La Dee-vina Comedia

Made me laugh...I can't imagine Preuss as a forward ever playing on anyone but a smaller opponent.

It's not that hard to understand...once someone under the age of 20 explains it to you (speaking from experience). Think of it this way: If you'd tipped the team in 9th position every week this year, your tip would have been right 12 times out of 16 games. On the other hand, if you'd tipped team that was second on the ladder every week this year, you would have only got that tip right 4 times out of 15 games.

Based on that statement, I have to assume you'd be happy to trade Gawn.

I think we will this week. Rowan Marshall is probably leading St Kilda's B&F and is very much doing well because of his mobility.

I don't disagree, but there will be about 8-10 players on our list at the beginning of next year who won't have played a game. It's one of them that I was thinking about.

I think its only "meaningless" to those people for whom the fact doesn't suit their agenda.

I couldn't find a thread, but if I'm mistaken please merge or delete. If Tim Smith or Weideman are available, one of them should come in for Preuss. He's been tried and he's not ready. Lockhart had no impact. Presumably Viney is the only player at risk of missing due to injury. That's two outs, or three if Viney's unavailable. Players to bring in are hard to find (other than Smith or Weideman). I'd like to see JKH, but it seems the club doesn't. Who else?

I find it hard to believe that Bendigo as a zone should be any better or worse than the Goulburn/Shepparton area that we had. I suspect Carlton's relative success with their zone may have had more to do with their ability to extract talent at that time. The point about Berwick and Mornington Peninsula being high growth areas makes sense and may have been advantageous to Hawthorn, but I still suspect their main success came from good talent identification programs and good coaching, both of which I suspect were deficient at Melbourne.

Can Demonland please confirm that Joeboy's account has not been hacked? I don't ever remember him being this positive after a loss.

The dilemma is that if he plays perhaps he will be keeping a great talent out. The player who plays instead of Lewis might become a champion. If he doesn't get to play because Lewis does, we would never know. My view is that Lewis's time is up. I think he's been a great addition, but as time has progressed we've received diminishing on-field returns. (That's not a criticism; we knew when we recruited him that his third year would likely be highly problematic because of his age.) And I would expect those returns to diminish much further were he to play on in 2020.

Hard to believe he's 30 years old already. And so's Austin Wonaemirri.

6. Oliver 5. Fritsch 4. Salem 3. Harmes 2. May 1. J Wagner

He's a defender; the others aren't. C Wagner on the other hand... I can understand why ANB is playing and why Hannan is not. And in all seriousness, C Wagner for Dunkley isn't much of a change. What interests me, though, is why J Wagner is in when it's two forwards that got the chop. We can but hope it means Salem on the wing or in the midfield.

Where was our zone? And is it correct to say it was "lousy" or was it more that we were incapable of making appropriate use of it?

Can't "like" this enough. Well said.

I used to have confidence in the capability of the AFL Commission to administer the competition. For example, I have agreed with the concept of the expansion strategy (ie, Giants and Suns) and the Commission's willingness to support social causes. But I'm not as confident as I used to be, especially when it comes to their understanding of the product itself.

An excellent, thought-provoking documentary. If people haven't seen it, I strongly recommend they do. While it's clearly football-related, it's the bigger picture about society, privilege and those that have a voice and how they use (or mis-use) it, that's most interesting. And it's probably worth pointing out that while there are some people mainly in the media - who come out of this badly, there are a few who deserve to be recognised for the positive roles they played. I'm not normally his greatest fan, but Mark Robinson was terrific as was Kelly Underwood. And possibly not properly noticed was Luke Darcy trying to stop Eddie McGuire from making a fool of himself.

Thanks Macca, for this and your subsequent posts on the topic, especially those that provide the data which backs up your earlier post. It is interesting that we're having this discussion the same week the drop off in cricket became a big story in the UK. The drop off in support for cricket there (not just at-ground spectators and TV viewers but also numbers of players) has been directly linked there to the transfer of the TV product from free-to-air to pay TV in 2005. Hopefully the AFL will appreciate that having only one-third of the games on free-to-air TV has a significant downside which might have more effect on the future of the competition than the "watchability" of the games. However, I have no confidence in either the Commissioners or the Executive to understand the sensitivity of what they are dealing with.

Do you know where that figure can be found? I'm reasonably sure I heard Gil speaking the other day claiming that TV viewership is the highest its ever been. Not that I trust him.

With our luck, the AFL will grant us permission to engage a nurse.

I was hoping you could. I now have to decide whether you can't help me or won't help me. My point is, that you have an opinion that it's about the PF and the lack of any review. I just happen not to share that opinion. You think there's an obvious correlation; I think it's far more nuanced than that.

I can't see the link between the PF and us playing the way we are now. Perhaps I'm missing something, but is there something specific about the way we play that you can point to which can correct my view?

Sorry, but which program are you saying "makes him sweat"?

I'm still very ambivalent about Petracca. I see occasional glimpses but I don't think he impacts games enough. In other words, I don't see that he's a "gain" this year.

I think some supporters haven't moved on but I'd be very surprised if the players and the coaches haven't. For them, it's ancient history. Equally, every finals win before the PF would also be forgotten. They know they are only as good as the ladder says they are.