La Dee-vina Comedia

I'll take this at face value, but what I really want to know is whether he went into the game with the ankle problem or whether the injury happened during the game. If he went into the game with that injury, and if it was the cause of his poor performance, it is obvious in hindsight that he should not have played. But I wonder whether it should also have been obvious with foresight?

Wow. To use the usual analogy, I assume you would also agree with this logic: all dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore all dogs have four legs. It has been well covered elsewhere that Misson is leaving to travel overseas to accompany his wife who has a new job in Canada.

Great example of how the father-son rule doesn't always work.

No footy department would ever publicly admit this, but I wonder if, for the first time in many seasons, we weren't preparing a team for Round 1 but for the Finals. That means accepting the possibility of missing out on early wins for a bigger prize later on. It's not without risk, of course, because you need enough wins to make the Finals, but there is also not much point in making Finals, just to make up the numbers. So, I'm choosing this optimistic scenario, at least for this week. Makes the loss more bearable.

I don't wish to sound harsh, but if he does "implode" (and I hope that doesn't happen) we may not want him back. We may not want him back anyway, either because we've adequately filled the gap he left behind or we are not interested in taking back a player who needs significant pastoral care which drains resources. I hope he succeeds to a level which makes him and Freo happy. I still doubt it will be enough for Freo to win a Premiership while Ross Lyon is coach, though. Lyon's game style seems to be primarily about not losing, rather than winning.That might get a team all the way to the finals, but the highly disciplined approach and lack of risk-taking which his game style requires will leave the team unable to respond when it really counts in a big game.

Without seeing what Ralph actually wrote (or hearing what he said), I'm not sure what to make of this statement. Was he saying that there were multiple claims of Hogan being seen all of which proved to be false (which, I think, would be a literal interpretation) or was he trying to say that Hogan had been seen as often as there were claims that Elvis had been seen. It's been a long time since Elvis has left the building and as far as I know, not once has an alleged sighting of Elvis been proven.

I've not been following his off season, but do we know whether his foot injury has fully and properly resolved?

And to drill a bit deeper, I wonder if it's also a story, within those clubs, of two coaches? One who has recruited Andrew Lovett, Harley Bennell and Jesse Hogan. And one who hasn't.

Wrong Khan. Ghengis was a mongrel Mongol. I think the Khan who can be linked to "nice" was Kubla, with his "stately pleasure-dome". (From my favourite poem of all time, which, perhaps ironically given some of the content of this thread, was written following an "opium-influence dream".)

I'm not quite sure what you were expecting. "Wild untapped potential" would have been snapped up in the draft period. Lockhart is being selected effectively as the last rookie pick in our draft. What's there to sell? If he makes it, well and good. But the odds of him becoming some sort of star player are long. Any attempt to "sell" this recruitment would be just setting him up to fail in the eyes of supporters.

This one's obvious. It's an allegory portraying the MFC at the time as donkeys.

I seem to recall the AFL does this every year with each of the team captains. But why? What's the marketing value of this photo? I'm not having a go at the AFL (there are plenty of other more important - and unimportant - issues to do that), but I'm genuinely curious. Why is this photo taken? What's it used for?

And the other 26k are recycled members courtesy of Visy.

I think we may have drafted some sort of Benjamin Button. According to Knightmare (see above) on 14 June 2017 he was 183 cm tall. According to Mad As Hell on 2 October 2018 (in the Jay Lockhart thread started last year), he's 177 cm. If he keeps shrinking at this speed he'll change sports and become a jockey before the Spring Racing Carnival. Some confirmed height and weight numbers would be appreciated.

I'm not sure he flies under the radar and more. Among my non-Melbourne supporting friends and work colleagues, he seems to be the third player (after Gawn and Oliver) who they comment on when discussing the best players in our team.

Were you meaning Richmond supporters? If so, there's a typo in your post as I imagine you meant to write that they are "rank and vile" supporters.

Two crimes against English here. "It's understood" is completely unnecessary and who describes people as "faces"? They don't have bodies? minds? souls? Ugh

Or "AFLXtasy"

Because of the change in the rules allowing recruitment of relatively recent retirees, you'd have to assume clubs are striking deals with their higher-quality retirees which commit those ex-players to agree to come back to the club they've just retired from, should they decide to play again. The equivalent of a "non-compete" clause as used today in business.

While we debate the illicit drugs in off-season (and in season) issue within the AFL, the NRL has had a nightmare off-season.This is in today's Sydney Morning Herald. I wonder whether the AFL will soon be embroiled in something similar? I hope not, but as much as I like to think NRL and its supporters are somehow inferior to the AFL, I suspect that our code will not be immune to something similar.

The trouble is, where does one stop? True leaders would donate blood; true leaders would sleep at the G for the homeless; true leaders would pick up rubbish on Clean Up Australia Day. Nevertheless, I concede that as the drugs policy is the AFL's, I think you make a point and if I were an AFL Commissioner I would agree to being drug tested under the same scheme (ie, randomly - which means it wouldn't necessarily be done "before the players")

In the old days - and not that long ago - conservative politics was the opposite of the nanny state.

Up until recently, I would have thought your reference to a "hard conviction over illicit drugs" referred to Tony Mokbel. Witness X has changed all that. The AFL's conviction, as weak as it might be, might still now be stronger than Mokbel's.

Is the AFL taking an ethical stance? I don't think it's that. I think its a commercial decision and (perhaps, although I'm not 100% convinced), a player welfare decision. With respect to the commercial issue, AFL players caught taking recreational or performance enhancing drugs damages the AFL brand. The player welfare link is not as clear cut. Some (many? most? all?) illegal drugs can be harmful, but I'm not sure the AFL is concerned about the harmful effects of illegal drugs on individual players who voluntarily take them. I suspect that stated position is lip service to make the AFL looks like it cares for something that's arguably not its concern.

I assume you mean Brad Hodge. Because Luke Hodge has all those traits you've ascribed to Viney AND talent. (Otherwise I agree with the rest of your excellent post).