La Dee-vina Comedia

To be fair, it was just a "sound grab" for the news, so I don't know everything she might have said. But the one line that made it to air was about Yarra Park being a park for the community to use.

Presumably you mean free-to-air TV coverage, preferably on a Friday or Saturday night. And I agree with that.

The local member for the State seat of Melbourne, in which Yarra Park resides, is Ellen Sandell (Greens party). She's already been on radio complaining about it. It would be good politics for Gosch's park to be restored as "proper" parkland when we leave. My suspicion (with no evidence to back it up) is that getting out of poker machines might have been a pre-condition to getting State and/or Federal funding for the project. The Western Bulldogs got federal money for the redevelopment of Whitten Oval on that condition. It's the perfect time to be seeking State and Federal support with both governments heading towards elections within the next 11 months (or sooner).

In that case, I'm impressed. While it's obvious to us that a solid, accountable board which can maintain confidentiality is beneficial, for him to actually say what he said means he has absolute faith in the ability of his Board members to keep a secret. If he had any doubts, he wouldn't have said it.

Did Bartlett actually say this or was it a comment from whoever he was speaking with at SEN?

Presumably that might affect the sponsorship dollars we get from the NT Government. Nevertheless, I'm in favour of extricating ourselves if we can afford it. And presumably we wouldn't be doing this unless we thought we could.

You're being a bit tough on Viney given the numbers are for the season to date in which Viney has only played 4 games.

If the "ins" are only coming from Tyson, Stretch, Garlett and Petty, I can't see how Pedersen gets omitted. Structurally he'll still be needed. If Petty plays, I would expect one of the nominal defenders to miss (ie, one of Vince, Lewis, Salem, Hibberd, Jetta, J Smith). Of that group, I would suspect Vince is the most likely. Tyson, Garlett and Stretch would be putting pressure, I would have thought, on Spargo and Hannan. Nice words from Goody about Watts, too.

Maybe the AFL forgot to tell everyone that the system used actually involves a points formula where the last step in the process is to multiply the points by ladder position to get a final number.

Nice reporting and I'm impressed you didn't regress by inserting a Melbourne weather today and Frost pun in your report. Must have been tempting.

Just looking at that picture...is it Kane Cornes' or Matthew Lloyd's team? (Not that it matters.)

If I recall correctly, his son was truly a colossus.

While these changes look good on paper (so to speak) who helps out Gawn? I assume from what you've said that Frost replaces Vince and Garlett replaces Spargo. Tyson therefore is the "replacement" for Pedersen, but obviously not as the second ruckman.

No, but Stockholm Syndrome might explain why Carlton have got so many Friday night games.

Should definitely try to get de Goey just to see your second sentence come true.

Can't decide whether it's easier to classify players as good/not good than it is to decide whether they are rangas/not rangas.

"...understood to have beaten" isn't quite the same as confirmation, though. It may be true...and it may not. The writers (Peter Ryan and Jake Niall) have clearly hedged their bets with that language. If they were certain, they would have written it with less ambiguity, such as "He beat a field of internal candidates..."

What a delight* it was watching the Australia v France game with the camera always distant from the pitch so you could see the play unfolding. *I'm talking about the TV production, not the result.

Apologies. I misunderstood your post.

"Well played, number 5. Good mark, number 14. Man up, number 3."

It's not that short a break given they played on the Thursday.

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, but do we know for sure that any or all of the internal candidates applied for the position? I would be pleased if they had the confidence to do so, but equally, not disappointed if any of them believed they were not ready for the job yet.

That's a ridiculous proposition. He'll be 62 years old.

Matthews played in a different era when the way he played was not uncommon. There were outright thugs who couldn't play football (defamation laws prevent me from naming anyone, but I'll just leave John Greening's name here as someone on the receiving end), brilliant footballers who weren't at all thuggish (Robert Flower, for example) and many who were both. Matthews - who was both - got away with it because the game allowed it, or, at least, turned a blind eye to it. Whether Jack Watts could have made it in that era we'll never know. But I'm sure he would have found the game far more challenging than today's version.

He was also a Director of Pacific Star Network (owners of SEN) for a while. Pert's job is to make sure Goodwin has the resources he needs and a stable back of house, both things denied to every coach from Norm Smith to Mark Neeld. If you think it's just the coach's responsibility to help us win games you haven't really been paying attention.