Game plans, tactics and all that jazz

[jnrmac 20,104]

11 minutes ago, binman said:

I think that is a very reasonable question about the strategic advantage of targeting the King’s Birthday match. 

I wondered the same thing.

I'm hoping it's a target game as much as anything.

But the 9 day run in gives me hope they'll use that time to taper. 

You can really train for finals type game. You have to experience them. We want to play in big games and we train as best we can for big games.

Thats why I think they set themselves for this.

[binman 43,104]

16 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

You can really train for finals type game. You have to experience them. We want to play in big games and we train as best we can for big games.

Thats why I think they set themselves for this.

Really good point.

Particularly relevant for players like Chandler, jvr and mcvee who haven’t experienced anything like they will on kings birthday.

And I wonder if the dees want to flex and bring the pies down a peg or two.

[Jaded No More 68,965]

1 minute ago, binman said:

Really good point.

Particularly relevant for players like Chandler, jvr and mcvee who haven’t experienced anything like they will on kings birthday.

And I wonder if the dees want to flex and bring the pies down a peg or two.

They all played ANZAC eve, but I agree. This is probably the biggest home and away match of 2023 given where both teams are at. 

[DemonWA 3,936]

22 hours ago, binman said:

Act two of the season

Act two of the season is rounds 11-12, through the bye and up to aprox round 16.

 

Impressive and enjoyable analysis. 

Allowing myself to play Devils advocate, my only issue with it is that it seems a little reverse engineered when it comes to impact on form and the overall sensitivity of elite athletes to what are ultimately relatively minor fluctuations to training loads. 

To say it impacts us more than other contenders because of our questionable footskills seems like a shot in the dark. 

The flat spot that alot of clubs have at this time of the year could be as much to do with the cold and wet weather levelling up the playing field. 

I look at a 38 game premier league season, with the local cup tournaments and european cup leagues. Clubs must be managing alot of fatigue but it's never used as an excuse or discussion point.  As an example of how big the loads are, Jordan Henderson played 57 matches in the 2021/2022 season. 

I think it's a factor, but not to the same extent as your hypothesis suggests. 

[binman 43,104]

3 hours ago, DemonWA said:

Impressive and enjoyable analysis. 

Allowing myself to play Devils advocate, my only issue with it is that it seems a little reverse engineered when it comes to impact on form and the overall sensitivity of elite athletes to what are ultimately relatively minor fluctuations to training loads. 

To say it impacts us more than other contenders because of our questionable footskills seems like a shot in the dark. 

The flat spot that alot of clubs have at this time of the year could be as much to do with the cold and wet weather levelling up the playing field. 

I look at a 38 game premier league season, with the local cup tournaments and european cup leagues. Clubs must be managing alot of fatigue but it's never used as an excuse or discussion point.  As an example of how big the loads are, Jordan Henderson played 57 matches in the 2021/2022 season. 

I think it's a factor, but not to the same extent as your hypothesis suggests. 

Yep, all reasonable points. 

And i think your conclusion that fatigue is a factor but not to the same extent as my hypothesis suggests is completely reasonable too. 

Which touches on one of the central planks of my argument - the media would have you believe it is not an issue and so rarely, if ever factor into their analysis of specific matches, meaning many fans don't either.

If you accept that fatigue plays a role in performance, the logical next question is how big a role.

You and i have come down in different places on that answer, which is great - at least it is being factored into both our analysis of say our performance against the blues. I just love that we are talking about this nuance, not ignoring it. 

But if someone trying to get their head around our performance against the blues doesn't factor it in (it's an excuse!) it's not possible for them to properly assess the performance (because they are ignoring a key factor) and so are more likely to default to the dees simply are not that good, we will be hammered by a decent side, good teams would have won that game by 6 goals given how poor the blues were etc etc

Exhibit A of the above scenario is the half time 'analysis' of the blues game on Fox.

I went to the game, was thrilled we won, loved our defensive work, was happy with individual performances and loved our improved work when the ball hit the deck in D50.

I also watched the game expecting a low skilled, scrappy game with lots of skill execution errors - because of the impact of accumulative fatigue (and maybe loading). 

And so, i was not at all surprised that is exactly what i saw - the performance and game met my expectations.

And i walked away from the G a happy man knowing we are 8-4 at the halfway point in the season with a terrific percentage and not too many injury concerns.

I watched the replay last night. Normally i would skip the half time discussion but happened to listen to it this time. I thought i was living in alternate reality such was the vitriol directed towards the dees.

Lyon, Brown, Buckley and Lewis did not mention fatigue once, or factor it in at all (which was weird because even BT pointed out in the call that the players looked like 'they had led in their shoes' and Buckley was a senior AFL coach two years ago). And as result their analysis was just plain wrong. Woeful to be honest. 

But a dees fan who isn't as obsessive and inside baseball as me might have listened to that half time discussion and come away thinking we are doomed and have no chance of beating the almighty Pies next week, let alone winning a flag. 

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by binman

[Bitter but optimistic 22,241]

18 hours ago, binman said:

Really good point.

Particularly relevant for players like Chandler, jvr and mcvee who haven’t experienced anything like they will on kings birthday.

And I wonder if the dees want to flex and bring the pies down a peg or two.

More than that, imagine what it would do for the individual and team confidence of our players and belief  going forward.

" We're on the right path boys, keep up the hard work and keep improving"

[DemonWA 3,936]

12 minutes ago, binman said:

I watched the replay last night. Normally i would skip the half time discussion but happened to listen to it this time. I thought i was living in alternate reality such was the vitriol directed towards the dees.

 

Interestingly David King was bullish on First Crack about us being 'back' because of how organised and effective our press was. Showed footage of Chandler and others pointing and calling the press. Joey Montagna also spoke glowingly about the shape of our game based on the defensive outcome. 

 

[binman 43,104]

1 minute ago, DemonWA said:

Interestingly David King was bullish on First Crack about us being 'back' because of how organised and effective our press was. Showed footage of Chandler and others pointing and calling the press. Joey Montagna also spoke glowingly about the shape of our game based on the defensive outcome. 

 

I saw that. And i agree with them. 

It is really hard to take David King seriously because he seems not to remember anything he has said in previous weeks and constantly contradics himself.

(That, and the fact that in his 'rolling ladder' he has Freo (a team he relentlessly bagged last year) in 4th and us outside the top 4. Go figure - given the ladder says we are actually in at the halfway point of the year and Freo are not.) 

It's a shame because some f the stuff he talks about is terrific, particularly when he is using footage to make a particular point such as the example you note.

[DemonWA 3,936]

1 hour ago, binman said:

 

It is really hard to take David King seriously because he seems not to remember anything he has said in previous weeks and constantly contradics himself.

 

This is the issue with over saturated AFL media. The weekly shows are produced in a way that almost demands weekly hyperbole. Cats are cooked, Dees are miles off, can't trust the dogs, Freo are rubbish etc etc. Virtual click bait. 

[binman 43,104]

5 minutes ago, DemonWA said:

This is the issue with over saturated AFL media. The weekly shows are produced in a way that almost demands weekly hyperbole. Cats are cooked, Dees are miles off, can't trust the dogs, Freo are rubbish etc etc. Virtual click bait. 

Yep, the weekly contender or pretender litmus test. 

I'm not sure if you read this, but i posted the following earlier in this thread: 

Scott basically said the media narrative, and refusal to see the macro picture is a load of hogwash in his post-match presser this week .......

I can't find the clip, but on the Sunday ABC radio footy show, the Lead, they played those comments from Scott and came back and said Scott had 'pierced the fourth wall' and called out the games the footy media play.

The comments they played from Scott are 9:28 to 11:41 of this clip:

Full post-match, R12: Cats (afl.com.au)

[DemonWA 3,936]

34 minutes ago, binman said:

Yep, the weekly contender or pretender litmus test. 

I'm not sure if you read this, but i posted the following earlier in this thread: 

Scott basically said the media narrative, and refusal to see the macro picture is a load of hogwash in his post-match presser this week .......

I can't find the clip, but on the Sunday ABC radio footy show, the Lead, they played those comments from Scott and came back and said Scott had 'pierced the fourth wall' and called out the games the footy media play.

The comments they played from Scott are 9:28 to 11:41 of this clip:

Full post-match, R12: Cats (afl.com.au)

He's spot on. I typically hate 'Chad' Scott, but he's spot on here.

[deelusions from afar 1,810]

2 hours ago, binman said:

I saw that. And i agree with them. 

I want to agree with them too.  But until I see it against a decent side I won't be convinced.  Carlton were undermanned and low on confidence and so definitely not a decent side.  Having said that, I think they played a lot better on Friday than in a lot of their losses (And McKay kicked some decent goals which he hasn't done recently).

But their game style suits us.  They weren't aggressive / creative in their ball use from the D50 and so we had the game on our terms.  If we kicked straight (like we did earlier in the season) it would have been a shellacking.  I don't mind most of the media not realising this.  However, the way Collingwood and Carlton move the ball couldn't be more different - so we're kidding ourselves if we think we'll be able to get anywhere near the same amount of forward half turnovers against the pies.

Collingwood's ball movement troubles most teams - I am hoping the work we have done over summer reaps the rewards.  By this I mean:

1. Having tall forwards in the forward line that have some mongrel and make a contest (in the air AND when the ball hits the ground).  Last year Brown was hampered and TMac was injured and Jackson was out of form.  For this reason I would be very surprised if Schache gets in ahead of Smith on the weekend.  I think they also like having a forward with experience playing in our defence in the team (eg TMac, Petty or Smith with Petty the preference).
2. Playing a shorter defence - since shifting Petty forward, it seems the match committee's preference to go smaller in defence (May, Lever, Hibbo).  I suspect this is because they know we need to be more agile / mobile back there (as much as many supporters don't like it).  Thomlinson was back last week to play the difficult role on McKay (which I think he did ok).  However, with Hibbo back, I suspect Thomlinson will be out.
3. We've mixed up the centre bounce rotations for the 1st half of the season - is this to ease the load on Oliver, Petracca and Viney for the end of the season?  Or is it to develop the team?  Will be interesting to see if they 'flick the switch' and give Trac, Clarry and Vines more time for this game or stick to the same approach.

I want us to win this match so badly... and there were plenty of promising signs on Friday night.  However I think the pies have our measure and I haven't seen enough of a shift in what we do to be convinced we can counter their 'all duck no dinner' approach (would LOVE to be proven wrong though).

[whatwhat say what 22,783]

1 hour ago, binman said:

It's a shame because some f the stuff he talks about is terrific, particularly when he is using footage to make a particular point such as the example you note.

daniel hoyne and the champion data vision team, take a bow

[Roost it far 8,298]

3 hours ago, binman said:

Yep, the weekly contender or pretender litmus test. 

I'm not sure if you read this, but i posted the following earlier in this thread: 

Scott basically said the media narrative, and refusal to see the macro picture is a load of hogwash in his post-match presser this week .......

I can't find the clip, but on the Sunday ABC radio footy show, the Lead, they played those comments from Scott and came back and said Scott had 'pierced the fourth wall' and called out the games the footy media play.

The comments they played from Scott are 9:28 to 11:41 of this clip:

Full post-match, R12: Cats (afl.com.au)

Is there a chance we loaded from Port game to now to set ourselves for the Pies whilst we've got 3, 10 day breaks?

[FlashInThePan 1,893]

3 hours ago, deelusions from afar said:

 

1. Playing a shorter defence - since shifting Petty forward, it seems the match committee's preference to go smaller in defence (May, Lever, Hibbo).  I suspect this is because they know we need to be more agile / mobile back there (as much as many supporters don't like it).  Thomlinson was back last week to play the difficult role on McKay (which I think he did ok).  However, with Hibbo back, I suspect Thomlinson will be out

I think the experiment with the shorter defence was in response to the perception that other teams had worked out how to get through our defence last year by going low and flat or forcing May and Lever to be accountable to their direct opponent and reduce their ability to peel off and intercept. We have never been as good at defending ground ball as we are defending in the air. I think they were trying to tidy that up but unfortunately, in doing so we seem to have damaged our intercept game without getting an equal payback on the ground ball.

This experiment is asking our defence a slightly different version of the question we asked of our midfield 2 years earlier. If you are -1 one in the air, can you still intercept effectively? If the answer was yes then we can experiment freely with ground ball players to tidy up the stoppage goals and chaos balls. Unfortunately, it looks like the answer is ‘no’. What we could really use is someone around 192cm who is super clean below their knees and a great user of the ball. I don’t follow Casey as much as I should, is this maybe what they are grooming Howes for?

[Watson11 2,241]

Re 3 talls, I think Salem makes a huge difference to our ability to play 3 talls. He will take a while to get his touch back, but I watched him closely last week and his positioning is just elite.  Whether it’s pushing up towards stoppages to stop the out the front exits from the opposition, or just being in an annoying position to mop up the scrubby kicks forward, he puts himself in positions that bring our interceptors into play.  The last 2 weeks have been our statistically best defensive efforts this year, and Salem is a key reason (along with evening up the stoppage numbers since Clarry went down). 

[binman 43,104]

2 hours ago, Roost it far said:

Is there a chance we loaded from Port game to now to set ourselves for the Pies whilst we've got 3, 10 day breaks?

Yes.

But my gut feeling is that it is more likely it was after the Port game.

Either way i think we have set ourselves for the Pies game and will be running on top of the ground. I really hope i'm right. 

[binman 43,104]

47 minutes ago, Watson11 said:

Re 3 talls, I think Salem makes a huge difference to our ability to play 3 talls. He will take a while to get his touch back, but I watched him closely last week and his positioning is just elite.  Whether it’s pushing up towards stoppages to stop the out the front exits from the opposition, or just being in an annoying position to mop up the scrubby kicks forward, he puts himself in positions that bring our interceptors into play.  The last 2 weeks have been our statistically best defensive efforts this year, and Salem is a key reason (along with evening up the stoppage numbers since Clarry went down). 

He was not a million miles off being back to his best against the blues.

Watching the game live i thought how important he is to our side and how that importance is easy to overlook, in part because he is not partic flashy and as you suggest a lot of his great work is off the ball. 

The other thing i forget sometimes is how tough he is. Doesn't lose too many one on ones and has good dose of aggro.

[Adam The God 30,272]

1 hour ago, Watson11 said:

Re 3 talls, I think Salem makes a huge difference to our ability to play 3 talls. He will take a while to get his touch back, but I watched him closely last week and his positioning is just elite.  Whether it’s pushing up towards stoppages to stop the out the front exits from the opposition, or just being in an annoying position to mop up the scrubby kicks forward, he puts himself in positions that bring our interceptors into play.  The last 2 weeks have been our statistically best defensive efforts this year, and Salem is a key reason (along with evening up the stoppage numbers since Clarry went down). 

We were still allowing -1s at the contest against Carlton.

[deanox 9,935]

5 hours ago, Roost it far said:

Is there a chance we loaded from Port game to now to set ourselves for the Pies whilst we've got 3, 10 day breaks?

I don't know how relevant or reliable this date is, but if you look at our "total KMs" and "KMs at high speed" per game this year this is a distinct drop off in round 10-12 (so starting from the Port game).

So there are lots of factors that would influence this stat: size of ground, style of play, weather, opposition game style, length of break, travel, accumulated fatigue etc. 

It could be an indicator that we increased some load that week. I'll be interested to watch these stats in the coming weeks to see if there are any trends.

 

Round - Total KMs - KMs at high speed

R1 288 43

R2 293 35

R3 284 44

R4 276 40

R5 289 43

R6 283 43

R7 294 45

R8 292 43

R9 284 47

R10 273 36

R11 276 37

R12 272 40

Data is available on the AFL app under "Tracker", including opposition data.

Sorry I'm on my phone so can't graph nicely!

[John Demonic 5,809]

7 hours ago, whatwhat say what said:

daniel hoyne and the champion data vision team, take a bow

Christian Jolly (Champion Data) on the ESPN footy podcast is another great audio show that presents stat data driven trends in the game and for each team . 

Edited June 6, 2023 by John Demonic

[Watson11 2,241]

22 minutes ago, deanox said:

I don't know how relevant or reliable this date is, but if you look at our "total KMs" and "KMs at high speed" per game this year this is a distinct drop off in round 10-12 (so starting from the Port game).

So there are lots of factors that would influence this stat: size of ground, style of play, weather, opposition game style, length of break, travel, accumulated fatigue etc. 

It could be an indicator that we increased some load that week. I'll be interested to watch these stats in the coming weeks to see if there are any trends.

 

Round - Total KMs - KMs at high speed

R1 288 43

R2 293 35

R3 284 44

R4 276 40

R5 289 43

R6 283 43

R7 294 45

R8 292 43

R9 284 47

R10 273 36

R11 276 37

R12 272 40

Data is available on the AFL app under "Tracker", including opposition data.

Sorry I'm on my phone so can't graph nicely!

These were the high speed numbers in 21 and 22. We did not drop off at all in 2021

[DemonWA 3,936]

5 hours ago, binman said:

 

The other thing i forget sometimes is how tough he is. Doesn't lose too many one on ones and has good dose of aggro.

He's an absolute gun. Was one of our most consistent in the 2021 finals series, and as you say, super tough - deceptivley so

[BW511 2,675]

5 hours ago, DemonWA said:

He's an absolute gun. Was one of our most consistent in the 2021 finals series, and as you say, super tough - deceptivley so

I was worried about him losing some leg speed through last year, very happy to be wrong. He is looking very sharp and confident in his body!

 

[deanox 9,935]

8 hours ago, Watson11 said:

These were the high speed numbers in 21 and 22. We did not drop off at all in 2021

2023 looks much more like 2022 so far, with the mid year dip

But really in 2022 it's the trailing away from round 17 that looks like the problem.

It looks like we loaded but injuries and fatigue etc caught up to us.

It bodes well if we've made changes this year.