La Dee-vina Comedia

A bit of mixed messaging there, Ernest.

I'm amazed that the players were told on Friday and there were absolutely no leaks until the story was released today. That's a seriously strong football club. Particularly when you think about all the players who did media interviews immediately after the match and who could have easily slipped up and accidentally mentioned it. I had my doubts about Viney as captain when it was first announced, partly because of my concern about his public speaking skills. I am much more confident now about him.

When was the last time we were more than a third of the way through the season and had a percentage above 100%?

A very big step up, though. iSelect is a publicly listed company on the Australian Stock Exchange. It will therefore have a completely different business model to EnergyWatch. For a start, it will actually have a business model.

Makes sense if you occasionally remind yourself that the F in 'AFL' doesn't always stand for 'football'. Particularly if the A is for 'awful' and the L is for 'lousy'.

I preface this comment by admitting I haven't seen the game. However, in a purely structural sense, we are a better team when Hogan has additional tall players around him reducing the opportunity for opponents to double- and triple-team him. For this reason, if the decision for Hogan to come in is between Weideman and Hannan, we are a better prospect with Weideman remaining in the team. That doesn't mean that Weideman should definitely remain - only that if there was not that much difference between Weideman and Hannan (or Kent for that matter), I would keep the Weid in the team.

That Jacobs got 4 million hitouts but Pedersen was given votes by many Demonlanders should show how we should all be wary of relying on statistics of all types when judging performances.

Gloweave? Wasn't it Pelaco? I'm sure he's credited by many ex-footballers working in the media as the prototype who blazed the trail which they've subsequently followed.

Was he perhaps under the misapprehension that two wrongs make a right?

I don't quite understand why people keep calling for Kent to be reinstated when he's apparently not playing well at Casey. I understand that at his best he would be a better option than either Hannan or JKH, but he's clearly not playing well enough. Our biggest problem seems to be a lack of height, particularly in the forward half (which is why I assume we played Pedersen, Hogan and Watts all forward at the same time in Q2). With Weideman not ready and the injuries that we have, I don't see a ready solution. Nevertheless, I would prefer Harmes to Hannan. Admittedly Harmes butchers the ball, but he provides more grunt and can "play tall". And Melksham is surely better with his disposal than Bugg who had 20 mostly meaningless possessions. I'm not sure why Stretch and ANB aren't in the team, but while I thought JKH was better yesterday, I would have thought one of them would be better still. So, what I would like (and knowing it can't fix our fundamental problem of a shortage of talls): In: Harmes, Melksham, Stretch/ANB Out: Hannan, Bugg, JKH

I'm not convinced I can actually discern a gameplan. I can see some fundamental problems, though. For example, why do three or sometimes even four of our players contest a mark or attempt a spoil, both in defence and attack?

Well, in so many ways it was a gloomy Sunday. But it's probably best to stay away from the song of the same name.

Jetta: Good or bad? I can't work out how to grade Jetta. On the plus side, Puopolo did nothing and Rioli little. But was that Jetta's work? On the other hand, he keeps going up in packs with two or three other Demons attempting to stop their forwards from marking rather than staying down and being ready for when the ball hits the ground.

6. Viney 5. Lewis 4. Frost 3. Jones 2. Hunt 1. Vince Funny how people see the game so differently. I'm amazed to see Watts and Petracca getting votes and I suspect others will be shocked that I gave votes to Vince.

My apologies. I've been under this misapprehension, probably since 1996, that he was. And as much as I'd like to say he should be, it is hard looking at that team dispassionately to see who he should replace.

Or on strike in sympathy with Fairfax journos?

I wonder if that's the problem. Kent looks overweight to me. Perhaps he needs to be about 1.7 times the player and until he does the work to get properly fit, he may have to get used to the Casey jumper.

He may not be in some people's top 50 but he did make the AFL's team of the century from 1897 to 1996.

I was going to make a fabulous comment following on from all the "beef" puns but realised I'd be in breach of Demonland guidelines about going way off topic and chickened out.

Ah, The Simpsons. The gif that keeps on giffing.

Perhaps the game designers have read Demonland. I'm sure there are many posts which say that watching football on Channel 7 and/or Foxtel is better without the commentary.

Seven pages, lots of discussion about whether the named 18 will necessarily start...and has no-one mentioned that Hogan is no certainty? Of course I hope he plays (but only if he's ready). Goodwin has made clear that Hogan's been selected but he (Hogan) is yet to confirm that he's ready to play. Goodwin might be playing games, and he might just be making these comments to take the pressure of Jesse to give him all the time he needs. Oscar on the bench might be there in case Hogan doesn't play so we can keep the structure we used successfully last week.

Hawthorn spent a lot of time before 1960 as cannon fodder.

We're absolute certainties now that the Fairfax journos are on strike so the write up after the game will be virtually non-existent in The Age.

Why do I keep linking Ethan Tremblay to the non-song "Nacho Man" in my mind? I don't know Ethan from, well, a bowl of nachos. Has he previously said something that might make me think of him in this way?