It’s not the top 6, it’s the bottom 6

[FlashInThePan 1,893]

It was interesting watching the game unfold last night (and not in a good way). Our stars still dominate and our structure is still sound. A couple of things really stood out though. Last season all of our second tier players were hitting form at the right time. Nibbler, Spargo, Harmes, TMac and BBB, Sparrow, Bowey and Riv were all playing out of their skin. Salem was on fire as was Gus (I’m not sure if these 2 are second tier or tier 1.5).

This year, not so much. Nibbler still fills holes and runs to the right places but he is fumbly and often makes the wrong decisions, much like a few years ago. I’m not even going to talk about Melk, he defends better than he has historically but he pretty much crucified us around the goals last night. Sparrow still looks like he belongs but he just hasn’t progressed this year in any meaningful way. TMac is out obviously and BBB is one that I actually think is playing a lot better than people give him credit for but as the sole tall most of the time he gets a ton of attention. Riv has been in and out of the team and looks okay but not playing at the level he was last finals series.

We still don’t have a solid answer for the non-Langdon wing now that Gus is in the guts, Spargo there doesn’t play to his strengths and JJ - I don’t want to diss him too hard because he can play some really good footy but sometimes his decision making is just too slow.

We would have won the game last night if our bottom 6 were firing. Trac’s injury and Gus being a bit down on form would get covered, Melk’s 2 and his slip at the critical moment alone would have put us right in the game. ANB’s 2 misses would have sealed it. But forget that, there will always be unfortunate misses and opportunities gone begging. It was won and lost on role players not being able to play their role to the required standard. We really need to do some work to improve the bottom third of our list and the biggest part of that is a wing and the forward line.

[dazzledavey36 54,838]

3 minutes ago, FlashInThePan said:

It was interesting watching the game unfold last night (and not in a good way). Our stars still dominate and our structure is still sound. A couple of things really stood out though. Last season all of our second tier players were hitting form at the right time. Nibbler, Spargo, Harmes, TMac and BBB, Sparrow, Bowey and Riv were all playing out of their skin. Salem was on fire as was Gus (I’m not sure if these 2 are second tier or tier 1.5).

This year, not so much. Nibbler still fills holes and runs to the right places but he is fumbly and often makes the wrong decisions, much like a few years ago. I’m not even going to talk about Melk, he defends better than he has historically but he pretty much crucified us around the goals last night. Sparrow still looks like he belongs but he just hasn’t progressed this year in any meaningful way. TMac is out obviously and BBB is one that I actually think is playing a lot better than people give him credit for but as the sole tall most of the time he gets a ton of attention. Riv has been in and out of the team and looks okay but not playing at the level he was last finals series.

We still don’t have a solid answer for the non-Langdon wing now that Gus is in the guts, Spargo there doesn’t play to his strengths and JJ - I don’t want to diss him too hard because he can play some really good footy but sometimes his decision making is just too slow.

We would have won the game last night if our bottom 6 were firing. Trac’s injury and Gus being a bit down on form would get covered, Melk’s 2 and his slip at the critical moment alone would have put us right in the game. ANB’s 2 misses would have sealed it. But forget that, there will always be unfortunate misses and opportunities gone begging. It was won and lost on role players not being able to play their role to the required standard. We really need to do some work to improve the bottom third of our list and the biggest part of that is a wing and the forward line.

The issue is our stars didn't dominate last night.

[adonski 12,053]

Generally speaking you're correct, but last night we had Pickett, Viney, Brayshaw, Jackson & Brown as non-factors

As poor as the Melkshams & the ANBs of the world were, you can't have the above guys all play poorly and win

[The heart beats true 18,123]

11 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

The issue is our stars didn't dominate last night.

Yep, and our game plan is very reliant on them. 

[Lord Nev 13,512]

Brayshaw - 11 turnovers
Viney - 9 turnovers
Gawn - 7 turnovers
Petty - 7 turnovers
Lever - 6 turnovers
Hibberd - 6 turnovers

Sparrow, ANB, Spargo and Melksham combined for 5 turnovers total.

Sydney scored 70 points from turnovers. That's the game right there.

Not saying those 4 played well by any stretch, but they're not the reason we lost.

 

[adonski 12,053]

10 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

Sparrow, ANB, Spargo and Melksham combined for 5 turnovers total.

Sydney scored 70 points from turnovers. That's the game right there.

Not saying those 4 played well by any stretch, but they're not the reason we lost.

 

Because they rarely actually touch the pill perhaps??

Edited September 3, 2022 by adonski

[Fork 'em 6,983]

Well, if Melksham wants a last hurrah premiership he went the wrong way about it last night.
And ANB is a momentum killer of the highest order.
Always appreciated his work rate but his blunders are numerous and costly.

[Lord Nev 13,512]

Just now, adonski said:

Because they rarely actually touch the pill perhaps??

Everyone's going after ANB - he had 1 turnover from 14 disposals, that's 7%.

Gus had 11 turnovers from 20 disposals, that's 55%.

[At the break of Gawn 4,460]

24 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

Brayshaw - 11 turnovers
Viney - 9 turnovers
Gawn - 7 turnovers
Petty - 7 turnovers
Lever - 6 turnovers
Hibberd - 6 turnovers

Sparrow, ANB, Spargo and Melksham combined for 5 turnovers total.

Sydney scored 70 points from turnovers. That's the game right there.

Not saying those 4 played well by any stretch, but they're not the reason we lost.

 

It’s amazing how Brayshaw escapes so much scrutiny with his disposals. He absolutely butchers it and is the worst offender in our team. I’m not sure if it’s arrogance but he doesn’t seem to be working on improving his disposals at all.

[Lord Nev 13,512]

Just now, At the break of Gawn said:

It’s amazing how Brayshaw escapes so much scrutiny with his disposals. He absolutely butchers it and is the worst offender in our team. I’m not sure if it’s arrogance but he doesn’t seem to be working on improving his disposals at all.

You expect turnovers to go up somewhat when playing midfield, but since moving there Gus averages almost twice as many as Viney and Oliver who are our number 1 and 2 for average turnovers for the year (Gus is 3rd for the year).

[Mr Steve 3,820]

We didn't take our chances and thats why we lost. You can get away with that against some teams but not the good teams. And the three 50s which ended in goals, one wasn't a 50 but the other two where just plain silly. 

[4_Kent_Watts 887]

30 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

Brayshaw - 11 turnovers
Viney - 9 turnovers
Gawn - 7 turnovers
Petty - 7 turnovers
Lever - 6 turnovers
Hibberd - 6 turnovers

Sparrow, ANB, Spargo and Melksham combined for 5 turnovers total.

Sydney scored 70 points from turnovers. That's the game right there.

Not saying those 4 played well by any stretch, but they're not the reason we lost.

 

G that's a lot of turnovers. 70 points against. It's normally what we do to others when were winning and playing well. 

[Tony Tea 2,809]

Turnovers are a two-way street. The bloke with the ball has to have someone in a good position to kick to. That's down to the target being able to make space and the coach organising the target structure. A lot of our turnovers are because the kicker has no one well placed to kick to.

[Watson11 2,240]

1 hour ago, Lord Nev said:

Brayshaw - 11 turnovers
Viney - 9 turnovers
Gawn - 7 turnovers
Petty - 7 turnovers
Lever - 6 turnovers
Hibberd - 6 turnovers

Sparrow, ANB, Spargo and Melksham combined for 5 turnovers total.

Sydney scored 70 points from turnovers. That's the game right there.

Not saying those 4 played well by any stretch, but they're not the reason we lost.

 

Plus Sparrow, ANB, Spargo, Melk had 16 score involvements to go with only 5 turnovers. When they were involved more often than not the end result was positive for us.  Melksham negated Paddy McCartin as well who did not influence the game at all. 

 

[BDA 22,742]

Our stars most certainly did not dominate last night other than Clarry. Max had a mare, Trac was injured, sub par performances all round

It's amazing we managed to stay in the game as long as we did actually

[titan_uranus 24,992]

1 hour ago, Lord Nev said:

Brayshaw - 11 turnovers
Viney - 9 turnovers
Gawn - 7 turnovers
Petty - 7 turnovers
Lever - 6 turnovers
Hibberd - 6 turnovers

Sparrow, ANB, Spargo and Melksham combined for 5 turnovers total.

Sydney scored 70 points from turnovers. That's the game right there.

Not saying those 4 played well by any stretch, but they're not the reason we lost.

But Viney, Gawn, Petty, Lever and Hibberd all contributed in other ways.

Brayshaw didn't, nor did Sparrow (other than his goal), ANB, Spargo (other than two kicks inside 50) or Melksham.

You also have to contextualise the turnovers. A rushed kick from a stoppage (e.g. Viney or Brayshaw) which the opposition marks is a turnover, but vastly different to a no-pressure kick inside 50 (e.g. ANB).

I'm not saying that excuses the high volume of turnovers from the guys you mentioned, it doesn't, but at least the players you mentioned are contributing in some way to offset some of those turnovers to at least some extent. For the others, we're getting nada out of them.

[titan_uranus 24,992]

Just now, BDA said:

Our stars most certainly did not dominate last night other than Clarry. Max had a mare, Trac was injured, sub par performances all round

It's amazing we managed to stay in the game as long as we did actually

If you want to be optimistic, this is one way to approach last night.

Petracca injured, Gawn average by his standards, Lever poor, Sydney absolutely on fire, and yet we were only out of the game in the last 5 minutes.

[DeeSpencer 25,671]

Gawn was awful. We concede a dumb goal and he follows it up with a turnover trying to hit short targets. He’s the king of adding negative momentum. There’s no value attacking value in his contested marks.

Lever stinks. 

Petracca can’t run (not his fault)

Viney was uncharacteristically fumbly early.

Salem is half fit.

Brayshaw is a bottom 6 player so I can’t mention him!

It’s everyone, but the drop off from many of the stars is a big factor.

 

[Queanbeyan Demon 6,843]

1 hour ago, Tony Tea said:

Turnovers are a two-way street. The bloke with the ball has to have someone in a good position to kick to. That's down to the target being able to make space and the coach organising the target structure. A lot of our turnovers are because the kicker has no one well placed to kick to.

Thanks TT.

It's the lack of connection between players and lines that causes us grief more than turnovers. Players that get the ball a lot are going to have a higher rate of turnovers. This is because they get the ball in heavy traffic where the tempo is white hot and shoving the ball out through a cluster for 20 players is the work of magicians. For three years Dusty was the best player in the game by a fair distance, yet he was also in the top 10 turnover merchants in the game. Paradoxically, he is also one of the cleanest ball handlers I've ever seen when outside the player scrum. Took Miller may win this years Brownlow, and he's the biggest turnover merchant in the game!

My point is this . . . blaming Melbourne's defeat on turnovers at the expense of examining why they are occurring will not provide an accurate diagnosis of the teams problems. 

 

[dazzledavey36 54,838]

1 hour ago, At the break of Gawn said:

It’s amazing how Brayshaw escapes so much scrutiny with his disposals. He absolutely butchers it and is the worst offender in our team. I’m not sure if it’s arrogance but he doesn’t seem to be working on improving his disposals at all.

I hadnt really noticed until someone had made mention of this a few weeks back.

His delivery inside 50 is horrible. 

[Little Goffy 14,520]

What blew my mind was how often we had turnovers from handballs. At least with a kick turnover it is visible to everyone and there's a bit of time and space to react. The handball turnovers are so sudden and unpredictable that everyone is out of place and there's no time to react.

Dinky, loopy, predictable and panicked handballs were the story of the night from my perspective.

Credit to the Swans for the pressure that made it happen, and also a little optimism that the problem is not chronic.

Reset, reload. All that jazz.

Lot of trouble to go to just to have another crack at Zorko, though.

[Lord Nev 13,512]

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

But Viney, Gawn, Petty, Lever and Hibberd all contributed in other ways.

Brayshaw didn't, nor did Sparrow (other than his goal), ANB, Spargo (other than two kicks inside 50) or Melksham.

You also have to contextualise the turnovers. A rushed kick from a stoppage (e.g. Viney or Brayshaw) which the opposition marks is a turnover, but vastly different to a no-pressure kick inside 50 (e.g. ANB).

I'm not saying that excuses the high volume of turnovers from the guys you mentioned, it doesn't, but at least the players you mentioned are contributing in some way to offset some of those turnovers to at least some extent. For the others, we're getting nada out of them.

Within the context of this particular game, where the Swans scored 70 points from turnovers, of course the turnovers outweigh the 'other ways' players contributed. We lost due to scores from turnovers.

And again, I'm not defending the performance of the "bottom 6", but they didn't cost us this game IMO.

There's multiple factors surrounding the turnovers, and I'm not being critical of those players as a whole, but in this game turnovers are the biggest reason we lost. By far.

[titan_uranus 24,992]

4 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

Within the context of this particular game, where the Swans scored 70 points from turnovers, of course the turnovers outweigh the 'other ways' players contributed. We lost due to scores from turnovers.

And again, I'm not defending the performance of the "bottom 6", but they didn't cost us this game IMO.

There's multiple factors surrounding the turnovers, and I'm not being critical of those players as a whole, but in this game turnovers are the biggest reason we lost. By far.

I didn't disagree with you about the impact of the turnovers.

Where I disagree is when you cited our better players' turnover numbers as a defence of the bottom 6 players who had fewer turnovers.

It's not as simple as "they had more turnovers therefore they were more of a problem". As I said, players like Viney and Brayshaw are getting more rushed kicks from stoppages which are less likely to be retained. Players like Melksham and ANB are getting the ball with more time and space and are botching kicks under less pressure. And at least Viney, Petty, Lever and Hibberd contributed to keeping us in touch. 

On the same topic, Parker was probably Sydney's BOG but had 8 turnovers. Papley had 7, Mills had 6.

Also not sure about your stats - AFL website has Lever at 3, Hibberd at 2 and Petty at 1.

[Lord Nev 13,512]

10 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

I didn't disagree with you about the impact of the turnovers.

Where I disagree is when you cited our better players' turnover numbers as a defence of the bottom 6 players who had fewer turnovers.

It's not as simple as "they had more turnovers therefore they were more of a problem". As I said, players like Viney and Brayshaw are getting more rushed kicks from stoppages which are less likely to be retained. Players like Melksham and ANB are getting the ball with more time and space and are botching kicks under less pressure. And at least Viney, Petty, Lever and Hibberd contributed to keeping us in touch. 

On the same topic, Parker was probably Sydney's BOG but had 8 turnovers. Papley had 7, Mills had 6.

Also not sure about your stats - AFL website has Lever at 3, Hibberd at 2 and Petty at 1.

It's not a defence of the 'bottom 6' players, again I didn't say any of them played well, but the impact those players generally have on our results is minor, the main impact on the game was the 70 points from turnovers, so yes, players with more turnovers fed into that factor.

Melksham and ANB had more time and space? What game were you watching? That's completely off the mark. If you want to make the argument that stoppage players have more turnovers, which I agreed with in another post, then you need to compare that to normal:

Brayshaw - 11 turnovers, season average 5.2
Viney - 9 turnovers, season average 5.3
Gawn - 7 turnovers, season average 4.3

The season average for our stoppage players is around the 5 mark, so yes, 9 turnovers and 11 turnovers is an unusually high number.

You're missing the point of the turnovers - again, Sydney scored 70 POINTS from turnovers, if you want to talk about their turnovers then tell me how much we scored from turnovers? That's where the game was decided. Sydney actually had more turnovers than us, but the points from turnovers was the difference.

With the backline players, I originally got my stats from footywire and they seem to have updated since my post, so you're correct there, they now have it as the numbers you've listed.

 

[whatwhat say what 22,732]

7 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

Brayshaw - 11 turnovers
Viney - 9 turnovers
Gawn - 7 turnovers
Petty - 7 turnovers
Lever - 6 turnovers
Hibberd - 6 turnovers

Sparrow, ANB, Spargo and Melksham combined for 5 turnovers total.

Sydney scored 70 points from turnovers. That's the game right there.

Not saying those 4 played well by any stretch, but they're not the reason we lost.

 

here's the actual #s