La Dee-vina Comedia

I hope Pickett isn't asked to play too much on-ball. Although Davey won a B&F as a midfielder, I thought it might have shortened his career because of all the crunching bumps and tackles he received in the role. Pickett will receive similar attention when he's in the midfield.

For some time Melksham has looked to me like a coach-in-waiting.

I think it's fair to say we were keen to keep him...but not at the price WCE was prepared to pay. I'm sorry to see him go, but also understand that we have a salary cap to maintain. We don't want to be in the positions that Collingwood, Gold Coast and others have been in where good players have been lost because of salary cap/list mismanagement. In fact, I'd go as far as saying it's closer to a win-win than any other combination. Hunt gets a better deal and we aren't forced to overpay for a player.

I was under the impression we didn't move Hunt on. Rather, he was offered a contract on better terms (either a longer contract or more money or both) by West Coast which we were not prepared to match. The effect is that Hunt has left us, but I believe he had an offer from the club to stay. Therefore, to say he was "moved on" is probably unfair on both Hunt and the club, even though the end result is the same.

I wonder how much better it is for a premium ruckman to be training with (or against) another premium ruckman rather than a second stringer? We see it all the time with the best forwards having to battle the best defenders. But most clubs don't have a quality second ruckman to put up against their first choice big man.

I wanted to join in the fun but the choice cuts have all been taken.

I love that we like to make jokes about things like this. I like it even more that players from different teams can train together.

Who am I? I got into trouble in 2022 for being too Franz Lizst at a restaurant in Prahran.

Bread and fishes. Where have I heard that before?

Foxtel is just providing younger people with a better understanding of what watching Channel 7's football coverage was like in the 1970s and 1980s. It was wall to wall replays of Collingwood, Carlton and more Collingwood in those days.

You may be right, but I think to be fair to Jordon we should also consider the possibility he was playing to instructions. Often when he had the ball it was because he had made space on his wing so the ball could be safely delivered to him. Once he had it, though, there was often no-one for him to kick it too as the players in front of him were often still on the "Langdon" side of the ground. It's possible he was told to wait for the players in front of him to present opportunities rather than just bombing it forward in hope. PS: This is the sort of analysis which is only possible by being at the ground and watching the game live. TV coverage doesn't show this because it's not possible to show simultaneously the ball in play and also what's happening further up the ground.

I think we must have a different opinion on the meaning of "cheating".

I'm convinced that speed is more a product of ball movement, not leg speed. Teams that have a higher handball:kick ratio will be slower because the ball moves more slowly up the ground.

Just to explore this idea of "cheating" a bit more, it seems that some people believe that players who successfully exploit the rules and the way the game is umpired (as has been suggested about Hawkins and Selwood in this thread) are "cheating". Kevin Bartlett made it an art-form to bounce the ball in front of him just before he was about to be tackled to earn a free kick for holding the man. That was using the rules (as they then were) to his advantage. Was that also cheating?

Then, by definition, he's not a cheat. If he were, he would have free kicks paid against him all the time. Let's not use words like "cheat" unfairly. It maligns the character of individuals in any walk of life to use emotive words like "cheat" or "liar" unless they actually are proven to be so.

I've never noticed Oliver to look this muscular before. Has he changed or have I been blind?

If you're new to Demonland and wondering what to make of these reports, I recommend for your own sanity that you assume that each of Whispering Jack and Picket Fence are about 50% correct. In other words, take a bit from each and land somewhere in the middle.

The only sort of mishaps that we want to hear about from training sessions.

Strapping? Otherwise I don't know what this means.

Thanks Demonland and WJ. What about Joel Smith? Is he in the rehab group too?

Thanks Deespicable for a great report. Mind you, my main takeaway is that the auto-censor must have broken down. How did the word after "deadeye" in the section on Tom McDonald get through unscathed? Previously, even when being used as a genuine name (as in the diminutive of Richard) it was being blocked.

I assume the Melbourne Football Club is Gryffindor? Gil is Dumbledore? Who else? Go your best.

I was surprised that the team we play in the "The Long Goodbye to Gil Round" wasn't one of the teams we play twice in the season. It seemed to me that it would make sense to have all teams playing in "The Stupid Concoction of an Idea Round" playing each other again to enable at least one of those games to be played at the home city for one of the clubs. For us, it means that we won't play Essendon in Melbourne (the city) at all in 2023. As you may gather (see what I did there?) I'm not a fan of "The AFL's Bizarre Idea to Promote the Game Round" and not being able to see a home and away game against a Melbourne club in Melbourne when it could have been so easily arranged just seems wrong.

The AFL Fans Association has a public survey underway. I've completed it and having done so I now can't find a way to embed a direct link into this thread which takes you to the survey. However, you can get there if you follow this link and then look to the RHS where there is a feed which includes the link to the survey. It's an opportunity for fans to "speak their mind" on issues such as scheduling, ticketing, racism, betting and many other matters. I would have preferred more opportunities to explain my concerns, but that said, the survey provides some opportunities. I don't know how long the survey is open for or what will happen to its results, other than, I assume, some media coverage of the main points, but it is a forum where we can be heard. And for the pedants amongst us, there's a delightful typo which seems to suggest there are some dead club members who haven't left a Last Will or Testament.

To be fair, those players would presumably have modified their playing style if they played to today's standard. And all were good enough* to play by today's rules so wouldn't necessarily have missed a lot of games. *I'm assuming that Jack Dyer was good enough. I'm old enough to remember the other three as players, but I'm not ancient enough to remember Jack Dyer who played his last game in 1949.