La Dee-vina Comedia

Glad to see you're keeping a lid on it!

Doesn't seem right having a thread about 'Improvers' and not being able to name Colin Sylvia. It's his natural habitat.

I hope when you say "back in town from London" that means you're a Melbourne (city) local. I can't imagine what it must be like to support both the Melbourne Football Club and the English cricket team right now.

It's time I admited it...I didn't have the courage to go to Victoria Park. But I used to go to Morrabbin and I remember one game in the mud where we were beaten and Greg Parke took an unheard of 16 marks in the wet. It was in the days before "uncontested footy", so most of those 16 would be counted today as "contested marks".

I wouldn't have thought Dawes was particularly agile. But don't get me wrong - I like his strong, bullocking style. In that aspect of his game he reminds me of David Neitz.

I really hope you're talking about Clark, not Morton.

I don't mind that forward line. But does it suggest we'll be playing just one of Jamar/Spencer/Gawn/Fitzpatrick? Where would the second of those four play, especially given the cap on rotations?

Are runners and trainers paid or volunteers?

Coaches are cunning and will do what they can to get around the rules. (I remember Terry Wallace when at the Bulldogs having one of his trainers dressed in clothing that looked a lot like a Melbourne jumper to cause confusion on the ground). I'm sure they'd find a way around this one, too.

I'd like to be more radical and ban runners altogether. (Although I recognise that if this were to occur, coaches would use trainers to carry messages anyway)

...but as a one club player.

Pitmaster, well put. On this point we agree.

Let me clarify. I accept that the moment anyone other than an employee of the club is attending the idea that something can be kept a secret goes out the window. The GFC proposal would recognise that and would be using the term "closed" to mean "not open to anyone unless they're invited" rather than "closed so we can keep secret what we are up to".

Let's look at this another way. Should closed training be open to member's only? I'm all in favour of additional member benefits. So I support what GFC is doing. (And this is not on topic, but all the best to Colin Carter, GFC's President, who had a heart attack about a week ago.)

Pity the 'Like' button has been disabled. So much in this thread to 'Like'. (Don't get me wrong, about the 'Like' button. I appreciate the integrity of the system is paramount).

I'm also surprised now that Paul Roos is our coach that the pseudonym 'Roost It' actually gets through Demonland's auto-censor.

Perhaps we've assumed wrongly. It's a given that posters seem to think Roost It doesn't know what he's talking about, so it's equally possible on that logic that he thinks Morton is the best AFL player the world has ever seen. If that's the case, a player falling somewhere between the best AFL player the world has ever seen and a B-grader will turn out to be a darn good player. Perhaps Roost It should be given the credit he deserves for his post.

Careful. I think you'll find there's quite a bit of taxpayer money going into both the MCG and, to a far lesser extent, Gosch's paddock.

"Jamar running sprints". Sounds incongruous...even unlikely. But nevertheless, a pleasure to read.

The more I reflect on Bailey as a coach the more I'm convinced he was not a good coach. You've pointed out one of his failings when you wrote "If he could have got them fit enough..." Surely his inability to get them fit enough was a significant failing. Yes, his attacking football was exhilarating to watch, but it happened too infrequently and the inability of the team to defend was highly problematic and surely another sign of coaching inadequacy. This does not in any way mean that Bailey was not a top bloke. But that's not enough.

I'd like to believe the AFL would equally distribute the profits, but as time marches on I'm not sure the "football socialism model" which people like Colin Carter, David Crawford and Graeme Samuel developed in the 1980s when the Commission model was invented continues to be understood. Back then, they appreciated that the constituent clubs might see each other as enemies, but the true competition was non-AFL sports and entertainment. It still is (with soccer much more of a threat now than it was 30 years ago), but I'm not sure those running the current constituent clubs understand that as much as they should. Consequently, I fear some clubs will continue to put themselves ahead of the good of the competition as a whole and pursue non-equalisation policies which suit them but not the poorer clubs.

I suspect he was being facetious in that Tappy's always with the rehab group, so if he was with the main group he must have "got lost" and found himself in the wrong group.

Let's not compare Toumpas and Wines. I hope they both succeed (just as long as Wines has an off day every time he plays us).

I think there is some inconsistency in the argument. Surely the Mitch Clark acquisition would be classed a "failure" on that criterion, but I don't see the same level of angst amongst supporters as with Chris Dawes.

I suspect the biggest risk is if the next media rights deal breaks up the current global deal (ie, all 9 games per week) into club rights (ie, selling off Collingwood games separately from, say, GWS games) with an inadequate equalisation scheme. I can imagine networks paying bigger money for games involving popular and successful teams than less popular and less successful teams. On current standings that would have us earning the least (along with GWS and maybe the Bulldogs). Equalisation helps, but we'd end up with progressively smaller audiences which would eventually stunt our growth as lower exposure results in fewer new supporters. Having said that, the ball is very much in our court. Get it right on field in a sustainable form and the rest will follow.