La Dee-vina Comedia

They may not be classy supporters individually, but I'm impressed by the addition of the IMPORTANT note on this forum. A club that has had Shane Tuck and Ben Cousins as players and Danny Frawley as coach has had its share of troubled souls. Well done to whoever thought to add this to their Forum homepage.

Idiots. It's spelled "Shaman" and the face-painting makes it clear he's a Bulldog's supporter.

Is that view shared by others? I think the opposite. In the last two weeks, perhaps because of the Max factor, I think we've looked refreshed. We'd be better if Oliver and Fritsch were available, but those who have taken up the slack (Brayshaw and Viney in the midfield and Melksham forward) are playing as well as they've played for quite some time.

The better question, and a better use of this thread, is to ask what should we do in Round 24 given we play Sydney in Sydney and it will almost certainly be his last game? He absolutely deserves a quality send-off.

Is that a good or a bad thing, though?

By my reckoning, that means Coach 1: 5 Gawn 4 Brayshaw 3 Rankine 2 Pickett 1 Walker Coach 2: 5 Pickett 4 Viney 3 Rankine 2 Gawn 1 Brayshaw

Very avant-garde restaurant offering

6. Viney 5. Brayshaw 4. Rivers 3. Chandler 2. Pickett 1. Petracca

I'm not in favour of any change where we don't know before the season starts who we play and where for the whole home and away season. (I'd also prefer to know when for all games, but I'll accept that keeping the options open for round 23 is not unreasonable.)

I think it's a silly idea, but the various problems with the fixture as it stands requires the AFL to consider what options are available to improve it. I'm sure there are other problems but the main ones seem to be: trying to find equity when there are 18 (or, perhaps soon, 19) teams playing 23 games. How best to distribute the "double ups"? an unequal and arguably unfair distribution of games at various grounds. For example, the use of GMHBA Stadium scheduling games so that each team gets a similar distribution of 5-day, 6-day, 7-day and 8+ days breaks throughout the season

Looking at the team selection, I would expect only one of Tomlinson or Hibberd to play, unless there's a late withdrawal of one of the other nominated defenders or one of Tomlinson or Hibberd is the sub. The other six defenders (May, Lever, Salem, Rivers, Bowey and McVee) are all ahead of Tomlinson and Hibberd and we play seven defenders, not eight. I suspect Tomlinson will play while one of Chandler or Laurie will replace Spargo. Smith, in my view, will again be the sub.

OK...but for every team that has wins "drying up" another team is being, er, flooded with wins. They cancel each other out, for goodness sake!

Frees and 50-metre penalties against, No Pressure Errors, Dropped Marks and Debits are all included in clangers. So, what's a "debit"? PS: (1) I love Joeboy's work, even when I don't agree and (2) ANB is a critical player in the team for all he does when he doesn't have the ball, such as taking the hits to allow Petracca and others to do the pretty stuff.

What's the context for the use of the word "Dry"?

Players have to have a life outside of football. Their mental health is just as important as their physical wellbeing.

Agree. But what I think will happen is that fewer people than the AFL expect will bother to attend the last 6 rounds. For the bottom six seasons, the games are totally meaningless and for the top six, I predict many people won't bother going when they know they'll see the same teams play in finals just a few weeks later.

The other problem with the proposal is that the last six rounds where the top teams play each other effectively removes the need for a finals series. Unless we're happy to see the same teams playing each other over and over again. (Rather like Melbourne playing Brisbane last week which was the 5th time in less than a year. It was reported somewhere that in that same time, some teams have not played each other at all.)

Hidden in plain sight might be the AFL's long game...adding Tasmania but losing one of the current teams to bring the total back to 18.

I think the term " 17-6 fixture redraw over wildcard weekend" doesn't mean that these games are all played during one weekend. Rather, the "over" means "preferred to".

Designed a great knife, though.

The wildcard round idea might be a distraction. The Age is today reporting that the idea was discussed between the AFL Executive and club CEOs yesterday and was not well supported. However, another idea apparently was more popular. That would be a 17 round initial season where every team plays each other once. Then, the remaining rounds sees the top 6 (as they are at that point) playing each other again, the middle 6 similarly and the bottom 6 playing amongst themselves. I can see the attraction...and a huge problem. Who's going to want to pay TV broadcast money for meaningless games played between the bottom 6 teams?

I don't know what the methodology is, but I'm amazed we're considered to be a marginally better chance to beat Adelaide than St Kilda is to beat North Melbourne.

Please tell me the dog's name was Rover.

Well done to you, Timothy. I can recall two Melbourne players who went successfully into politics. Ray Groom became Premier of Tassie and Brian Dixon was a Minister in the Hamer Government of Victoria. Have there been others?

If Petty doesn't play, my preference is Tomlinson. However, we also have Turner waiting in the wings. Does anyone believe Turner might get the nod over Tomlinson if Petty doesn't play? I would be surprised if there are any other changes. We're getting to that point in the season where stability becomes important. Even though Spargo does little to enthuse, I don't see any obvious replacements, so I suspect he keeps his spot.