Diamond_Jim

Our gameplan works relatively well against GWS as long as you can pressure their ball carrier.If you allow them the handball to space they will cut us to pieces. Of course while their kicking skills have improved and ours have gone the other way over the last two years it has become harder to maintain that pressure. Round 23 2018 was a highlight game for me. Mind you it was a lot closer than it ended up had they kicked straight in the second quarter.

what did you think of the gameplan?

Of course Bernie E has sold the rights so he can say things like that. Other than the European winter it's a sport that can be rescheduled if there is a will. The problem they have is crowd revenue as I think it will be September minimum before big crowds are allowed to gather and of course flight restrictions. Perfect weather in the Gulf Sates over December January along with Sochi, Vietnam and Singapore and of course Melbourne.

Have been in businesses where we have had overseas branches that while good idea re expansion had no clear timeline or path to profit. Therefore they are a pure expense centre which sucks heavily on the bottom line. On that basis GCS goes and GWS staggers along for a few more years. I say this simply because I do not understand fully the importance of GWS to the overall media revenue/broadcasting rights. In fairness you need to apply the same rule to all other teams but with that goes either a fair draw or a third party calculation of financial equalisation due to the draw. With this in place clubs have three years to show a clear path to profit.

not sure I can remember a time when we have had not had around seven to ten players unavailable (sure not always best 22 players) so it would require a big change in our approach to the list. The real losers out of this will be the VFL comp. I can see players being "loaned" out to the amateurs or similar just so the clubs don't have to pay for the VFL comp.

There was little doubt that Hogan at his best was the X factor we needed to go deep in September. Unfortunately like most things at the MFC it was not to be.

You know I cannot remember this game at all. 2016 was not exactly a memorable season but which ones ever were for the MFC. Wait I remember 2016 .........the Bulldogs won the flag and we became the longest premiership drought club. And then there was 2017 which was probably worse

Spain has ordered a,most a billion A$ worth of tests. Good idea but ironic as the supplier is China The ministry said the deficient kits were not part of the new, €432m Chinese order, and had been bought before the Chinese authorities has issued its list of approved manufacturers. In recent days, Spanish health authorities have been urgently distributing almost 650,000 rapid testing kits to frontline medial staff and residence homes for older people. The Guardian...

The AFL are desperate if they think they can play into December Due to the World T20 cup all the major grounds are booked for October and November. Sure they can play in Alice Springs and at Docklands etc but there comes a time when the season would be an embarrassment (think Essendon with its players banned). If I was the TV media rights owner I would be offering 50% at best of the contracted rate.

do we have a forward line these days....certainly not our strength

Worth looking at but the reason Geelong make the money they do there are reserved seats, super boxes and ground advertising from a clean stadium.For us to get anywhere near similar revenues would require us to hire the stadium for an almost nominal sum which is effectively what Geelong gets it for due to government subsidies. You may recall that there was a push for a 30,000 seat stadium in the Olympic precinct for the very reasons you suggest.

Don't know where you got your figures. According to this ABC report there are 2200 intensive care beds in the whole of Australia. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-27/coronavirus-australia-covid-19-icu-beds-ventilators-hospitals/12090420 Out of interest Malaysia has around 3700 ICU beds so we aren't that great How many beds does Australia have? If you've been in the bustling corridors of an Australian hospital, you'll know there is rarely a spare bed. Australia has just over 2,200 intensive care beds, with almost half of these in NSW. That's around 8.9 ICU beds per 100,000 people, which is better than New Zealand (5.1 beds) but worse than Italy (12.5), where COVID-19 has overwhelmed hospitals. COVID-19 patients in ICU will need a bed for around 10 days, according to Imperial College modelling, which is a lot longer than the average time for other causes (just under four days). And those beds can mean the difference between surviving the disease and dying from it. For the patients who will be hospitalised but won't need intensive care, Australia has about 3.8 hospital beds for every 1,000 Australians, which is lower than the OECD average of 4.7. Japan and South Korea have more than triple Australia's number of beds per capita.

The local council elections going ahead in Queensland is just so wrong it defies logical discussion. You just declare the existing councilors elected for an additional term of six months and hold them then. If the politicians cannot do something so simple what hope do we have of managing this issue https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/27/queensland-elections-coronavirus-poses-lethal-risk-to-voters-experts-say

posted in wrong thread

I get the feeling that testing for this virus is becoming easier and we will see mass testing in the not too distant future. I watch a few youtubers from China and the number of"nucleic acid tests" they are doing to monitor new outbreaks is phenomenal. So would you agree to a regime that requires testing say every seven days (it's a swab stuck down the back of your throat) and in return you get a card that says you can go out and about. As I understand this is stage 2... you still have to go through the lock down process to slow the existing contagion and then you gradually let people out under the testing regime. I left Australia on 19 January which was the weekend that the story really broke but it's now just over two months later and China is coming out the other side. (Mind you if they are lying we are in trouble). Just seems that in Oz we are more into panic than dealing with the central issue and getting a path to the other side.

it's not that big a plot....maybe 50million but it's no goldmine and Docklands isn't Collins Street plus there are already masses of unoccupied apartments down there. And of course there are the planning restrictions

except that Bennell will also need five or six practice games before he is selected (unless we are repeating 2019) so I can't see him getting a clear run. You could be right though. As I see it the season cannot start before June 1 and it is hard to see more than a 12 game season plus four weeks of finals. MCC will be pressured to make the ground available for the T20 world cup (starting 18 October) even though it would make more money out of a delayed finals series etc. I assume all the other big interstate grounds are contracted to provide space for the T 20 so there is a mega full stop to the season come October. You could probably get a few more games in by playing all finals at Docklands and having 5 day turnarounds etc. The TV companies may not like the idea of too much football. After all they have to sell more advertising and the likes of Foxtel make their money by monthly subs not by the game so more games does not necessarily increase their bottom line revenue. Strange times all round

for this year only

and he is out of contract thus available to anyone

The Northern Blues or to give them their historic name Preston were along with Port Melbourne the absolute power houses of the VFA. They were trailblazers in the world of televised sport and for a while during the seventies rivalled the lesser VFL teams attendance wise. The end of a club that has been in existence since 1882. Some harsh lessons there

Carlton just announced the end of its alignment with the Northern Blues due to cuts in the soft salary cap. (reported in the Age) Not sure if it is permanent but the Casey relationship could be under pressure as could the whole VFL comp in the years to come. PS we knew that there were problems with the AFL website but still showing the countdown clock for this weekend's matches is a little strange !!

Carlton have spent 23 years in the relative wilderness. I think they have learnt humility like us. As for the rest of the power clubs which do you suggest. Deep down you know it makes sense. We just struggle from one debt laden crisis to another while the power clubs march on. Alternatively we could just join the amateurs or similar. You'd still have your club.

In a way that is why I picked them.It would be two stubborn beasts. Time that Carlton moved on from the Elliot years. Of the power clubs they are probably the most vulnerable. The Melbourne Blues also has a certain MFC ring to it

6 teams in Melbourne would mean that each is on a solid financial footing. Whether the GCS end up in Tasssie is a side issue.We all know that Melbourne cannot support ten teams.(Cannot think of another first tier sport anywhere in the world that has ten teams in a city.) So who would you pick as your dance partner. I think for us Carlton as it could be a meeting of relative equals.Geelong and the Bulldogs is a natural. Saints and North...???? The only team which is debatable is GWS. I think there is a future for them between Western Sydney and the ACT.

mmmmm I smell a small rat. The AFL commission have wanted mergers of Melbourne clubs for years. Fan backlash has made it too hard. This could be the excuse they need