La Dee-vina Comedia

It's strength is that you have players streaming through the midfield to take immediate possession of the ball after the bounce. It's weakness is that once we then have the ball we have an outnumbered forward line to kick it to. Having watched us do it with one or sometimes two players all year, I've come to the conclusion that it only works with some players who seem to be able to run forward with speed and who have deft touch. Otherwise, it doesn't seem to add much at all. And the players who seem to make it work? Neal-Bullen is by far the best with Harmes and Garlett equal second. The others seem not to have the intensity or courage (psychological, not physical) to make it work. Would I persist with it? Yes, not because it necessarily is as effective as I would like it to be, but because it's been part of the gameplan all year and I would not change now what the players have been drilled to do.

I understand that in an early version of the Gospel According to Luke, there was a reference to "4 to 6 weeks".

Your a glass-half-full kind of guy?

In the past, clubs wanted to get started early to enable a new coach and his team to be in place to help with list management issues. They also wanted to get the "best available" before other clubs in need of a new coach pinched their choice from under their nose. But I seem to recall there's a new rule (or perhaps it's just a gentleman's agreement) that clubs will not talk to assistant coaches until their season is complete. Given that the most desirable assistant coaches often work for teams in finals contention, that doesn't leave much time to get a new coach appointed before the decisions for the next year are needed. And if Brett Ratten is a potential appointee, his season could be over in 3 weeks time.

Deliberately ironic? Don't you mean "No, the Gold Coast Suns is one football team"? Defeats your point otherwise. Back on topic...I understand Eade getting the chop, but surely questions also have to be asked about the competence of the Board who chose him in the first place.

And the sports only have themselves to blame. How Justin Gatlin was allowed to compete at the Athletics World Championships after twice having been found guilty of doping astounds me. Usain Bolt was beaten fair and square by Christian Coleman in the 100m. That would have been in itself a great story - the retiring, old champ being overtaken by the new (believed to be clean) young gun. But, instead, the administrators of athletics rained on their own parade by allowing Gatlin to beat both of them.

Thank goodness you wrote it that way round. If it was reversed I would have thought you were talking about the next development in random roadside drug testing.

ANB coming 21st in Demonland's Player of the Year. I suspect he'll be much higher in the B&F.

I'm not sure that Wagner has speed. I remember a game earlier this year at the MCG where he was easily run away from. Can't remember who we were playing, but it was in front of the MFC members with our opponents kicking to the Punt Road goals.

Bit awkward if Dangerfield as last year's winner has the traditional role of handing this year's medal to the winner if Dangerfield himself has actually been awarded the most votes. Compelling but nevertheless excruciating television. For what it's worth, I believe suspended players should be eligible to win the award. They were, by definition, in the top 3 fairest and best players in every round in which they scored votes.

I assume your 22nd player is the Invisible Man. That should give us heaps of outside run.

I'm happy to say we're at 42,000. It's why rounding up was invented.

I suggest that Demonland call your bluff and customise so that you have to use the Shift key. Then we'll know if you've got one.

A clever way would be to build a blockbuster game with Sydney and really work on the Melbourne-Sydney rivalry (ie, the city to city rivalry). Work toward giving it the status of NRL's "State of Origin" - a concept Sydney people truly understand so that even non-MFC and non-Sydney FC supporters care about how their city goes in this particular game. Some of those non-affiliated supporters may even end up joining Melbourne (or Sydney). But more importantly it re-states Melbourne FC's pre-eminence as the truly premium, eponymous, Melbourne-based club. And once that's bedded down, do the same (but a bit smaller) with the other two capital cities which also happen to be the names of AFL clubs.

You find the new software has some punch?

I didn't realise that prison authorities approved day leave only if your team is playing a home game.

Who got out of jail? Those supporters or the team? Or both?

Even if we don't become a republic the public holiday will not automatically continue as Kings Birthday on the second Monday in June. I see it as a golden opportunity for whoever is in power at the Federal level to inaugurate a new public holiday for a much more worthy cause than to celebrate a monarch's birthday...when it isn't even remotely near the date of that monarch's birth. I'm not wishing to start an argument on the merits of a particular example, but the Prime Minister could easily replace Kings Birthday with a day which is more relevant and for something not only more worthy of recognition but relatively easy to gain community support for.

I think the whole discussion is somewhat academic. I'm convinced the Queen's Birthday public holiday will expire when Her Majesty does. So I support the earlier suggestion of moving the MND Big Freeze to an Essendon game and turning that into a home grown blockbuster event.

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

Why should I, as a person who didn't support the decision, now accept I was wrong? For all we know, if Viney had been made Vice-Captain, he may have played and lead the team in exactly the same way as he has just done. And also, for all we know, Jones may not be playing or leading (when fit of course) as well as he used to because of the co-captaincy decision. I remain steadfastly against the principle of having co-captains and nothing that has happened or I have seen has changed my view.

Just outside the MCG after playing Richmond, win, lose or draw. The Richmond supporters are incredibly aggressive, loaded up with alcohol, rage and testosterone. And that's just the females. The male tiger supporters are more neanderthal than homo sapiens.

Would Jones be in a position to know? I would expect most players wouldn't but as an injured co-Captain I could see that he might given that he may have been observing the coaching and team selection aspects as part of his education while he recovers. Or, it could just be the usual cliched comment.

If I hadn't been at the game and was relying solely on Joeboy's analysis, I would have assumed "Tyson - prolific but wasteful" would have been written as "Tyson - three Brownlow votes" by any other poster. But, Joeboy, I think you're spot on with everyone this week. Well done, and might I add, "Reading Joeboy - Monday morning ritual".

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.