La Dee-vina Comedia

The wonderful vagaries of the English language. Two posts in a row saying essentially the same thing using words of opposite meaning. Marvellous.

I'm sure we all know who you mean. But it begs the question...is Ross any relation to Andrew Dillon?

6. Viney 5. Fritsch 4. Petracca (quiet first half but essentially won the game for us in the second) 3. Neal-Bullen 2. Brayshaw 1. May Highly tempted to include McVee for the last vote. What an outstanding first year from the young man.

I hadn't realised this (although I recognise it could change if the Bulldogs replace GWS). And given the most recent premiership from all these teams was in 2012 there will be very few players, other than most of ours, with premiership experience playing this September.

That would change the game so much I would prefer to stick with the current rules and system, flaws and all. More than an eternity. Noah predates Jerusalem...which, if it had existed at that time, would have been underwater, anyway.

We read and hear so much throughout the season about integrity - whether it's the draw, playing (or not) games in Geelong and score review glitches. So it's quite surprising how little is discussed about the need for integrity reasons to play all nine games of the last round at the same time. I realise it will never happen, for many reasons, not the least because of the time difference between east and west coast Australia. Nevertheless, the lack of discussion suggests that the rest of the media obsession with integrity of the competition is confected in the first place.

Must re-read Demonland rules. I thought posting selfies was banned on this site.

Jack Reiwoldt is a ginger? Really?

Doesn't that also mean players no longer have to kick the ball through the goals? That is, it can come off any part of the player's body?

I accept that most coaches, including Premiership winning coaches, generally stay too long and eventually get sacked. Very few walk away, although it's not unknown (Matthews, Roos, Hardwick). But I would rather have to sack a Premiership coach who stayed too long than lose one prematurely because he takes a better offer leaving us with a lesser quality coach.

Maybe not. How many members did we have in those days?

Maybe we should get the ARC to check every claim by a player that he touched the ball to see whether he's been cheating. If we do that, though, we're going to need an ARC the size of Noah's.

I suggest you think about why this hasn't happened. Just maybe well-run clubs sign up successful coaches so they can't be poached.

I'll give two related reasons. Firstly, it's a mark of respect which he's earned. Secondly, and more practically, we run the risk of losing him to another club who might offer him better terms (dollars or length of contract) if we treat him poorly.

A quick check tells me that Goodwin has coached the 5th most games for Melbourne with 134. He'll move to 4th some time in 2025. He's currently the 4th most successful in terms of games won. Here's the top 5 for games: Norm Smith - 310 with a win rate of 64.35% Checker Hughes - 258 (61.24%) Neale Daniher - 223 (48.65%) John Northey - 167 (54.19) Simon Goodwin - 134 (57.46%) The leader for games won is Albert Chadwick who coached 58 games with a win rate of 73.28%. This information puts Goodwin in excellent company. All stats courtesy of Wikipedia.

I understand the rest [insert name of important player here] in the final game of the H&A series. My concern, though, is whether the bye between the last H&A game and the first final means that any rested player ends up having too much of a rest with what will become a three week gap between games.

Clearly it wasn't in 2000 that the premiership was won from 4th position, so it must be some time earlier than that. I have no idea when, though.

Retrospectively? How far back did they go? 30 years?

I'm a bit disappointed that there was no second meaning in Whispering Jack's subject heading. I opened this thinking it was some philosophical point being made by Max that his first goal is family happiness or winning another Premiership.

I can fully understand that the burnout associated with the Richmond job disappeared when offered a new job. I know that over my working life, every time I've changed jobs I have felt re-invigorated, even if I was still essentially doing the same thing. To use a cliche, a change is as good as a holiday.

I'm curious as to why you think this? It seems to me that apart from making use of Brayshaw's and Smith's versatility when necessary, the one thing that Goodwin seems intent on is that we have players with very fixed roles. Do you envisage any specific changes?

There are two different issues at play when the AFL talks about speeding up the game. The first is the style of game. The AFL seems obsessed with having a non-stop game. The second is keeping the length of the game shorter, partly to fit within TV schedules but also because of the perception that today's generation hasn't got the attention span for longer products. I'm not sure I agree that either concern is warranted. Nevertheless, we all have suggestions which can speed up play to meet both. The obvious one which has been commented on over and over is to get rid of the ruck nomination rule. Combined with that, the boundary umpires should stop waiting for ruckmen to get into position. Just throw the ball back in as soon as the umpires are ready. If we "saved" some time this way, we could then go back to the eminently sensible way the game restarted years ago after a behind was scored. That is, after the goal umpires had signalled and more importantly, after the ARC has also given the all clear for every score.

The problem might be with the rule, not the umpires. In summary, incorrect disposal is only payable (1) if the player has had no prior opportunity and does not make a genuine attempt to dispose of the ball or (2) if the player has had prior opportunity and does not dispose of it correctly. The problem is generally with part (1) - if the player has not had prior opportunity, it doesn't matter how they dispose of the ball. They can drop it, throw it, etc.

Mind you, players should play to the whistle. The boundary umpires clearly erred, but Viney was assuming they wouldn't make such a mistake. He's got more confidence in the umpires than the rest of us.

Every player is different and I wouldn't know which ones are more prone to worry than others. But, Smith has had trouble locking down a position in the team and been subbed on and off many times. Building resilience in his mindset may be just as important as improving his football IQ (which still needs work).