La Dee-vina Comedia

I'm torn on the issue of publication of the minutes. While I appreciate the idea that it should support the principle of democracy, the reality is that if minutes are made public, two things happen. Firstly, debate at meetings becomes stifled because people might not want their comments and opinions shared widely and because information that might be sensitive for commercial or political reasons might be disclosed. Secondly, to avoid the latter problem, the minutes themselves are more likely to be a sanitised version of the discussion. That's not helpful to future discussions of the Board. On balance, I'm against the disclosure of the minutes as I believe the Board should not feel constrained by concerns as to publication of what they might say and because any future Boards should be able to look back at minutes of past meetings and know that they fully record what was discussed. I'm speaking from experience here having recorded minutes for very senior government meetings as well as being a member of a government board that had to make highly sensitive decisions.

That's a really good point. Players need to be shown how a minor change in the way the ball is held will alter its trajectory as it falls to the boot. If you're spinning the ball around, you're not concentrating on having the ball set into your hands correctly and in a consistent manner. They should look at Brendan Fevola as an example (of goal kicking, not lifestyle). He held the ball in an unusual way, but it was identical every time he kicked and it worked well for him.

Maybe you should change your name to LimpingCivilWar. (Seriously, I hope you recover quickly.)

Typical of Demonland. Langdon has been mis-spelled as Longden

I find this to be an amusing statement. It's like saying Adam Lambert's best performances with Queen were in his audition for the lead singer role. (It's OK, Picket. I know exactly what you mean and I appreciate your snake-defying visits to Casey.)

While I don't agree with much of what you argue regarding the election process, I'm grateful for this post as it tells me some things I didn't know. In particular, the votes for Reed and McCoy. I assume you mean that they received 22.6% and 19.8% of votes cast, which, seems to me to be a large number for non-incumbents when the club is in a good position. They should be pleased with that result. And while the site published the figures for the Members' Resolution, it was poorIy presented as it didn't say which of the two numbers was for and which against - only that the necessary threshold of 75% wasn't reached.

1. Because we didn't review the 2018 Preliminary Final 2. Because we don't have a home base 3. It's all Jack Watts' fault

As a matter of interest, are you using a colloquial expression to mean Verral is rucking against Gawn and being beaten badly or that Gawn is actually teaching him properly?

Sigh... Facts are stubborn things, aren't they?

Not that figure. I was asking where you got the travel time from. You wrote: "...the rest of the population travel large distances to work everyday 8-9 hours a day in peak hour ..."

Seriously? Where did you pluck this figure from?

I reckon there's a PhD thesis awaiting someone with the time to analyse Demonland over the last decade or more looking at subject trends. I suspect the "home base" discussion peaks in February every year because there's basically nothing else to talk about. Let's get the season proper underway as quickly as possible!

Do any other clubs have multiple training sites? I seem to recall Richmond built something out at Craigieburn. Do they use that as well as Punt Road? What about Essendon...do they still use Windy Hill for anything as well as Tullamarine?

Our "brand" is the name of a major city rather than a suburb or a country town. We shouldn't need a bit of signage on a building to market ourselves. There are far greater and better opportunities available to us than that. It just needs some creative thinking. To be honest, I'd rather we spent money building relationships with the City of Melbourne and anything else which is symbolic of Melbourne the city than spend it on a home base.

Presumably having list depth doesn't just help when there are injuries. It should also help intraclub training so that when a team of "probables" is playing the "rest", a higher quality of the "rest" should help improve the "probables". Imagine how poor the "rest" must have been in 2013. It would not have been much help to improve the capabilities of the then "probables" in any intraclub contests.

I often wonder about the value of playing a "probables" team against the rest. Firstly, it means the forwards are playing on inferior quality defenders, and vice versa. Is that really helpful? Secondly, how would a player feel if left out of the "probables" team? The latter point shouldn't really matter, as that's what happens with selection each week anyway - but nevertheless, I suspect it does hurt some players more than others.

Surprising comment. Not so much for its meaning but because I would have expected something more coach-speak and meaningless such as "he's in the mix", "he hasn't missed a session" or "he's done everything we've asked to put himself in the best position".

Am I the only who has no idea what this means? At the time of writing, two people have "Liked" the comment, so it must mean something to someone.

No room for Auberon Waugh? (That's not in any way a clue. At least, it's not intended to be one. I have no idea of the connection.)

I'm a bit disappointed that so many people have a view based solely on the number of extra Premierships that would be added to our record. A dispassionate view should be taken and the merits of the argument should be the same whether we get zero or ten. I lean towards the Carter view, but do not know enough about the history to go all-in and support him.

I've looked at the Petracca goal kicking vid a few times now. I don't know whether his ball drop is different or not. But what does seem different to me is the kicking action. Somehow it looks smoother and more effortless. It's as if previously he was always trying to kick the ball out of the ground with tremendous force. Of course, I could just be remembering him attempting shots from 50m+ out in which case the extra effort might have been necessary to ensure he made the distance.

Is there a possibility that the players' collective bargaining agreement includes a clause that states players are to have a rostered day off once every so often? In that context, "managed" would mean managing the requirements of the CBA.

Does having a sparrow help?

What seems to be the ranking of our mids after Oliver, Petracca, Viney and Brayshaw? In other words, what is the preferred order for our trackwatchers of Sparrow, Harmes, Jordon and Dunstan (and anyone else)? I'm assuming for this discussion that if Pickett and ANB play as mids, it's just in cameo roles.

Good to know. During last year's break he decided to put some serious ink there. I prefer the more recent addition.