Diamond_Jim

Governments have been funding travelling circuses since Roman days. Nothing unusual about funding a visiting sporting event. This is Tasmania trying to play wedge politics. Good on them but short of North (or less likely the Suns) relocating there's little financial appetite for expansion at present and probably won't be for the next ten years.

This is the real debate. How will North survive without the Tasmanian subsidy which I assume in a non covid year is worth around $5M annually. How will the debate be framed and who will be its protagonists. The problem is neither the AFL or North want to have the debate. Will the AFL call Tasmania's bluff and say it's staus quo or nothing. There's a deal to be done but I think inertia will win in the end. PS.. Kennett's stance is all about trying to get compo out of the AFL should his Tasmanian cash cow be slaughtered. Almost laughable in its lack of transparency.

Didn't get that email OD. If there is little evidence of the virus in the community I don't have a safety concern. On the other hand masks, zones, entry times etc takes a lot of joy out of the exercise for me so I will not be racing along. Hopefully the grassed slopes at Casey along with my comfy chair is an option for me as the year progresses. Doubt that visiting the 1/4 and 3/4time huddles will be permitted.

Williams was a good strategist. In their winning GF, Tredrea surprisingly played up the ground allowing the less famous tall Toby Thurstans to kick a decent number of goals. Won them the match without doubt.

If some termination to the services of the chief magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally for years, will in fact, become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance. Those were the words of Thomas Jefferson in the late 1700's speaking of the US Presidency. Almost 250 years later after FD Roosevelt was elected for a fourth term Congress enacted the 22nd amendment which limited Presidents to two terms. Increasingly in big businesses presidencies and CEO's have limited terms. Eddie stayed way too long and in the end he and Collingwood were indistinguishable. Six years is probably the right time and succession should be from an external source if possible. On the matter at hand Collingwood appear to be likely to get off lightly in the sense that the cost for identified systemic racism is bringing forward a resignation by six months. I await a positive response that is not just spin. Listening to Gerard Healy last night on 3AW eulogising Eddie it certainly appears that some in the media just don't get it. More importantly I hope the MFC takes a deep dive to see what it is doing wrong or what it could do better.

It was discussed on a radio show the other evening and the comment from the interviewee is that there may well be times when it is better not to stand the mark at all and instead that player moves to fill a hole or provide an extra man downfield. TBH why stand the mark and not be able to move when you can move 5 metres back and do what you like?

We have not maximised (easy pun) Max on so many levels. Is it coaching or is it simply that ruckmen are not that influential in the modern game? My thoughts tend towards the latter but rarely do you see an unusual play involving Gawn. The strategy just seems to be play him into the ground with the inevitable soreness and light injury.

agree there is a feeling of the second board over here Needs a discussion

how did it go

Agree about the improvement in kicking distance. In his first year you would wonder if he would get the distance from 30 mtres out whereas last year 45 was no problem. Wonderful report Many thanks

sorry I was on a usually very reliable forum (Whirlpool) which appears to be wrong. The official line is: Despite holding off introducing border restrictions with Melbourne, Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young has warned against travel to the southern city. Dr Young said as a result of the new case in Melbourne, anyone who had been in Melbourne since January 29 should come forward for testing and isolate until they get a negative result.

Given the WA premier's approach to risk management of the virus the AFL is running an enormous scheduling risk leaving the two WA teams in Perth. Qld closed the border to Victoria today and I'm sure WA and SA will follow. I have no easy solution and I'm sure it's the same at the AFL. Sure you can have bubbles and groupings but no one wants a repeat of the mess of 2020. FWIW I'd be playing all games in Victoria for say 6 weeks and then move the circus to SA for four weeks, WA for another four and then four weeks in Qld. Final 8 weeks and finals series TBD. Use country ovals in the relevant State (eg Wangaratta ) for the lesser matches. Sure you run the risk that when the circus is ready to move States that the receiving State will block you but at least the comp continues in the then playing State. Edit note: Appeared the report on Qld closing the border to Victoria was premature. Qld is formally recommending no visits to Melbourne

Amazon TV has just bought the rights to the Australian Olympic swimming trials. Low impact but a thin wedge. Bad move by swimming but in reality they aren't quite what they used to be.

the Bulldogs fluked one in the sense that they had a good/lucky run at just the right time. In 2018 we had one as well but failed badly in the West. TBH I just want a successful season. Something that seems to elude us so often.

Here we go again.............

We now have $2M plus of annual salary cap (Viney, Brown and T Mac) in the question mark basket. Not desperation stakes as yet but worrying.

so much for a national comp. Many Melbourne based AFL supporters go through the whole season seeing an interstate team once or twice at most. TBH there are simply too many Melbourne based teams. There's no city in the world that has ten local teams in a national comp that I can think of. London has around 5 or 6 in the EPL and it's catchment area is maybe 2 or 3 times the population of Melbourne.

Generally watch kayo on 30 minute delay as it allows one to avoid the ads and fast forward through the quarter breaks TBH I turn most games off around 3/4 time unless they are interesting

FYI you get two simultaneous users for $25 per month or three simultaneous users for $35 per month You need an internet speed that provides a solid 15 Mbs ( a little more than Netflix as it is not buffered like Netflix)

Who likes paying but Kayo at $15/25per month (easily cancelled when the season is over) is a vast improvement on around $90 a month for Foxtel. The problem for kayo is that Foxtel used sport as a loss leader. The new management is trying not to use this practice so how it meets the ongoing demands of individual sports in the future is the big question. For example it would not surprise me if F1 is lost to kayo in the next few years.

At least if you get a kayo account for $5 per month you can watch it on full screen TV. Now if only we could get rid of the Channel 7 commentary

Eddie will be gone by the end of the month if not earlier. Sponsors will have been on the phone demanding action and while not specifically asking for Eddie to go that will be the implied price. Eddie will be publicly painted as a martyr in that he will say that the issue had become about him and that it should be about the way in which Collingwood has openly dealt with the issue.

so the Collingwood line is that no individual at Collingwood is racist but the process is open to racism. Sounds like ...... the usual response

Interesting discussion in today's Age of the new standing the mark rules. Basically the player must stand on the designated mark and not move their feet until play on is called. According to the writer this opens up a number of angles to the kicker that were not previously there. The “stand” rule has opened up the ground to the attacking team and in particular opened up the corridor for the ball-carrying team to be far more aggressive with their ball use. “It is pretty significant,” one coach said. “It’s much harder to defend so you can be a lot more attacking with ball in hand. “It’s a bigger change than the cut in rotations or the kick-in one [pulling the man on the mark back at kick-ins a further 10 metres]. Umpires will be encouraged to give more latitude to the player with the ball to move off their line before “play on” is called. The AFL’s head of football, Steve Hocking, said the man on the mark was the first line of defence and teams structured their defence behind that player. Initial signs were that the change was having the desired effect, promoting faster, more attacking play. “The man on the mark has been taking up more and more real estate and slowing the game down, directing where play could go,” Hocking said. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/standing-room-only-the-small-afl-rule-tweak-changing-the-game-20210129-p56xv0.html

can't see the Saints cracking it in the next ten years. On the other hand there is no argument that we have underperformed for the last four or five years. If we had made finals consistently we would now be firmly in the prime TV mix and around 55k membership wise.Not to mention the additional sponsorship money that would have come along. The real issue as I see it is how do we manage as a club where our membership upside is say 60k in a time when other clubs are breaking the 100k barrier. The media money is now capped for at least the next 5 years so sponsorship and members are the only short term growth areas from a revenue viewpoint that I can see.