La Dee-vina Comedia

They look OK now. But you should see them in their horrible away strip.

And now congratulations to Neville Jetta who's been added to the squad. Perhaps a mod can change the title (I didn't want to start a new thread).

I read this as "They listed the criteria "under the table" when it was in the paper yesterday" and assumed you meant that money exchanged hands in a brown paper bag. And then I realised that, just maybe, that's what's happened.

Isn't it obvious? Carlton supporters via their discussion board clearly know so much less than Demonland so he comes here for the best ideas.

Because it's only for the last 30 years. Which makes me maudlin when I realise it's now 30 years (30!) since Robert Flower retired as the greatest Melbourne player I've seen. No-one in the last 30 years* has even come close. *I'm not discounting the current young guns, such as Petracca, Hogan and Oliver. It's just too soon to know with any of them.

The current poll numbers are a journalist's delight. The following two statements are both correct: "Fewer than half of Demons' supporters believe it's a bad draw for their team." and "Fewer than half of Demons' supporters believe it's a good draw for their team."

So said Julius Caesar when querying Brutus.

I don't know whether McLachlan was being interviewed or whether this comment was in a written statement. But if he was being properly interviewed, he should have been asked, "So, which teams are not well coached? And who is not building a strong team?" Unfortunately, apart from a couple of proper journalists, AFL HQ gets away with spouting such nonsense because most AFL accredited media are too scared to ask critical questions like these for fear of missing a seat on the gravy train. Or they're too stupid. Or both.

I'm more troubled by the spelling..."to" when it should be "too".

Or, to put it another way. If the draw makes a difference whether we make the 8 or not, then we don't deserve to be there anyway.

Is eleven games at the MCG normal? It seems abnormally low to me. My recollection is that we usually pay somewhere between 12-14 at the G. If I'm wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.

In the back of my mind is the idea that all players are contracted to their clubs until 31 October each year. If that's right, the club might actually be correct if it still has the delisted players named on the website. But perhaps I'll check again tomorrow. Nevertheless, (a) the club must have a social media policy that recognises the need for accurate and timely information and (b) notwithstanding my comment at (a), in the overall scheme of things, it shouldn't actually matter.

I like that the first person to comment on my previous post goes by the name of CBDees.

We did. But I still think it's not too late. Not that it can happen in the short term. And without quibbling over what "short term" or even "medium term" means, the club should have a long term strategy that aims to embed Melbourne (the city) and Melbourne (the football club) so that when a neutral, non-aligned supporter thinks of one they naturally will think of the other. It won't be easy and it needs an understanding that such an alignment doesn't just "happen" because we want it to. An example of something that the club could pursue (and a concept I've mentioned previously) is to create a "Capitals Cup" starting with games between Melbourne and Sydney. We can't replicate Rugby's State of Origin but we should be maximising the Melbourne-Sydney rivalry (meaning the rivalry between the two cities). Get the respective Lord Mayors involved and the "big end" of each town. Make it a meaningful event. Make it so that the residents of greater Melbourne care and want Melbourne (the team) to win.

That makes me feel better. I had to read The Old Man and the Sea for year 12 English. I didn't understand it, either. The only redeeming feature was that it was a shorter book than most others I had to read that year. Or maybe it wasn't and I just didn't finish it so it seemed shorter.

Silly me. I thought Jack Watts was the central character in For Whom The Bell Tolls.

Just a technical question. If a team adds a delisted free agent to their list, does that count as one of the three mandatory draft selections? I realise we have four spots to fill at the moment so adding one delisted free agent still allows us to comply. But what if we wanted to add two?

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

Any kiddies reading Demonland, please don't take this literally! ProperDee means (I hope) "hasn't done any harm to his ability to play football very well".

The alternative view is that games against interstate clubs played at the MCG draw smaller crowds than games played there against Victorian teams. Smaller crowds means less revenue and a worse atmosphere which discourages the Free-to-Air broadcaster from wanting to broadcast such games in prime time. So, if you look at the bigger picture, the commercial value of the NT deal (direct revenue plus the commercial advantage of playing Victorian teams at the MCG) may be more valuable to the club overall than the alternative. Of course I would prefer not having to play home games away from the MCG, but reality bites.

Correction required for Essendon. A couple of delisted players are in the "In" rather than the "Out" column. Having looked through that whole list I'm pleasantly surprised at the number of potentially viable draft picks (nominally picks below 40) we have compared with many other teams.

If we do, we should then be pursuing this as an ongoing feature game for future Rounds 1, similar to the Richmond v Carlton opening round.

Sure you haven't got this back-to-front? He's played an average of 15.75 games per year over four years, the first couple of which were with a Premiership team. I'm agnostic about whether we should add him to our list, but I think it might be fairer to suggest Sam Blease is a poor man's Billy Hartung.

I'm not going to copy the whole of WJ's copy of Quigley's comments. But there is so much negativity there I'm concerned that WJ has almost breached Demonland's rules about defamation. That's a seriously critical piece.

A word of advice for the AFL...those fixturing times are a mess. If you want to grow the game you need to be attractive to those who are not yet locked in. Start by getting some regularity into timeslots to make it easier for people to know when games will be on. Three different starting times between 7.00 pm and 8.00 pm in just one round of football? And the four day games all with different starting times. Seriously?