MELBOURNE

Flag window: Barely ajar

On paper, the Dees’ premiership window should be open. In practice though, promise has rarely resulted in solid, consistent performances since 2018. With Ben Brown providing a much needed outlet up forward, there aren’t any areas that in theory should be major issues in 2021. With elite talent on tap, all the Dees need to do is put the pieces together and execute consistently in order to be a finals / premiership threat. Until they show they’re actually capable of playing at a high level consistently though, the premiership window can’t be anything more than barely ajar for Simon Goodwin and his men.

 

  On 14/12/2020 at 06:07, Demonland said:

Until they show they’re actually capable of playing at a high level consistently though, the premiership window can’t be anything more than barely ajar for Simon Goodwin and his men.

Fair call

Barely Ajar, as long it is ajar then we  are in it to win it.  Bring it on .......

Big Benny Brown just stuck his foot in the door so it won't shut. ?

Pretty good summation actually 

All the pieces are there ready to go, but....

Do we have the balls to stand up and fight?

Edited December 14, 20204 yr by Sir Why You Little

  On 14/12/2020 at 06:46, Sir Why You Little said:

Pretty good summation actually 

All the pieces are thereready to go

Do we have the balls to stand up and fight?

Post 1964 no.

As open as it is for St Kilda. At the very least.

Premiership window  vs premiership pane

Those numbers indicate that 5 teams are vying for the last spot whereas we are vying for the 1st spot.........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited December 14, 20204 yr by DeeZone

IMO 'premiership window' is just another one of those meaningless buzzwords used by pseudo-intellectuals on footy talk shows. Was the bulldogs window open in 2016? Tigers in 2017? We've been saying for a decade that Geelong's demise is imminent, but we're yet to see it. Flags are won by damn good sides; it really is that simple.

We're not (yet) in the 'damn good side' category, but only the most pessimistic dees supporter would say that we haven't got most of the required pieces. When things click, other sides have shown that it's possible to contend for flags very quickly. 

"So you're telling me there's a chance"

 

 

No doubt premiership window is an annoying buzzword that has been given silly amounts of imagined meaning, but at least the actual summaries in the article are reasonable.  A 'bell curve' analogy might be more useful given that the concept is very much about whether you've got the maturity and will be able to train that over coming years.  If I recall, the use of 'premiership window' was originally all about needing to get a premiership before the stars you have get too old.

My differences of opinions would be -

Collingwood are just barely clinging on to relevance. They had eight years of continuous incremental decline after their premiership and then managed to suddenly throw themselves right back into contention, but now that pattern of decline is back.  They have 13 kids under 21 and another fun Daicos on the way so I wouldn't be crying about the future is I were a Magpie, but at both ends of the ground their tall stocks are very limited and what they do have is at or around 30 years old.

Fremantle I just don't believe in.  The articles notes their defence, but the Demons only gave away 60 more points than them for the season even as our dysfunctional forward line score 200 more.  That the article so specifically points to Fyfe and Walters actually points to a key problem - they have very little mature, quality leadership to look to.  Their mid-age mid-sized core won't make anyone think of premiership threat, though they are all perfectly reasonably players and appropriate trade-ins; Conca, Wilson, Aish, Acres.  It's okay, the top-pick kids are coming along nicely, but it is hard to see how Freo can get everything together in the short term.

Geelong.  I'm in the 'too many old bodies' school of 2020 grand final fade-out explanations.  Now they are a year older and then some, with Cameron, Higgins and Smith coming in.  Jeremy Cameron, at 27 and 8 months, if the seventeenth oldest player on their list.  Sixteen of those seventeen are in the best 22, as well.  Maybe they've got one more shot at it, but at some point they are going to absolutely implode, and I already think the sheer volume of old thighs has been decisive.

Other than that, I'd just slightly downgrade the Saints and slightly upgrade the Demons. 

  On 14/12/2020 at 07:49, Little Goffy said:

No doubt premiership window is an annoying buzzword that has been given silly amounts of imagined meaning, but at least the actual summaries in the article are reasonable.  A 'bell curve' analogy might be more useful given that the concept is very much about whether you've got the maturity and will be able to train that over coming years.  If I recall, the use of 'premiership window' was originally all about needing to get a premiership before the stars you have get too old.

My differences of opinions would be -

Collingwood are just barely clinging on to relevance. They had eight years of continuous incremental decline after their premiership and then managed to suddenly throw themselves right back into contention, but now that pattern of decline is back.  They have 13 kids under 21 and another fun Daicos on the way so I wouldn't be crying about the future is I were a Magpie, but at both ends of the ground their tall stocks are very limited and what they do have is at or around 30 years old.

Fremantle I just don't believe in.  The articles notes their defence, but the Demons only gave away 60 more points than them for the season even as our dysfunctional forward line score 200 more.  That the article so specifically points to Fyfe and Walters actually points to a key problem - they have very little mature, quality leadership to look to.  Their mid-age mid-sized core won't make anyone think of premiership threat, though they are all perfectly reasonably players and appropriate trade-ins; Conca, Wilson, Aish, Acres.  It's okay, the top-pick kids are coming along nicely, but it is hard to see how Freo can get everything together in the short term.

Geelong.  I'm in the 'too many old bodies' school of 2020 grand final fade-out explanations.  Now they are a year older and then some, with Cameron, Higgins and Smith coming in.  Jeremy Cameron, at 27 and 8 months, if the seventeenth oldest player on their list.  Sixteen of those seventeen are in the best 22, as well.  Maybe they've got one more shot at it, but at some point they are going to absolutely implode, and I already think the sheer volume of old thighs has been decisive.

Other than that, I'd just slightly downgrade the Saints and slightly upgrade the Demons. 

Geelong are on the cliff, short season short QTR suited the grandpa's, less rotations normal length season, 20 minute QTR will not suite them, and the media can't see it, just like the media could not see the fall of the Hawks. 

So the teams who finished top 4 in 2020 are wide open, those who finished in the 8 are open, the bottom 4 are shut and the rest are somewhere in between ?

Brilliant summer filler ?

 

  On 14/12/2020 at 06:50, Clintosaurus said:

As open as it is for St Kilda. At the very least.

They have a decent coach Clint.

  On 14/12/2020 at 09:40, old dee said:

They have a decent coach Clint.

Football is a funny thing.  One win in the weirdest season ever is the difference.

I rate Ratten highly and am impressed by St Kilda's bold recruiting in the last couple of years that has kept them out of what could have been a very deep hole.  But... they have a bit of an issue in their lack of young talent which actually provides a really important contrast to illustrate how the Demons are placed.  We've assembled an outstanding group of young players and promising kids who we can really expect to see improvement from.

It would have been better to do that with one more win in 2020 as well, and one more straight kick in total for the season in 2017, so that we had three seasons of finals instead of one under our belt, but we are actually very well placed for the near future in ways that St Kilda very much are not.

 

 

  On 15/12/2020 at 04:12, Little Goffy said:

Football is a funny thing.  One win in the weirdest season ever is the difference.

I rate Ratten highly and am impressed by St Kilda's bold recruiting in the last couple of years that has kept them out of what could have been a very deep hole.  But... they have a bit of an issue in their lack of young talent which actually provides a really important contrast to illustrate how the Demons are placed.  We've assembled an outstanding group of young players and promising kids who we can really expect to see improvement from.

It would have been better to do that with one more win in 2020 as well, and one more straight kick in total for the season in 2017, so that we had three seasons of finals instead of one under our belt, but we are actually very well placed for the near future in ways that St Kilda very much are not.

Their youngsters:

• Top 10 draft picks:  Billings, Clark, King, Coffield.
• Top 10- 20 draft pick:  Gresham,
• Later picks come good:  Steele, Lonie
• And a variety of promising young players.

They compare fairly well with our equivalents. 

And they have probably done better than us on the mature age recruits.

On balance their list looks not too different to ours.

Edited December 15, 20204 yr by Lucifer's Hero

  On 15/12/2020 at 04:41, Lucifer's Hero said:

• Later picks come good:  Steele, Lonie
• And a variety of promising young players.

steele was technically bid on with a pick in the mid-teens but only 'cost' gw$ a pick in the mid 20s

has become a super inside mid for them

  On 15/12/2020 at 04:41, Lucifer's Hero said:

Their youngsters:

• Top 10 draft picks:  Billings, Clark, King, Coffield.
• Top 10- 20 draft pick:  Gresham,
• Later picks come good:  Steele, Lonie
• And a variety of promising young players.

They compare fairly well with our equivalents. 

And they have probably done better than us on the mature age recruits.

On balance their list looks not too different to ours.

Both teams rebuild at the same time.

The Saints rebuild went haywire earlier, so they added King, Clark and Coffield. Then topped up with the likes of Brad Hill and co.

Melbourne stayed on track, but fell apart in 2019, so we added Jackson, Rivers and Kossie. We've gone for Ben Brown and added a few more picks rather than trade ins.

They've got more depth, but the argument for us is May is better than Howard/Carlisle, Petracca is better than their best mids and our young talent fills the gaps they've plugged with imports the last two years.

They certainly aren't too old or lackings kids though. That's a bad take.

  On 15/12/2020 at 04:12, Little Goffy said:

Football is a funny thing.  One win in the weirdest season ever is the difference.

I rate Ratten highly and am impressed by St Kilda's bold recruiting in the last couple of years that has kept them out of what could have been a very deep hole.  But... they have a bit of an issue in their lack of young talent which actually provides a really important contrast to illustrate how the Demons are placed.  We've assembled an outstanding group of young players and promising kids who we can really expect to see improvement from.

It would have been better to do that with one more win in 2020 as well, and one more straight kick in total for the season in 2017, so that we had three seasons of finals instead of one under our belt, but we are actually very well placed for the near future in ways that St Kilda very much are not.

 

 

All that maybe true but the only thing that matters is winning games and we seem we fall at that hurdle most years. Potential is basically BS. 

  On 14/12/2020 at 07:49, Little Goffy said:

Fremantle I just don't believe in.  The articles notes their defence, but the Demons only gave away 60 more points than them for the season even as our dysfunctional forward line score 200 more.  That the article so specifically points to Fyfe and Walters actually points to a key problem - they have very little mature, quality leadership to look to.  Their mid-age mid-sized core won't make anyone think of premiership threat, though they are all perfectly reasonably players and appropriate trade-ins; Conca, Wilson, Aish, Acres.  It's okay, the top-pick kids are coming along nicely, but it is hard to see how Freo can get everything together in the short term.

They have potential for a Bulldogs style short term super rise before it falls back to earth IMO.

Brayshaw, Cerra and Serong are that good that they can carry a midfield in the same way Bont, Macrae and Libba did at the Dogs in 2017. Particularly if Darcy gets fit and takes a leap. The right midfielders only need a few preseasons to go from below par to a really strong group, it's not like the big guys who need time.

If the young guys carry the midfield it allows Fyfe and Walters to be a 2 man forward line rotating on ball when needed, or supported with Taberner, Lobb and Sam Sturt.

Alex Pearce getting healthy would be huge for their backline, but if it doesn't happen and they are just Luke Ryan, some top end kids (Young, Chapman) and a bunch of misfits they are still so well drilled up the field that they'll be decent.

Young midfield takes a big leap + reinvigorated high end talent + well drilled role players is the method for unexpected success

  On 14/12/2020 at 09:40, old dee said:

They have a decent coach Clint.

I didn't want to be negative but you called it. Saints with Ratten at the helm a strategically a fair way ahead of us.  Its a reasonable call on them c.f. us.

I'm not writing St Kilda off - I guess my point is that when we talk about St Kilda's 'youth' we're talking about players from 21 to 25.  Many are guys who have been around as long as Petracca or Salem.  In the last three years of drafts they have just one AFL-level young player to show for it, the excellent Max King.

If they are going to make any major improvements next year it will have to come from mature players rediscovering their best form.  That's entirely possible and a Crouch & Hanneberry revival could lift their midfield to outstanding.

St Kilda are a mature team.  Not overly old, but loaded with established players and with a pretty thin tail when it comes to new blood coming through.

For two teams that finished one win apart, and counting the trade-ins as a balance, I'd much much rather be in our position.

I would say we're on about level pegging with the Saints but credit to them the thing they showed that was different to us was they had a hunger to do well, we didn't.

I basically agree with the summation, the pieces of the puzzle are there but making them fit together is the next step in this journey. 

  On 15/12/2020 at 11:39, Pates said:

I would say we're on about level pegging with the Saints but credit to them the thing they showed that was different to us was they had a hunger to do well, we didn't.

I basically agree with the summation, the pieces of the puzzle are there but making them fit together is the next step in this journey. 

I'm not sold on the Saints, a lot of teams have good first up seasons with a new coach (unless they've bottomed out) let's see how they go in Rattens sophomore season. They have talent on the list but not enough to push for Prelims/Premierships in my eyes. Billings, Gresham, Lonie all too inconsistent. Steele is very good, not sold yet on King (I don't think he's as good as his brother), Clark and Coffield are just decent soldiers so far. They don't have the game breaking ability that the top sides do.