La Dee-vina Comedia

So you'll just stay in the carpark? Like, forever?

Maybe it's purely demographic. Perhaps Melbourne supporters are less interested than supporters of other teams in purchasing branded product. Combine that with Melbourne having fewer supporters than the big teams and you'd have a reason why stores don't bother stocking stuff they just know won't sell.

Why do you say Pert's the most successful CEO? I would have thought there's an argument that Brian Cook has been more successful at Geelong; or even Cook's protege, Stuart Fox at Hawthorn.

When is he expected to start playing again?

My conclusion: One of you is friends with Craig Thompson.

Hopefully Garland's OK and able to play from the beginning of the season or not long after it starts. If this had happened at the beginning of last year we'd be contemplating Sellar, Pederson, Gillies, Davis or Watts as his replacement. I'm glad we're a year on.

Let's be more optimistic: With some luck he will be OK for the finals (I know, I'm dreaming)

I suspect like cockroaches, footy journos would still survive.

Or maybe he was just warming up his hands in the wet conditions.

It would be much more amusing if we were to find out that the Bandidos have warned Toby Mitchell to stop associating with Jake King.

I was excited until I read the last two words. Which only goes to show I have more faith in an anonymous poster on Demonland than on a Herald Sun reporter.

This trail of posts shows how easily a rumour becomes an unsubstantiated comment and eventually "a fact" which leads to emotional responses on Demonland!

Are MFC Board minutes made public? If so, where can they be found? If not, how would we know who voted for what? And just to add one extra point, even if the "old" Board members were involved and supported some very poor decisions, a complete clean out means a loss of corporate memory at the Board level. There will be a lot of mundane but nevertheless important non-football decisions made by the Board and having someone around who knows the history behind why a particular decision was made would continue to be valuable.

...at this time of year

but look great on paper

I think the Nathan Jones analogy does correctly illustrate my point but perhaps we disagree about the issue. While decisions of the Board have to be seen in public as unanimous so that it appears the Board is of one mind, that will not reflect reality. On many issues the Board is likely to have a diversity of opinions. In fact, Board's operate best when the orthodoxy is challenged in house. But once a decision is made any well-functioning body has to provide a unified front. As I said originally, I have no idea whether the current Board members who were there previously have - as individuals - been good or poor performers. I'm just saying it is naive to assume they supported every decision the previous Board made. And even if they did, that still doesn't mean they haven't got something valuable to offer today. Edit: typos

We don't really know what those who remain on the Board from the older ticket have contributed. The logic of saying all must go because the Board performed poorly is as logical as saying Nathan Jones should be delisted because the footy team has performed dreadfully since he joined the club.

They may be training in the gym and pool on the other days. They might also be in those "meetings" all players complain about. And I wouldn't discount the possibility of training at a "secret location" every once in a while to allow game plan adjustments without public scrutiny.

It used to be that when people wrote about "Col" I didn't know whether they meant Sylvia or Garland. Then we had people writing about "Jones" with it unclear whether they meant N or M. Now we have two called "Dom" to add to the confusion. But now I realise it doesn't actually matter. The reader can assume what he or she likes and the training reports are still valuable.

NOT OUR TRENGOVE: From AFL Twitter: Trengove to miss a month after knee injury: http://afl.to/1eaJmEz

A merger can only happen if another team is introduced as the TV rights agreement requires an 18 team competition. Can't see that happening - but relocation of a team to Tasmania isn't beyond the realms of possibility.

The innovation I'd like to see us proceed with is an equivalent to a 'Dreamtime at he G' or ANZAC day game played with a regular opponent on the night of Easter Sunday. It needs more than just the choice of timeslot. Perhaps it could be something like a 'Kid's Game' with all school children given free entry and a kick on the ground at the close of play (subject to weather, of course). I've never understood why the AFL doesn't have a game on a Sunday night when the following day is a public holiday. (I'm against Sunday night games when the Monday is a working day). It would be good to work with another club to put the package together and present it to the AFL.

Who knows whether Neeld even wanted to be back in the AFL in 2014? Perhaps the best strategy for him is to stay away from any form of AFL involvement for at least 12 months before returning. Another way to look at this would be to argue that Ratten "got another gig" in the AFL straight away as he had no employable possibilities anywhere else so took whatever he could get whereas Neeld has more strings to his bow and looked beyond the AFL. I just think making an argument that Ratten is somehow better than Neeld because Neeld's not coaching in the AFL in 2014 is a superficial argument based on short-term evidence. It's rather like arguing that Kevin Rudd would never be PM again after being dumped by his own party in 2010.

I wouldn't have thought he has no AFL future. If he was a good Assistant Coach before - and that seems to be well accepted - there's no reason to believe he can't be a good Assistant Coach again. It's arguable he might be even better given his Senior Coaching experience and what he learned from that. In fact, I fully expect to see him as an Assistant Coach at Carlton in 2015 (if Mick Malthouse is still there).

Any reason he couldn't be both?