La Dee-vina Comedia

Of all current AFL players, Oliver has the second longest streak of continuous games with 125, but a fair way back from the leader, who is Jack Crisp on 177. Petracca comes in 4th with 97 (Goldstein is on 101). Then it gets tricky. Elephant stamp for anyone who can identify the next three Melbourne players on the list.

Is it possible Bradtke didn't want to continue and pulled the pin himself?

I think Tomlinson provided ruck assistance at GWS. I don't recall him doing so with us. Nevertheless, if Jackson is out I see two options. Either Mitch Brown is the replacement for Jackson to provide height in the forward line or Tomlinson comes in, plays in defence, and Petty plays forward and 2nd ruck. There are pros and cons with each option.

Magnificent!

Indeed, but I'm grateful that they are annually remembered. What makes our club special is the quality of its people. I'm much happier and feel much better rewarded to have been a member of a club with people like Sean Wight, irrespective of our onfield results. Premierships are the cream; the people are the substance.

The emergency list is never chosen on the basis of the next best four players. There's always a mix to enable coverage of onballers, key position players and ruckmen. Presumably the match committee believes Mitch Brown is the better key position or ruck option than van Rooyen and, because of injuries, there's no-one else. I would have expected any one of Turner, Joel Smith or Daw (who, if he hadn't been injured may not yet have retired) would have been selected ahead of M Brown.

Come on Hemingway. Stop blaming your proof reader. A missing question mark and the wrong use of "your", both in the same post. You are better than this.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, make sure you take a look at what I believe is Nicholson's finest movie, "Chinatown". Then come back and read the post I've quoted and you'll understand why I mentioned it here.

Reminds me of the actor Jack Nicholson telling the story of his mother not appreciating the irony of her calling him a "son of a b*tch".

Will be interesting to hear Kane Cornes's view. He consistently criticises clubs for offering contracts of this length, using Brodie Grundy as an example. However, I can see why the club might have offered 7 years now, apart from the quality of his play. It could be seen as a "bonus" for signing early and forgoing his free agency rights. Makes sense for both parties, given the inevitable distraction which would otherwise occur if he remained unsigned in his final year before becoming a free agent.

Maybe Tom Hickey has an aim of playing with every AFL club and we're next on his roster.

Has van Rooyen grown? At the beginning of the year he was listed as 194cm. That's not nearly tall enough to compete against any other genuine ruckman.

Apologies if this has been asked before, perhaps in a different thread, but by beating Brisbane, we beat someone who was above us on the ladder. When did this last happen? I remember all those dark years when beating someone above us was a rarity and to be savoured. It's now seemingly just as rare but for a completely different reason. Still worth savouring, though.

Just curious. Can any manager make such a decision? Or is it always the player that has the final say? I can appreciate that a manager can advise a client on a particular course of action, but surely the decision has to be that of the player, not a unilateral decision of the player's manager.

I have wondered for some time whether any of the players who have had Covid have had any lingering symptoms. I'm not sure who had Covid and who just had to stay in isolation under the rules at the time. Thus far I've been spared from having Covid (unless I had it asymptomatically), but from talking to those who have, some have taken much longer to recover full energy levels than others. This could be an explanation for the form levels of some players, particularly those who have appeared more lethargic than others. Of course, this could affect players across the whole competition at different times.

Or the 2026 Commonwealth Games. Although given the games will primarily be held in regional Victoria, our home base and social club might end up in Bendigo.

I always thought that the original was Roy Orbison. If Wikipedia can be believed, turns out that the Everly Brothers were first but didn't release it as a single. Roy Orbison was the first to have a hit with it. It seems that there are as many versions of "Love Hurts" as there are versions of Kossy, Kosi, Kozzy, etc. (Who else said to themselves 'Oi! Oi! Oi!' after reading that last sentence?)

To me it just reinforces the point that the free kicks (for and against) are systemic in the style of football they play.

Two points - I thought the AFL Players Association wanted a bye to allow players to rest. How does a "heavy training block over the break" make sense if the purpose of the bye is to allow players a rest? It reinforces in my mind that the bye is really about lengthening the season for the broadcast deal. What does Collingwood do over the bye? We know de Goey went to Bali for a few days. How does that fit in with the idea of heavier training? Or does Collingwood not believe in the "heavier training block" idea over the break?

Herald-Sun reported on the weekend that Martin Pakula, one of a swathe of retiring Victorian Ministers, was seen chatting to Gill McLachlan in the last day or so. Being the Herald-Sun, that lead to an immediate jump to the conclusion in that journal of record (written in sarcasm font) that Pakula is in contention for the job of AFL CEO.

No changes unless injuries or illness require. Salem was hobbling badly in the first but played on. I presume it was a corky. Hopefully he pulls up OK and is right to go. However, if he's not, I would have thought Hunt to replace him rather than Rivers. (It's nice to have genuine choices, though.)

That's better than the diseases one can usually contract from a Collingwood supporter.

Currently workshopping in my mind a joke about Brisbane being Queenslanders and therefore nicknamed bananas, who are battered by Fritsch and somehow we get banana fritters in batter. (Clearly the joke is a work in progress.)

A barometer has one job. And that is to take pressure. The one Brisbane has is faulty.

I understand your point, but the one thing he didn't do was curtail the influence of his primary opponent. That is why I marked him down and didn't put him in my votes.