Lynden Dunn

[daisycutter 29,743]

I shouldnt pick...but know youre ok with it..

Ready for the preseason DC ?

no, i hate draft time and pre-season. the bs meter tends to go off scale

bring on round 1

[beelzebub 23,383]

no, i hate draft time and pre-season. the bs meter tends to go off scale

bring on round 1

careful what you wish for DC lol

[DeeSpencer 26,083]

Since you guys are stuggling with the difference between objective and subjective observation, allow me to offer my subjective opinion.

Dunn is not a creative footballer. "See the ball, hit the ball out of bounds" seems to be his default thought process. When he does get the ball, his ability to scan for options quickly is not fantastic. He's a good, accurate kick, but the guy who wants it needs to make all manner of large motions with flourescent semaphore flags if they expect him to notice them, if not, he'll revert to the most basic of defensive kicks - the bomb down the boundary line. That said, when the ball is delivered to a contest, Dunn is more likely than not to spoil the ball, and achieve one of his two basic aims - hit it out of bounds or bomb it back down the boundary line. That's his talent. Simple, negating football.

These are my subjective observations, just as most (well, all, actually) of the opinions presented in this thread by the rest of you are.

I could, if I had the time or inclination, attempt to turn my observations into something more closely resembling objective facts by engaging in research. This might involve watching the game tapes, categorising types of contests, types of results, and scoring Dunn and his opponent in various ways. I could even score the frequency with which Dunn forgets to have an opponent which a few of you claim to be a common occurrence. All these facts are knowable, you simply need to perform the research to obtain them.

Last year on Bigfooty I posed a hypothesis about the likelihood of a score based on an inside 50 being from a low "stab" pass or a high "bomb" into attack, and questioned by one of the more astute posters, I performed an analysis just as I'm describing on two quarters of football picked at random by him. The results only somewhat supported my hypothesis. As a result, I was forced to concede that the objective facts did not match my subjective opinion and thus my opinion was altered.

You should go and read it. I'm proud of that post (and it took me two hours to create it so do me the kindness of at least making it worthwhile).

Those of you making statements like "Ahhhh, but it's how you choose to present and interpret those very statistics..." as though there's been some grand conspiracy to fudge the numbers in this thread to make Dunn look good would do well to note that I have not presented OR interpreted any statistics in this thread. I've provided links to the stats, and invited people to peruse them. This notion that "statistics are all lies" is a falsehood consistently propagated by those that struggle to deal with facts. The facts already existed, and were already true, I just happened to point them out for you.

Also, those of you that don't think that the offices of every AFL club are absolutely brimming with geeks like me (but smarter and better trained) running statistical analyses on all manner of data that we don't have access to, with direct effects on tactics, recruitment and list management, are sorely mistaken.

Ok now you are proving you are a mup. You just said Dunn is a good, accurate kick. When this year he's proven not to be. Watch his long bomb kick outs. Kick outs are the hardest kicks in football but the long bomb to a ruckman leading wide 60m out is one of the easiest because you know how long you've got, you know where to kick it and you just execute the kick. Dunn continues to kick it to the wrong side of the contest.

Also you are lying because on post 54 of this thread you presented stats on Dunn v Gibson and argued they are similar footballers.

You've backed up my belief that you have no understand of stats in a football match with your bigfooty thread. Even since you've backed down from that position it's one you should never had held. Because anyone can tell that a stab pass is a much better kick in to a forward line that a bomb. But that takes no account into what the other team were doing. If you midfield is crushing the opposition with run and inside and outside play you can stab it in. But if the opposition is up in your face making you move the ball very slowly and under immense pressure then you can't stab it and have to bomb it. That's why you won't see Aaron Davey getting the ball on a half forward flank under no pressure from an opponent and stab passing it lace out to a leading Brad Green who's tearing some 3rd game a new one come finals. You'll have Kieran Jack who's run all day sprinting off his opponent from the midfield under immense gut running to then get the ball and deliver a shaky but accurate left foot punt to a Kurt Tippett who's outbodied and out sprinted a gun defender to mark the ball.

At the end of the day we aren't so much arguing about Dunn. I think we are arguing about our list and list management. Dunn is a half decent back pocket who can play tall and small a little and isn't particularly good with the ball. We kind of agree on that. But those in the anti Dunn camp like me think that makes him a waste of space. Those pro Dunn like you think well at least he's not complete crud. But I look at Dane Rampe from the swans who's come in to his first AFL season and is already a better player than Dunn. That's our argument.

[titan_uranus 25,045]

Since you guys are stuggling with the difference between objective and subjective observation, allow me to offer my subjective opinion.

Dunn is not a creative footballer. "See the ball, hit the ball out of bounds" seems to be his default thought process. When he does get the ball, his ability to scan for options quickly is not fantastic. He's a good, accurate kick, but the guy who wants it needs to make all manner of large motions with flourescent semaphore flags if they expect him to notice them, if not, he'll revert to the most basic of defensive kicks - the bomb down the boundary line. That said, when the ball is delivered to a contest, Dunn is more likely than not to spoil the ball, and achieve one of his two basic aims - hit it out of bounds or bomb it back down the boundary line. That's his talent. Simple, negating football.

These are my subjective observations, just as most (well, all, actually) of the opinions presented in this thread by the rest of you are.

I could, if I had the time or inclination, attempt to turn my observations into something more closely resembling objective facts by engaging in research. This might involve watching the game tapes, categorising types of contests, types of results, and scoring Dunn and his opponent in various ways. I could even score the frequency with which Dunn forgets to have an opponent which a few of you claim to be a common occurrence. All these facts are knowable, you simply need to perform the research to obtain them.

Last year on Bigfooty I posed a hypothesis about the likelihood of a score based on an inside 50 being from a low "stab" pass or a high "bomb" into attack, and questioned by one of the more astute posters, I performed an analysis just as I'm describing on two quarters of football picked at random by him. The results only somewhat supported my hypothesis. As a result, I was forced to concede that the objective facts did not match my subjective opinion and thus my opinion was altered.

You should go and read it. I'm proud of that post (and it took me two hours to create it so do me the kindness of at least making it worthwhile).

Those of you making statements like "Ahhhh, but it's how you choose to present and interpret those very statistics..." as though there's been some grand conspiracy to fudge the numbers in this thread to make Dunn look good would do well to note that I have not presented OR interpreted any statistics in this thread. I've provided links to the stats, and invited people to peruse them. This notion that "statistics are all lies" is a falsehood consistently propagated by those that struggle to deal with facts. The facts already existed, and were already true, I just happened to point them out for you.

Also, those of you that don't think that the offices of every AFL club are absolutely brimming with geeks like me (but smarter and better trained) running statistical analyses on all manner of data that we don't have access to, with direct effects on tactics, recruitment and list management, are sorely mistaken.

I've never had any issue with statistics, nor their ability to provide value.

What I had an issue with was your use of them.

Statistics tell a story on their own. But the way in which we read that story can sometimes vary. Your statement way back when that Dunn would be viewed as better than Gibson if he was in Hawthorn's side was your conclusion based on the statistics you had seen. That conclusion, in many peoples' opinion, was a bad one to reach, as the statistics don't take into account various terrible aspects of Dunn's football, nor do they explain everything on their own (we've already discussed the reasons why Dunn is likely to have more rebound 50s than Gibson).

I'm not sure anyone on here tried to argue the clubs don't use statistics, so I'm not sure exactly what you're going on about there. But your position seems to be to take the numbers and to state your view based entirely on numbers, because you put a lot of stock in the ability to back up your position. That's of course a defensible position to take, but it's not perfect, and doesn't account for anything that statistics don't account for. That is why there are people on here who disagree with you.

[autocol 448]

Quite clearly you don't like anyone who has the gall to disagree with you, or your assertion that statistics are infallible, provided you use them in a way that suits your agenda.

Not at all. I love disagreement because it's an opportunity to learn. What I don't like is people who barely skim read carefully constructed arguments, read whatever they want to read into them, and then regurgitate their viewpoint without regard for what others have added to the conversation.

It reminds me of the Monty Python sketch, and it's pointless.

[autocol 448]

But your position seems to be to take the numbers and to state your view based entirely on numbers, because you put a lot of stock in the ability to back up your position. That's of course a defensible position to take, but it's not perfect, and doesn't account for anything that statistics don't account for. That is why there are people on here who disagree with you.

I can see how this thread might give you that impression of me, but I assure you it's not quite accurate. Yes, I do love numbers, but I also recognize their limitations. What I love more than numbers is evidence, and evidence is sorely lacking where football is concerned. The one easily accessible evidence we have available is the scoreboard. It's a pretty good indicator as to which is the better team. For most other analyses, the evidence becomes more difficult to identify and quantify.

The problem with football is that it's highly emotive, which makes observers even more likely to succumb to the cognitive shortcomings by which we're all afflicted even when we're calm. Players like Dunn, Zac Dawson, Ryan Schoenmakers, etc, are all victims of their supporters' availability heuristic. It's easy to remember their mistakes, because they cost goals. Thus we become more critical of them, and come to expect them to fail. Each time they do, we pat ourselves on the back for "knowing it was going to happen" and become a level more critical again.

This is a failure in the wiring of our brains to objectively observe a situation. We simply aren't capable of it. No-one - except perhaps an autistic - is immune to these biases.

All I'm trying to do here is remind people to consult the available evidence occasionally. It can be seen from the backlash how firmly people hold their beliefs. I remain confident from the evidence we have available that Dunn would be a successful footballer in a different (successful) team. I personally think he would play the Josh Gibson role very well, though that's just an opinion.

Unless he is traded - and I doubt he will be - I guess we'll never know for sure, because we won't have concrete evidence either way (and the idea of Melbourne being a good team seems a LOOOONG way off!).

[Hannibal 5,814]

So much time wasted on such an ordinary player.

Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

[timmyo64 44]

how the F! has there been six pages on this player? shows how little football knowledge some have on this forum

[Slartibartfast 17,632]

Should we wax lyrical over Cam Petersen instead? What about Jack Watts, you've posted on him a few times and you think he's very ordinary.

Whatever floats your boat I suppose.

[hardtack 10,627]

So much time wasted on such an ordinary player.

Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

Yet here you are.

[timmyo64 44]

Yet here you are.

i was looking for a laugh.

he is crap, you ask any footy fan, you'll get one of two responses "delist him" or "lynden who?" The fact that this has been argued for six pages show how stupid and blind some are. It's also symbolises why this club as a whole is a basketcase.

[jazza 1,323]

how the F! has there been six pages on this player? shows how little football knowledge some have on this forum

well timmy

paul roo"s page, comments have slowed to snails pace

anything to do with JW, completely written of top to bottom and back again boring

next weeks game who cares

who will we draft / pppppffffft who cares done and dusted

will you buy a 2014 membership, yes move on

but Lyndon dunn whoo hooo 6 pages and building,can we get it over 50 pages like other useful,interesting,mind blowing threads

timmy , its up to people like you to drag this thread as far as possible,so put in big fella,

and if you know any school teachers get them to lengthen this thread asap

we might make march 2014,you never know

[hardtack 10,627]

i was looking for a laugh.

he is crap, you ask any footy fan, you'll get one of two responses "delist him" or "lynden who?" The fact that this has been argued for six pages show how stupid and blind some are. It's also symbolises why this club as a whole is a basketcase.

No it doesn't... it just shows that there are those who don't share the views of either yourself or BH.

[La Dee-vina Comedia 16,909]

no, i hate draft time and pre-season. the bs meter tends to go off scale

bring on round 1

Strongly disagree. Draft and pre-season provide entertainment without immediate disappointment.

[Hannibal 5,814]

Should we wax lyrical over Cam Petersen instead? What about Jack Watts, you've posted on him a few times and you think he's very ordinary.

Whatever floats your boat I suppose.

He prefers "Pedersen". And you can wax lyrical about who you like. Pedersen's not worth more than a few lines either. especially as we've now seen what he's got.

Btw, I know he's ordinary.

[autocol 448]

So much time wasted on such an ordinary player.

Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

Ha! Because utterly pointless discussions between anonymous fans on the internet that have no effect on the operation of the club are so important when discussing less ordinary players.

I'm sure all 3571 of your posts on this site have been valuable additions to humanity's body of knowledge and exceptional use of your valuable time.

[DeeZee 7,445]

The problem with Melbourne is we have many players who ae capable of filling a bottom six position in any clubs list that may have premiership aspirations , or a top 4 side.

We really have no one capable of being in the top five or six in a contenders side.

Viney and Hogan may turn out to be those players, but need more especially mids.

[Slartibartfast 17,632]

He prefers "Pedersen".

Btw, I know he's ordinary.

I never took the time to notice.

Nah, you got me. Apologies to Cam.

[Earl Hood 6,101]

I personally have a bit of time for Dunn as a hard bodyied, experienced player in amongst a train wreck of a team, that needs some direction. But that said why are we up to 144 responses on this question? Dunn in my mind is a keep for next year but not central to our future.

[beelzebub 23,383]

A junkyard dog wannabe in all reality

[dee-luded 2,959]

With the current state of our list, Dunn is best 22. He will remain best 22 until we get our draft/trade business in order

Scotty Thompson would be ahead of him right now... he could play half back line or mid.

we want to be competative next year,,, & give supporters some hope & cheer,,, start with quick fix whilst raiding the draft at the same time.

Thompson would have 2 years at least on our list,,, & with a possibility of 3.

& excellent professional leadership .

[Deeman 1,512]

Don't be surprised if Dunn figures strongly in the Bluey*

* although that would probably also be a reelection on the type of season we've just had.

[DeeSpencer 26,083]

2 minutes gone. One rubbish Dunn goal conceded. But he's a good defender yeah?

[DeeSpencer 26,083]

Dunns man with a lace out pass to Jones who missed a sitter. Is that a stat?

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

I've stopped watching at half time, but in that half I saw Dunn half-hearted lay a tackle (first player I've seen scared to tackle) which resulted directly in two Bulldogs goals.