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Middlesbrough are last and Glover does not appear to be getting any minutes.

Surprised that he is playing. If they had to cut through the muscles then that would still be pretty sore and perhaps susceptible to tearing again.

Very true. I remember watching him play and coach. Left an indelible mark in Australian sport and culture (and yes he did go to the arts).

Yes - I had Mombaerts but I wonder what would have happened if the Hearts owners had the will and cash to give JvS a better playing squad.

Out of curiosity as a city fan which Melb City coach has excited you the most: JvS, Aloisi, Valkanis, Joyce, Mombaerts, Kisnorbo or Vidosic? And in the same vein, which A-League coach would you admire?

Wow.

Does it feel like we have a rather weak defence with no depth?

Leckie gets my vote

Well to be fair, weekdays have never been good for Melbournians to go to sports. Usually there is training, school, work, etc. I know that in years gone by the AFL has tried mid-winter Thursday matches and once even tried Monday matches with poor results. The AFL keeps the Thusrday round for the beginning of the season. No Monday night matches. This is not teh case in NSW.

I agree that Australian clubs do lose either young upcoming players such as Bos, those looking for a better pay check or one additional year. Hence we are at a disadvantage compared to the oil leagues. However there are 47 countries in the Asian Football Confederation and I would say that the A-League is in the top 15 but not in the top 5.

One reason I wouldn't make it as a politician is that I would always cut back on the circuses as in the roman adage of bread and circuses.

Didn't see you comment when Sussan Ley (or was it Michaelia Cash) was dishing out the sports grants...

There won't be that much of an increase, if any. That is like comparing a bog standard AFL round with the bottom two teams playing vs the AFL finals series. What it should translate to is an increase in sponsorship but watching the administrators over the last 10 years, it will be wasted.

That is why I came to the conclusion that economics is the withered intellectual branch. They are effectively in comparison with the sciences stuck in the middle ages. BTW I have never seen an economist deal with the economics of crime be it corruption or drug selling.

and are they last?

Yeah. Perennial problem. I think that the A-League ought to increase the number of matches played and align. AFAIK no one has explained the economics of it.

my only frustration with Berenguer was that he was so injury prone. I certainly am not upset that he is continuing his career in Oz.

Westerlo drew the first match (came back from 2-0 down) and lost to Club Brugge which dominate the Belgian league. Standard are in a bigger bother though.

I can't think of any! For the record, after the leaking of the report to the journalist by the Judge himself, just lock anyone who lives in the ACT. Spare us the soap opera.

Watched the Japan vs Norway game - cracking game with skills, physicality and pace. Watched most of the Sweden vs USA game and Sweden were crap nothing to recommend there and the cruelty of penalties saw the USA exit.

TBH I spent a fair bit of time thinking about it. And as you can see from my post, the decision came about what I saw. And I definitely agree that the Yes camp is going about it the wrong way.

Absolutely. Not sure about 4-5 years but definitely coaching/mentoring role if he is amenable to the suggestion.

Kind of agree that you can't judge the past by the values of today but you can certainly judge them by the values of those days (Wilberforce anti-slaver vs Lord Wellington slave owner and both were in the Chamber at the same time) and of course countries that claim a Christian heritage need to contend with Jesus who pre-dates most of the modern history. My comment was based around the concept of what were they thinking of... Some clauses became outdated within days. Case in point was the rail line between Adelaide and Darwin - it was John Howard who built and only to fulfil the constitutional clause as I notice that he never mentions it as part of his achievements. I just went to the PM's website (https://www.pm.gov.au/media/next-step-towards-voice-referendum-constitutional-alteration-bill) to read the text proposed. The text creates a body that will make representations to parliament and the executive. The form and shape of the body will be determined by Parliament. This means that it is not descriptive and can be changed over time to ensure that it remains current as well as prioritise issues as the representations see fit. The way that I see it, it is no different to the journey that from being Melbourne Heart through to the change to Melbourne City and the ability to nurture talent as well as being a competitive side. It took a lot of years for the youth talent machine to evolve - and yes some Heart supporters left the club but others joined. However, no one stood there and said how long will it take you to fix the problems or how changing the name of the club will fix the issues that Heart had. As for the comment about all Australians - well this is dedicated to a particular group of Australians for whom over the course of my lifetime the welfare indices have stubbornly being unable to match the average population. And this is no different to specific legislation/regulation aimed at those born with severe autism, down syndrome, blind or deaf. And I will confess that if I look at four different people: one aged 50, one aged 25, one aged 5 and one who is yet to be born; I don't expect that the 50 year old will see any improvement, the 25 year old should see some improvement over the next 25 years, the 15 year old will see a lot more improvement by the time they turn 50 and the greatest improvement will be for the one that is yet to be born. As for processes I have a different perspective and one that I have seen in both private enterprise and government and that is to do with financial governance. Shareholders/taxpayers expect that every cent be accounted for but that comes at the expense of efficiency, flexibility and innovation - the opportunity cost losses. And for this I have no answer but having a voice, it may be possible that they may be able to experiment in some fashion about this (although I would not hold my breath). Nor would I expect to see what processes/organisations will be modified in a referendum. See my earlier post between intentions and prescriptions.

One other thing if you have the inclination and time is that you can download the Australian constitution and from Project Gutenberg you can download a version of the Magna Carta. See how many time your eyebrows get raised?

I am not sure about PC but this thread is kept ticking over by you and me There is confusion between what the constitution is and what statutory law is. The Australian constitution, like the Magna Carta, is a hodgepodge of wishful thinking, intentions, useful measures and explicit instructions. I think that in my lifetime every government has violated the constitution by not holding a sheep census (it must have been an important topic in the 1890s). The intentions are that the High Court of Australia is the foremost court in the Commonwealth and all other courts are subservient. You will note that the constitution does not mention how many levels of courts there should be, how they will operate, what matters come before those court (one exception and I will get to that), how many people will work there, why those courts are needed, where those courts will sit, etc. This is why when I was in my teens there was no Federal Magistrate but Howard created by, statutory law, the Federal Magistrate. The exception to the preceding is that the constitution explicitly creates a court for resolving industrial disputes and AFAIK is the only constitution in the world that does that. So for me creating a Voice to parliament and the executive is no different to the many intentions already in the constitution. So why have intentions rather than explicit diktats? Well it enables the governments to create and modify via statutory law the organisations to fit the problems of the day. So the diktat to hold a sheep census is no longer valid but that will require a referendum. A better wording would have been for the government of the day to ensure that agricultural businesses have sufficient information to enable the sustainability of the industry - which is what happens in practice. BTW the constitution does not mention ministries other than the Chancellor of the Exchequer (popularly known as Treasurer) and a Minister of War (more commonly known as the defence minister. It does not mention the PM or any other ministry, in fact it barely mentions how the government ought to be organised. You mention that there are already organisations that have a similar role. There is one major difference back in the day there was ATSIC which was in effect a parliament of sorts with no powers. And they were noisy. Hence one of the first thing that Howard did was to abolish it. You will have noticed that Senator Price at the beginning of the No campaign said that it was corrupt but when she was told that if she repeated that again she would be sued for defamation as no corruption charges were ever laid and none were found she never repeated it again. So under Abbot as minister for Aboriginal Affairs (and women) the indices stagnated - lots of TV noise no action. So how would a Voice be different? By being constitutionally mandated it could not be abolished and a parallel to that is the industrial courts (Fairwork Australia) for which there was a big push to eliminate it in the 90s (IPA headed that monster) but as it is constitutionally mandated it would need a referendum hence the IPA gave up and instead pushed for it to be stacked with Trumpists. So how would a Voice impact me? Let's take the recent case when the government lifted the alcohol ban in Alice Springs. The locals were saying not to do it unless there were some other measures in place, the NT government was saying that in principle it was a racist piece of Federal legislation, the Morrison government agreed and then it all went to shit. So here I am in Melbourne thinking that the NT Minister is a tosser and that she had not put in place an alternative but more importantly how come no one in the Senate queried it? So what that tells me is that the Victorian senators are useless dills. There is another aspect to the voice which goes beyond the First Nations people. Until recently I had to travel for work and I went to disadvantaged areas of South Australia where I met professionals who were embarrassed by where they grew up. I saw kids with little prospects and the social problems associated with those areas. And none of them were First Nations. My take is that what ever programs that are effective will be expanded to assist these kids. As far as citizens having a voice through their elected parliament? As the 2010 state election was approaching the Coalition had a much tougher gambling policy. James Packer called Ted Baillieu, the leader of the opposition, spoke with him for 15 minutes and the policy was shredded. 20 years later we found that Crown was breaking the law and that Packer was not a fit and proper person to hold the gambling license. Gina Reinhart gives Barnaby Joyce a $50k cheque for being a good bloke but to whom? Do you have that kind of Voice? So I am voting yes to the voice because the intention is that constitutionally the governments cannot abolish it. I would prefer that the Voice be to parliament so that the government of the day cannot hide it and I can judge them on their performance because I will have access to the thinking of the locals and see effectiveness of the policies.