was one of the coaches at first.

Anyone prepared to take a guess at what's in the front of Fritsch's shorts in that photo with Dunkley? Ice?

I'm sure you are correct, but I also expect that the players would have an app on their phone for this very purpose. And if they don't, they should have (ie, ASADA should administer the obligation in this way).

I wonder about the callouses on his hand. Has he been partaking in hard, manual labour during the break?

It would be equally arguable that not making any changes during the year would have been alarming.

I thought Max Rooke had moved on. Am I mistaken?

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.