La Dee-vina Comedia

And here's the evidence: The Vault Forget the suggestion that the picture is some bloke called Flynn. I reckon it's Jack Watts at age 3.

Trivial? What does that mean?

I can just imagine Caroline Wilson reporting "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition"

Mind you, given that the head of the CIA has been sprung having an affair because he sent romantic emails to his paramour, perhaps our administrators might be next in line for the top job at Langley. Or Petraeus might replace Cameron Schwab.

It helps to be less reliant than previously on AFL handouts. I'm not sure I'd be that keen on biting the hand that feeds me. Debt demolition has done a lot more than just shore up our financial position. It's allowed us more freedom to act unilaterally.

Anyone aware of any issues between their respective fathers when they both were involved with Richmond?

Another undersized, physically underdeveloped player. I'm convinced the training regime under Bailey didn't help players like Petterd, Gysberts and Morton leaving them at the mercy of other clubs who could throw them around like rag dolls.

There is something to enjoy about running around the Tan?

It's gone full circle. Crikey.com has today published the following in its Tips and Rumours section (it's possibly behind a paywall): "Demon trolls rally against Caro. The Age's chief football scribe Caroline Wilson has gone hard on the off-field troubles of the Melbourne Demons. In the darker reaches of the internet the club's fans are hitting back, opening "The Wilson File" to compile all her apparently unfair criticisms of the club. It's extensive, certainly, but they're getting a little feral ..." trolls? darker reaches of the internet? a little feral? ...what the...

i can't see why employing an assistant coach should be different from any other employment process. So you'd think the prospective employer would check references of any potential employee. In short, I'd expect the CFC to have contacted the MFC; and because of their personal history it may well have been Malthouse to Neeld.

If he's only just "begun to mature" he's not yet a leader.

UH, I'm impressed. You appear to have understood what ADC wrote which is completely unintelligible to me. Mind you, when I do understand what ADC has written I find it's drivel virtually impossible to agree with whatever is being suggested.

I'd like to agree, but there is one additional matter. When Demetriou was commenting in 2009 he (presumably) was not aware of the meeting which it is now being alleged was held with the intention of planning to lose. While everything else he said are legitimate arguments his comments might have been different if he was aware of the alleged meeting (if it indeed happened the way it has been reported). So, he still has wriggle room if he needs it. My guess is that the AFL would like to find a solution without ever having to admit that 'tanking' occurred - whether they now believe it did or it did not. They should be using an external strategy firm to advise them (because an outside view is less likely to bury its head in the sand and shouldn't be afraid to provide both palatable and unpalatable suggestions for consideration). But I suspect they won't do that. And they should re-frame the question away from whether tanking occurred in the past and should instead talk about reforming the draft process to get rid of any incentive which might still exist not to perform. And I would like to see (but doubt it will happen) some stricter obligations on clubs to report their intentions during a season (ie, advising if they intend to trial players in alternative roles, put players in for season ending surgery, resting players because of a rotations policy rather than pretending that they are suffering from general soreness, etc).

Could be worse. Might have to take old Scully as well.

A bit like having smiling footballers

I saw a story about the 'Judds' mispelt in another thread as 'Judas'. Or maybe not.

I was lucky enough to see Robert Flower who is clearly the best Melbourne player I have seen. But I wouldn't clone him because I'd like the chance to see Ron Barassi at his prime. I saw RDB play in the 64 GF - but I was too young to remember. And I wouldn't mind seeing Jack Mueller and Bluey Truscott. They must have been considered legendary for a reason.

Now you're talking. We should go on the attack and write to AFL this week formally requesting a priority pick in this year's draft because we've been so bad for so long.

There are lots of threads about tanking and all taking a serious look at a very serious issue. But I think we should also have a thread which allows a humorous take on the issues. if I'm wrong, feel free to delete this post. The idea of this thread is not to debate the serious issues but just look at it with a wry smile. In other words, don't use this thread to argue whether the tanking existed or it didn't. Or whether Caroline Wilson has a grudge or she doesn't. There are plenty of other places to post those views. So, to get things started, I've got a proposal which the MFC could put to the AFL as an appropriate punishment. Let's accept a similar punishment as handed out to Melbourne Storm for their salary cap breaches and have all our premiership points for 2009 and 2010 taken away. And why not go one step further and offer up all our premiership points for 2011 and 2012 as well. Then we can ask the AFL for a priority pick in this year's draft on the basis that we haven't won a game for four years and need the help that the priority pick was first designed for.

If Green didn't want to retire but had to be 'forced' into it, he's hardly the first player in the history of the game that this has happened to. In all sports champions of the game and some who were just plodders refuse to recognise that their time is up. When Shane Warne retired he said he'd rather have people saying "Why did he retire?" rather than play on too long and have people saying "Why didn't he retire?" Brad Green retired at the right time for him. Whether he wanted to or not is a different question.

Especially if we lose.

Mind you, Jim Stynes, Tadgh Kenneally and, more recently, Mike Pyke show that successful code swapping is possible. Of course, we may be drawing the wrong conclusion. Media conference might be to say Folau has extended his contract.

We'll play Geelong at the MCG when we play them twice in a season. That will happen when either Melbourne is as good as Geelong or Geelong is as bad as Melbourne but not while we play at completely different standards. The draw is sort of seeded. Poorer teams player each other twice and better teams play each other twice. When you think of all the potential permutations and requirements, I think the AFL have done a pretty good job overall. I don't have to like every individual round (especially a home game at Etihad) but all in all, I think the AFL deserves credit.

We've got quite a good history of turning rookies into decent players (Junior, Davey, Jamar, Robbo come to mind). In fact someone with more time and a better memory might be able to put a whole team together. It would be interesting to see how it would match up against a team made up of players who didn't start as rookies.

Thanks. Always grateful to those who go and who then share their views. And it's worrying that for the last few years there are more highlights and greater enjoyment reading training reports than actual match summaries.