La Dee-vina Comedia

I doubt Melksham would be playing if it wasn't his 200th game. However, as we did with Jones, the club has shown respect to our senior citizens and assisted them to reach significant milestones. With Hames, Langdon and Salem all due to return soon, Melksham might not get another chance to get to his milestone match. So, it's a smart selection at this time. It's not like he's keeping out an obvious choice instead.

I refuse to accept that an abbreviation can be called a nickname. It's just unimaginative. Just as unimaginative as many of our players, such as Maysy, Gawny, Vines and Salo. Should be a law against it. Nicknames should be genuinely imaginative, even if sometimes a little obvious, such as Chomp and Dogga. (Still not sure, though, whether Bowser qualifies as a proper nickname.)

Toby Greene. And more than once.

I'm sticking with my assessment. After all, Get Smart was a spoof of the James Bond genre and as such I'll claim that Mel Brooks as the show's creator deliberately called a smaller stature actor "Max" as part of the whole spoof theme. Just like Australians call oversize people "Tiny" and shorter people "Lofty".

You don't think the name Very North (of) Melbourne will work?

Cricket, rugby, soccer, basketball all started somewhere before being exported successfully.

I'd be astounded if any coach ever said this. It effectively provides six players with an "excuse". It's also sheer hubris to say "we can't lose the game" in any context.

I've never seen an episode of Ted Lasso. Didn't realise that Jake Lever and Max Gawn were part of it.

Terrible news for a struggling club. I'd suggest that there will be more fallout than just these three. Not because I know anything, but it seems most unlikely that three people leaving like this will resolve whatever the underlying problems are.

I suspect Melksham and Hibberd left, at least in part, because of the supplements issue. I was trying to point out that others leaving suggests that there might also be other factors in play leading to players - including possibly Ryder, Melksham and Hibberd - leaving Essendon. Or, to put it another way, assuming Ryder, Melksham and Hibberd left solely because of the supplements issue might leave other problems at Essendon buried from view.

I'm convinced that one day Langdon will be in the injury report with "self-bitten tongue"

I have always said that the results of pre-season games are meaningful only if you win.

While I like your thinking, I just wonder whether such an approach would make umpiring more complicated and controversial. Your approach makes adjudicating highly subjective. What one umpire (or viewer) thinks is innocuous or incidental another might think is worthy of penalising. One of the problems with umpiring now is the degree of subjective assessment required, most obviously seen with the "insufficient intent" rule. If we add more subjectivity into the process, I think matters will get worse, not better.

Conversely, Brodie Grundy has dropped right off (even before he was injured).

In addition, because they didn't make finals in 2021, Carlton had had a longer prep time to ready for this match.

Or, he may have wanted to leave Essendon anyway and used the supplements program as an excuse. I say this because Essendon seem to have a habit of players wishing to leave (Fantasia, Daniher, Saad, etc) and none of them are because of the supplements program. In other words, I think there may be an ongoing underlying player satisfaction problem at Essendon.

And then the ultimate...it's all because we sacked Norm Smith.

Was it a broad question about the best ruckman including tap work, marking, goal kicking and around the ground play or was it more about ruck craft at bounces and throw-ins?

While I like the idea of "teams" of umps that practise together, how would this work with interstate-based umpires? I see this leading to accusations of umpire bias if we end up with "teams" of WA umpires or Qld umpires, etc.

I often wonder when players do media whether they even know how another player's injury is tracking. It can be obvious when the player is on crutches or in hospital, of course, but I suspect Lever actually has no idea how close Viney is to playing.

Oliver leads in The Age, too, with Petracca second and A Brayshaw (but the other one) in third.

Thanks for doing the work. I wonder whether the umpire paid a free kick for a breach of part (f) above? I can't see anything else that seems relevant in this list.

Hey DeeSpencer, I generally appreciate your explanations and analysis. But can you explain your last point? I don't understand what you're saying here about the "Back 5" and "kings of the back 3".

Is a "dangerous tackle" a category of free kick or just something that we all seem to think exists? If so, is that what was paid? And if it was what was paid, should it have been?

No, but if you put yourself on the MCC waiting list today, you'll only have to wait about 20 years.