La Dee-vina Comedia

6. Harmes 5. Gawn 4. Oliver 3. Salem 2. Lockhart 1. Hunt

Any theories as to why Tim Smith's back injury and Keilty's promotion were not announced until today?

Please stay away tomorrow. On the contrary. It's a good sign. If you're nervous about team selection it means you still have hope. It took me a while to comprehend the changes. Nevertheless, this is how I see it: O Mac replaces T Mac who replaces Weideman (no surprises there) Jones replaces Viney in the guts, which means one of the defenders replaces Jones, nominally on the wing. That's probably going to be Fritsch, so Wagner, in effect, comes in for Fritsch. Another possibility is that Salem moves up the ground with Wagner taking his place, but I think that's less likely.

Who's injured and likely to be missing from the Hawthorn team?

And that's our fault. I recall reading somewhere that when Peter Jackson came to the club he couldn't believe that we'd not made more of this opportunity. It has the possibility of being turned into a blockbuster event but we've somehow let it slip. To make it a "blockbuster" game, we need to promote it more, get another club involved who we play every year to provide a sense of occasion and eventually tradition (I'd choose the Bulldogs), involve our AFLW team in some fashion and persist with the "pink ladies" walking onto the ground as it get people involved, raises money and awareness and gives the event a "purpose". It should also be a night game as it would make the pink ladies walking onto the ground more theatrical. In addition, we should make use of of our Number 1 female ticketholder (do we have one? If not, we should) as the face/voice of the round. It can't be that hard to be creative and make it into an event game which draws at least 60,000 people to the MCG every year, irrespective of the positions on the ladder of the competing teams.

Actually, none of that stuff annoys me. I'm yet to see a team win the Premiership because of those advantages. And for what it's worth, I don't think Collingwood made the Grand Final because of a "soft draw". They still had to win two finals, including one against Richmond, to get there.

I know there have been exceptions, but Goodwin usually gives a player two games after a promotion from the VFL before dropping them again. I agree that Garlett wasn't that good last week, but perhaps a second outing will see an improved output. (I also think that if he's having a quiet day, the coach should have him as part of the four in the centre at a ball up a couple of times. It helps him get involved.)

If we're at the bottom and head north...aren't we still at the bottom, but just a bit closer to the equator?

Do you have data that supports this? I would have thought if the AFL has "lost" supporters, it might have lost them from the younger generation. I'm also doubtful that any of "heavily compromised fixtures, home ground playing advantages and inequitable drafting" have had any impact on the general level of interest. I suspect most people don't think about any of those matters impacting on their level of interest. And you're mistaken about my opinion. I like the concept of the father/son rule (and eventually daughter's for the AFLW, too). That we've not been that successful has more to do with the professional approaches of those who have (particularly Geelong and Essendon). They have clearly kept selected families (such as the Watsons, Fletchers, Danihers, Abletts, etc) involved in their club.

The "just joking" defence doesn't work in a Court of law and it doesn't wash with me either. I recommend that instead of suggesting I lighten up, you consider growing up. And I'm not sure why I'm bothering, but my username derives from Dante's Divine Comedy which takes you through hell and purgatory before you get to heaven. Appropriate for a Melbourne supporter, I would have thought. I now recommend we both move on.

Ronald Dale Barassi

Playing with 23 players? I like the strategy.

If you want to get rid of the Academies, then we'd have to accept getting rid of father/son priority selections. Would you want that?

Sorry, Pitmaster, but I don't understand the last paragraph. Are you saying that you believe this information was a deliberate media strategy rather than a leak? If so, I don't have a problem with that view. Either way (leak or deliberate) it still raises the same question. Why now and for what purpose? I don't believe for one moment it's because the club is just being transparent. If that were the case, this information would have been released weeks ago.

Just a couple of weeks ago the club took a stand against online trolling. I reckon we Demonlanders should respect what the club and players were trying to do and improve our game. The two disrespectful names/descriptions used here are just two examples. I'm not a great fan of allegedly funny nicknames for clubs such as Essendope, either. But at least that's not targetting an individual. Names like these are just pathetic, and I'd like to see Demonland be more respectful of all who contribute to the wonderful game of AFL.

To me, the most interesting thing about this story is that Jake Niall has referred to the numbers allegedly in Misson's report. Assuming Niall's story is accurate, how did he get the figures? Has there been a leak? If so, for what reason? My gut feel is that the data has been deliberately leaked to take some pressure off someone. Is that someone the coach? Misson? And, if that is correct, why is there a need now to take pressure off someone? Is there some internal pressure on Goodwin? I find the questions the story raises far more interesting than the information itself, which probably doesn't tell us significantly much more than we already knew, or, at least, assumed.

I think I may have been misunderstood. I'm not saying our players don't know what Frosty is doing, that he isn't following team rules or that he's not playing well. All I was saying was that in a hypothetical situation IF our players didn't know what he was doing it would be a problem.

What if it's all a grand plan to ensure a soft draw in 2020?

A bigger concern is whether our players have a clue as to what Frosty is doing. It would be hard to know where to position yourself if you don't know what the player with ball is going to do with it.

I don't know how these stats are collected, but one significant difference in disposal stats between this year and every previous year is that Champion Data is now recording the kick in (or a hand pass) from a behind as a disposal which wan't the case previously. This will inflate the number of disposals for those who do the kick-ins, which would appear to be primarily Lewis and Salem. That's not to denigrate them - I'd rather the ball was in their hands when kicking in, but it might cause people to misunderstand the data.

Spelling is the easy bit. It's the pronunciation that's hard!

Surely running under the ball is the fault of the person kicking to him, isn't it?

Did he play wing against Richmond? He certainly played large periods of the game in the backline and spent some time as the starting 4 at centre bounces, but I don't recall him being used on the wing. Thankfully. My preferred spot for him right now is as a small forward with occasional runs on the ball.

I note that Goodwin's "buzzword" over the last few weeks has been "connection". He seems to be saying that he's happy with the effort but with so many new players and perhaps a new game plan forced by the 6-6-6 rule change, the players haven't yet worked out how to play together. If it's "connection" that Goodwin is looking for, then keeping the group as stable as possible would seem to make sense, making changes only when the injured best-22 become available. I can never work out whether Weideman is in the wrong spot or whether we deliver the ball poorly to him. Either way, I'd like to see him continue in the firsts where the problem - that lack of connection - can be resolved.

The rest of the year should be used to make decisions on fringe players and respectfully farewell two veterans. Now that the year is effectively over, we can actually afford to play Jones and Lewis. We should also start playing Petty, Keilty, Sparrow and the Wagners, etc so some get seniors experience and others get fully tested so we know who to persist with. We also need to decide where some players belong. Is Hunt a forward? Where should Lockhart play? Should Petracca spend more time in the middle...or none at all? Where is Fritsch's best position? etc