The injury list thing is interesting, although of course not the entire picture.

One thing that it doesn't mention and which I'd like to know is the number of best 22 players out.

We've constantly had 5-10 best 22 players missing from any given team we've fielded.

There's just too many missing players, IMO, for cohesion or continuity to build in our 22.

I don't know if that's backed up by evidence, it's just a feeling. 

On 5/29/2019 at 1:11 PM, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Careful.

You're not allowed to bag Pert around here.

They'll all tell you it's a complete coincidence and a freak occurrence that we're 3-7 with almost the worst percentage in the league and 90% of the list going backwards., in the time he's come on board.

You're not allowed to bag Pert for our on-field performances unless you can suggest a rational reason why he might be influencing our on-field performances.

He's the CEO. He's here to run the MFC business.

If you have a suggestion as to what he's done that has impacted the on-field performance, go ahead.

Out of best 22

Lever 1- week

Anb 1 week

Jetta 6-8 weeks

vandenburg. Indefinite 

joel smith 4-6 weeks

melksham 4-5 weeks

then some others unavailable 

Lewis - suspended 

Petty - 1 week

Lockhart- 1 week

Sparrow - no mention / rested 

Maynard - 1 week

* walker - season

* nietschke - season 

* bradtke - managed

 

 

On 5/29/2019 at 2:10 PM, Damo said:

What did Petracca have that limited his pre-season? I dont recall him being out for extended time or in for surgery? 

One thing I do know, that is that when we finally find out what is going on with injuries and their mis-handling, it will start with the preamble from the coach or Pert that:  "we all know that... blah blah blah", as if we have known for some time what the F is going on. This is aimed at limiting reaction and gives me the tom [censored].

a knee cleanup.

1 hour ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Out of best 22

Lever 1- week

Anb 1 week

Jetta 6-8 weeks

vandenburg. Indefinite 

joel smith 4-6 weeks

melksham 4-5 weeks

then some others unavailable 

Lewis - suspended 

Petty - 1 week

Lockhart- 1 week

Sparrow - no mention / rested 

Maynard - 1 week

* walker - season

* nietschke - season 

* bradtke - managed

 

 

 S. May 

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

The injury list thing is interesting, although of course not the entire picture.

One thing that it doesn't mention and which I'd like to know is the number of best 22 players out.

We've constantly had 5-10 best 22 players missing from any given team we've fielded.

There's just too many missing players, IMO, for cohesion or continuity to build in our 22.

I don't know if that's backed up by evidence, it's just a feeling. 

 

Go back one page and magically all your questions will be answered grasshopper.

89.

Edited May 30, 20195 yr by binman

On 5/29/2019 at 1:11 PM, Graeme Yeats' Mullet said:

It's official 

 

We've been very hard done by from injuries

I like Gleeson but I think some of his analysis around this is a bit lazy here; the gist being that, compared to Collingwood and Richmond, Melbourne has failed in 2019 despite its chronic injury setbacks.

“The troubling thing for Melbourne is that as much as their injury run provides an explanation for their year, the ability of other top-four teams from last year – Richmond and (more recently) Collingwood – to defy injuries to elite players and remain in the hunt illustrates what the Dees have failed to do.”

Taking the Age’s assessment of best 22 as given, whomever it happens to have included, shows the Demons having missed 89 games from these players and Richmond and Collingwood 56 and 48 respectively. It’s still a sizeable gap, but is narrowed from the total Melbourne games missed (113) against Collingwood (84) and Richmond (70).

I don’t know how they calculate this latter figure, but that’s beside the point. Also, I’m ignoring GWS, which seems to always have a highly injured list but has been handed a significant rolling depth of talent from the AFL (career games average of the non-best 22-replacements would be a more important comparison in this respect).

It’s when you consider the two figures together that you get a better view. Melbourne may have had a relatively smaller percentage of its best 22 out (although that’s not actually true), but, when factoring in the large overall tally, the MFC hasn’t had the luxury of replacing them with next in line – or say best 26/28, but rather the blokes after that once again.

It’s not a reasonable comparison of depth between the teams.

And that’s to say nothing about the spread of the missing. Richmond, as the example given by Gleeson, has lost a fair number of games from Rance, Riewoldt and Cotchin. Top players for sure, but it’s one from each line. Compare that to losing Lever, May, Jetta and Hibberd all at the same time.   

The large overall injury toll also has other obvious knock-on effects. Our players – a massive number who have had interrupted preseasons through injury/surgery (unlike Richmond and Collingwood) – haven’t been given time to fully recover, and others have been brought back in while still underdone, exacerbating the toll.

That Gleeson chose this angle I suspect relates back to the interesting previous discussion around the culture in the AFL of not citing a chronic injury list in respect to poor form. I think this is just an extension of AFL culture in general (and Australia’s formerly prized egalitarian nature) – where courage and humility is given more weight than actual talent.

While at the time I loved it, I cringed a little in the wash-up when Hibberd was given widespread plaudits for copping that (unnecessary) whack which led to his injury. I imagine nowadays in the NFL for example, such an act would be highly frowned upon by team management. Team lifting, but at what long-term cost – and just as he was finding form?  

This prevailing cultural attitude is clearly evident right here on Demonland, where a group of kids barely out of their teens who have played less than 50 times at an elite level can never lose due to simple inexperience, but must have been overconfident. Where a player can’t be down on form or fitness, or just not naturally highly skilled, but simply isn’t trying hard enough.

5 hours ago, Skuit said:

The large overall injury toll also has other obvious knock-on effects. Our players – a massive number who have had interrupted preseasons through injury/surgery (unlike Richmond and Collingwood) – haven’t been given time to fully recover, and others have been brought back in while still underdone, exacerbating the toll.

The main consequence for me is simply an absence of playing time *together*, compounded by a lack of consistency in who's actually playing. People asking how Spargo keeps his place ... maybe that's one of the reasons, that more than anything we need on-field stability.

5 hours ago, Skuit said:

I like Gleeson but I think some of his analysis around this is a bit lazy here; the gist being that, compared to Collingwood and Richmond, Melbourne has failed in 2019 despite its chronic injury setbacks.

 

“The troubling thing for Melbourne is that as much as their injury run provides an explanation for their year, the ability of other top-four teams from last year – Richmond and (more recently) Collingwood – to defy injuries to elite players and remain in the hunt illustrates what the Dees have failed to do.”

 

Taking the Age’s assessment of best 22 as given, whomever it happens to have included, shows the Demons having missed 89 games from these players and Richmond and Collingwood 56 and 48 respectively. It’s still a sizeable gap, but is narrowed from the total Melbourne games missed (113) against Collingwood (84) and Richmond (70).

 

I don’t know how they calculate this latter figure, but that’s beside the point. Also, I’m ignoring GWS, which seems to always have a highly injured list but has been handed a significant rolling depth of talent from the AFL (career games average of the non-best 22-replacements would be a more important comparison in this respect).

 

It’s when you consider the two figures together that you get a better view. Melbourne may have had a relatively smaller percentage of its best 22 out (although that’s not actually true), but, when factoring in the large overall tally, the MFC hasn’t had the luxury of replacing them with next in line – or say best 26/28, but rather the blokes after that once again.

 

It’s not a reasonable comparison of depth between the teams.

 

And that’s to say nothing about the spread of the missing. Richmond, as the example given by Gleeson, has lost a fair number of games from Rance, Riewoldt and Cotchin. Top players for sure, but it’s one from each line. Compare that to losing Lever, May, Jetta and Hibberd all at the same time.   

 

The large overall injury toll also has other obvious knock-on effects. Our players – a massive number who have had interrupted preseasons through injury/surgery (unlike Richmond and Collingwood) – haven’t been given time to fully recover, and others have been brought back in while still underdone, exacerbating the toll.

 

That Gleeson chose this angle I suspect relates back to the interesting previous discussion around the culture in the AFL of not citing a chronic injury list in respect to poor form. I think this is just an extension of AFL culture in general (and Australia’s formerly prized egalitarian nature) – where courage and humility is given more weight than actual talent.

 

While at the time I loved it, I cringed a little in the wash-up when Hibberd was given widespread plaudits for copping that (unnecessary) whack which led to his injury. I imagine nowadays in the NFL for example, such an act would be highly frowned upon by team management. Team lifting, but at what long-term cost – and just as he was finding form?  

 

This prevailing cultural attitude is clearly evident right here on Demonland, where a group of kids barely out of their teens who have played less than 50 times at an elite level can never lose due to simple inexperience, but must have been overconfident. Where a player can’t be down on form or fitness, or just not naturally highly skilled, but simply isn’t trying hard enough.

 

Excellent post suit, and I agree wholeheartedly with your criticism of Gleeson, who I rate as a journalist.

He contradicts himself. For one the dees situation is not comparable Collingwood as as he points out himself those injuries are all recent and after they have got a good block of wins.

And taking his numbers a 30 odd difference in games misses of best 22 between us and the tigers is huge. So we can't fairly be compared to the tigers either. And as you say his point about the quality of the three key players tigers have lost also is a strange one given we have also lost very talented  players (albeit not as good) but we don't have the capacity to replace them that the tigers do.

To his credit he notes our interrupted preseasons and tbat some players are obviously not fit. However he fails to mention two other interrelated key factors that need to be taken into consideration when comparing us with the tigers and pies in this context (ie capacity to play well despite big injury toll).

The first is that it is simple fact we don't have as deep a list as either the pies or tigers. So we are obviously going to be hurt more by a large number of outs. Secondly both the pies and tigers have been been building their success for some time and had the same head coach for much longer than us. So the systems are well embedded, as is often pointed out about the tigers. So players coming in are supported by the system and can focus on their role in it. Goody is only in his third  season. We had lots of injuries in his first, with maxy being a huge out in terms the of structure (watts rucked for a fair bit of that season). Last year was better and we were able to play a consistent brand and system. So we have one seaon to embed our system. The tigers and pies have has 7-8. 

13 hours ago, whatwhatsaywhat said:

Add Lever and Sparrow to the injury list - neither named at either level this week 

I suspect the club anticipated Sparrow would be hypoglycemic from too much sugar from his birthday cake.

 

3 hours ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I suspect the club anticipated Sparrow would be hypoglycemic from too much sugar from his birthday cake.

 

A Michael Sparrow in the comments to this FB post says ‘get well soon’- suspect there is an injury or op that we have not been told about with Tom.

23 minutes ago, buck_nekkid said:

A Michael Sparrow in the comments to this FB post says ‘get well soon’- suspect there is an injury or op that we have not been told about with Tom.

Torn meniscus. Operation happened this week, will be out for a while.

 

9 hours ago, binman said:

He contradicts himself. For one the dees situation is not comparable Collingwood as as he points out himself those injuries are all recent and after they have got a good block of wins.

 

This I think is an important point. We were obviously underdone in our season opener - came out firing and then got overrun and dropped our heads. We've been under the pump ever since, and it's obvious our confidence - a fairly key factor in our playing style - took a hit.

I've been impressed with Collingwood's ability to stamp it's authority when needed over the past few weeks. But it's had to do that in the last quarter against Sydney, St. Kilda and Carlton. They're not traveling particularly well with their injuries either - but had the chance to establish that winning confidence prior and have had less pressure on them to ensure the win.

3 hours ago, stuie said:

Torn meniscus. Operation happened this week, will be out for a while.

 

Damn.

Edited May 31, 20195 yr by DV8

1 hour ago, Skuit said:

This I think is an important point. We were obviously underdone in our season opener - came out firing and then got overrun and dropped our heads. We've been under the pump ever since, and it's obvious our confidence - a fairly key factor in our playing style - took a hit.

I've been impressed with Collingwood's ability to stamp it's authority when needed over the past few weeks. But it's had to do that in the last quarter against Sydney, St. Kilda and Carlton. They're not traveling particularly well with their injuries either - but had the chance to establish that winning confidence prior and have had less pressure on them to ensure the win.

Smart recruiting, Dunn, Roughead, Mihocek, Cox etc

Great depth on list. 

18 hours ago, Skuit said:

I like Gleeson but I think some of his analysis around this is a bit lazy here; the gist being that, compared to Collingwood and Richmond, Melbourne has failed in 2019 despite its chronic injury setbacks.

 

“The troubling thing for Melbourne is that as much as their injury run provides an explanation for their year, the ability of other top-four teams from last year – Richmond and (more recently) Collingwood – to defy injuries to elite players and remain in the hunt illustrates what the Dees have failed to do.”

 

Taking the Age’s assessment of best 22 as given, whomever it happens to have included, shows the Demons having missed 89 games from these players and Richmond and Collingwood 56 and 48 respectively. It’s still a sizeable gap, but is narrowed from the total Melbourne games missed (113) against Collingwood (84) and Richmond (70).

 

I don’t know how they calculate this latter figure, but that’s beside the point. Also, I’m ignoring GWS, which seems to always have a highly injured list but has been handed a significant rolling depth of talent from the AFL (career games average of the non-best 22-replacements would be a more important comparison in this respect).

 

It’s when you consider the two figures together that you get a better view. Melbourne may have had a relatively smaller percentage of its best 22 out (although that’s not actually true), but, when factoring in the large overall tally, the MFC hasn’t had the luxury of replacing them with next in line – or say best 26/28, but rather the blokes after that once again.

 

It’s not a reasonable comparison of depth between the teams.

 

And that’s to say nothing about the spread of the missing. Richmond, as the example given by Gleeson, has lost a fair number of games from Rance, Riewoldt and Cotchin. Top players for sure, but it’s one from each line. Compare that to losing Lever, May, Jetta and Hibberd all at the same time.   

 

The large overall injury toll also has other obvious knock-on effects. Our players – a massive number who have had interrupted preseasons through injury/surgery (unlike Richmond and Collingwood) – haven’t been given time to fully recover, and others have been brought back in while still underdone, exacerbating the toll.

 

That Gleeson chose this angle I suspect relates back to the interesting previous discussion around the culture in the AFL of not citing a chronic injury list in respect to poor form. I think this is just an extension of AFL culture in general (and Australia’s formerly prized egalitarian nature) – where courage and humility is given more weight than actual talent.

 

While at the time I loved it, I cringed a little in the wash-up when Hibberd was given widespread plaudits for copping that (unnecessary) whack which led to his injury. I imagine nowadays in the NFL for example, such an act would be highly frowned upon by team management. Team lifting, but at what long-term cost – and just as he was finding form?  

 

This prevailing cultural attitude is clearly evident right here on Demonland, where a group of kids barely out of their teens who have played less than 50 times at an elite level can never lose due to simple inexperience, but must have been overconfident. Where a player can’t be down on form or fitness, or just not naturally highly skilled, but simply isn’t trying hard enough.

Good post.

There's more to our problems than just the injury list, and our list depth should be better than it has been, but our injury list has had both breadth and depth, if that makes sense, and it's cut us much deeper than Richmond or Collingwood, who are at ay rate better-placed to cope.

5 hours ago, stuie said:

Torn meniscus. Operation happened this week, will be out for a while.

Welcome(?) back?

23 hours ago, stuie said:

Torn meniscus. Operation happened this week, will be out for a while.

 

Welcome back Stuie!

Lever and May back for QB game. Wrap them up in cotton wool this week.  

50 minutes ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Lever and May back for QB game. Wrap them up in cotton wool this week.  

I'm excited to finally see the real 2019 Melbourne for the first time on QB. Although tbh it won't be be the real Melbourne until Vanders and Melksham are back. Vanders is the reason we were such a beast in those 2 finals we won last year, and Melksham is the reason we even got there to begin with.

Hang on, that Age article is arguing that GWS' injuries are comparable to Melbourne's because they are ranked second in the 'injuries to best 22'. But the margin is almost 30 additional games missed, when GWS only missed a total of 61!

The 'best-22 injuries' gap between the Giants in 2nd place (61) and the Bulldogs in 17th (35) is LESS than the gap between us and the Giants .

I hate shabby use of statistics, I really do. If a proper journalist was to prepare an article like this, they would rock up to a market research agency with the offer of free publicity in exchange for a quick regression analysis showing the scale of correlation between injury and ladder position over the last 10 years, and settle the matter.

Lets re-write the headline honestly:

CRIPPLED DEMONS INJURIES DOUBLE AVERAGE, 50% HIGHER THAN ANY OTHER CLUB

or

SHORT BY A LEG: DEMONS MISSING NINE OF THEIR BEST EVERY WEEK

Footnote, according to the most recent detailed research; (Injuries in Australian Rules Football: An Overview of Injury Rates, Patterns, and Mechanisms Across All Levels of Play Sports Health. 2018 May-Jun; 10(3): 208–216.)

The injury prevalence in the AFL for 2015 was 156.2 missed games per club per season, and this has ranged from 116.3 (1994) to 158.1 (2013).

With 120 total missed games already (counting the weekend since Gleeson's article), Nietschke and Walker to miss another 11 each, and a collection of four allegedly 4-6 week injuries currently on the books, we can already be sure of passing the average, even if we don't suffer a single additional injury for the remainder of the season. Yay!

On the other hand, barring further injuries or complications from current injuries, we could actually have our entire best 22 available in about 5 weeks. Most of it sooner than that. My expectations for the final third or so of the season will be very high - I expect to see us performing at a level that demands to be respected and anticipated for 2020.

With Salem Lever May Hore all back in this week, we are starting to get a reasonable look at a “best team”.

Also Kk, Lewis, Lockhart, Maynard and Anb should be at Casey to show actual depth and make players fight more for a game. 

However we are still missing Jetta Melksham Vandenburg Jsmith from my best 22 from preseason. They will be “long” term injuries with setbacks and it is hard to see us risking them in 2019 for last 4-5 weeks  (given finals is a fog in the distance). 

Bonus (optimism) is we got to see Baker, Lockhart and Hore.  Hore especially looks a very good addition.  

17 minutes ago, spirit of norm smith said:

With Salem Lever May Hore all back in this week

Suspect at least one of those will miss. Maybe Hore won't overcome the calf - though he was taken to Darwin, so must have been touch and go there, presumably right this week. And Lever has been basically off legs for a week, so that can't have helped his return either. Fingers crossed, though imagine that at the very least, both May and Salem will be straight in.

1 hour ago, bing181 said:

Suspect at least one of those will miss. Maybe Hore won't overcome the calf - though he was taken to Darwin, so must have been touch and go there, presumably right this week. And Lever has been basically off legs for a week, so that can't have helped his return either. Fingers crossed, though imagine that at the very least, both May and Salem will be straight in.

I think Hore was very close to playing in Darwin,  but because its Collinwood this week, on Q/B,  they probably decided to give him a bit more time, and be 100% for Monday.

The mystery injury to Tom Sparrow has been officially recognised but not before he missed two games with that knee injury mentioned above. 

Despite this, our injury list is diminishing and the club might even manage to have double figure numbers at Casey on Sunday.

 I think it’s fair to say there will be a few changes from the team which narrowly lost to Adelaide in Darwin.

Injury list: Round 12

Marty Hore (calf) – test
Jake Lever (ankle) – test
Harry Petty (knee) – test
Corey Maynard (concussion) – 1 week
Jake Melksham (foot) – 4-6 weeks
Joel Smith (groin) – 4-6 weeks
Aaron vandenBerg (foot) – 6-8 weeks
Neville Jetta (knee) – 6-8 weeks
Tom Sparrow (knee) – 8-10 weeks
Guy Walker (shoulder) – indefinite
Aaron Nietschke (knee) – season

Might as well put season for Vanders. 6-8 now, I thought I saw 3-5 a few days ago.