La Dee-vina Comedia

Bollocks If I need to use three words consistent with the thread: Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks

I'd be very surprised if McDonald is dropped after one game played in terrible conditions for marking forwards. The selection I'm most interested in is Hunter's replacement. Does Brayshaw return to the wing? or Jordon? or someone who usually doesn't play there (Spargo, Harmes)? or someone who's never had a chance to play there (Woewodin, Laurie)?

I think Kev will be arrested if he attempts this.

Sort of on topic, involving weird suspensions and St Kilda players, was Tony Lockett once suspended for striking a team mate in a practice match?

The "Footy Live" app is showing the AFL ladder with most teams having been given indigenous, or perhaps pseudo-indigenous, names. However, I was not aware that all clubs are using these names. Here's the ladder as published in Footy Live. Note that I've added the traditional name in brackets for convenience. Have I missed something regarding these other teams? 1. Yalla-birr-ang (Collingwood) 2. Naarm (that spelling is how it appears in the app) 3. Meeanjin (Brisbane) 4. Yartapuulti (PA) 5. Youruk (St Kilda) 6. Maribyrnong (Western Bulldogs) 7. Djilang (say it out loud and it's obviously Geelong) 8. Tarntanya (Adelaide) 9. Quor-nong (Carlton) 10. Tullamarine (Essendon - since when was "marine" an indigenous word?) 11. Karara (Gold Coast, of course) 12. Walyalup (Freo) 13. Quo-yung (Richmond, although it sounds a bit like Kooyong so I would have thought it might have been Hawthorn's name) 14. Warrane (Sydney) 15. Ngurra (GWS) 16. Yern-da-ville (North, although sounds a bit French) 17. Boorloo (West Coast) 18. Boorondara (Hawthorn)

Uncirculated, perhaps? Otherwise, who, exactly is "putting out"? And what?

Answer: A potential TV audience of 5 million in Sydney. The AFL needs to keep Sydney (the team) in the sight of Sydney (the people of the city), especially when both Sydney (the team) and GWS are having poor years.

You do realise that it may not be a question of cost. Not everyone is comfortable around big crowds, especially as they get older.

Seem likely that Brayshaw or Rivers will take on the Sparrow role. Brayshaw is the safe option in that we know he can do it. However, I would rather see Rivers in the role tonight to see what he makes of it. With no disrespect to Sparrow, it's better to find out now whether Rivers can do it than be forced to find out when one or more of Oliver, Petracca and Viney are missing.

And Thursday nights are even worse given work the next day.

Always 2nd Monday in June, not Tuesday.

When you said "us", I thought you were referring to Demonlanders. You are quite right that we're a small subset. However, I'm still not sure about your 99% claim. I suspect it's true that certain timeslots get bigger crowds, but can we be sure that's not because the better games are put into those timeslots? Anyway, for what it's worth, if 99% of supporters like the 1.10pm Sunday slot, count me as being part of the 1%. It's my least preferred slot because it essentially means that the match ends up being the only thing I can do that day. (My preference is 3.20pm Sunday, but I recognise, as I said before, that as we all lead different lives, it won't be the preferred slot for everyone).

99%? Really? I don't think so. If I've learned anything about Demonlanders and their scheduling preferences, there is absolutely no uniform view. And why should there be? Every person's circumstances are different. The opinions of a person with a young family can be different from a single, unattached person. An older person might prefer daytime; a younger person a night game. Some people work weekends while others are fully retired, etc.

I like the idea of playing AFL night games on any night before a public holiday. However, why doesn't the AFL be a bit more creative and reserve these slots for teams who currently don't already have "blockbusters"? Carlton and Essendon already have their fare share, as does Collingwood, Richmond and us*. It should be used to build crowds for teams like St Kilda, North Melbourne, Freo, GWS, Bulldogs and Gold Coast. *We already have King's Birthday and ANZAC Day eve. As I've said before, we should be creating an annual Melbourne v Sydney game making use of the inter-city rivalry that's existed for over 100 years. It could alternate between each city and if developed properly should be able to generate a large crowd every time eventually creating rivalry in a similar fashion to NRL's State of Origin.

I don't think that's the point. After the A-League pitch invasion, all players of all sports will be worried about something similar happening to them. Or worse (remember what happened to Monica Seles?) That may make some players over-react when confronted by something unexpected. If players lined up at the interchange gates try to get into an opponent's head (as long as it's not racist, etc), that's OK because players can reasonably expect that to occur at that part of the ground. There is an argument that a fine may be inappropriate or in this case, too large. However, if the AFL has warned clubs previously about this type of behaviour (and I don't know whether they have or not), a $1,500 fine is surely the next incremental level of punishment. Anything less would be too inconsequential.

Nice piece of alliterative tongue twisting. Say three times quickly, "Powell-Pepper plays particularly poorly". Actually, it's not that hard to say...

Ironically, (if that were true) that would mean that in future, the relative scarcity of the GCS coins would make them worth more than the rest.

I disagree. Why not give Collingwood the headache of deciding who they should play on Pickett? Now, let's get back to this week's game...

The Eddie Betts Foundation is also written up in The Age today. It includes this paragraph: "The foundation will be led by Betts with close involvement from former Melbourne Demons defender Neville Jetta, a Noongar man. Jetta is also a development coach with the Collingwood Magpies, playing alongside the ladder-leading club’s younger Indigenous players in the VFL as an onfield mentor." Congratulations to both Eddie and Neville. Both continuing to show they were not just great footballers but also outstanding people.

Very glad he didn't miscalculate and place a foot over the line. For what it's worth, I think the fine is appropriate. If no action had been taken, players would believe they could do this with impunity. That could lead to dangerous outcomes.

Is that a category of membership which I don't think I've previously known about or are you just referring to your personal lifetime support for the club? If it's the former, it's something I should look into.

And I'd say with respect to Sylvia, van Rooyen and Thompson, "fair's fair". Good work as always, DS.

The headline is an example of why the three letters "AFL" can cause confusion. In this instance, the media outlet is using "AFL" to mean "Australian rules football". It is not using it to mean the coach is part of the professional AFL competition. I am in no doubt, however, that the headline writer would have known full well that the use of "AFL", while technically correct would have attracted readers to the story assuming it meant the professional competition. While I may be accused of cynicism in holding this view, I would argue that I am not being anywhere near as cynical as the media outlet.

Interesting data. Just to clarify, are the previous years' figures for the whole season or up to round 9 in each case?

Autocorrection for "partisan" perhaps? Otherwise, I have no idea what this means