La Dee-vina Comedia

Unlikely, I would have thought, unless two of Lever, Petty and Hibberd return. We're playing Brayshaw as one of our back seven (which he's doing very well.) I expect we would prefer him on the wing, which would necessitate finding another spot for Jordon (medi-sub or replacement for Sparrow or even Spargo). In short, I think Hunt stays even if one defender returns. And by the time two of Lever, Petty and Hibberd are ready, Hunt may have got his mojo back.

6. Petracca 5. Bowey 4. Oliver 3. Jackson 2. Brayshaw 1. Neal-Bullen Special comment: The value of Neal-Bullen's running power was never more obvious than in the last quarter. Everyone else seemed exhausted (or 'gassed' as the commentary team kept saying because they left their thesaurus at home) but he was still running as strong as ever. And now he's added better foot skills overall so brings more players into the game.

I know it's a minor point, but Channel 7 have used an inappropriate photo to go with this story. It was their decision to use a photo and they should have used one with Simpson not smiling. As if he's happy with the situation.

Yeah, nah.

Playing in Southern Queensland at night reduces the need for talls, too. I suspect that made it an even easier decision to hold Lever back.

But is the streaming service free?

Probably a safety message to stop you walking into traffic.

This is a very interesting analysis which essentially argues luck has more influence in close games than one would think. As a friend of mine (a former mathematics teacher) pointed out, it's why Ross Lyon coached games were more prone to the influence of luck than a Simon Goodwin coached game. Why? Because in a low scoring game, the element of luck becomes even more influential. (Stephen Milne and an unfortunate bouncing ball immediately comes to mind.)

I suspect M Brown doesn't make the emergencies because of the Weid...who is primarily there as an emergency should one of Gawn or Jackson not be available on game day. But if a tall forward has to be replaced, I assume Weid has that covered, too. I'm more interested in who comes in should we need to replace a defender before the game. After all, there has been some suggestion that Smith may have a hand injury. Would Bedford come in but someone else (Brayshaw? Harmes?) play in the backline with Bedford taking on their role?

Wow. I'm glad I took the safer option of dissing the use of the word "hero" for any footballer rather than try to decide who was and who wasn't a hero in the GF. I hope BBP has some thicker skin than me. I might not have survived such an excoriating attack!

Yep.

I know (at least I hope) you are being flippant, but we should assume that the current bunch are the best available right now. So, would we miss them? Absolutely. Just imagine how much worse it would be if they were replaced with those not considered to be as good?

"Flag hero"? I don't like sportspeople being called "heroes" at the best of times. It's a word more befitting people in the Ukraine and those who put their lives at risk to save others, such as firefighters. But even if it's to be ascribed to footballers, why, exactly, is Rivers a "flag hero"? To answer my own question, by that standard every Premiership player is a hero. Really?

That's a good point. It also lowers the risk for Goodwin because he's outdoors.

I'm slowly starting to come round to the idea. I'm still not sure, though, that there's enough to do in the off-season. There's also another potential short-term problem if field umpires go full-time. The current crop of field umpires might quit if they prefer their current day job. Nevertheless, that's not a reason not to proceed to go full-time. It could always be a staged transition. (Mind you, I'm still not sure going full-time is the right answer. Wavering, yes. But not entirely convinced, either.)

Irrespective of the cause, the Western Bulldogs and Richmond are quite stunning outliers.

Mark Neeld was part of a successful Premiership team at Collingwood. Success isn't always transferrable. Correlation doesn't imply causation. The players' breaking down might have been because of poor training methods in other ways. I am yet to see any hard evidence that Dank's treatments (for want of a better word) did anything helpful.

Not convinced that would have helped them. Irrespective of their illegality (in sport), I remain unconvinced that Dank's project was in any way beneficial. A witch doctor might have been more effective than what he was peddling.

Has that 5 year time-line been stated anywhere? I would otherwise have thought it would be 3 years from now (ie, season 2025) when they would be in the AFL. 2024 would have the team playing in the VFL (or equivalent) while 2023 would be a development year where the new Tassie team gets to put its playing list together. I never understood why Gold Coast and GWS had different processes for establishment, but the AFL would have learned a lot through those processes and should know the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches.

I agree, but not with the choice of players. I don't think Salem is under-rated any more. But I agree if it's Langdon and Neal-Bullen.

Geelong were also significantly advantaged by some incredibly good father-son picks (G and N Ablett, Scarlett, Hawkins, Blake) with some (all?) acquired when they didn't have to pay full price in the drafting process.

Generally speaking, you've come to the right place.

While the concept of full-time professional umpires has some attraction, I struggle to see what umpires would do every day during the week and during the off-season. There's only a certain amount of fitness required (and they already seem to have that). Perhaps if being full-time involved a secondary role, such as mentoring junior umpires or working with clubs so everyone fully understands the rules, might help. There might not be enough work for all the field umpires to become full-time, but perhaps we can end up with a mix of full- and part-time umpires with every match having at least one full-time field umpire. I still think, by the way, that the low hanging fruit which would improve umpiring more than making them full-time, is an overhaul of the rules to eliminate as much as possible the subjective assessments wherever possible.

I also like the idea that he plays on the southern wing for the whole match. I've seen it stated somewhere that he does so to make it easier for the wingmen on the northern side to interchange. I have no idea if that's the real reason, but it makes for a good story whether it's true or not.

That's a fair point, but hard to see how the news of that wouldn't have already leaked.