La Dee-vina Comedia

Ernest, I'm not sure I agree with you. On the rare occasion I see replays of games from the 60s and 70s I'm regularly surprised at how poor the quality actually is. I think we collectively remember the highlights of our youth and forget those dreadful games in the mudheaps of suburban grounds, the inability of players to find targets and the slow ball movement of the time caused by players almost always taking a mark and stopping before determining where to send their next kick.

I misread this on the first go and thought it was making a comment about Ray Biffen's propensity to place opposition players horizontally onto stretchers. Actually, makes sense that way, too.

Haven't they also "lost" (ie, delisted, traded, etc) something like 13 players? Even if they bring in Lindsay Thomas, that still leaves 6 slots for new players. My concern if I were a PA supporter is whether the 2018 version of the team can gel with so much change.

PA club rules must have something about having a Jack Trengove on their playing list at all times. Good luck to our (former) Jack. Hope he can make a success of his second chance.

Actually, the company is nearly worth $200 million. His personal wealth is around $90 m (based on today's share price).

I don't think it's a big call at all (unless your referring to the question of whether Fremantle's and Gold Coast's best teams would also beat us). And hardly surprising given we've never had a team good enough to win a Premiership during that time.

The world can be a confusing place. I consistently find that those who work the hardest for success humbly claim they were lucky, whereas those whose success was just due to dumb luck try to argue that they actually worked very hard.

I'll go further. It saddens me to say this, but if every team with the possible exceptions of Fremantle and the Gold Coast created their best teams of the last 50 years, ours wouldn't beat any of them.

I guess there is always the possibility that he only wanted a one year contract if he thought he could within that 12 month period convince the club to extend him on much more financially rewarding terms. (Unlikely strategy , I admit as it's a very high-risk way to proceed.)

Just as we're apparently paying part of Jack Watts salary, I wonder whether Balic's father will be paying part of his son's salary.

At the time we brought them in we weren't making AFL players out of good draft picks either. The only question that needs to be asked is this: With whatever pick(s) we have to part to get any player, is there a better option either available to trade for or in the draft for the same value? So, if we trade for Balic with, say, a 3rd round pick, is he a better chance of success than the alternative?

Unrelated. Different spelling of the surname.

While I agree with you, don't forget every player has an agent whispering in their ear who gets a percentage. I'm not saying agents are unreasonable but they are, by definition, conflicted in the advice they provide.

Check the date on that paper. It might be referring to James Kelly going to Essendon as a top-up player.

Who knows? You've made one assumption. But there could be a myriad of other reasons (for which I have no supporting evidence) including: relieving salary cap pressure personality clashes preference for one other player out of a list of about 45 to be captain need to regenerate a list in an ordered fashion which means "removing" older players a couple at a time offering a player of Lewis' calibre at a "peppercorn" as a courtesy to the player as gratitude for contributing to 4 premierships if Lewis had stayed Hawthorn may have lost someone else of greater importance to their long-term plans...

Is it? It seems to me the AFL continues to be concerned about the opposite. Isn't that why we have incessant rule changes? I'm sure I've heard the AFL arguing that the rule changes are essential to "keep the game moving". Presumably that means the AFL thinks the game is being slowed down by flooding which leads to those ugly rolling mauls. I suspect the only people who keep complaining that the game is "speeding up every year" are older players who are slowing down.

OK, bad example. But the point I was trying to make was that if you have zero interest in trading a player, you don't need to know what he is worth. If, on the other hand, you operate on the principle that at the right price every player is tradeable, then go ahead and find out what he might be worth. Just don't argue that you'd like to know his value if there is no intention of trading him.

So, what would the point of that be? It's like finding out what your house is worth when you're not interested in selling it. That is, information of absolutely no value.

Lewis also brings nous. When Gawn was required to leave the ground because of the blood rule, Pedersen ran from deep in defence to take the ruck duties. Lewis looked around saw Pedersen moving and immediately ran back to bolster the defence. He was the only player to react in that way. It makes me wonder what might have happened if he wasn't out there. Would the rest of the team be waiting for an instruction from the runner leaving us one short in defence?

You can add Polly Perkins to your list. And Tommy Lahiff. Although perhaps those two only worked on radio.

When I read this thread title my first thought was whether it was story about a Japanese agriculturalist who supported AFL.

I'm hoping the next version of the Demonland software will have artificial intelligence so if we preface a curse word with "excuse my language", the auto-censor doesn't kick into play.

Dangerous path, Chookrat. We've had more soft tissue injuries in the last few weeks than most if not all other clubs. Should we conclude that those players have taken an "unsafe variety of vague substances"? That's the conclusion your point 3 leads to.

Didn't he tell the media he was "best on the ground"...during a recent training run?

One more to go.