Just now, titan_uranus said:

Which is not good.

But what happened the other 36 times, when he didn't mark it and the opposition didn't mark it? I'm interested in knowing how many of those other 36 targets turned into goals/scores.

Yep, totally get that, and we don't have a stat around that - but a defenders impetus is to punch it away just as much, if not more, than a forward trying to bring it to ground, so to be beaten 8 to 1 gives a fair indicator of how those contests are going IMO.

 

39 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

I'd take a goal over the chance of possibly getting goal any day.

'Bringing the ball to ground is more important than goals' is one of the strangest comments I've read here, and I'm sure deep down you understand when coaches talk about bringing the ball to ground they aren't implying it's the best outcome when going forward; ahead of actually kicking a goal.

Clearly there’s a difference between a 3 goal a game forward who wins a Coleman and a 1 goal a game player. Similarly if a player kicks 5 goals in a game they can probably do stuff all else.

But in the context of two key forwards who both averaged 1 to 1.5 goals a game there’s a big reason why Brown was selected. And if Weid had somehow snuck out a few more goals and averaged up to 2 goals a game he still wouldn’t be making a good contribution with how consistently and easily he was beat in contests.

Whilst neither were good enough, Brown was at least contributing to the side and we saw the value of that in a lot of our first half leads or wins. Weid (as a forward) contributed next to nothing in a lot of games.

6 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

Clearly there’s a difference between a 3 goal a game forward who wins a Coleman and a 1 goal a game player. Similarly if a player kicks 5 goals in a game they can probably do stuff all else.

But in the context of two key forwards who both averaged 1 to 1.5 goals a game there’s a big reason why Brown was selected. And if Weid had somehow snuck out a few more goals and averaged up to 2 goals a game he still wouldn’t be making a good contribution with how consistently and easily he was beat in contests.

Whilst neither were good enough, Brown was at least contributing to the side and we saw the value of that in a lot of our first half leads or wins. Weid (as a forward) contributed next to nothing in a lot of games.

Just to clarify, I'm not advocating for Weid at all, other than maybe as support for Brown (which I think he needed).

I love it:

https://www.sen.com.au/news/2022/09/30/melbournes-budget-make-a-pitch-to-mitch-georgia-dees/

 

Jeez Geelong have got more people wanting to play for them than they can fit on a list! Envious of their position attracting talent. They get a big advantage with their home ground and any "country" Vic player wants to head there it seems.

Personally I think Brown and TMac are largely cooked and if we're building our 2023 forward line around them we may just be as well. I'd suggest the club can't let Weideman go because we need 2 solid targets in the forward line and it's possible he'll be one of them. Maybe JVR will be the other but lets reserve judgement until we know he's actually up to being an AFL grade key forward! If the club aren't chasing a key forward such as Georgiades I'd be very surprised. Both Brown and TMac are running on borrowed time  but who knows they may kick 100 goals between them in 2023 

33 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

Personally I think Brown and TMac are largely cooked and if we're building our 2023 forward line around them we may just be as well. I'd suggest the club can't let Weideman go because we need 2 solid targets in the forward line and it's possible he'll be one of them. Maybe JVR will be the other but lets reserve judgement until we know he's actually up to being an AFL grade key forward! If the club aren't chasing a key forward such as Georgiades I'd be very surprised. Both Brown and TMac are running on borrowed time  but who knows they may kick 100 goals between them in 2023 

agree. Ben Brown will be 30 at start of 2023 and struggling with a knee problem. 2023 is likely to be his last year.  Tmcd will be 31.5 at start of 2023. He’s a warrior but in the fading light of his career presumably.  Perhaps 2024 will be his farewell year. Dees need another forward to partner JVR - either through a trade (Georgiades, Corbett) , draft (Cadman or Gruzewski) or team redesign (Petty). 

6 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

They also brought Caddy, Nankervis and Prestia in at the end of 2016, which spearheaded their charge to the 2017 flag, so I'm not sure @bing181 was right about "no trades in 2016".

Yes, I was wrong on that one ... put it down to the layout changing on the Wikipedia draft pages, but mea culpa.

Point I was making is that very few players change clubs through trade or free agency. If you want to improve your list, you go to the draft, which is where we've been proactive for a number of years now.

5 hours ago, Fat Tony said:

Ben Brown did not CARRY our forward line. 30 goals from 19 goals from a full forward in a team that averaged 56.4 inside 50s per game (3rd in the comp) is ordinary at best.

Personally, I think Melksham did an excellent job keeping his man out of the contest when we only had one tall (plus Jackson/Gawn). The delivery and ball movement needs to be changed next year, but IMO Brown is just not strong enough and I doubt he plays more than 10 more games for MFC.

Games	Average Goals
Bayley Fritsch	2.29
Kysaiah Pickett	1.78
Tom McDonald	1.67
Ben Brown	1.58
Sam Weideman	1.3
Jake Melksham	1.09
Christian Petracca	0.79
Max Gawn	0.59
Ed Langdon	0.57
James Harmes	0.57
Toby Bedford	0.56
Luke Jackson	0.5
Charlie Spargo	0.42
Alex Neal-Bullen	0.39
Jack Viney	0.36
James Jordon	0.32
Tom Sparrow	0.3
Clayton Oliver	0.22
Jake Bowey	0.12
Trent Rivers	0.11
Angus Brayshaw	0.08
Christian Salem	0.08
Harrison Petty	0.06
Jake Lever	0.05

Doesn't matter how often you kick it in if the bloke you kick it too is v 2 players the whole time.  Def let smaller opponents get positions up the ground and drop of in front of Brown knowing he is the most dangerous target.

You have 2 of Grundy, JVR or T-Mac down there with him,  the Def can't afford to not stick with them because the will mark the ball if unchecked.

Brown 100% Carried our fwd line by taking the best defender every week and making a contest against him,  Melksham was a bandaid that lasted longer than I thought.  Buy ultimately fell off.

The Delivery does need to get better,  but it's easy to say that, our midfielders would look up and see Brown with the best Def on him,  another Def sitting in his leading lane and then our next tall target is Melksham.

 

43 minutes ago, bing181 said:

Yes, I was wrong on that one ... put it down to the layout changing on the Wikipedia draft pages, but mea culpa.

Point I was making is that very few players change clubs through trade or free agency. If you want to improve your list, you go to the draft, which is where we've been proactive for a number of years now.

The Cats had 7 of 22 in their flag side.

And Id break it down as:
2 big fish (Danger, Cameron)
2 bargain pick ups (Stengle, Rohan)
1 veteran (Smith)
2 targeted moves (Tuohy, Stanley)

We had 5.
May and Lever were big fish
Hibbo and Langdon players we targeted
Ben Brown somewhat all of the above 

Whilst I think the draft and keeping home grown players will always be vital I see no reason why we should be afraid of bringing players in.

If we could land a gun key forward I think we would sign them in a flash. Grundy’s not my cup of tea but I can somewhat understand it. And I think we should be absolutely on the look out for bargain buys.

Hawthorn did an amazing job in 2009-2011 knowing their star young players needed fresh help. They used the draft and trades for guys like Lake, Frawley, Gibson, McEvoy, Hill, Smith, Shiels. That’s the blueprint  

 

Edited September 30, 20222 yr by DeeSpencer

2 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

The Cats had 7 of 22 in their flag side.

And Id break it down as:
2 big fish (Danger, Cameron)
2 bargain pick ups (Stengle, Rohan)
1 veteran (Smith)
2 targeted moves (Tuohy, Stanley)

We had 5.
May and Lever were big fish
Hibbo and Langdon players we targeted
Ben Brown somewhat all of the above 

Whilst I think the draft and keeping home grown players will always be vital I see no reason why we should be afraid of bringing players in.

If we could land a gun key forward I think we would sign them in a flash. Grundy’s not my cup of tea but I can somewhat understand it. And I think we should be absolutely on the look out for bargain buys.

Hawthorn did an amazing job in 2009-2011 knowing their star young players needed fresh help. They used the draft and trades for guys like Lake, Frawley, Gibson, McEvoy, Hill, Smith, Shiels. That’s the blueprint  

 

I think Grundy would classify as a big fish given he's a two time all Australian ruckman.

Other than arguably Taranto or Dunkley he's probably the most accomplished player in the trade/free agency period this year and he's coming to us.

 

14 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

The Cats had 7 of 22 in their flag side.

And Id break it down as:
2 big fish (Danger, Cameron)
2 bargain pick ups (Stengle, Rohan)
1 veteran (Smith)
2 targeted moves (Tuohy, Stanley)

We had 5.
May and Lever were big fish
Hibbo and Langdon players we targeted
Ben Brown somewhat all of the above 

Whilst I think the draft and keeping home grown players will always be vital I see no reason why we should be afraid of bringing players in.
 

The key I think is not bringing in too many at once...in the cases above players were filtered onto the list.

2 minutes ago, rjay said:

The key I think is not bringing in too many at once...in the cases above players were filtered onto the list.

Exactly. It takes time to grow synergy and trust. 

https://www.afl.com.au/news/852608/melbourne-eyes-top-pick-demons-and-dons-chase-suns-forward-swan-set-to-stay

14 minutes ago, rjay said:

The key I think is not bringing in too many at once...in the cases above players were filtered onto the list.

I agree, and I'll say Ben Brown was probably our only win now player we added. Maybe Tomlinson too - of the players who didn't feature in the flag. The rest were all added to be long time players.

46 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

I agree, and I'll say Ben Brown was probably our only win now player we added. Maybe Tomlinson too - of the players who didn't feature in the flag. The rest were all added to be long time players.

count tomlinson and that's six - he would've likely played in a premiership team with the form he was showing in 2021 prior to injury

grundy is a massive get

i don't quite understand how it'll work, but he's very underrated on this board

So at what point do we put the smoke signal out to @Chook in Perth?

This is nothing but speculation but this is how I think the Jackson deal will get done: Bowes and Pick 7 get to Geelong (don't know if they give anything back, if so it will be a future pick of some sorts), Geelong split 7 with Freo for Pick 14 and that priority future second they got from North for Logue (this allows Geelong to use those picks to trade Bruhn and Henry), Freo trade 7 and future first to us for Jacko (I suspect we will end up throwing back like a third round pick as well which I am anticipating us having a lot of late picks with the fringe players we could lose). I think the deal will go down on the last day as we will have to wait for other deals to go down but I think it makes sense and serves a purpose to all clubs. With next years predicted strong draft and Freo not locked into make the 8 next year IMO I think the value is basically two top 10 picks which is what the club has not backed down from and I believe is Jackson's worth. Don't know if 7 will be high enough to grab Cadman, i suspect not, I just hope we don't use it on Jefferson. 

Grundy for a second and we are laughing. Only other move I'd look at is tempting Georgiades but with Grundy on our books i don't think we'd have the cap space for it. Otherwise we are set up even better than last year and get to add two more premium talents over the next few years. 

 

10 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

Yep, totally get that, and we don't have a stat around that - but a defenders impetus is to punch it away just as much, if not more, than a forward trying to bring it to ground, so to be beaten 8 to 1 gives a fair indicator of how those contests are going IMO.

 

Kossie’s match winner against Carlton is another indicator 

 

13 minutes ago, Demonland said:

 

That will probably restrict their trades in to Taranto and Hopper. That’s a big trade week anyway for the Tigers.

Edited September 30, 20222 yr by Redleg

1 hour ago, Redleg said:

That will probably restrict their trades in to Taranto and Hopper. That’s a big trade week anyway for the Tigers.

If he was gettable I’d take Graham, he would be a great high half forward.  

5 hours ago, Demons11 said:

If he was gettable I’d take Graham, he would be a great high half forward.  

I wonder whether Amartey at the Swans is gettable. At 197cm, he has so much upside… great pair of hands, ability to ruck when needed, good kick; has looked very good on the rare occasions he got to fill a vacancy in the Swans side.

1 minute ago, hardtack said:

 

I wonder whether Amartey at the Swans is gettable. At 197cm, he has so much upside… great pair of hands, ability to ruck when needed, good kick; has looked very good on the rare occasions he got to fill a vacancy in the Swans side.

He dominated against Casey towards the end of the season. But I doubt he'd be gettable - he, McDonald and McLean are the logical Buddy and Reid replacements - both of whom let them down at the pointy end this year.