La Dee-vina Comedia

Arguably the second best football quote of the year came from Oliver when he was interviewed on the ground after the Adelaide match. He was asked what it was like having Max as a ruckman and he responded (and I'm paraphrasing), "Amazing. I just tell him where I'm going to run to and he taps the ball to that spot and it lands in my lap". And the best quote? Just after Zac Toohey kicks the winning goal and James Brayshaw calling the game on 7 says (and, again, I'm paraphrasing), "Which boy doesn't grow up dreaming of kicking a goal after the siren to win a game of AFL football?...(short pause)...Oh, probably Zac Toohey. When he was growing up he had probably never heard of the game."

Apologies. My mistake.

Your name and insightful comments tell me you're a real doctor. Or perhaps a professional MurDerer specialising in executions starting with the feet and working your way up. If it's the former you're welcome to work at the MFC; if the latter, I'd like to offer you a job at Richmond.

I'm old enough to remember Greg Parke. I think he was the consistently best contested mark I have seen, playing back in the day when most marks were contested because of the man-on-man style of game played back then. His kicking though...

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Salem was training with the midfield group over summer with the expectation that he would play there this year. And I think in the first few games he did. If my memory is correct I wonder whether he was moved to the backline as a necessity (because the backline needed strengthening) or whether the coaches felt he wasn't a success as a midfielder. Either way, it's good to know that he is clearly a superior backman who has some practical midfield experience should the need for him to play there ever arise.

That's an extraordinary effort by Patrick Cripps. In our recent past when we were down the bottom, we had no-one anywhere near the top in any awards. It's reminiscent of how Flower stood out in a barren field throughout much of his career.

The 3rd quarters are often where we switch from having played ordinary or even poor football to exciting, winning football. It makes me wonder two things: did the players not listen to the coach before the game but somehow are more receptive at half time? has the coach got the gameplan (using that word broadly to include match-ups, etc) wrong before the game but worked out how to rectify it and explain to the players what they need to do? Either way, I suspect it's not just coincidence. I expect something happens at half time which suggests Goodwin and his coaching team are earning their money.

She's never heard of Bernice? or Bernardette?

I'm not convinced that we should play both Garlett and Spargo. Spargo seems to show more drive but can't do it for a whole game just yet. Perhaps Spargo should go for vandenBerg (if he's ready) or Kent. I'm no fan of Wagner, but he's in real trouble if he can't get a game ahead of J Smith.

Joeboy, your list this week is a bit like a Melbourne game. Good for the most of it, brilliant for sustained periods but with a bit where substantial improvement is still required. It's unfair to be critical without putting my own neck on the line, so I disagree with you with O Mac, Jetta and Smith. The first two I thought were very good; the last shouldn't be in the team.

6. Oliver 5. Gawn 4. Neal-Bullen 3. Harmes 2. Frost 1. Brayshaw Honorable mentions to O Mac and Jetta. The defenders did a great job, given that when Joel Smith is on the ground his game immaturity shows. (Yes, I'm trying to be polite.)

The article is, like his coaching, a bit incomplete. It says that Neeld "admitted that in hindsight he should have trusted his own judgment more when implementing the Demons' plan to rebuild once again" but doesn't explain if it wasn't his, whose judgment he did rely on. I suspect there's a fair bit of dissembling going on. I hope he can find a proper future. He's never going to be a senior coach again and he probably should never have been one, but I don't for one moment think that he wasn't trying to do his best when he was with us.

Until he got injured. Then they were screwed.

Is that this Macedonian Marvel character?

Which numbers? I expect TV ratings are down, but what about crowd attendances? And overall revenues?

Inanimate ?

Could be both, of course.

Worked the angles really well, too.

If you have a 10 metre exclusion zone, it has to be used all over the ground, including players deep in the pocket. The real question is whether there is a need for a 10 metre instead of 5 metre zone. I'm ambivalent. I can see that it provides the player with the ball more room to go left or right...but was it a problem that needed solving before the rule was changed?

We've been bad for so long, it's taken until now to get to the stage where we have to worry about what to do in close finishes. Now that we seem to have fixed so many of our previous problems, we can concentrate on fine tuning various aspects of the game. It's classic Pareto's Law which states that 80% of anything takes 20% of effort (or time or money) while the remaining 20% takes 80% of the effort (or time or money). Or, to put it another way, we've been concentrating on the low hanging fruit such as fitness, basic skills and learning to play.

Can someone please confirm whether Casey plays more games than it has byes in a full season?

It was another standard AFL over-reaction at the time caused partly by the tactics of Hawthorn in one game and Richmond's Joel Bowden in another. When kicking out, Bowden kept stepping back over the line after the umpire called played on thereby taking up time while allowing the opposition to score a point when they needed to score a bit more. A better solution to the Bowden problem would be to require that every kick in from a behind to be at least 15 metres. A free kick would be paid at the top of the square if the umpire deemed the kick to have been shorter than 15 metres or if the defender deliberately backed over the line without kicking the ball. (It would also stop the defender kicking the ball to himself and then playing on, but I don't see this as particularly problematic.) I would actually like the kick to be more than 15 metres, but given that number is already in use for determining whether a mark should be paid, it would be better to leave it at the same number so umpires don't have to estimate another distance.

I just read this post as "take down the tranny that is the AFL!" Very disturbing imagery.

A player's previous record should have nothing to do with whether a player is reported by an umpire or cited by the MRO. But it should, however, be relevant to any punishment if found guilty.

I've always found it strange* that the AFL chose to give the Norm Smith medal to the best player at the Grand Final rather than to the coach of the year or the coach of the premiership team. Smith was a great player, too, but given he's best remembered for being a coach it seems wrong that his name is not associated with a coaching award. There are plenty of players who's names would not be inappropriate for the best player in the Grand Final including our own Ron Barassi, but also Michael Tuck, Alex Jesaulenko, etc. Nevertheless, it's too late now. *Actually, not so strange. It is the AFL, after all.