On 14/05/2023 at 00:56, Sydney_Demon said:

Dunstall was definitely better than last week, but I can't understand why any ex-player with obvious affiliations should be commenting on games involving those teams. Obviously that applies to Garry Lyon as well.

Agree.  But Lyon seemss to bend over backwards to appear that he is not favouring MFC (which is annoying).  Can't say the same for the others.

  On 14/05/2023 at 02:23, sue said:

Agree.  But Lyon seemss to bend over backwards to appear that he is not favouring MFC (which is annoying).  Can't say the same for the others.

Wonder how Dunny used to get on with Bernie Vince on that stupid show??

I thought the Hawks looked threatening early.

Then the game started. 

Edited May 14, 20231 yr by Grapeviney

  On 13/05/2023 at 23:41, demon3165 said:

Depends on how you see the game, or should posters just write beautiful posts all the time because they are melbourne supporters? 

No, but I think some supporters should see the long game. We are banking 50-point wins @ 200% against poorer opposition to provide our best players with lower TOG to preserve them for the long season.

The season is a marathon, not a sprint, and a premiership is the objective rather than a 100+ point win along the way. Remember 2022? It wasn't that long ago.

  On 13/05/2023 at 21:57, BDA said:

May said after the game the Hawks jumped us after half time. Thats how it looked to me as well. Those 3 quick goals fired them up and got them into the contest for the quarter. Outside of that purple patch they were very ordinary. We were pretty much doing as we pleased. A very straight forward win.

As an aside, I don't think Gary Lyon should commentate on Dees games. He was painful early in the 3rd when Hawks got on top briefly. 

Could you imagine others in here (inc me) commentate a Dees game? I think it just shows how passionate he is about the club and that he probably suffers from MFCSS as do most of us.

  On 13/05/2023 at 23:59, Gator said:

Petracca was best on ground.

Petracca had 5 goal assists.  To put that in perspective, Joel Selwood's career high from his 355 games is 4.  And we all know how Geelong liked sharing it around in their dominant years.

Dustin Martin's career high is also 4.

None of the other 45 players who took the field had more than one.

Petracca also had an equal high clearance game, was second in contested possessions with 15, had a game high score involvements (12 - next best 9), and the most metres gained of any player.

Can’t see that being beaten this year, but can you believe the record is 10 by Stevie J? Although it might have been against us in the 186 game…

We are 2nd favorite to win the flag according to SportsBet which is amusing to me because we don't look flash at all

  On 14/05/2023 at 01:11, binman said:

Too bloody right.

I have made this point many times, so apologies for the repetition.

I'm a punter, but I'm not trying to promote punting.

Forget tipsters and so called experts, the line in football betting is by far the best representation of the relative strength of two opponents and the best most accurate predictor of the likely winning and losing margins. It the closest thing to an objective prediction there is.

Thousands of individuals all making an assessment on a likely margin. But not pontificating - putting their money where their mouth is. Millions of it.

And that includes professional punters, whose money makes up the majority of the betting pool and who only remain pros by being correct more often than not.

The line in our game was 42 points. We almost had that covered by the end of the first quarter. 

Now, some might say we should have therefore won by 100 plus points and smashed past the line.

But that is not how footy works. It is rarely so linear.

Take last night's blues dogs game. I backed the dogs to win (it was even money, so the line was 0.5 points).

I also backed them to win by 40 plus points.

Halfway thru the third when the dogs went up by 5 goals and the blues having only scored 1 goal, it looked for all the world like I was going  to win both bets - certainly the win.

But I know from bitter experience that the more likely scenario is it would go back towards the line. Which it did.

And so it was in our game.

Having backed the dees at the 42 point line, the bet was seemingly in the bag by half time. But at the start of the last quarter it was well and truly back in play. In fact we had fallen behind it.

We ended up beating the line by 2 goals - which is statistically significant.

But more the point, leaving aside people's 'feel' for how the game should have played out after half time, it indicates that we surpassed the well informed market prediction of this game.

In other words, people's feeling about the game notwithstanding, it was an impressive win - albeit not the greatest watch.

It's worth lining up pre game predictions on this site with post game lamentations.

Few would have been unhappy with a 54 point win. Some might have even worried we would take them too easily and have a shock loss or a scrappy win.

But because we so thoroughly thrashed them up to half time some of the post match commentary suggests the second half was a failure because we didn't double our half time lead or run away with it.

Poor in the second half, didn't keep going, exposed our issues, we get smashed in clearances, how could we let the hawks mids dominate yada yada yada.

So a 54 point win suddenly becomes a disappointment.

But all that happened was the score reverted to the line.

As goody said in his presser, it is not possible to keep an AFL team scoreless  - every team will have a period in a given match where they get the momentum.

And interestingly, we actually only had two less scoring shots in the second half than we did in the first half.

Honestly, some people need to get a grip. 

We have had a VERY tough fixture in terms of travel and breaks between games.

And we have gone into two games losing a critical, senior defender right before the game - not to mention losing our most important player for three of our nine games.

Seven wins from nine games, with a percentage of 143 - 22 points ahead of the media's darling the pies, all while still experimenting with roles, structures and systems and not looking for perfection.

By any measure - well except those used by some dees fans - we are travelling very well.

And whilst we travel on a six day break this week, after that we have three consecutive games at the MCG, the bye then play the cats down in Geelong.

Meaning we stay in Victoria until round 16 at the beginning of July. So, six weeks without having to travel.

The hardest part of the home and away season is behind us after the Port game.

Agree with the spirit of your post entirely.

Just on your last line though, I would qualify it by saying the hardest part of the H&A season in terms of travel/venues/breaks is behind us after this week.

But in terms of opposition, it begins this week.

Ou next 8 games are Port Adelaide (away off a six day break), Fremantle (we lost to them last year and they may have turned a corner in the last few weeks), Carlton (off a six day break), Collingwood, Geelong (in Geelong), GWS, St Kilda and Adelaide.

GWS is the only one of those sides who isn't currently considered a challenger for at least 8th (assuming they don't beat Collingwood today that is).

  On 14/05/2023 at 02:39, mauriesy said:

No, but I think some supporters should see the long game. We are banking 50-point wins @ 200% against poorer opposition to provide our best players with lower TOG to preserve them for the long season.

The season is a marathon, not a sprint, and a premiership is the objective rather than a 100+ point win along the way. Remember 2022? It wasn't that long ago.

This is a hugely underrated point on here IMO.

Yesterday May and Lever played 100% TOG and Hibberd 93%.

But no one else did more than 88%, including Langdon, who in 2021-22 was a regular 95% TOG player.

Oliver was 87%, Gawn 86%, Viney 80% and Petracca was BOG despite just 77%.

This, IMO, is one of the many ways we are approaching 2023 in a tweaked fashion that gives us good reason to believe our platform is stronger going into the winter than it was last year.

  On 14/05/2023 at 03:04, david_neitz_is_my_dad said:

We are 2nd favorite to win the flag according to SportsBet which is amusing to me because we don't look flash at all

I’m with you. Yes we won and I get all that  good teams find a way to win stuff and bank early win etc etc. But there are obvious gaps in our game, which is ok given we don’t want to peak now.

I think my concern is I’m not sure how good we are. We haven’t really beaten anybody that is contending for the flag so it’s hard to get a read on true form. If we were to knock off Power next week I think I’ll start to feel better about our Sept prospects and that we are probably being a little to unrealistic on expectations on our performances. 

 

Loved our defensive unit.

Led by Lever organising them. May's muscles, Bowey's courage, McVee's hustle, Hibbo's reading and endeavour, River's size, speed and attack, Brayshaw's smarts and skill.

The defensive structures are amazing, and influential in creating turnovers. As a good team we really make the opponents pay for their errors.

Some of our fast down the MCG wings ball movement, was great.

We started the game with the forwards leading to the boundary. If we aren't efficient converting opportunities good sides could hurt us.

Some of our handballs missed the mark and some put the receiver under pressure.

We are also happy to run with the opponents and peel off to a zone as a backman picks up the opponent.

We really know our roles and the team communication is working. We have a "buy in' and 'connection" going, that stuff that Goody used to empathise when we were middle of the pack club.

Good win, now for a tester against Port.

Go Dees.

 

 

  On 14/05/2023 at 03:39, Demonland said:

 

I’m very worried about Petty. The ankle will be fine, but foot injuries are horrible. 

  On 14/05/2023 at 03:47, Jaded No More said:

I’m very worried about Petty. The ankle will be fine, but foot injuries are horrible. 

On the plus side, he was running well and marking like a master after his foot started giving issues, and arguably could’ve kept playing (according) to Goody. On the minus, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a ***ty little fracture. Fingers crossed! 

  On 14/05/2023 at 04:55, Webber said:

On the plus side, he was running well and marking like a master after his foot started giving issues, and arguably could’ve kept playing (according) to Goody. On the minus, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a ***ty little fracture. Fingers crossed! 

****ty little fracture is what worries me. Tommy Mac also played for two weeks before they discovered his foot was buggered. 

  On 14/05/2023 at 01:40, Sydney_Demon said:

I agree with you about the betting market except I think it got it badly wrong with the Swans-Fremantle game (and those Demonlanders who pointed this out pre-match I hope you made some money). The line of course is more meaningful than the odds as the odds are always understated since they include betting agencys' profit margins (roughly 5% in a 2-horse  race).

I think we are all guilty of simply extrapolating early leads into massive wins and this simply isn't how it works. There's always going to be reversion to the mean. This of course works in both directions. Similarly it's so easy to look at poor results or great wins and say that is representative of how the team is travelling whereas in reality it's just one game and is not necessarily representative of anything. Form is always going to fluctuate, both for Melbourne and whoever their opponent is.

 

There is no right or wrong as such with betting markets. They are simply a market driven expression of the probability of a particualr event occuring. 

And punting is about making your own assessment of the probability of a certain event occuring and if it dffiers from that of the market betting your assesmsnt is more accurate. 

  On 14/05/2023 at 03:30, titan_uranus said:

This is a hugely underrated point on here IMO.

Yesterday May and Lever played 100% TOG and Hibberd 93%.

But no one else did more than 88%, including Langdon, who in 2021-22 was a regular 95% TOG player.

Oliver was 87%, Gawn 86%, Viney 80% and Petracca was BOG despite just 77%.

This, IMO, is one of the many ways we are approaching 2023 in a tweaked fashion that gives us good reason to believe our platform is stronger going into the winter than it was last year.

The FD can't really win with some supporters.

Last year, many bemoaned that there wasn't more rotation of the squad. 

This year, we're clearly rotating in game and still winning comfortably, and now supporters aren't happy that we're only just winning clearance and only winning by 9 goals at round 9.

Look at Geelong last year. They were 5 wins, 4 losses to the same point in the year. They had a softer draw in the second half of the year, with majority of games down at their funny shaped ground. 

By the end of Round 10, we'll have travelled interstate 5 times in 10 games. Whatever happens next week, we'll have a better record than Geelong last year.

Patience is a virtue. It doesn't always pay off in footy, but the FD are on the right track IMO.

I actually like going to a game against one of the lesser clubs like Hawthorn. Plenty of seats in General Admission and on the train, generally relaxed atmosphere. 

You know, I really posted this so I could get in that 'lesser club' jibe at Hawthorn's expense.

Happy days.

  On 14/05/2023 at 06:20, Demonised said:

I actually like going to a game against one of the lesser clubs like Hawthorn. Plenty of seats in General Admission and on the train, generally relaxed atmosphere. 

You know, I really posted this so I could get in that 'lesser club' jibe at Hawthorn's expense.

Happy days.

The crowd was actually not bad. Just shy of 40,000. I reckon that’s decent considering how Hawks are traveling. 

 

Gawn doesn’t look 100% 

  On 14/05/2023 at 07:15, Demonland said:

 

Clearly the forwardline isn't working. Let's bring in BB and get rebounded against.

Edited May 14, 20231 yr by A F

  On 14/05/2023 at 01:11, binman said:

And that includes professional punters, whose money makes up the majority of the betting pool and who only remain pros by being correct more often than not.

How does this work @binman? Pros only remain Pros by winning more often than not, that means, of course, that casual punters are the ones funding the betting companies.  Do you know roughly what percentage of money in the pool is from Pros and also what sort of ROI on their stake are they looking for over the duration?

  On 14/05/2023 at 08:13, old55 said:

How does this work @binman? Pros only remain Pros by winning more often than not, that means, of course, that casual punters are the ones funding the betting companies.  Do you know roughly what percentage of money in the pool is from Pros and also what sort of ROI on their stake are they looking for over the duration?

I think most pro punters would be looking at somewhere between 3 to 5% on turnover.

  On 14/05/2023 at 08:21, drysdale demon said:

I think most pro punters would be looking at somewhere between 3 to 5% on turnover.

Over what duration?