La Dee-vina Comedia

When Wright is back, I expect Weideman will play the second KPF/relief ruckman role. That will push Andrew Phillips out of the side. In effect, a player who plays well in 1 in about 8 games will replace someone who plays well in about 1 in 10. More relevantly for Essendon, though, it will mean Wright won't have to second ruck meaning he can play permanently forward where he is better suited and much more dangerous. In short, notwithstanding his weaknesses, Weideman is a good get for Essendon.

Which one did you have in mind?

This is a form of conversion therapy I can support.

If their fans are realistic, they should have one over-riding concern about their performance: their best players included Reiwoldt, Cotchin and Martin. That's not going to happen every week, and certainly won't happen next year. If Richmond supporters want something to look forward to, they need to see other names appearing in their best players.

I don't know whether the Petty forward experiment will work. But if clubs didn't experiment, Neitz would never have become a full forward.

Would ice after a game on his achilles be a sign of concern or just standard practice for a 33 year old with a recent achilles problem? With respect to the Petty forward or back debate, I'm wondering whether the thinking is that Turner has progressed enough through the pecking order so that we have the luxury of trying to turn Petty into a true key position forward. Whether they play this year or not, Brown and McDonald are both nearing the end, so the intention might be to have key defenders of May, Lever, D Turner and Tomlinson and key forwards of van Rooyen, Petty and eventually Jefferson.

"Rabblebourne"? Not a lot of effort there.

My apologies. Of course he did. My excuse is that I tend to blot out from my memory any losing game.

We were missing Lever, Salem, Hibberd and Petty (as a defender). In addition, it looked to me that May had a back problem as he seemed unable to bend over. That's a very different defensive unit to the 2021 GF.

I completely understand the Aretha Franklinism. However, I assumed they would still let people enter the stadium but hold them back from going to their seats. Perhaps that's too resource intensive, though.

Really? Why?

I thought your husband's name was Mr No More. At least, that's what I assumed given I seem to recall you changed your name to Jaded No More around the time you got married.

Stats question: A Richmond player (number 27) just handpassed the ball which went up in the air and he ended up running forward and getting it on the full. Is he credited with a handball and a handball receive?

Harmes and Dunstan getting a lot of the ball. Harmes regularly getting the first possession and getting a good handpass away. Dunstan's kicks look good...but actually miss targets too often. Turner dominating in the backline. Ben Brown moving well.

AFL website doing a bang-up job as usual. At 1.25pm on 23 April it says on the Casey/Richmond Team Line-Ups page that it was last updated at 2.06pm on 23 April. (It also says no late changes)

If he plays, I doubt he'll get as many contested possessions this week. The Richmond players will be keeping their distance.

Sorry, that's not quite right. Decimal currency came in on 14 February 1966. The metric system for weights and measures was not introduced until 1971. There was an exception to allow the term "Collingwood 6 footer" to continue to be used to describe people who were just under 183cm, as long as they were also either illiterate, in gaol or both.

Was it Jack Dyer when Richmond's captain or coach who told his team mates to "line up alphabetically by height"? (Which makes sense for our two Smiths and two Turners).

Is there a shower where you put the banner together? If not, seems like a significant health and safety issue for you.

Times have changed. It's probably being burned in some US states right now.

Supporters seem to have short memories. McDonald kicked four goals and received coaches' votes just two games ago. If we were to drop players just because of a poor game last week, there are about a dozen others equally at risk.

But it wasn't a fake handball. It was a genuine one. (Not sure that makes any difference, though.)

Interesting story. I'm not sure, though, that I don't prefer the conspiracy theory of AFL HQ wanting Oliver to win the Brownlow. While we're analysing Oliver and the Sydney game, can anyone explain to me why Oliver's "steal" of Ladham's attempted handpass wasn't a 50 metre penalty against Oliver?

Why don't you wear your rose-coloured glasses - literally, of course? That should turn the white into a nice shade of red.

I think the AFL has been too slow, rather than "trigger happy". If the penalties being handed out this year were in place three years ago, players by now would have stopped engaging in dangerous tackles and head-high bumps. However, because the AFL has been too slow to act (and been inconsistent), players today have not yet learned to remove these dangerous actions from their play. I strongly believe that if the tougher stance being shown this year had been in place three years ago, Kossie would have removed the dangerous bump from his game and would not have been suspended earlier this year.