La Dee-vina Comedia

As I've posted before, I also don't like being given only a limited number of teams to view on free to air TV, irrespective of their quality.

Possibly the best way to judge the value of transferred players is how much the supporters of the old team bemoan that player's loss. From what I can tell, Carlton supporters appear devastated at losing Garlett (as well as Betts, although not so much Waite).

The most interesting thing about the AFL wishing to improve the matchday experience at the ground is the implied admission that not only has the AFL forgotten about the fans but that the television networks have not delivered benefits to the AFL beyond the admittedly valuable cash provided. It's not beyond a reasonable expectation from the AFL that TV rights holders should be doing their bit to improve the TV viewing experience in order to encourage more people to experience the game live. Channel 7 has clearly failed in that regard.

Nice work. But who do you see as the white whale? WADA? The football loving public? Personally, I see elements of Heart of Darkness with the good ship Essendon being sucked into the deepest and darkest of locations culminating in "The horror, the horror". PS Mark Robinson sure ain't Joseph Conrad or Hermann Melville.

Disagree. The whole Essendon, WADA, ASADA story is much easier to understand than The Trial.

I suspect Essendon supporter's views about James Hird as coach are directly linked to the win/loss record in 2015 more than any other reason. If Essendon was sitting, say, second on the ladder, he'd still be their golden boy.

6. Hogan 5. Dawes 4. Viney 3. Tyson 2. Howe 1. Gawn Howe played with great courage given how much he was limping after the first 10 minutes. Gawn was beaten but never gave up. Matt Jones was smashed in the first quarter when he failed to curb Dal Santo. But kudos to him for lifting when switched to the wing. His run in the second and third quarter we significant contributors to our resurgence.

I can't see the problem. Tim Watson hears about it presumably because he and his son talk to each other. Watson Sr keeps it quiet because he's asked to keep it confidential and only speaks about it publicly after the story leaks from somewhere else. Why do people keep looking for conspiracies when there are reasonably obvious alternative explanations?

Melbourne FC ‏@melbournefc 3m3 minutes ago VIDEO: Today was @jtren9's first running session and the boys made it a moment to remember: http://mfcde.es/1MUr4d7

Part of me thinks Demonland wants to praise Jack Watts because we appear to have a new whipping boy in Chris Dawes.

Hamstring. See KC's post in the Box Hill v Casey thread.

It's more likely just a statistical aberration caused by the number of goals being very low. That low number of goals effectively becomes the denominator in the fraction that calculates the percentage and bingo, a large number appears. Or, to put it another way...lies, damned lies and statistics.

Think of some of the players we've had at Melbourne in the recent past. There's quite a few (and I'm not going to name anyone) who I can imagine might not read the legal documents, or, if they tried to, didn't understand them. I imagine Essendon will have similar players and ex-players

Following Melbourne must be a dream for philosophers who subscribe to logical fallacies. When Melbourne are the bookies' favourite, they do not win. When Melbourne is not favourite they (sometimes) win. Ergo, when Melbourne are not favourites they are more likely to be favoured to win. I reckon there's a PhD in this for someone.

Surely the players have each received a copy of the WADA brief given they are the ones being pursued. It's pretty hard to keep a secret among such a large group.

As a matter of interest, who do you think the other two are?

So Knightmare is saying Schache and Weitering are the top two choices. Reminds me of the days of Reiwoldt and Koschitzke. Sounds more like a comment on the Bundesliga to me.

This looks like the script of a soap opera. Are Jaded's dates and your acquaintances one and the same?

Thanks. So Bub's point (presumably) is that CAS has only to be "comfortably satisfied" and not 'satisfied beyond reasonable doubt". Anyway, I expect Bub will be on this thread sooner rather than later (given that more than nearly 10% of all posts here are from him) and can confirm or correct as necessary.

I'm glad you didn't suggest this in 2012 or 2013. Our forwards would hardly ever get on the park.

I don't understand this. Doesn't CAS mean "Court of Arbitration for Sport"? What does the "Court" mean if it's not a court of law?

I think there will always be a need to have some ex-AFL footballers or ex-AFL administrators as Commissioners or the Commission will be accused of not having any "football nous". I'm not sure I necessarily agree with that view, but I'm pretty confident that the community would assume a Commission without any individuals with this background wouldn't "understand" the game. The best I think we can hope for is that any person appointed to the Commission who has an AFL background recognises the need to distance him or herself from any previous association. In short, I don't think individuals such as Eddie McGuire would make good Commissioners because of an inability to separate from the club he loves. Conversely, people such as (say) Peter Jackson have shown an ability to move from one club to another and could bring a dispassionate and independent view to the Commission. My concerns about Mike Fitzpatrick are not about his former association with Carlton, because I believe he can adequately separate himself from that association, but with the company that owns (or owned) Etihad and whatever that concrete monstrosity in Sydney is called.

Actually, I'll answer my own question. I think we should give any player who plays the same number of games for the Melbourne Football Club as did Robert Flower a medal called the Robert Flower medal (or trophy). To date, only David Neitz would be eligible. It would reward consistency, performance and loyalty as any player that plays 272 games for the MFC must have achieved each of those three attributes, just like Robbie Flower did.

*bump* Melbourne FC ‏@melbournefc 9m9 minutes ago Today would have been the great Robert Flower's 60th birthday. We miss him dearly.

The other intangible you can add is how the young supporters seem to love him.