La Dee-vina Comedia

Explains your name...

All teams in good form? I can think of one that's not right now...

I often wonder who's decision it is to play music. Is it the ground manager (ie, the MCC for MCG games), the home team or the AFL? We might be blaming the wrong person.

Time to resuscitate the Embarrassing Records thread?

While the head honchos at the 7 Network might be pleased with Thursday night football, I suspect the CEO of the Melbourne Cricket Club is not. Smaller crowds must be costing the MCG quite a bit in revenue foregone.

Winner, winner, Pickett's dinner.

The AFL has apparently determined to increase the soft cap by half a mil per annum. Because we're not on the inside, it's impossible for any of us to know where we should really spend the extra. I'll assume, though, that half will be consumed in pay rises for the staff already there. That leaves $250,000. Where would you spend the extra? Be as serious or amusing as you like. Do you want to see more skills coaches in specific areas (eg, goal kicking)? How about someone specialising in conflict management? Do we want to beef up recruitment? Or fitness? How about we buy Simon a thesaurus so he can find alternative words for "connection" and "learnings"? Any and all ideas welcome.

I never knew that. Good learnings here on Demonland.

I can live with a 1965 style result this year. But not the subsequent 55 years.

One could say it's a sliding Daw moment.

You've mixed up your African animals.

Is he slow because of his own decision making or is he slow because the next link in the chain just isn't there? (That's a genuine question - I'm not trying to defend Jordon, just to understand why.)

OK, but because you've just made a scurrilous comment about WJ, I believe I now have to suggest we take it outside where I'll have to take a swing at you. Then I'll have to go to the doctors to get my hand fixed.

The interesting thing about this thread is the number of posters seeking significant change either to personnel or where players are positioned. For example, suggestions that Salem play wing, ANB half-back, promote van Rooyen, play Tomlinson forward, etc. it raises a practical question: Is the team best served by sticking with last year's plan and personnel, where possible, and just making minor changes? Or do we make significant changes which moves us away from the 2021 model? Is the 2021 gameplan out of date? Or do we stick with it and trust the players to pick up their game?

Who's Mitch Hibberd? 🙂

The interesting discussion for mine is the move of Brayshaw from HBF. I can't see why we would move him to the wing, given that Langdon and Jordon are playing those positions well (most of the time), so I'm attracted to the idea of putting Brayshaw on-ball in place of Sparrow or Harmes. Sparrow or Harmes could go to the sub position and Brayshaw's spot on the HBF taken up again by Rivers. So, I would bring in May for Turner, Rivers for Sparrow (or Harmes) and Weideman for M Brown. Chandler as medi-sub would also be omitted. (I'm not a fan of Chandler at the best of times and I'm definitely not comfortable with a small forward being the sub. And that includes Bedford. Not enough versatility if the medi-sub is a small forward or a tall forward, for that matter)

First four are easy (although not necessarily the order). The final two are more difficult and don't really deserve to be there: 6. Oliver 5. Jordon 4. Viney 3. Brayshaw 2. Petracca 1. Neal-Bullen

Has the pig industry adopted Willy Wonka promotional ideas? What do the players win?

The floating fixture has been criticised and one problem with it hadn't dawned on me until now. If I want to go to other events - perhaps the theatre to see "Hamilton" - or to have a golf weekend, in the past I would have looked at the fixture and planned around that. I would book my tickets to see Hamilton on a Saturday night when I knew we wouldn't be playing. Similarly, my golf weekend would be scheduled for a weekend when I knew we wouldn't playing in Melbourne. With the floating fixture, I can't do that for any more. And I think that's a problem. I'm still going to go to Hamilton and I'm still going to plan a golf weekend. Footy will just miss out if they happen to clash. PS: This is not entirely true. I don't play golf. PPS: Caroline Wilson didn't go the Richmond v PA game because she was at the ballet instead. Who could blame her? The ballet tickets would have been arranged before the scheduling of the Richmond game was known.

Seriously, is Steven May only 190cm tall? That's only 1cm taller than Clayton Oliver. May does a great job, but if he's only 190cm, he's doing even better than I thought.

So, what's the true story? Did the 9 year old complain that the 7 year old let the side down playing marbles with the neighbour's kids or did he say he was sick of telling a third child how to position his tombola?

We've come a long way since we debuted another player on Queen's Birthday. Instead of being an over-hyped PR gesture it seems this time we're blooding someone who's (hopefully) ready.

One of the greatest movie versions ever made of any Shakespeare play is Laurence Olivier's "Henry V". As the battle of Agincourt begins, there are three riders, which becomes five riders which becomes nine riders and eventually hundreds. All shot in one scene. We need our team to play like that on Monday. We need to overwhelm the opposition in numbers.

Vanilla might not be to your taste, but replacing it with ginger can throw the balance way out. In other words, Jordon on a wing is safer than Baker because he plays his role correctly. Baker is yet to show he can do that.

I think it's worth adding that the difficulty with Thursday nights is not just about getting home afterwards. It's also about being able to get there on a workday. I know people might say it's the same on Friday but I disagree. On Fridays many people manage their work to be able to finish earlier (if they can) because it's the weekend. That's much harder to do on a Thursday because there is still a workday to follow. What really annoys me, though, is that the AFL clearly schedules Thursday night games to satisfy Channel 7. The AFL is being dictated to be a company that has its own short-term interest at heart. And I believe in doing so, Channel 7 is damaging the long-term future for the game. It's the AFL Commission's job to stand up to Channel 7 for the long-term good of the competition and it is miserably failing to do so.