La Dee-vina Comedia

Coincidentally, on the back page of today's Age newspaper... http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-to-enter-12-billion-esports-industry-wants-etihad-stadium-tournament-20170501-gvwixm.html

I still prefer the life-size game with real players in red and blue jumpers played at the MCG on a Friday night or over the weekend.

If I played a game in China I expect I'd feel like playing another game just a few days later.

Or we could go with "I'm with stupid -->". Although that would look good when we play a man-on-man game but perhaps not so good with a zone defence.

The thing that troubles me most about these posts is that they read like the Twitter ravings of President Trump. Same structure. Same use of punctuation for emphasis. Same use of short, pithy phrases at the end of the post. It's not possible, is it, that the President of the free world is actually a closet Melbourne supporter?

That's not necessarily true. The small forward's role might be to create opportunities for others to score. I think we'd all be happy if a small forward never scored a goal as long as the team is winning. Having said that, I'm sure if the opportunities arise for a small forward to score goals and he doesn't take those chances, we could quite rightly be disappointed.

My dream announcement is when Peter Jackson states that AHG has significantly increased its sponsorship commitment in return for exclusive rights to the whole jumper and that AHG asked for the back to remain clear of any sponsorship because it "just looks so damn good." I did say it was a dream.

So am I. We've had enough players with apparently superior disposal skills which were hardly on show because they couldn't actually get the ball. Ideally you want players who can do both (Lewis, Hibberd, etc) but I'm prepared to put up with the occasional error in disposal from a player who gets a lot of it. It's when the errant disposal numbers get too high that it becomes a problem for the team. Right now, Weideman has lovely disposal but doesn't get it enough; Harmes gets plenty but his poor to good disposal ratio is too high. So, both find themselves out of the team.

Old dee, seems like someone has already deleted most of your second sentence. Can someone mount an argument that donating to Demonland should be tax deductible? I'm no tax accountant or lawyer, so my best argument for it at the moment is the vibe of the thing. Surely we can find a better argument than that.

Thanks for rising to the challenge. My 6, made up of players who have played one or more games this year, in no particular order would be: JKH, Harmes, O McDonald, Weideman, Hannan and Tim Smith. I've excluded Joel Smith on the basis that 18 minutes (or whatever it was) of one game isn't enough. And I realise that I'm being pretty tough on Tim Smith, too. On the plus side, that bottom six looks better than the top six in 2013.

It's a good question whether it's better to get games into Weideman for the future or whether we would benefit more from playing one or possibly more finals. If you'd said "might even cost us a place in the top four", then I think there's no argument and we should be playing Pedersen instead of the Weid. Where we are at? It's a tougher choice and I don't know which is the correct answer.

Do you wish to share who your "bottom 6" are?

Don't know about anyone else, but I felt physically uncomfortable reading this until the word "six" appeared at the end.

I've read on here that Pedersen slimmed down noticeably over the summer. I saw a little bit of the game using the AFL app on an iPhone, where everyone looks small. Comparatively, though, he didn't look any different physically from last year. Can anyone at the ground confirm whether the slimline Pedersen is a #pedersenfact or a #pedomyth?

This is also where Hogan is valuable. He often gets the ball on half-back or on the wing. In fact, without looking at any stats to back up my argument, I suspect he takes more marks between half-back and half-forward than he does in the forward 50.

I think BB is very satisfied...with himself for his first four lines.

I agree it seems odd. But who else? I can't see how Hogan comes in for a midfielder or a defender. Which, in effect, leaves Petracca, Watts, Pedersen, Hannan, Garlett and JKH. It doesn't seem right structurally for Garlett or JKH to go out for Hogan (although JKH could be replaced by Stretch) which leaves Hannan as the "least desired" of the others.

It's good for Hogan that we won. It takes some of the pressure off him this week which should make it easier for him to make the decision whether to play or not. If we'd lost he may have felt that he had to play next week whether he was to be truly ready or not. Ironically, I suspect that might make him more, rather than less likely to play, because he's under less pressure which makes the decision to play a little easier. If Hogan comes back, I have no idea who it would be for. He doesn't have to replace a "tall" because we're already light on for tall players. Given Stretch didn't play, I suspect he was "managed" and may well be back next week. I'll predict: In: Stretch and Hogan (if ready) Out: Bugg and Hannan (if Hogan plays)

We should also give credit to the selectors. Playing Oscar may have been a surprise* but playing Oscar and Frost on Hooker and Daniher respectively freed Tom up. (*I had assumed Oscar had been picked for Frost to play in the ruck.)

Are you saying Anthony Hudson steals things to give to your brother to [censored] in hotels? I never would have guessed. Edit: the censored word is 'golf' backwards. Who would have thought that would be censored?

Oh, goody. I like guessing games. Viney? Pedersen? Jetta? Satyricon?

The real question is whether AFL can survive in NSW with only one team. That would mean only one game every two weeks being played in Sydney and real problems when Sydney plays poorly (like this year). Already the jungle drums are beating about TV rights. Seven has dropped back to three games on most weekends from the previous four; ESPN is struggling in the US; and Channel Nine is being encouraged to drop its cricket coverage because it's no longer seen to be financially wothwhile. If the AFL don't create a product that gets TV interest in NSW, it would be in big trouble. If you've decided that you want viewers in NSW, and you've decided the way to do that is have two teams in NSW, there's no point creating a team that can't win the premiership. If GWS wins, that's a big success for the AFL, not the other way around.

My votes are based on the radio call (first half) and the Fox coverage via iPhone (second half) 6. Watts 5. Oliver 4. Viney 3. T McDonald (but, oh, those turnovers...) 2. Lewis 1. Pedersen Unlucky: Tyson and Salem

and not standing still during it (at least, not too often)

Disagree. Watching Carlton getting smashed is highly entertaining.