La Dee-vina Comedia

And apparently they have... Guardian Australia ‏@GuardianAus 10m10 minutes ago Baby giraffe at LA zoo makes his first official outing – video http://trib.al/Kjwbtjg View summary 0 retweets0 favorites Reply Retweet Favorite More

But what if he is as injury prone and susceptible to weight gain as Dean?

Are you suggesting Hawthorn traded pick 94 purely to stop Melbourne putting him on our rookie list? That's a creative thought process.

If it makes you feel better, think of Scott Pendlebury.

And we don't leak.

I would take what Mahoney said with a grain or two of salt. He said that after we'd traded for pick 10 that we would hold it and not trade it. Of course, he may have honestly believed that at the time. Also, if I was in the drafting business, I wouldn't be disclosing my hand and I wouldn't expect Mahoney to (or want him to).

Headline writer's delight, especially if he plays as a tagger.

So, what are the rules for a Category B Rookie? Does he need to be upgraded like any other rookie if he is to play? For the purpose of playing list numbers, does he take one of the rookie spots? How many years can he stay on the list as a Category B Rookie?

Who would have thought the word "hob" would be censored.

It seems appropriate that a player regularly described as a giraffe will be in brown and yellow from hereon.

Conversely, I wouldn't mind trading in some early picks for next year. To do so, of course, means giving something up. But if next year's draft is meant to be significantly better, or at least run deeper, then some arbitrage of draft picks makes sense.

You've assumed that the Melksham deal is completely unrelated to the subsequent deals. For all we know, none of the subsequent deals, including those not involving Melbourne directly, may have happened without the Melksham deal happening when it did.

I disagree. We're much better at it. Last time we traded out a pick 4 we get pick 88. Now we've got pick 29 or 50 (depending on what you choose to believe). Either way, in percentage terms that's a massive improvement. Seriously, who cares? Players with limitations getting traded back and forth. I find it all interesting but am quite dispassionate about it.

That St Kilda and Melbourne have pursued the two Jakes so strongly suggests to me that there might be a belief, at least within those two clubs, that the players will be found "not guilty" (I know that's not the actual finding, but I'm sure everyone knows what I mean). I admit its conjecture, but if the clubs had good reason to believe the Essendon players will not be punished, I would have thought not trying to procure Essendon talent would be a dereliction of duty.

And his knees.

If a defendant in a criminal proceeding is remanded in custody I would expect that the time served would be counted whether he's found guilty at the first trial or on a subsequent appeal. Otherwise it's double punishment. So for the Essendon/WADA matter it makes sense to me that any previous voluntary suspension should still be counted as it's all part of the one (albeit extremely long) proceeding.

I'm not sure how you could tell the difference between a voluntary suspension and not actually being at work. What we're discussing here is one of the difficulties associated with (a) playing a team sport and (b) playing a seasonal sport. Sportspeople who play an individual sport which has all year round competitions (eg, tennis, golf) have different training and paying regimes from team-based summer or winter seasonal sports. I have no idea how the WADA/ASADA penalty regimes work, but a "one size fits all" approach (if indeed that's what their policy is) won't work across all types of sport.

I suspect Clarkson wants St Kilda to part with their pick 5.

Will the time spent on the mandatory out of season rest period count as time served? (I'm not arguing whether it should or shouldn't be, just asking.) If so, if found guilty all players would be able to claim 8 (?) weeks deducted from any penalty for every year since the breach occurred.

Presumably it's the "dealing with" bit that's the spanner rather than the final outcome. There's no reason why Melbourne, Collingwood and Gold Coast can't engineer a three way trade so that we still get whatever it is we wanted from GC, Collingwood gets Howe and GC gets something it needs (player/picks) from Collingwood.

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With Melksham now a Demon, it's time for some significant revisionism. If Melksham is one of the 34, I think we need to consider whether the players involved, particularly those who have shown their displeasure with the club by leaving it, have suffered enough already. Where's Emile Zola when you need him?

I also think our expectations are now higher. In recent seasons we traded in Michie, Riley and Frost (along with some better credentialed players such as Tyson, Vince,etc). I can't recall what we gave up for those three, but I seem to recall a level of satisfaction with those recruits before they even physically entered the doors of the club. I think Melksham has a track record above each of them.

How do you know "we rolled over"? Perhaps Essendon were asking for a second round draft pick and a player who we didn't want to part with. Maybe we stayed firm and they rolled over.

Personally, I think your lack of punctuation and incorrect spelling is worse. But that's just me.