La Dee-vina Comedia

Personally, I think we should be more respectful of the umpires, particularly when they're announcing their retirements. I get frustrated, too, with the decisions at times, but I don't think for one minute they're biased in any way. And it must be an almost impossible game to umpire. So, good luck to Troy and Justin and thanks for your service.

I suspect it's the difference between a pessimistic view on Monday and an optimistic view on Friday.

I feel like that every week after a loss. By Friday I'm busting with optimism irrespective of what happened in the previous game.

A few weeks back I recall commenting that Goodwin must say something at half time because for a period there we were poor in the first half and then significantly better in Q3. Perhaps he was too monotone pre-game and animated at half time. More likely, though, is that he could see the problems in the first half and could explain to the players how to fix them for the second half. Of course, that still required the players to execute correctly which it seems they couldn't do last week against Sydney.

I'm working on the basis that 2017 didn't actually exist.

Of interest to me is whether Weideman or McDonald play the second ruck role around the ground. The argument for McDonald is that the team is more familiar with him doing it and he's better around the ground than Weideman. The argument for Weideman doing it is that it leaves our most dangerous forward in the forward role for the whole game. I'll guess we'll be conservative and keep McDonald as second ruck because that's what the onballers are more familiar with.

While that's an amusing comment, this year is really about getting ready for a genuine assault on the Premiership in 2019 to 2022. The stats show we're building in so many areas. Next year I expect it to all come together and make us a serious contender. I'd like us to make Finals this year so as to give the players some September experience, all to help with the 2019 to 2022 window of opportunity.

Glad you cleared that up. I thought you were talking about Saty.

Surprised you didn't go with Hann in

To be fair you need to add (f) to (n) [little maths joke] of all the negatives such as: f) if it's a behind the opposition can attack g) ditto if it's out on the full h) if it doesn't quite make the distance it will be punched through for a behind - see (f) i) if it misses, it looks bad at the ground j) if it misses, it subdues the crowd k) it might increase the risk of a hamstring or calf strain etc

As a matter of interest, is there any data which refers to the success rates of coaches versus their experience? We appreciate that inexperienced players make mistakes with the consensus view these days suggesting that it's not until a core of players reach 50+ games each that success starts to follow. Is it generally the same for coaches? I know it's hard to assess because some inexperienced coaches inherit strong teams (Chris Scott, Alan Joyce) and conversely, some experienced coaches take over when a club is very low (Roos with us, Malthouse with Carlton, Eade with Gold Coast). Nevertheless, we should not lose sight of the fact that Goodwin is still an inexperienced senior coach.

I'm in favour of the club replacing the free scarf with every membership with a 30 minute session with a sports psychologist to help me cope with the footy season.

Of course, if we do beat the Eagles, there will be claims that the Eagles tanked deliberately to keep us in the finals race on the basis of the common belief that we couldn't actually beat another team in the 8 if that team was actually trying.

On the inside or outside?

Thanks. Perhaps we won't then hold that particular record, then. And I don't feel any better.

We already hold the record for missing out on playing finals by percentage. This year if we miss, we might create two more records: highest percentage for a team missing finals; and missing finals by the smallest time gap. (If the siren had gone one second earlier in the second Geelong game, we wouldn't have lost it).

Thankyou, grey wolf. I've been trying to find the best way to describe how he played and you've done it in one, beautiful word. And I agree that Jezza is the closest comparison. Those of us old enough to remember them both are quite privileged.

He made going to the football bearable during the dark days pre-1987. The clip reminds me of just how good he was to watch. He's not the best player* I've seen, but he was clearly the most watchable. (*Matthews, followed by Carey, Ablett Sr and Ablett Jr, then Flower)

Check the date to make sure it's not April 1st

Barassi would be my choice. But there's a player we drafted who never came to us but eventually played elsewhere who would have been pretty handy: Darren Jarman

(this thread bump has to be the biggest of all time). Apparently Ratten has been cast off by Hawthorn, not because he's considered to have failed but because Hawthorn believes in constant renewal of its assistant coaching stocks. He has admitted that he has been spoken to by other clubs about joining them in an assistant's role. My view is that when we lose games it's because of an inability of the midfield to defend under pressure. If Ratten can help fix that, I'd be in favour of getting him into our assistant coaching ranks.

Like for like in its purest form.

Hogan out requires some structural consideration. Which of T Mac, Weideman or Pedersen becomes the second ruck to provide Gawn with relief around the ground? All of them have had a go. In my opinion, T Mac would be the best relief option because of his ability to run and play more like a midfielder than the other two. But if he does that, it leaves either Weideman or Pederson as the sole key forward (unless we play them both...or neither of them, which is surely unlikely). Or are we better to keep T Mac permanently forward (the Hogan role) and have either Weideman or Pederson play the role that T Mac has been playing? My gut feel is keep T Mac doing what he's doing and have either Weideman or Pedersen play the Hogan role.

Presumably the designers of the auto-censor assume that every reference to 'bastard' refers to the child of an unwed mother.