La Dee-vina Comedia

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.

There's another reason why Petty might be playing forward. Goodwin might be playing him there to make Brown and McDonald work harder to get their spots back. When there's little competition for spots, players might become a bit lazy; when they aren't guaranteed a place, they probably work on all aspects of their game better.

I think it's because the producers believe viewers want to see the players close up. Some probably do; but I don't.

I don't. The Rioli incident was off the ball. I believe any incident which is not in play should cop extra weeks. I'd go with two additional weeks, although I could understand others might suggest one extra is enough. My thinking is that incidents such as this Rioli one are far more problematic for the game than offences which occur in the course of play. So, if it were up to me I would change the rules so that the Rioli incident would have resulted in 4 weeks made up of 2 weeks for the offence itself plus 2 for being off the ball.

I blame it all on the soft-on-crime government which means there are Collingwood supporters who should be in gaol but are instead roaming the streets.

By why not change the system to say you can accept the ban or take your chances with an appeal? Why go via the Tribunal?

I still don't understand why there's a three step process. I fully understand why there needs to be a second process to allow for natural justice. Why don't MRO appeals go straight to the Appeals Board. What's the point of an appeal against an MRO decision going to the Tribunal at all?

I assume this was promoted as a fungible token.

I like your thinking (although I think you'll find it's George M Cohan).

My apologies. I was wrong. It was actually 9 years ago. It was in 2014 - remember those glorious times? Viney's successful appeal was probably the highlight of the year.

Why, oh why, have the TV broadcasters gone back to using so many close-ups of live action? It becomes impossible to determine what the action is that we're supposed to be watching. I'm OK with using the close-up for replays when detail might be of interest, but the flow of the game is impossible to ascertain when the close-ups are being used of live play. For the last year or two, possibly more, they had abandoned the close-up for live play. That was so much better. Whoever the bright spark is who thought it was a good idea to re-introduce it should be given their marching orders.

Coincidentally, it's 8 years to the day since the successful Viney appeal.

I think this is an excellent point, and not just for this case. The alternative would seem to suggest a more reckless approach.