La Dee-vina Comedia

I must be lucky, then, to somehow see us, comparatively, as being not as bad now as we really are.

I've been on Demonland for about 4 years or so. The opening post is the best post, bar none, in all my time here. And my condolences to P_Man.

It might be just my memory (I was pretty young) but my recollection of the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s is that we were worse then than any time in the last 6 years. The data may not stack up that way - but I know that is how I felt during that long, dark, lean period. Old Dee, WJ or anyone else who is 55+, what are your recollections?

It's a sad indictment on Round 1 that the question of what has happened to Ben Hur is marginally more interesting to me than what's happened to the players.

Does this mean Chris Dawes' hamstring strain didn't really happen and he's OK to play?

[Posted this link earlier only to have it wiped by the data problem. Apologies if it's buried in some other post.] A great article up there with the likes of Martin Flanagan's pieces. http://inside.org.au/haunted-by-demons/

A glorious article. Gives Martin Flanagan a run for his money. And I feel his pain- I suspect we all do. http://inside.org.au/haunted-by-demons/

You should have gone with the quadrella and predicted there'd be a "Jack Watts was a wasted No. 1 pick" thread, too. All four are useful vents and meaningless chatter.

Recruiting Byrnes and Rodan is a similar strategic approach to GWS recruiting Cornes, Brogan, McDonald and Power. It provides senior experience and hard bodies to help the young players both on and off the field. I remain to be convinced that it's a good strategy - but I'm certainly not making a decision based on one game.

32 wins out of 133 games = 24%. Doesn't feel like we've won one in four over the period. As bad as that is, I would have thought our performance was actually worse than that.

The point he was making was that the real question is about development not about recruitment. Which again gets back to the point that the Bailey years were more than just a wasted four years. We're still wearing the pain of an underdeveloped playing list. Conversely, Lyon also said that there was not enough mongrel in the players selected. That is, there were too many players of the same type, that is with skill, who he felt didn't have the necessary desire to push through.

Every player is different and every coach is different. For example, you think Malthouse is a "great inspiring coach". I, on the other hand, have never had any empathy for him at all and would probably respond negatively rather than positively to his coaching. On the other hand, I would respond very positively to Chris Scott.

Wrong in so many ways. Australians love to blame Churchill because we lost so many of our men at ANZAC Cove. But if the British Navy had done what was asked of them by Churchill instead of being unprepared to put their ships at risk, the disaster which was Gallipoli would never have happened. The analogy with Sunday's game is quite apposite - if the players had done what they were supposed to do, we wouldn't have witnessed the disaster which was the game against Port Adelaide. (And as a final note - I am not for one minute suggesting a game of football is as serious as going to war. I admire the courage of our military folk and our footballers but appreciate that only one is a matter of life and death).

Wow. I'm not sure whether you have too little confidence or too much.

Four quarters of consistent effort

I've been brainwashed. In both these posts I read "taking" as "tanking" before realising my mistake. It's a horrible feeling knowing that one of the long-term impacts of this ongoing saga has been the impact it's had on one's ability to read properly!

As always, great preview WJ. Nine of the 22 players in that Melbourne v Sydney Round 1, 2011 game are no longer on our list. And a few others who were may not be selected. It's a very different team. Let's hope it's a better one. http://finalsiren.com/MatchDetails.asp?GameID=5446&Code=564d5bcbae8db5a1ccd33d04235ef93b&Sort=Rating%20Desc

I wasn't there, but I suspect the "not" refers to them being fickle rather than to being supporters. In other words, he wants to turn fickle supporters into full-time, dedicated, passionate, paying supporters.

I agree - let's get rid of the bugler.

But don't we teach footballers to run differently (to avoid hamstring strains) and tackle differently? Golfers change their swings and tennis player improve their stroke play. It seems logical to me that with the right amount of effort players should be able to be taught to kick differently. Having said that, I'm forever amazed at how many professional AFL players cannot kick at least reasonably on the "wrong" foot.

Why not? Statistics can prove it... Over half of the people ever born on this Earth are still living. Ergo, immortality is more likely than mortality.

Jurrah pulls on boots in bid to revive career Let's hope this comeback is successful. PS: has anyone ever seen 'footy' written as 'footie' before?

Practising interchange technique, perhaps

And just to add a "Kiss of Death", my favourite footy journalist (not), Mark Robinson, said on SEN over the weekend that he thought Jack Watts would make the 40 man All Australian squad this year. But just to add a proviso, that claim might have been part of a Foxtel or SEN "outrageous prediction" topic. Doesn't mean MR doesn't believe it to be true. But perhaps the claim should be appreciated in that light.

As much as I appreciate the longer term implications of a deal with Casey, there are two automatic improvements should we go back to fielding our own VFL team (reserves). Firstly, our AFL listed players would be able to use the same numbers in both seniors and reserves which would make them much easier to identify. And secondly, we'd get out of that hideous Casey jumper. Great photos 666. Appreciate your work.