La Dee-vina Comedia

I think getting on a third AFL list will qualify him for the honorific title of "journeyman". And a hearty round of congratulations, too.

Media struggle at the best of times to multi-task. I suspect at the moment most of their AFL resources (ie, reporters and producers) are on leave because it's the AFL "off-season". As such, they may only be able to cover one AFL story per day. And the Collingwood premiership cup engraving story would have been planned in advance to make it easy for the media to cover.

No "probably" about it. Playing AFL and then suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as a senior coach requires a steely resolve.

Actually, from a scientific point of view, viscosity measures how thick something is in the water.

Can someone remind me why Moniz-Wakefield is category B? Is he from another sport? Born overseas? Something else?

Beautiful ambiguity. I can't work out whether you're saying that others on here are not draft gurus but think they are or whether you're of the view that you consider others to be draft gurus while admitting that you are not.

Not really. McKay adds physical size which Zerk-Thatcher doesn't have. Nor does any other Essendon defender. It's a significant upgrade. I can't understand the Gresham pick, though. Doesn't seem to fill a need. Essendon already has plenty of smaller midfielders and small forwards.

Do we have another list spot freed up if a player is banned (see Joel Smith thread)?

Source of the following is Neds on the platform formerly known as Twitter:

The reviews are necessarily shallow because of the format required by the media. That is, all they want is a snapshot. Nevertheless, any proper analysis should also look at the draft picks each club still has as well as the impact on salary cap space. Surely the nett effect of Grundy, Harmes and Jordon leaving compared with the salaries to be paid to Fullarton, McAdam and Billings takes some pressure off our salary cap which should help us if we want to make a major acquisition this time next year.

And Hawthorn in 1988.

As a matter of interest, how many games have van Rooyen, Fritsch, Pickett and Petty (playing as a forward) played together?

Too much petty discussion and not enough Petty discussion going on here.

MFC needs to lift its game. It now seems the preferred strategy is to get two sons per father.

I think Albert Einstein wasted his time developing his theory of relativity and telling us that E=MC squared. We all would have been much better off if he'd used his talents on the mathematics of trading and drafting.

I think what will be more awkward for the AFL is if the rules are not changed to make clear that what Maynard did will no longer be considered a "football act". I have no doubt that the AFL would prefer players who do what Maynard did to be suspended. The process which has been followed gives the AFL all the evidence it needs to change the wording of the relevant rule to ensure players with the ball are properly protected.

I highly doubt May hasn't had shellfish before, so I'm curious from a scientific point of view as to how he had an allergic reaction this time. I didn't know it was possible to have an allergic reaction to something one has previously not been allergic to.

Is there any evidence that there has been a leak within the MFC? Couldn't the story have come from a player manager or someone Petty might have spoken to outside the club (if, indeed the story is true)? Or even Petty's family who may have been speaking in hope rather than trading in fact?

I agree with Oscar Wilde who said, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about". All media - positive or negative - proves we're relevant. I'm happy with that.

Sucking up to the boss already. No wonder he got the job. Hopefully he will also complement Goodwin, too.

What's the alternative? With Jordon, Hibberd and Dunstan already off the list and Grundy and perhaps Harmes looking to leave, the real question to ask is whether there will be a player in something like the 4th or 5th round of the draft who is worth pursuing. And that hasn't taken into consideration whether all of the remaining listed players are kept on.

A related question...why? Why was he there? He was clearly no chance to win, wasn't in the running for mark or goal of the year, wasn't club captain or in the AA team and obviously wasn't this year's Rising Star award winner or Coleman medallist. So who invited him and why? If it was the club's decision, why wouldn't you use that spot for someone else who never gets the opportunity. For example, someone like Neal-Bullen, Salem or Langdon?

The answer to the opening post's question seems bleeding obvious to me. Every club, like every business of this size, should do an annual review. I would be in favour of having an external, independent person head the review but include on it a member of the Board and at least one member of the football department. And to go one step further, I would only allow the external independent person to be involved in a maximum of three annual reviews. Any more and they would lose their independence.

The AFL needs to make a decision. Are the Giants the team for Western Sydney or Canberra? They can't be both. It's insulting the people of both western Sydney and the ACT as it's effectively saying we don't think either of you can support an AFL team by yourselves.

It's also about access to grounds. At the same time that we were poor from 1965 to 1986, the Melbourne Cricket Club allowed children into the ground on what was then called a Ladies' Ticket, but only up to the age of 15. Because the old ground had a smaller members' area and the waiting list to join the MCC was so long, membership wasn't offered until people had been on the waiting list for about 20 years. Consequently, for those put onto the waiting list at birth there was a 5 year gap between turning 16 and when membership was offered. Sure, those people - and I was one - could have found other ways to get into the ground, but with the team performing poorly, there wasn't really the incentive to do so. For a while there, we just found other things to do where we were made more welcome and had more enjoyment.