La Dee-vina Comedia

Has been all year. I think he needs more massages around the lower back.

Viney has been in a rich vein of form. Coaches' Votes in 8 of the last 9 games.

I think the debate about the use of the ARC to be somewhat irrelevant. If there was no review mechanism, the goal umpire's call would have meant that it was point with no debate. I'm much more curious as to the explanation for van Rooyen not getting a free kick for having his legs taken out from under him on the boundary line. Does the rule suggest that if a defender is attempting a smother it's different from a player attempting to gather the ball (which is the usual reason for a "slide tackle")? If so, that makes no sense, given the reason for the rule is to protect the upright player's legs. Final comment: As has been said previously in this thread, all these issues - the standard of umpiring, the quality of the review process, etc - all highlight how deficient the Chairman of the AFL Commission has been in leaving so many positions vacant within the Commission itself and the executive team of the AFL. There is no way a Chairman of a public company would survive if the same were to happen in a company. Put frankly, the clubs should be demanding the "retirement" of Richard Goyder. He's been asleep at the wheel.

Would that $100k be needed for the MCG or all grounds?

The most interesting thing for me in this thread is the relatively small pool of players who meet the definition of 'hated but wanted'. I'm curious, though, about the reverse. Who would be the Melbourne player or players who might be 'hated but wanted' by supporters of other teams? The emphasis here has to be the 'hated' part, because it's clear any supporter would salivate at the chance of having any of Oliver, Gawn or Petracca in their team.

I think there are rumours that he's going to join AFL HQ.

To be fair, I've seen many posters on Demonland arguing that players coming back from injury should be held over for one more week to make sure they are fully fit.

Just to clarify, our percentage will only go up if our winning margins are such that our percentage in each game is higher than where we started.

Imagine if Goodwin continues to use van Rooyen as the second ruck and keeps Grundy as a KPF for the whole game. Just to confuse everyone's expectations and so he can say in his post-match media conference, "I told you so". I don't expect this, of course, and it will be fascinating to see how van Rooyen goes when he can stay forward for the whole game.

I believe we always pick a ruckman as an emergency. Usually the breakdown of the emergencies is one forward, one defender, one midfielder (non-ruckman) and one ruckman. As I see it, Schache is an emergency because he's the next ruckman in line after Gawn and Grundy.

Saturday night. But, yes, agree.

If we do this, can everyone promise not to judge Melksham just on the number of goals and disposals he has?

Due for some luck? The team that has the equal most premierships of any team and who has been rubbish for the whole of this century because of own goals such as draft cap breaching, poor recruitment and even poorer choices of coaches? Give me a break. And give the author of that post a history lesson.

If I didn't know these guys were (now former) footballers, with names like these I would have thought they were protagonists in a US TV crime show with Fischer McAsey being the cop and Castagna part of a New Jersey crime family.

I'll take X-factor over ex-ruckman any day. Mind you, I don't think either description is correct.

Confirmation bias thrives on blindness

I thought it through. I was initially going to say "Except if it's a Collingwood player". But my ego is too great. I'd rather be playing on the MCG than not.

Difficult to know if this a serious post because of the, ahem, reputation of the poster. However, if it is true, I'm interested in the administrative mechanisms. Put simply, does the achilles tendon come from a registered organ donor? If so, imagine the marketing campaign..."Sign up for organ donation and one day a part of you may be playing on the MCG". I am a registered organ donor and if my achilles tendon gets used that way, I'd be most pleased. Even if it's a Collingwood player.

"The only possible reason". Yeah, right.

Crowd numbers might be down on expectations because of the Matilda's QF being played just before our game. We know frrom the TV ratings for Monday's match that more people tuned in for it than watched the AFL Grand Final. It might help to attract people to our game if the MCC announced that they would be showing the Matilda's game on the scoreboard before our game. (I don't know if they have the rights to be able to do that, though.)

If Petracca wins, I hope he end his acceptance speech with "And I'd like to thank Clayton Oliver's hamstring. If it wasn't for that, I couldn't possibly have won."

Andrew Phillips from Essendon (and formerly Carlton and GWS) has announced he's retiring.

The AFL employs the umpires. The umpires vote on the Brownlow. It is clearly wrong for the AFL to be making "predictions" on how many votes players might currently have earned. I know it's only meant to be a bit of fun, but it is clearly inappropriate.

There's a serious lack of AFL nous on the AFL Commission at the moment. It's almost as if the Chairman is over-compensating by getting someone who is not yet retired from the game. I suspect Dangerfield will be an excellent Commissioner...but not yet. He needs to spend some time retired first to get a better perspective. There are plenty of smart, suitable, relatively recently retired AFL footballers who would be better choices at this time.

Thanks for clearing that up. After I posted my query I started to think that perhaps "bants" was a typo for "rants". I wouldn't have been able to concentrate for the rest of the day not knowing whether bants meant banter or rants!