Where to go for useful insights

[Traja Dee 104]

 

Simon Goodwin’s post-match interview after Saturday’s game in Alice suggests that he may have been watching a different game to almost everyone else.  It got me thinking about the post-match routine I have established to capture other’s thoughts and exactly how much credibility I give to different sources.
 
In this post, I’ve summed up some of the differences between Goodie’s post-match sentiment and the sentiment in George from the Outer’s report.  I’ve touched on the framework I tend to use when analysing games (contests and transitions) and then listed my go-to sources for post-match reviews.
 
For the Alice match against the Suns, Simon used expressions such as:
“I’m very proud of the victory
“We were really happy with the way we were playing in the first half in a lot of ways (and I know that that sounds a bit strange).”
“At no stage did we feel like we were out of the contest.”
“We made a lot of blues in the first half… we couldn’t connect with our ball use”
“It was really just doing the simple things well.”
 
Compare this to “What the Dickens” - another well researched, considered and entertaining read from “George in the Outer”.
“Once again, Melbourne got off to a shocker of a start in the game.”
“Sadly, forwards played behind their men, dinky kicks were persisted with, instead of long telling kicks, handballs went sideways”
“they (Jones and Hibberd) simply dragged the Demons out of the foolishness that they had offered in the first two quarters”
 
Maybe I’m quite unusual, but I love analysing games and try to understand why one team outscores the other.
 
The way I look at a game, it’s a series of contests joined by transitions.  Which team wins a specific contest depends on the number of players each team has at the contest, the athleticism and skill of each of those players, the system adopted (like where the players position themselves, which players are tagged, etc) and always an element of random luck.  Usually, the luck evens itself out over a match.
 
Transition is the phase when one team has won possession from a contest and starts to move the ball towards their goal.  They can either be free-flowing, such as plays when Jayden is running with the ball freely off the half-back line, or under pressure, such as plays when you see a desperate chain of handpasses trying to find a loose, outside player.
 
When planning a game, I imagine that the coaching panel establishes assumptions about the strengths and weaknesses of their own team and the opposition team in contests and transitions, and develops tactics for accentuating the positives and eliminating the negatives.  This is how I understand the term “role” that players refer to, where players are told to refine their normal style of play in both contests and transitions to accentuate the positives for the team.
 
After the match is a time to review and analyse the accuracy of those assumptions (i.e. player performance compared to expectations) and consider how to update those assumptions.  This is the analysis that I’m particularly interested in.
 
So, where should a “tragic demon” such a myself go to conduct one’s own analysis and reflection on games?
 
Personally, I seek out the following reports every week, rightly or wrongly.
 
Simon’s Post-Match Interview
This is my most valued source of information as it is closest to the game plan’s architects and their underlying assumptions, as well as the beginnings of post-match analysis and review.
 
I’m aware that the coaches sit down a day or two after a match, watch the videos and “code” the match, which I assume is the codification of every contest and transition.  Perhaps it’s only after this review and analysis that the underlying assumptions can be truly assessed, which really underscores the premature nature of the post-match interviews.
 
I’m also aware that the post-match interviews usually are tinted with a certain “spin” as honesty will create all sorts of headaches that the team doesn’t need.
 
Demonland’s Featured Articles
Let me say this to the administrators: these articles are gold, extremely well written and readable and significantly more insightful than all newspapers’ match reports - thank you!
 
The feature of these articles compared to newspaper articles is that the Demonland authors have a far deeper understanding of our team and our players, and write their reports with analysis of what the team did right or wrong.
 
The downside of the Demonland articles, I presume, is that the writers don’t have the insights to the coaches’ game plans and underlying assumptions, and what roles are assigned to different players.  Like the rest of us, they can only presume what the coaches were thinking.
 
Jordan Lewis on AFL 360
I love how well Lewie articulates the team insights and appreciate the respectful conversation with Jack Riewoldt. On the downside, there may be only 5 minutes of Melbourne discussion and what they discuss is haphazard and influenced by Mark Robinson, who I and many others don’t rate as a football intellectual.
 
At least these interviews occur after the match review.  Lewie was a bit of a tease a couple of weeks back when he referred to some of the team’s KPIs, where the team was scoring well in most of them (such as contested possession) but underperforming in others which he wasn’t prepared to share.
 
Joeboy’s 3-Word Analysis
These are bad enough to be good, and thank Joeboy, I enjoy reading them and look forward to them.  I’m intrigued by the challenge of summing up each player’s 100 minutes of effort in 3 words with no insights into roles and game plans and no post-match analysis.
 
What I like about it is that it reviews every player and provides perspectives that I haven’t necessarily seen.
 
The AFL Coaches Association Votes
I enjoy reading these as I respect the coaches’ football knowledge and their brief insights into which players performed particularly challenging roles.  I’m presuming that they downgrade the “bling” such as an outside player who receives easy goals, but then again, Jack Riewoldt scored 10 for the ANZAC Eve match for kicking 6:2 from 12 disposals with a few of those on the rebound with loose marking from Melbourne defenders.
 
Demonland Player of the Year Votes
I have to admit to skimming just the first page or 2 of these votes.  I really like that different supporters see different qualities in the players and maybe have different assumptions about player roles.  The comments are particularly interesting, though I tend to only skim the votes with numbers only.
 
So this is my list of where I go for post-match analyses.  Where do others go for their reviews?
 

[jnrmac 18,914]

So mark Neeld's "We got hit by the reality bus" was useful information?

[beelzebub 22,225]

An excellent look at things.

I must confess i temper my inclinations to give much weight to ANYTHING exiting the mouths of footy personas.

They are now masters of spin ( some more than others.

GOTO nailed it for mine.

My first port of call: The scoreboard.

I , simple as it might be, watch the game. I might watch a replay. Sometimes discuss with a son ( other has no interest ) 

I occasionally look at votes.

I mainly remind myself that footy really isnt as complicated as the self interested industry would have us think.

I relook at scoreboard 

[jnrmac 18,914]

Having been privvy to some pre-game strategies with the coach I can assure you that we know very little about what jobs players are given on any given day.

We fans see one side of it and it is rarely straightforward.

My suggestion is to look at:

1. The coaches votes (these are relatively immediate)

2. The votes in the Bluey - that tells you what the coaches really think as each players gets votes out of ten - some players don't even receive votes if they play poorly enough.

3. The team picked the following week.

Edited June 1, 2017 by jnrmac

[rjay 23,849]

3 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

My first port of call: The scoreboard.

 

3 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

I relook at scoreboard

The ultimate KPI...

[old55 21,212]

1. Goodwin's post match interview - he genuinely gives information and he hasn't descended into protective "coach-speak"

2, Coaches votes

3. Plapp's Casey report

Traja Dee - in addition to contest and transition when we have it there's defence when they have it.

[Bay Riffin 1,413]

Journos and commentators describe it as they see it. Coaches can talk aspirationally. He thought our structures and endeavour was good in the first half. And it probably was. We were just woeful executing the play. Remember he got that side which was dialobiical to come out and play some decent footy after half time. His message was get the delivery right and we are right back in this. 

What he saw was something that needed tweaking, while everyone else thought it needed major surgery. But he got the job done. Normally we would have gone 'woe is me' and gone back into our shells. But we dug our heels in and kept working hard.

[Traja Dee 104]

10 minutes ago, Fifty-5 said:

1. Goodwin's post match interview - he genuinely gives information and he hasn't descended into protective "coach-speak"

2, Coaches votes

3. Plapp's Casey report

Traja Dee - in addition to contest and transition when we have it there's defence when they have it.

Thanks Fifty-5.

I agree that Goodie is appreciably forthright while not descending into a Mark Neeld type heaviness.

Absolutely agree that transition involves both offence and defence.  When the opposition holds the ball in transition, our role is to apply pressure to cut off options and pressure the ball carrier in order to effect a contest as soon as possible rather than an opposition goal.

[Traja Dee 104]

25 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

So mark Neeld's "We got hit by the reality bus" was useful information?

I deliberately avoided bringing up Mark Neeld's post-match interviews.  They were textbook examples of how not to conduct an interview and to promote our club and they demonstrated remarkably low emotional intelligence.  Even Neil Craig performed better in the interviews.

On the flip side, Paul Roos' interviews were probably textbook examples of how to conduct post-match interviews.  In fact, I've realised that I model how I behave in my professional work on Paul Roos manner in general - imitation is the best form of flattery after all.

[daisycutter 28,451]

1 hour ago, Traja Dee said:

 

Simon Goodwin’s post-match interview after Saturday’s game in Alice suggests that he may have been watching a different game to almost everyone else.  It got me thinking about the post-match routine I have established to capture other’s thoughts and exactly how much credibility I give to different sources.
 
In this post, I’ve summed up some of the differences between Goodie’s post-match sentiment and the sentiment in George from the Outer’s report.  I’ve touched on the framework I tend to use when analysing games (contests and transitions) and then listed my go-to sources for post-match reviews.
 
For the Alice match against the Suns, Simon used expressions such as:
“I’m very proud of the victory
“We were really happy with the way we were playing in the first half in a lot of ways (and I know that that sounds a bit strange).”
“At no stage did we feel like we were out of the contest.”
“We made a lot of blues in the first half… we couldn’t connect with our ball use”
“It was really just doing the simple things well.”
 
Compare this to “What the Dickens” - another well researched, considered and entertaining read from “George in the Outer”.
“Once again, Melbourne got off to a shocker of a start in the game.”
“Sadly, forwards played behind their men, dinky kicks were persisted with, instead of long telling kicks, handballs went sideways”
“they (Jones and Hibberd) simply dragged the Demons out of the foolishness that they had offered in the first two quarters”
 
Maybe I’m quite unusual, but I love analysing games and try to understand why one team outscores the other.
 
The way I look at a game, it’s a series of contests joined by transitions.  Which team wins a specific contest depends on the number of players each team has at the contest, the athleticism and skill of each of those players, the system adopted (like where the players position themselves, which players are tagged, etc) and always an element of random luck.  Usually, the luck evens itself out over a match.
 
Transition is the phase when one team has won possession from a contest and starts to move the ball towards their goal.  They can either be free-flowing, such as plays when Jayden is running with the ball freely off the half-back line, or under pressure, such as plays when you see a desperate chain of handpasses trying to find a loose, outside player.
 
When planning a game, I imagine that the coaching panel establishes assumptions about the strengths and weaknesses of their own team and the opposition team in contests and transitions, and develops tactics for accentuating the positives and eliminating the negatives.  This is how I understand the term “role” that players refer to, where players are told to refine their normal style of play in both contests and transitions to accentuate the positives for the team.
 
After the match is a time to review and analyse the accuracy of those assumptions (i.e. player performance compared to expectations) and consider how to update those assumptions.  This is the analysis that I’m particularly interested in.
 
So, where should a “tragic demon” such a myself go to conduct one’s own analysis and reflection on games?
 
Personally, I seek out the following reports every week, rightly or wrongly.
 
Simon’s Post-Match Interview
This is my most valued source of information as it is closest to the game plan’s architects and their underlying assumptions, as well as the beginnings of post-match analysis and review.
 
I’m aware that the coaches sit down a day or two after a match, watch the videos and “code” the match, which I assume is the codification of every contest and transition.  Perhaps it’s only after this review and analysis that the underlying assumptions can be truly assessed, which really underscores the premature nature of the post-match interviews.
 
I’m also aware that the post-match interviews usually are tinted with a certain “spin” as honesty will create all sorts of headaches that the team doesn’t need.
 
Demonland’s Featured Articles
Let me say this to the administrators: these articles are gold, extremely well written and readable and significantly more insightful than all newspapers’ match reports - thank you!
 
The feature of these articles compared to newspaper articles is that the Demonland authors have a far deeper understanding of our team and our players, and write their reports with analysis of what the team did right or wrong.
 
The downside of the Demonland articles, I presume, is that the writers don’t have the insights to the coaches’ game plans and underlying assumptions, and what roles are assigned to different players.  Like the rest of us, they can only presume what the coaches were thinking.
 
Jordan Lewis on AFL 360
I love how well Lewie articulates the team insights and appreciate the respectful conversation with Jack Riewoldt. On the downside, there may be only 5 minutes of Melbourne discussion and what they discuss is haphazard and influenced by Mark Robinson, who I and many others don’t rate as a football intellectual.
 
At least these interviews occur after the match review.  Lewie was a bit of a tease a couple of weeks back when he referred to some of the team’s KPIs, where the team was scoring well in most of them (such as contested possession) but underperforming in others which he wasn’t prepared to share.
 
Joeboy’s 3-Word Analysis
These are bad enough to be good, and thank Joeboy, I enjoy reading them and look forward to them.  I’m intrigued by the challenge of summing up each player’s 100 minutes of effort in 3 words with no insights into roles and game plans and no post-match analysis.
 
What I like about it is that it reviews every player and provides perspectives that I haven’t necessarily seen.
 
The AFL Coaches Association Votes
I enjoy reading these as I respect the coaches’ football knowledge and their brief insights into which players performed particularly challenging roles.  I’m presuming that they downgrade the “bling” such as an outside player who receives easy goals, but then again, Jack Riewoldt scored 10 for the ANZAC Eve match for kicking 6:2 from 12 disposals with a few of those on the rebound with loose marking from Melbourne defenders.
 
Demonland Player of the Year Votes
I have to admit to skimming just the first page or 2 of these votes.  I really like that different supporters see different qualities in the players and maybe have different assumptions about player roles.  The comments are particularly interesting, though I tend to only skim the votes with numbers only.
 
So this is my list of where I go for post-match analyses.  Where do others go for their reviews?
 

i also go to the afl match centre. If i'm not at the game (a'la Alice game) i watch it during game, otherwise consult it after game. It has team/player stats and advanced stats.

as for the alice game, i can see why goody said what he said. We were doing well right across the stats board in the first half, leading on contested and total possessions and on inside 50's in particular. so we were getting the ball and getting it into the forward line. obviously we were were doing something wrong and i thought the major wrongs were too many basic skill errors, bad decision making and a disorganised forward line given our stats to half time i always thought we were in it. the first half was also skewed by the fairly strong wind.

just my 2c worth 

Edited June 1, 2017 by daisycutter

[Wrecker45 3,378]

The Demonland Post Match threads usually have some good insights in them if you can get past whether O Mac played a good game or not.

[beelzebub 22,225]

It's interesting , often, reading other's views. When we're say discussing how an appraisal is accurate or relevant it is noteworthy to consider the tactical origin of play and any changes as primary metrics. In so doing i often think it's a trap to consider these as necessary correct i.e.the Coaches default is the true delineator , or ideal "zero" marker in the game.

After all, one he has vestments in the whole shebang so how unbiased can the coach's view be ? 

Secondly, why assume the coach is right ?

Our starts have been in the main diabolical. Then corrections, then improvement. This of itself tells a story and for mine gives sound warning about the what and therefores of review.

Edited June 1, 2017 by beelzebub

[P-man 13,154]

13 minutes ago, Traja Dee said:

I deliberately avoided bringing up Mark Neeld's post-match interviews.  They were textbook examples of how not to conduct an interview and to promote our club and they demonstrated remarkably low emotional intelligence.  Even Neil Craig performed better in the interviews.

On the flip side, Paul Roos' interviews were probably textbook examples of how to conduct post-match interviews.  In fact, I've realised that I model how I behave in my professional work on Paul Roos manner in general - imitation is the best form of flattery after all.

In Neeld's defence (a strange expression in itself), Roos very rarely had to deal with 100 point shellackings. There was the match against West Coast in his first year but outside of that I can't recall too many, whereas Neeld was on the receiving end of them almost every week. There's only so many lines you can use and excuses you can roll out before they and you start to sound hollow.

Not saying he was great in post match, but routinely addressing something that was often completely indefensible wouldn't have been an easy gig for anyone, including Roos.

[Dees2014 2,377]

24 minutes ago, Bay Riffin said:

Journos and commentators describe it as they see it. Coaches can talk aspirationally. He thought our structures and endeavour was good in the first half. And it probably was. We were just woeful executing the play. Remember he got that side which was dialobiical to come out and play some decent footy after half time. His message was get the delivery right and we are right back in this. 

What he saw was something that needed tweaking, while everyone else thought it needed major surgery. But he got the job done. Normally we would have gone 'woe is me' and gone back into our shells. But we dug our heels in and kept working hard.

Also, we should remember that when a coach talks publicly about a game he is talking to a number of different people

1. The players. It is one thing to say things behind closed doors to players, it is another to praise/criticise in public. There are often hidden meaning we wouldn't necessarily understand

2. The Other coaches: ditto the players

3. The Board. 

4. The demon fans

5. The press. 

And I think it is in that order. All of them have their own interests and all have to be catered for. There are often very specific things coaches want out of these utterances, and the Press in particular are nearly always will messengers.

[Demonland 64,387]

1 hour ago, Traja Dee said:

 

Simon Goodwin’s post-match interview after Saturday’s game in Alice suggests that he may have been watching a different game to almost everyone else.  It got me thinking about the post-match routine I have established to capture other’s thoughts and exactly how much credibility I give to different sources.
 
In this post, I’ve summed up some of the differences between Goodie’s post-match sentiment and the sentiment in George from the Outer’s report.  I’ve touched on the framework I tend to use when analysing games (contests and transitions) and then listed my go-to sources for post-match reviews.
 
For the Alice match against the Suns, Simon used expressions such as:
“I’m very proud of the victory
“We were really happy with the way we were playing in the first half in a lot of ways (and I know that that sounds a bit strange).”
“At no stage did we feel like we were out of the contest.”
“We made a lot of blues in the first half… we couldn’t connect with our ball use”
“It was really just doing the simple things well.”
 
Compare this to “What the Dickens” - another well researched, considered and entertaining read from “George in the Outer”.
“Once again, Melbourne got off to a shocker of a start in the game.”
“Sadly, forwards played behind their men, dinky kicks were persisted with, instead of long telling kicks, handballs went sideways”
“they (Jones and Hibberd) simply dragged the Demons out of the foolishness that they had offered in the first two quarters”
 
Maybe I’m quite unusual, but I love analysing games and try to understand why one team outscores the other.
 
The way I look at a game, it’s a series of contests joined by transitions.  Which team wins a specific contest depends on the number of players each team has at the contest, the athleticism and skill of each of those players, the system adopted (like where the players position themselves, which players are tagged, etc) and always an element of random luck.  Usually, the luck evens itself out over a match.
 
Transition is the phase when one team has won possession from a contest and starts to move the ball towards their goal.  They can either be free-flowing, such as plays when Jayden is running with the ball freely off the half-back line, or under pressure, such as plays when you see a desperate chain of handpasses trying to find a loose, outside player.
 
When planning a game, I imagine that the coaching panel establishes assumptions about the strengths and weaknesses of their own team and the opposition team in contests and transitions, and develops tactics for accentuating the positives and eliminating the negatives.  This is how I understand the term “role” that players refer to, where players are told to refine their normal style of play in both contests and transitions to accentuate the positives for the team.
 
After the match is a time to review and analyse the accuracy of those assumptions (i.e. player performance compared to expectations) and consider how to update those assumptions.  This is the analysis that I’m particularly interested in.
 
So, where should a “tragic demon” such a myself go to conduct one’s own analysis and reflection on games?
 
Personally, I seek out the following reports every week, rightly or wrongly.
 
Simon’s Post-Match Interview
This is my most valued source of information as it is closest to the game plan’s architects and their underlying assumptions, as well as the beginnings of post-match analysis and review.
 
I’m aware that the coaches sit down a day or two after a match, watch the videos and “code” the match, which I assume is the codification of every contest and transition.  Perhaps it’s only after this review and analysis that the underlying assumptions can be truly assessed, which really underscores the premature nature of the post-match interviews.
 
I’m also aware that the post-match interviews usually are tinted with a certain “spin” as honesty will create all sorts of headaches that the team doesn’t need.
 
Demonland’s Featured Articles
Let me say this to the administrators: these articles are gold, extremely well written and readable and significantly more insightful than all newspapers’ match reports - thank you!
 
The feature of these articles compared to newspaper articles is that the Demonland authors have a far deeper understanding of our team and our players, and write their reports with analysis of what the team did right or wrong.
 
The downside of the Demonland articles, I presume, is that the writers don’t have the insights to the coaches’ game plans and underlying assumptions, and what roles are assigned to different players.  Like the rest of us, they can only presume what the coaches were thinking.
 
Jordan Lewis on AFL 360
I love how well Lewie articulates the team insights and appreciate the respectful conversation with Jack Riewoldt. On the downside, there may be only 5 minutes of Melbourne discussion and what they discuss is haphazard and influenced by Mark Robinson, who I and many others don’t rate as a football intellectual.
 
At least these interviews occur after the match review.  Lewie was a bit of a tease a couple of weeks back when he referred to some of the team’s KPIs, where the team was scoring well in most of them (such as contested possession) but underperforming in others which he wasn’t prepared to share.
 
Joeboy’s 3-Word Analysis
These are bad enough to be good, and thank Joeboy, I enjoy reading them and look forward to them.  I’m intrigued by the challenge of summing up each player’s 100 minutes of effort in 3 words with no insights into roles and game plans and no post-match analysis.
 
What I like about it is that it reviews every player and provides perspectives that I haven’t necessarily seen.
 
The AFL Coaches Association Votes
I enjoy reading these as I respect the coaches’ football knowledge and their brief insights into which players performed particularly challenging roles.  I’m presuming that they downgrade the “bling” such as an outside player who receives easy goals, but then again, Jack Riewoldt scored 10 for the ANZAC Eve match for kicking 6:2 from 12 disposals with a few of those on the rebound with loose marking from Melbourne defenders.
 
Demonland Player of the Year Votes
I have to admit to skimming just the first page or 2 of these votes.  I really like that different supporters see different qualities in the players and maybe have different assumptions about player roles.  The comments are particularly interesting, though I tend to only skim the votes with numbers only.
 
So this is my list of where I go for post-match analyses.  Where do others go for their reviews?
 

You forgot the excrement excellent Demonland Podcast. http://demonland.com/Podcast

[Roger Mellie 3,482]

Great post! For me and not necessarily in the same order each week:

1. Goodwin's press conference 

2. AFLCA Votes

3. Watch the game again (without so much emotional investment - cant often bring myself to do this in the losses)

4. Fanfooty or footywire for the stats 

5. Plapp's review

6. Lewis on 360

7. On a really good win, or to look at a specific player, I might watch the game or part of it, one more time.

And of course all things D-Land

 

[Nasher 33,047]

1 hour ago, Wrecker45 said:

The Demonland Post Match threads usually have some good insights in them if you can get past whether O Mac played a good game or not.

I love the post match threads days later, when people have had an opportunity to calm down and watch the replay.  It is usually absolute pox immediately after the game with the exception of Wiseblood and a couple of others who seem capable of regulating their emotions.

[Moonshadow 16,109]

It's difficult to get insight from watching the game on TV, particularly poxtel, as the camera work is based upon the 'looking through a moving keyhole' film genre. You'd think short of being at the game, TV would be the most direct way of reading the play and understanding strategies.

Post game pressers from coach and players are good as they've had less time to homogenise their thoughts and are often quite honest.

Personally, I go to the finest post match analysers I know: BBO and Biffen. They do their best work after 15+ frosties, which isn't saying much I guess...

[Akum 2,660]

2 hours ago, Bay Riffin said:

Journos and commentators describe it as they see it. Coaches can talk aspirationally. He thought our structures and endeavour was good in the first half. And it probably was. We were just woeful executing the play. Remember he got that side which was dialobiical to come out and play some decent footy after half time. His message was get the delivery right and we are right back in this. 

What he saw was something that needed tweaking, while everyone else thought it needed major surgery. But he got the job done. Normally we would have gone 'woe is me' and gone back into our shells. But we dug our heels in and kept working hard.

Again, a lot of very good posts on this thread.

The coaches (collectively) are looking for things that we're not looking for. They pay far more attention to "structures and endeavour" and whether or not players are playing their assigned roles, and far less attention to clangers (unless the clangers are caused by going against team instructions), than us supporters do. Supporters don't see structures because we're not looking for them. So if Goody says our structures were good but we were let down by our execution, you start looking for structures and watch the game through different eyes. And find out he's right.

Myself, I like anything that makes me look at the match in a different way. Which is why I like Joeboy, even if I don't agree with him - with Joeboy's analysis, if everybody agreed with him, there'd be no point to it. 

The worst parts of post-match "analysis" are posters just getting stuck into their favourite scapegoats. Rarely if ever contributes anything useful.

[Akum 2,660]

1 hour ago, daisycutter said:

i also go to the afl match centre. If i'm not at the game (a'la Alice game) i watch it during game, otherwise consult it after game. It has team/player stats and advanced stats.

as for the alice game, i can see why goody said what he said. We were doing well right across the stats board in the first half, leading on contested and total possessions and on inside 50's in particular. so we were getting the ball and getting it into the forward line. obviously we were were doing something wrong and i thought the major wrongs were too many basic skill errors, bad decision making and a disorganised forward line given our stats to half time i always thought we were in it. the first half was also skewed by the fairly strong wind.

just my 2c worth 

Just as an aside, for some reason we often seem to struggle if there's a strong wind. Even at the most basic level, we don't seem to get that it will drop short kicking into it and go over the back kicking with it.

Even an inexperienced team like the Suns got us on that a number of times in the first half. Someone made a comment that we seemed to come to life when the lights went on; maybe it was more the wind dropping.

[chook fowler 18,170]

Follow Chook Fowler - I'll learn ya.

[daisycutter 28,451]

1 minute ago, Akum said:

Just as an aside, for some reason we often seem to struggle if there's a strong wind. Even at the most basic level, we don't seem to get that it will drop short kicking into it and go over the back kicking with it.

Even an inexperienced team like the Suns got us on that a number of times in the first half. Someone made a comment that we seemed to come to life when the lights went on; maybe it was more the wind dropping.

agreed, i also get the impression we don't handle the basics of windy football, not that we encounter it at many grounds these days

[beelzebub 22,225]

I do seriously wonder if the structure at games commencement is the best. Weve stuffed up 1st qtrs with amazing regularity. We seem ablecto do ok ONCE things are adjusted and players 'reminded' of their roles. This does suggest the approach to 'starts' is wrong...or at best needs 'tweaking'.

So even referencing the horses's mouth highlights that this has limitations. They are working off a datum, of their own creation. Its not infallible though.

There's probably only two things that are relatively indisputable, the weather and results.

I give very little consideration to stats. It matters nothing to the bloke 30 m out kicking whether hes holding the ball as a result of 4 tackles, 5 kicks ,9 handpasses , 3 marks ( 1 contested ) and a free kick or

2 taclkes , 4 kicks so on etc.

What matters is what he does with it. It might also be relevant how often he gets a crack at that ( or another )

This i suppose goes to how well the team is playing and to borrow from the old book of  ism's , are they 'on' or not. 

It's my experience you can normally tell by looking. So in respect to what i think the OP asks.

I really dont go looking for insights at all.

[daisycutter 28,451]

4 hours ago, beelzebub said:

I do seriously wonder if the structure at games commencement is the best. Weve stuffed up 1st qtrs with amazing regularity. We seem ablecto do ok ONCE things are adjusted and players 'reminded' of their roles. This does suggest the approach to 'starts' is wrong...or at best needs 'tweaking'.

So even referencing the horses's mouth highlights that this has limitations. They are working off a datum, of their own creation. Its not infallible though.

There's probably only two things that are relatively indisputable, the weather and results.

I give very little consideration to stats. It matters nothing to the bloke 30 m out kicking whether hes holding the ball as a result of 4 tackles, 5 kicks ,9 handpasses , 3 marks ( 1 contested ) and a free kick or

2 taclkes , 4 kicks so on etc.

What matters is what he does with it. It might also be relevant how often he gets a crack at that ( or another )

This i suppose goes to how well the team is playing and to borrow from the old book of  ism's , are they 'on' or not. 

It's my experience you can normally tell by looking. So in respect to what i think the OP asks.

I really dont go looking for insights at all.

well at least we are not as slow starting as the sons of g*d, bub

[Dee Zephyr 17,302]

I took my kids to the club family night at Malvern last night with all players in attendance apart from Jesse. The club excels at providing events like this to engage with its younger members, families and in their search for new members. All players were approachable and fun to talk to despite putting up with  the monotonous task of posing for hundreds of photos and signing of guernseys.

This wasn't an event with scheduled activities it was like a walk in the park and  meet your idol.

I did get a few minutes to talk to Jetta and despite the contrast in opinion on demonland , the club is happy with the season so far. He stated to me the obvious inconsistencies come down to pressure. When the opposition "Brings it" we are a little unsure of how to counter it.

I said to Nev when all of us at the game leave after those close losses we feel just as tired as the players cause we see the effort  they put in and to fall short pains us just as much. He responded by saying that the effort all year has been there no doubt and I agreed. 

Also talked about the Richmond loss and he said the boys were basically treading water in the last cause they worked so hard with limited rotations. If Spencer has stayed fit we win that game he said.

He praised the work of the midfield and forward line in the Suns game as they made the job of the backline easy when the game turned in the 3rd. 

I quoted Lewis to him in regards to the ground size of the ground in Alice and he told me it's longer than Domain and wider than MCG. Im bringing this point up because when we were watching on TV the camera was low and the angles or distances between players was misleading so when we saw a suns player dance on a 20 cent piece around Tyson and Lewis in the middle of the ground it wasn't as bad as it looked.

This is not much of an insight but thought I'd post it for a bit of reading since it's a quiet weekend for us.

Once again well done to the MFC for events such as these, my kids couldn't wipe the smiles off their faces all afternoon.