La Dee-vina Comedia

I can't agree. If it was a pre-ordained outcome that he'd get off, why was he found guilty in the first place?

Contention: The MRO/AFL Appeals process is corrupt and favours the big teams such as Collingwood. If you're wondering why I've added this, have a look at the Michael Christian thread, particularly today (after Mason Cox was successful on appeal). As I keep saying, if you ever have a choice between conspiracy or incompetence, go with incompetence every time.

And I'd rather still have hair on the top of my head. There's not much use in wanting something that couldn't be kept.

I would assume an AFL coach is like any other person. Job security makes it much easier to do a better job. Any coach worrying about his or her future, may make short-term decisions to win a few games without considering what's best in the longer term.

I think you may both be right! Greater Melbourne has been growing by 100,000 people per annum for the last few years. Some of that may be Australians from elsewhere who may already support a team, but I suspect most are from overseas and therefore unaligned. But I also agree with A F that without a premiership (or two), it may be difficult to convert these unaligned supporters into Demons.

Yes, I should have given credit where it was due. Rude of me.

You asked me a question. I answered it. I'm sorry if my answer wasn't to your liking. Let's just leave it at that, shall we?

I've actually lost track of who's a realist, who's over-reacted and who is arguing with whom. I think it's time we all moved on (me included). For what it's worth, I think I'm a realist who over-reacted and started arguing with myself on this thread.

Hey, diddle, diddle, The Cats had a fiddle, Big Max jumped over [insert name]; Goody did laugh To see such sport, And the Dees ran away with the game.

? Actually, I was covering for you. So you don't have to admit to using the Copy-Paste function.

Found your Shift key, I see.

It's probably partly blind optimism. But I also think the club had struggled to know how to deal with the Preliminary Final. I sense from comments made during the off-season that the club had decided to park it as just a "bad day". By doing so, it might have allowed the players to avoid reality and, frankly, keep drinking their own bathwater. Until last Saturday. I now expect the players and coaches have been reminded how much hard work is necessary, not just to win a Premiership, and not just to win a game, but to win every moment in every game.

The Age had 12 tipsters picking Melbourne and zero Port. I can't remember The Herald Sun exactly, but it was something like 23 to 4 in favour of Melbourne. The bookmakers all had Melbourne at very short odds. I can't see how you can now argue a Melbourne defeat was "probably the expected result". Expected by whom? Having said that, I still believe the reaction on here is an over-reaction. We received a reality check. How we respond will be insightful. For what it's worth, I'm tipping us to beat Geelong. And while I tipped us last week, too, I feel more confident about this week than last, probably because any complacency (which apparently is a disease one can catch from drinking one's own bathwater) should now have been extinguished.

It's over-reaction for one game; if the losses were to continue, the reaction would then be appropriate.

I understand the point you make, but one of the big selling points to sponsors is access to the membership database. I don't know how much value it adds in absolute dollar terms, but I'm sure the more members there are (irrespective of the type of membership or whether or not they attend games) the more a sponsor is willing to pay to get access to that mailing list. Hence, getting the maximum number of members as possible is not just about match attendances, it's also about satisfying sponsors' expectations.

And looks like he's at least trying to smile. Proof that he was never interested in staying with us.

Seeing as you asked, I wonder why anyone assumes that the announcement of a "review" must mean that whatever is being reviewed must be problematic? I would expect a well run club (or business or government agency, etc) to conduct ongoing reviews of all aspects of its business including those sections which appear to be running well. To not do so risks (1) inefficient practices, (2) not identifying corruption, (3) ignoring potentially fatal flaws, (4) misdiagnosing problems, (5) failing to operate at the optimal level. I have no idea whether Dave Misson's position was at any risk. But I do know we made finals in 2018 for the first time in many years, and maybe his work contributed to that result. And your summation that he "looked at other opportunities with his family" is frankly misogynistic and assumes that his wife only looked at getting a job in Canada because her husband's position was fraught. What nonsense.

And the 4th one played Carlton and were not particularly impressive in defeating them. It may be that beating Carlton is not going to be as easy this year as the last few, but until we know more, all we can say is that Richmond didn't seem that impressive in victory and therefore all four preliminary finalists had uninspiring starts to the 2019 season.

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?