La Dee-vina Comedia

So, we have a new team to take on the team of Nicholsons and Wattses as discussed here. Now we need another team or there'll be too many byes.

So do I...and he'll possibly only be given half a game to kick them as part of the "easing back into it" strategy that many clubs use when players have been out with a longterm injury.

There might now be a bigger crowd at the Scorpions game than at Melb v GWS.

I'm not sure Mick Warner knows much Shakespeare, but over the last 18 months or so he's been very good on 3AW when discussing this topic. Mick is a properly trained news journo, rather than just a footy commentator and has (in my opinion) been quite unbiased in his coverage on radio of the issue. A couple of weeks ago he was asked why Caroline Wilson (his colleague at Fairfax Radio) and Mark Robinson (his colleague at the Herald Sun) could have such diametrically opposed positions on what appears to be the same set of facts. He said that some journalists appear to confuse reporting with opinion writing. And while Mark Robinson is the Chief Football Writer at the Herald Sun, that doesn't make him Mick's boss. Just gives Robbo a grander title.

I think Dank, Alavi and Charter might already be cast in the roles of the witches. ASADA should test the contents of the cauldron.

Retired footballers regularly suffer post-career health issues including arthritis and brain damage. Why would a supplements program, if it leads to future health problems, be treated any differently to other post-career ailments?

Love the use of the expression "he's going nowhere". It allows you to later claim that you meant: "He's hopeless. He's not moved from when we first got him. There's been no development in this kid" or "He's fantastic. He's a required player and not going to leave us to go to another club."

Skilts is 75. I think he'd struggle to get votes in 2014. (Square-up: But I agree with the point you're making).

If Melbourne's list was determined by Demonland it would contain N Jones, Tyson, Cross, Vince, Hogan and Jetta. And maybe Salem and JKH. Everyone else would be in trouble. edit: added Hogan

Not really surprising to me. He doesn't have enough weight (or strength) around the hips, so he gets knocked over too easily. Contrast his body shape with Pedersen who is much harder to bump out of a contest. Jack Watts has been a major disappointment but who amongst us believes he's been well developed by the MFC in the first five of his six years? If I were Paul Roos I'd be telling him he needs to do two things in 2015 - build up his lower body mass and work on his desire for the contest. The first of these seems relatively simple to me (but perhaps isn't). The second would appear to be much harder.

This is an important point if the award is still calculated as I recall in the past. Is it still a system where votes are awarded out of seven for each player in every game they play? If so, players who play the most games have the best chance. Expect Watts, Bail and Matt Jones to gain more votes than players who have missed a few games, such as Jetta.

If you've ever been made a scapegoat for something you didn't do, it's a very uncomfortable experience (and I am speaking from experience). The entertainment version of what I'm talking about can be seen in the movie 'Arlington Road'. I suspect James Hird thinks he's the Jeff Bridges character in that movie. if you haven't seen the movie, do yourself a favour (and not just because of the Essendon/ASADA/AFL/Hird free-for-all).

Seriously, isn't that what happens in real life? Don't judges generally give a lighter sentence if a person pleads guilty?

Not enough supplements (or perhaps too many) to give it the appropriate flavour and texture?

Fair enough. But let's just take this one step further. What would you do if you were the manager of 44 employees and you believed your employer was doing the wrong thing by those employees for whom you have been responsible. Do you quit on principle and leave the 44 employees without your support and at the mercy of the more senior management (who you disagree with) or do you stay and try to get the best outcome for those 44? Which principle is now more important to you? Self-survival or leadership?

Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing Grimes play on the HFF in the defensive role that Bail plays (with Bail taking over from Cross as the designated tagger once Cross retires - if Bail lasts on the list that long). For all Grimes woes with kicking, at least the goal posts are 7 metres apart which is greater leeway than the game allows on any other part of the ground.

I'm going to stick my neck out. From the little I've read today I think I can see where Essendon is coming from. If this had been an ASADA-only investigation, players would apparently not have to answer questions which would self-incriminate. By having the AFL involved, players lost that ability. Hence, Essendon wants to argue that any evidence that players gave which incriminated them should, in effect, be disallowed because if the investigation had been conducted "properly" (in Essendon's view) players would have been advised to respond differently and ASADA would not have sufficient evidence to proceed with infraction notices. It doesn't prove or disprove any of the key points about what Dank might have given the players. But the less information ASADA has (meaning the less information ASADA can officially use), the weaker ASADA's case becomes.

Had a look at your employment contract recently? Are you allowed to publicly disagree with your employer? And have you always agreed with everything your employer did or do you change jobs on principle every time you disagree?

Unless, of course, they win the main game. And I agree with you if they lose. As lists turnover by about 20-25% per annum, another couple of years of delay will see only about 25% of their players' potentially affected...if they eventually lose.

You mean, the same lawyer who represented Jack Viney at his appeal? Give me a break.

I disagree. It was an inspired pick. We didn't play safe and we chose someone virtually unknown who became the most exciting player not just on our list but (for a very short time) just about the whole competition. When Liam was at his best we had excitement. That it couldn't be maintained was a footballing tragedy. I can accept that Cook and Scully were "bad picks" for different reasons. Jurrah, on the other hand was a great pick unable to maintain the commitment necessary for a variety of reasons. In the unlikely event he could convince the club that he was genuine about committing to the rigours of AFL one more time, I'd be prepared to put him on the rookie list as much to help him as to help us.

Just in support of Tough Kent's post, Matt Burgan went out of his way in his post-team selection online chit-chat thingie to make it clear that Pedersen was dropped and because of that they brought his surgery forward to last week. What's interesting to me is why it needed to be said. Was it a message to Gawn that he'd earned his spot on merit and not just because of a vacancy opening up through injury? Or a message to Pedersen that his form had tailed off so much that he needed to appreciate he was out of the team on merit (or whatever the antonym of that word is)? Or possibly both?

So, if a team of Jack Wattses and a team of Daniel Nicholsons played each other, who would win? What's the consensus view out there?

Which "they"?

I listened to our game on SEN yesterday. Brett Phillips and David Schwarz called the game with special comments from Scott Lucas. I was surprised at how good Lucas was explaining what players did or should have done, not just where the ball was but in the lead up to a passage of play. Very insightful. But the Ox has a long way to go. Too often he'd call a player's name but not what he was doing. He could have been the one with the ball, or the one tackling someone else with the ball or perhaps the one leading in the race for the ball or even one just sitting on the interchange bench. David, if you're reading this, find yourself a book of verbs and use them, please.