La Dee-vina Comedia

Many years ago the AFL (it might even have been that long ago it was the VFL) considered gate sharing for all games and concluded that the hard working clubs would end up subsidising the unprofessional ones. They changed to the model that the home team should be the beneficiary of the proceeds to encourage them to work to get people to attend. I don't know what the arrangement is today, but for every argument that favours pooling and equal sharing there is another one which discourages it.

I think he looks more like a buckyball.

Lottoland is licensed in the Northern Territory which only taxes bookmakers on bets on racing. Lottoland is therefore not paying any gambling taxes (unless it also has a horse betting business on the side). That's one reason why traditional betting companies (eg, Tabcorp) don't like them. Anyway, due to Federal legislation, Lottoland will be unable to take bets on lotteries from the end of this year. Personally, I think that's a good thing.

Not sure where to pose this question, but given it's a question about stats recorded for this game, this is probably better than starting a new thread. According to the AFL website here are some players, their disposal numbers and their contested possessions (CP) and uncontested possessions (UP). However, the contested and uncontested possessions do not equal disposals. Perhaps this is because a player may take possession but not dispose of the ball. But if that's the case, how does Petracca have more disposals than possessions? Does anyone know how these numbers are actually derived and what they measure?

How many games did Hibberd miss at the beginning of last year? I've always been of the view that AA selections are rather like job interviews in that the "primacy" and "recency" factors have too much influence. "Primacy" means the ones noticed first (for the AA, that means those players who dominate in the first few rounds; for job interviews, it's the first person interviewed) while "recency" refers to the ones noticed at the end (last few games in the home and away series for AA, last person interviewed for the job). If Tom McDonald retains his form, though, particularly if he's strong in the last 2-3 weeks of the season, I doubt the games he missed will go against him.

They may have failed the medical, too, if having your own teeth was considered to be an essential requirement in wartime.

They did, but that was back in the days when we couldn't manage to break an egg.

I will be very disappointed should this happen. I had thought we'd moved on from those days and had a fully functioning Board and administration. If the AFL override the MFC, then clearly we are not as independent as I had thought we had become. Mind you, it's a pretty big "if".

You may be right. [Corporate gobbledygook alert...] What I should have said was that if I worked for the MFC and did a risk assessment, I would conclude that there's an unacceptable level of risk that QB will disappear as a public holiday after the death of the Queen and that the club should be planning accordingly to ameliorate that risk.

Late to this topic, but I assess my "worst movies" in a slightly different way. Generally, it's how I feel about a movie compared with expectations based on community views. In other words, when I think a film is a stinker when others seem to think it's great. And under that classification it's no contest: Titanic. Awful dialogue, awful acting and awfully long.

I don't think it matters much what Eddie wants. The longterm prospect for a public holiday on the second Monday in June isn't promising, whether we become a republic or not. Her Majesty is 92. When she passes it is my view that the Queen's Birthday holiday, rather than becoming a King's Birthday holiday, will be replaced with some other public holiday which is more relevant to Australia. It may fall in winter, but it could equally be any other time of the year. We should worry less about who hosts Queen's Birthday football and instead develop alternative blockbuster formats. I've said it before, so I'll repeat it here: To me the obvious blockbuster opportunity is the Capital City Clash between Melbourne and Sydney. The two biggest cities which host between them the HQs of the bulk of corporate Australia should, with the right promotion, be able to generate big crowds and big sponsorship opportunities for both Melbourne FC and Sydney FC. Alternating between the MCG and the SCG each year and played as a Friday night game. Get the State premiers involved, the respective Lord Mayors and various other Melbourne and Sydney-based bodies.

What amazes me is that (1) someone bothered to check and that (2) this sort of analysis can now be done reasonably quickly. I await with interest someone who can tell me in how many of Nathan Jones 250 games he also played with someone with the surname McDonald/MacDonald.

Your logic is a tad askew. Carlton has the worst win/loss record of all clubs (bar the two newbies) in the 2000s. Please don't tell me you are arguing that Carlton is being rewarded for its form in the 70s and the 80s.

Didn't we get priority picks a couple of times?

I haven't seen the game so I won't give votes, but I did listen to the 3AW call and I'm pleased that they raved over Jetta's game and consistently said he should be the All-Australian small defender.

Essendon I can understand. They made finals last year and appeared to be on an upward trajectory. Travis Auld was on 3AW on Saturday and grilled about the Friday/Saturday night scheduling and made a complete hash of it. He argued very unconvincingly that it had something to do with scheduling difficulties primarily associated with ANZAC Day and ANZAC eve. (In my view that might affect the two or three weeks before and after 25 April, but not the whole year.) The 3AW panel (Tim Lane, Caroline Wilson, Leigh Matthews and Jimmy Bartel) were not persuaded by his argument at all.

I guess even someone known as "Junior" eventually becomes an old McDonald.

Minor quibble. I don't think the suspension was at all controversial. Bugg's action that caused the suspension might have been, but not the suspension itself.

This thread has me thinking...have we recruited more players from other clubs than the reverse? That is, how many Melbourne players have continued at clubs after starting with us? It would seem to me that over the last 15 years or so, we haven't seen too many start with us and end up somewhere else.

QD, you can believe a person who used to be the Chief Executive of the AFL or you can believe me. The choice is entirely up to you.

Daisycutter, you might prefer this one:

Does Dean Terlich qualify? Wasn't he a Swan first?

The AFL is to football like Mendel was to genetics. They publish incorrect facts which just happen to have the correct conclusions. This century didn't start until 1 January 2001, not 2000. Hence, the data used for 2000 shouldn't be included. As it happens, Carlton played 25 games in 2000 and won 17 of them; Melbourne also played 25 games, but only won 16. So, the correct figures are that Carlton has played 392 matches for 140 wins with a winning percentage of 35.7% whereas Melbourne has played 390 for 142 wins and a percentage of 36.4%. You can thank me later.

Recent Premiers have also had strong VFL teams which is a sign both of depth and a good run with injuries. Let's hope that trend continues.

Ahh. That would make sense (or not, given that the percentage of our own total infringements is relatively meaningless as a measure being compared with other teams. It's the absolute number, rather than the proportion, that might be vaguely interesting or relevant.)