Jaded No More

Dustin Martin’s stupid haircut didn’t stop him winning his club a flag. They must be running out of stories.

Such an exciting time... if we lose however I'll be wishing for a second wave of corona infections, so we all go into lockdown and they shut down the season again. Absolutely 0 excuses to lose this one. They have key injuries, we appear to have almost a full list to pick from. If we are serious about making amends for the disaster that was 2019, we absolutely cannot lose to Carlton.

Exactly. And given how much people have missed sports in general, and that there are currently no local league games or even any pubs open, there really is nothing else for anyone to do but have the game on during this time of the weekend. Especially given it's winter now and by 5pm it's pitch black in Melbourne and about 4 degrees, so most people will be home.

I think non members would be allowed in, but only if members don't exhaust ticket allocation. What will get tricky is for those of us with reserved seating at the G, and how you go about to ensure that all those members are able to get a decent alternative seat. I don't want to be thrown up behind the goals on level 3, when I paid over $700 for a seat I can't even use this season. There would be a lot of things to figure out before anyone is allowed into a stadium, including whether they perform temperature checks on spectators, how they distribute hand sanitiser and how do they police people social distancing at the game. And then of course we need to work out who needs to social distance at games. Can I sit with my father at games, even though we don't live together? Can groups of 20 people or 50 people sit together? Will we have to provide the ground with contact information for tracing purposes? There are a lot of questions that the AFL will need to figure out together with each individual state. But lets hope they do and we can all go watch a game this season!

Surely a better system would be for club members to get first dibs on 'booking' a ticket, rather than having masses of people lining up outside a ground trying to get in. Fingers crossed fans will be allowed back in for the last part of the season, or at least for finals! Would be a terrible shame to have finals with no crowds.

Great winnable draw. Very happy to avoid Richmond, Collingwood and GWS. Could be a great chance to get the season off to a good start (well re-start, lets ignore Round 1). Sunday afternoon is a good time slot for TV. Especially now the weather is mostly awful, and we are still living with restrictions. And to have 3 of our 4 games on FTA is a win. Saints get none!

Wouldn’t be too hard to social distance at a Melbourne game... Richmond games on the other hand....

Ripped off as per usual

Sad news for Crossy. He has brought so much to our club, and the players speak so highly of him. Robbo doing a duel entertainment /runner role for the club now?

What's the bet we will be the only Victorian club who will be made to travel to NSW twice in the first four weeks to play Sydney and GWS?

You don't have to be super buff to be an elite footballer. As long as he's keeping up his fitness and aerobic capacity, those are the things that he really needs to keep delivering to his talent.

Lifetime ban for these two for touching hands. Hope they sanitised afterwards ? Lever is so well spoken. Future captain written all over him. Hard to believe how young he still is.

Any idea why they’re not wearing proper training gear? Not important but just curious. They do all look homeless. It’s odd.

Look isolation has been tough on everyone. I literally went from the glam of my wedding day, to trackies and regrowth in the space of 2 weeks. I assume track watchers aren't allowed? Or is someone game to try and hide behind a bush and send a report through?

Stef Martin for me is a regrettable trade. We didn't get a whole lot for him, and we have been struggling to get a decent backup ruck since. Jeremy Howe can eat a bag. We wanted to keep him after plucking him from obscurity. He wanted big cash, and then went chasing Buckley like a little puppy. He had zero loyalty to us.

Anyone around his age who went out in Melbourne CBD when McLean was both at Melbourne and Carlton, could tell you that he wasn't an angel. I used to see him out quite often while I was out with my friends. He was always off his face, but friendly and happy to chat. You definitely wouldn't guess he was battling depression or an eating disorder behind closed doors, but I suppose this is why people use drugs and alcohol. It helps to mask the things we rather not talk about. The biggest tragedy here is that we got pick bloody 9 for him (a steal!) and then immediately proceeded to [censored] it up.

What an utter ****show our club was. Toxic environment under Neeld is an understatement.

I can't thank you enough for the work you do as a nurse. It sucks that you have to endanger yourself everyday for the benefit of everyone else. I think what players are saying is that they never signed up for being away for 20 weeks from their family. Unfortunately as a nurse you do sign up for the position of putting yourself at risk for the good of others. It's why nurses are so selfless. They have sacrificed their wages, and many of them have lost their job security (rookies, players on match payments and bonuses, players on the fringe, older players close to retirement etc). While I don't feel for them like I feel for you guys who are in the medical profession, or supermarket workers and those who are out of a job completely, I do understand completely their worries and their reservations. At the end of the day they are all people just like us, with families, mortgages, and so on. They are worried and feel like if the AFL goes into a hub situation they would be left with little choice but to comply or lose their livelihood. It's not a great situation and one I don't think they are fairly being thrown into.

So if your work said to you that you need to leave your family for up to 20 weeks so you can continue to work, you'd say yes? I mean that's cool if you would, but there are lots of players with young kids, partners who also work, players who are expecting new babies and so forth. I am sure most of the single players would be fine to do it, but when you have a family your decision making can't just revolve around you. You want to tell Jack Viney he won't be there to meet his newborn? Coz I sure as [censored] don't! They have handed back some of their pay, but they still are required to train every day and follow their strict regime so they are ready to resume work at the drop of a hat. Unlike everyone else who is unable to work right now, they aren't eligible for jobseeker, they can't sit on the couch and drink and get fat. They have contracts, they live within the means of their contracts, and now these circumstances have thrown their life into chaos. They are not different to anyone else, but nobody else is being told to pack up their life and leave their family behind so they can keep their job. The hub idea is ridiculous anyway, because there are plenty of people involved who aren't even full time employees, who would be expected to leave their day job to be in this hub (umpires, physios, runners, volunteers etc). Is the AFL prepared to pay to match their wage? Best to wait until the state governments are happy to allow the clubs to charter flights on a fly in - fly out basis, and until we have enough testing kits available to the whole community to ensure we are able to test all players regularly. Then we may be able to have some sort of season.

The AFL is exploring options with the ATO for club members to get tax refunds on their memberships. Interesting concept. https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/tax-refunds-for-afl-club-members-reportedly-on-the-cards/news-story/da44934ee3a5de34b906eb560844b9c4

Great letter and nice to get some more personal communication from the club, in a time where we all feel greatly disconnected.

Great, I'm so looking forward to a day off from sitting inside my house

Nothing about 2020 makes sense. Someone ate a bat in China and now I can’t watch football.

Terribly tragic. Hope they’re both found alive and well.

That's wonderful to hear. The world is in a bad state. To lose our footy club on top of everything else we've already lost and will lose, would be devastating.