La Dee-vina Comedia

I've always felt disappointed, even sad, for anybody too young to see Robbie Flower play. Having read this thread, I now have a second reason to feel disappointed. Anyone too young for Robbie Flower is also too young to know The Beatles in their prime. I've tried to explain the influence on contemporary music and the seven glorious years of Beatlemania to my children and they just don't understand. All the discussion comparing metal bands in this thread is rather like discussing the merits of Neitz versus Schwarz when Robbie Flower towers over them majestically.

Not really. They're both now non-existent.

My mind works differently to yours (thank goodness). I immediately thought of David Zaharakis.

I always thought Jaded was a person whose name was Jade D. I know she got married recently, so I just assumed she took Mr No More's name as hers. She's actually one of my favourite posters with a nice mix of logic and passive aggressive (and sometimes downright aggressive, but never abusive) posts.

My concern at raising the draft age is whether the sport might lose individuals who choose a different career (sport or otherwise). Most 18 year olds finish their year 12 education just before they are drafted. If they have to wait a year, or more, before being eligible to be drafted they will have to choose to do something else for that year (or more) and may be lost to AFL altogether.

Yes, they are. That's why we got some draft picks in return for him. Like any asset, players are tradeable commodities whose worth rise and fall based on subjective assessments as to value.

Mind you, it would take some bold (and lateral) thinking not to trade a player on the basis that you lose future father-son rights as well as the player himself.

As a matter of interest, did Geelong have to trade anything to get Gary Ablett Sr from Hawthorn or was he "delisted" (in today's language) and available to anyone? It may not have been a disaster for Hawthorn, but it's certainly been a great success for Geelong.

What did St Kilda give up to get Andrew Lovett? Also, going back a long time, but surely John Pitura to Richmond in return for Graeme Teasdale, Whale Roberts and Francis Jackson (did I get that right?) has to be right up there.

Which one? Oh, wait. My mistake. I thought you said Shtisel.

Tim Lamb is now being quoted as confirming that Hunt will go to WCE. So, while it's not yet (publicly) official, it's the next best thing given it's coming from an official club source.

I've not been following in detail, but where is it confirmed that Hunt has definitively exercised his free agency rights and accepted an offer from WCE?

While I agree with the last line, let's not forget there are a few other skills that players need to have. For example, Hunt is bigger and stronger than Bowey and has shown a greater capability to take a contested mark. I'm not arguing that Hunt is necessarily better than Bowey, or vice versa, but if we only looked at one particular weapon in the arsenal, it would be like arguing we should keep Sam Weideman over Clayton Oliver because Weideman is a better tap ruckman.

It's interesting that Saad had 113 bounces and our most was apparently Spargo with 8. That disparity suggests to me that whether to bounce or not is a gameplan decision, not a question of personnel. To back that comment up with what I observed, it seemed to me that when our players took running bounces they seemed to then be in the wrong position to find the next target.

Bouncing the ball is misunderstood. The fastest movement comes from disposing of the ball, not running with it. Bouncing is often used when the players are stalling for time waiting for someone up the ground to move to a better position. Ergo, bouncing the ball is not necessarily an indicator of fast movement.

I haven't read the detail, but why does there need to be a 23rd game for each club to enable the so-called "Magic Round" to happen? Why couldn't the "Magic Round" be just like any other round, but with all teams in one State? I get that it disrupts the home/away balance, but does that really matter if the clubs who lose one home game one year make it up in the next? ("Magic round" is a terrible name, by the way).

Richard Goyder. While there's nothing wrong with lauding Joel Selwood's achievement, it did seem to be inappropriate to mention it at that time.

To be frank, I don't care. There was only one performance that mattered last year. How we got to play in the GF is neither here nor there.

In years to come, when you look up the definition of "journeyman" in the dictionary, Mitch Brown's name will be there. Something like 14 years for 79 games (plus 100 VFL games, or thereabouts). That is in no way meant to denigrate a fine footballer who tried his best. And that's all any of us can ask for.

Why? Maybe because it was true. It's also irrelevant. Geelong's performance this year, just like ours and every other team in the competition, has nothing at all to do with last year's.

It's not about us, but is it embarrassing for a club to have the Coleman Medallist and the Brownlow Medallist in the same year but miss the finals? It's only happened three or four times before including the year Tony Lockett won both when he was at St Kilda.

I'd rather all 18 teams play Round 23 at the same time.

Last year might have been impacted indirectly by Covid. I seem to recall the club had to advise players before they left Perth as the Covid protocols in place at the time meant in-person meetings in Melbourne would have been out of the question. I suspect some players wanted to go from Perth to places other than Melbourne, such as Adelaide if they were from SA. So, the short time line might have been a one-off.

It is with great sadness that I see that Liam Jurrah is reportedly once again in custody. He is alleged to have assaulted a women with a machete in Yuendumu. I recognise that this matter is yet to go before a court so recommend that people be careful with any comments they wish to post. (If mods want to delete this thread because of that concern, I understand.) https://thewest.com.au/sport/afl/former-melbourne-demons-high-flyer-liam-jarrah-in-custody-after-alleged-machete-assault-c-8237970

It would be even better if he participated in the Big Freeze. It might guarantee his popularity for the length of his reign.