La Dee-vina Comedia

It's fair to say that I find the discussion around the word "frank", Charlemagne and the Merovingians to be far more interesting and definitely more informative than Jon Ralph's article.

It seems that every footy writer has just discovered the word "frank" and has to use it as often as possible.

The irony of clubs following the lead of the premiers is that teams which make it to the top have often done something different from the pack, rather than follow the leader. We employed the two ruckmen model. Richmond didn't really do this (Shaun Grigg anyone?). Whether it was "Clarko's cluster" or Richmond's manic pressure, we didn't just blindly copy what went beforehand.

Or 2019, where we allowed our opponents to attack their goal square.

In the context of your post, I can't work out whether you're praising or criticising Catherine Bennett. In some respects, the ambiguity of your line reminds me of a comment in the media back in the day when Joh Bjelke-Petersen was Queensland's Premier. The article stated that Queensland had Australia's best gerrymander...and that Western Australia had Australia's worst.

The moment I read this I started visualising a video clip of a player running around with Benny Hill music playing over the top.

The task would have been so much easier if it were Jason Bourne movies The MelBourne Identity The MelBourne Legacy The MelBourne Supremacy (my personal favourite) etc

14 years ago we tried to get Judd to Melbourne. Now it's happened.

I think this is a bit unfair. I think Brayshaw may be the best kick on his non-preferred side within the whole team. His right foot kicking could be better, but I've seen a lot worse.

And have we ever had a Blake? I'm confident in saying we've never had a Taj. (Hardly going out on a limb, there).

If Belgium doesn't exist, where does Belgian chocolate come from? The Democratic Republic of the Congo, perhaps?

I expect the AFL will split the mega-VFL into two conferences to see how that system works. If the AFL believes the AFL men's senior competition needs eventually to be split into two conferences, I think they'd like to see how the mechanics of it might work in a lower level competition first. (At least, that's what I would do.)

Grazie.

I love Demonland and the education it provides. By the way, it's spelled "capisce".

Not sure there are many players drafted these days who aren't from private schools. We've done alright with that cohort recently including Salem and Hunt (Brighton Grammar), May, Langdon and Spargo (Melbourne Grammar) and others I'm sure others will know.

Given the Afrikaans are descendants of the Dutch, through settlement in southern Africa by the Dutch East India Company, I would have thought the Dutch link is highly relevant.

I would have thought all clubs have had protocols in place for years to keep people with highly transmissable diseases, such as influenza or even the common cold, away. That Covid can be more dangerous is without doubt, but the procedures in place to keep infectious people away shouldn't have to change.

I have a problem with the debate around whether ruckmen and key position players should be drafted early. The discussion always seems to focus solely on risk only rather than also considering the potential reward. It seems to me that while midfielders are important, they're also relatively easy to find. On the other hand, Premiership winning teams seem to need dominant key position players as much as they need onballers. Given key position players are harder to find, the rewards from recruiting the right ones are immense. I know there's an argument that says a club can always trade for a key position player, and notably that's what we did with Ben Brown, Lever and May. But many teams have been successful because they drafted wisely for key position players such as Hawthorn with Roughead and Franklin, Richmond with Reiwoldt and Geelong with Hawkins. In other words, I think the argument that drafting onballers early is a lower risk option is true, but it ignores the other half of the equation regarding reward.

The unvaccinated paying higher premiums for health insurance is now happening in some instances in the USA. However, their health scheme and funding of it is so drastically different from ours, no conclusion should be drawn from this example as to whether something similar will follow here.

This t-shirt is not just about Covid. It's also a metaphor for AFL gameplans.

Have you considered the possibility that the omen went the other way? That is, if you'd bought personalised MFC number plates with, say, 48 MFC, we wouldn't have had to wait so long between Premierships? Mind you, a 48 year wait would have meant a Premiership in 2012. Even a good omen wasn't going to help us break the drought that year.

As a matter of interest, how many times do you have to watch each goal before you're qualified to comment on your favourite? I've watched each of them about 30 times. Is that enough?

Actually, they are (unless they are girls). They just might not be the football prodigy that we might have hoped for.

This deserves a thread of its own: Who are the ten posters that faultydet wouldn't place on ignore? I expect I'm in the ignore group.

Ross Dillon's reputation suffers from playing in a terrible team for all his career. On the other hand, he did get to sit with the Queen, Prince Phillip and Princess Anne. (It's a bit sad when that's probably the highlight of your career.)