La Dee-vina Comedia

I like the idea of playing AFL night games on any night before a public holiday. However, why doesn't the AFL be a bit more creative and reserve these slots for teams who currently don't already have "blockbusters"? Carlton and Essendon already have their fare share, as does Collingwood, Richmond and us*. It should be used to build crowds for teams like St Kilda, North Melbourne, Freo, GWS, Bulldogs and Gold Coast. *We already have King's Birthday and ANZAC Day eve. As I've said before, we should be creating an annual Melbourne v Sydney game making use of the inter-city rivalry that's existed for over 100 years. It could alternate between each city and if developed properly should be able to generate a large crowd every time eventually creating rivalry in a similar fashion to NRL's State of Origin.

I don't think that's the point. After the A-League pitch invasion, all players of all sports will be worried about something similar happening to them. Or worse (remember what happened to Monica Seles?) That may make some players over-react when confronted by something unexpected. If players lined up at the interchange gates try to get into an opponent's head (as long as it's not racist, etc), that's OK because players can reasonably expect that to occur at that part of the ground. There is an argument that a fine may be inappropriate or in this case, too large. However, if the AFL has warned clubs previously about this type of behaviour (and I don't know whether they have or not), a $1,500 fine is surely the next incremental level of punishment. Anything less would be too inconsequential.

Nice piece of alliterative tongue twisting. Say three times quickly, "Powell-Pepper plays particularly poorly". Actually, it's not that hard to say...

Ironically, (if that were true) that would mean that in future, the relative scarcity of the GCS coins would make them worth more than the rest.

I disagree. Why not give Collingwood the headache of deciding who they should play on Pickett? Now, let's get back to this week's game...

The Eddie Betts Foundation is also written up in The Age today. It includes this paragraph: "The foundation will be led by Betts with close involvement from former Melbourne Demons defender Neville Jetta, a Noongar man. Jetta is also a development coach with the Collingwood Magpies, playing alongside the ladder-leading club’s younger Indigenous players in the VFL as an onfield mentor." Congratulations to both Eddie and Neville. Both continuing to show they were not just great footballers but also outstanding people.

Very glad he didn't miscalculate and place a foot over the line. For what it's worth, I think the fine is appropriate. If no action had been taken, players would believe they could do this with impunity. That could lead to dangerous outcomes.

Is that a category of membership which I don't think I've previously known about or are you just referring to your personal lifetime support for the club? If it's the former, it's something I should look into.

And I'd say with respect to Sylvia, van Rooyen and Thompson, "fair's fair". Good work as always, DS.

The headline is an example of why the three letters "AFL" can cause confusion. In this instance, the media outlet is using "AFL" to mean "Australian rules football". It is not using it to mean the coach is part of the professional AFL competition. I am in no doubt, however, that the headline writer would have known full well that the use of "AFL", while technically correct would have attracted readers to the story assuming it meant the professional competition. While I may be accused of cynicism in holding this view, I would argue that I am not being anywhere near as cynical as the media outlet.

Interesting data. Just to clarify, are the previous years' figures for the whole season or up to round 9 in each case?

Autocorrection for "partisan" perhaps? Otherwise, I have no idea what this means

Have we ever played Port on a Friday night?

Big Freeze Day, perhaps?

Why LOL? After all, it's not that long ago a team won the flag after not playing in the finals the previous season.

It's a good article. I find it both ironic and humorous that the staunch republican and lefty still refers to the second Monday in June as Queen's Birthday.

Or Melksham, perhaps.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether Salem comes in with either Brayshaw or Rivers moving from defence to take on the Sparrow role.

Are you sure it's real? I just see three stuffed toys...

I wonder if it might be the other way around. Jordon may appear to be ahead of Harmes because he (JJ) was sub and Harmes didn't play at all. But I suspect Harmes will play the Sparrow role better than Jordon. On the other hand, if it was Viney or Oliver who needed to be replaced, I would expect Jordon to play ahead of Harmes. It's all about the role being played.

If anyone out there is looking for a topic for their PhD in Psychology, I can recommend "AFL supporter paranoia". Plenty of material to work with.

Has Simon Goodwin been sent a "please explain" for his comments at his presser yesterday?

Maybe we're going with an alternative plan. Perhaps the strategy has always been to lose gallantly to get the rest of the team up in arms with an "us and them mentality" which is intended to take them through to the end of September. Mind you, it's not the strategy I'd be going with.

I read this and think...how on earth do we still allow boxing as a sport? The sport is all about attempting to inflict harm to another person's head.

I think they may have failed at escaping, too.