1 hour ago, 640MD said:

Your correct. GW , he really is one who loves a loss.

Doesn’t he though?! He especially luvs him an interstate loss because going home on the plane is such fun! He practically has to sell his body parts on the black market to make the airfare, but it’s sooooo worth it to see such amazing losses.

On 28/06/2025 at 19:18, Dingo said:

And what would you tell a press conference if you were the coach?

That the team were so bad you wanted to vomit?

Boy, that’s going to make them want to improve next game, isn’t it?

Nothing wrong with the truth.
Doesn't have to name names.

14 hours ago, Deez21 said:

I'm sure @Ghostwriter enjoyed that game and first quarter performance as those of us who actually care about the direction of the club were disgusted at what we saw in that first quarter, but seeing as losing every week now makes him happy - must've been a great weekend for him

14 hours ago, beelzebub said:

Missed by ... that.... much ... 😉

1 hour ago, Ghostwriter said:

He had a ball. He thoroughly enjoyed the loss. He is now considering jumping on the misery-mongers bandwagon, is Ghostwriter. 😃

1 hour ago, 640MD said:

G’day. Come here often then, and read everything,

Your correct. GW , he really is one who loves a loss.

1 hour ago, Harvey Wallbanger said:

Don't do it.....climb down!

59 minutes ago, DeeZone said:

Deez21 are you new on here are you actually a Dee supporter perhaps you should acquaint yourself with the Training Reports on DLand, your above comments are both rude and bare no resemblance to reality.

28 minutes ago, layzie said:

If you don't acquaint,

then show restraint...

6 minutes ago, Ghostwriter said:

Doesn’t he though?! He especially luvs him an interstate loss because going home on the plane is such fun! He practically has to sell his body parts on the black market to make the airfare, but it’s sooooo worth it to see such amazing losses.

Big shoutout to @Deez21 , who’s diving into Ghostwriter like it’s the fourth quarter of a prelim and everything’s on the line. After countless hours poured into the club – cheering, designing, cutt'in 'n' past'in, heavy lifting, driv'in and fly'in and possibly hexing umpires – they are now taking their rightful place in the data trenches. @Ghostwriter's training reports have long held excellent standing on land, and now they're tackling the cloud with the same fierce loyalty and unrelenting accuracy. The club’s spine may wobble, but the target of your venom does not. Love you Ghosty.

1 hour ago, binman said:

I agree that KE can be misleading - another factor is that mid forwards kick under pressure more often than say defenders so their KE stats are skewed.

But it's not useless, partic when used in relation to mid/forwards, who unlike defenders don't actually do many chip it around and backward kicks (perhaps they should) and partic when compared to players in like roles.

That list is actually a pretty good reflection of our worst kicks amongst our mid forwards (perhaps not so much of the best on that list?).

Take Tracc. In mid-May, of players with 50 or more kicks inside 50 Tracc was the worst in the AFL for that kick being marked by a teammate. I think I'm right in saying of his 50 plus kicks inside 50 only two was marked by a demon. Oliver was not much better. Sure, that's not all on them but bottom line, both are poor kicks.

Perhaps the purest stat for kicking is accuracy at goal - Tracc has kicked 13.15 season, but i shudder to think what that percentage would look like if shanks on the on the full and not making the distance were included

By contrast Koz has kicked 27.19

That’s fair.

Tracc is not the same player as he was pre injury yet. His kicking efficiency is his poorest ever. But his score involvement percentage is still ridiculously high. It was 35% of disposals since 2020 down to 30% this year which is still really elite. Which contradicts what the marks inside 50 data suggests.

Can find a stat to support anything these days.

2 minutes ago, Fork 'em said:

Can find a stat to support anything these days.

I know a good stat... it supports Outcome 😉

The rest are dubious and selective at best

This sums up what it was like watching the first quarter @binman

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLeS3sLxdD4/?igsh=NjJraXhmeTJkdndo

25 minutes ago, Watson11 said:

That’s fair.

Tracc is not the same player as he was pre injury yet. His kicking efficiency is his poorest ever. But his score involvement percentage is still ridiculously high. It was 35% of disposals since 2020 down to 30% this year which is still really elite. Which contradicts what the marks inside 50 data suggests.

It doesn't contradict the marks inside 50 from his kick inside 50 at all not one iota

Score involvements include any disposal in a scoring chain and of course any goals and points a player actually kick.

The percentage of score involvements per disposal for any player playing as many midfield minutes as tracc, particularly one that also goes forward, SHOULD be high

That's to say mids get the most disposals, are key to how teams transtion the footy, and are of course often involved in scored from stoppages.

In fact far from contradicting the significance of tracc's woeful inability to hit a target inside 50, the fact that his score involvements percentage has dropped is likely at least in part a function of a drop off in kicking skills (noting he is playing more time as a mid meaning fewer scoring shots and therefore, by definition, a lower percentage of his disposals will be score involvements)

A better stat to make your point would be goal assists, which is defined as a disposal that directly sets up a goal (which is also a score involvement).

And I'd bet dollars to donuts his goal assists have fallen off a cliff.

Edited June 30Jun 30 by binman

10 minutes ago, binman said:

It doesn't contradict the marks inside 50 from his kick inside 50 at all not one iota

Score involvements include any disposal in a scoring chain and of course any goals and points a player actuall kick.

The percentage of score involvements per disposal for any player playing as many midfield minutes as tracc, particularly one that also goes forward SHOULD be high

That's to say mids get the most possessions, are often key elements of how teams transtion and ate of course ofyen involved in scored from stoppages.

In fact far from contradicting the significance of his tracc's woeful inability to hit a target inside 50 the fact that his score involvements percentage has dropped is likely at least in part a function of his woeful kicking skills (noting he is playing more time as a mid this meaning fewer scoring shots and therefore by definition a lower percentage of his disposals will be score involvements)

A better stat to make your point would be goal assists, which is defined as a disposal that directly sets up a goal (ie not part of a chain of more than 2 disposals).

And I'd bet dollars to donors his goal assists have fallen off w cliff.

Comparison:

* Christian Petracca's goal assist per inside 50 disposal: 0.148

* AFL average goal assist per inside 50 disposal: 0.169

Christian Petracca's rate of 0.148 goal assists per inside 50 disposal is slightly below the AFL average of approximately 0.169. This suggests that while he's a significant contributor to Melbourne's inside 50s, the efficiency of those entries resulting in a direct goal assist is a little lower than the league average.

The above analysis brought to you by Google AI.

2 hours ago, ElDiablo14 said:

It was effectively over by 3QT.

Lots of "garbage" time goals.

I am not sure we would have the ascendency in the last if GC had kept the pressure.

I'm not so sure. Whenever a team catches up a bit in the Q4 it is often attributed to the leading team putting the cue in the rack etc. But often the only evidence of that is that there were outscored for the first time - that's not proof of lack of effort in itself and other possible explanations are not hard to list.

In the GC case they needed percentage and they seemed pretty excited every time they kicked goal in Q4 for a bunch of rack cuers.

2 minutes ago, sue said:

I'm not so sure. Whenever a team catches up a bit in the Q4 it is often attributed to the leading team putting the cue in the rack etc. But often the only evidence of that is that there were outscored for the first time - that's not proof of lack of effort in itself and other possible explanations are not hard to list.

In the GC case they needed percentage and they seemed pretty excited every time they kicked goal in Q4 for a bunch of rack cuers.

I think based on how dominant GC was in Q1 and Q3 you can expect them maintaining the score gap pretty much unchanged through the last, If they were 100% invested.

Unless they were just tired. It would be a first for us, we tend to be the team that runs out of steam in the last quarter.

1 hour ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Big shoutout to @Deez21 , who’s diving into Ghostwriter like it’s the fourth quarter of a prelim and everything’s on the line. After countless hours poured into the club – cheering, designing, cutt'in 'n' past'in, heavy lifting, driv'in and fly'in and possibly hexing umpires – they are now taking their rightful place in the data trenches. @Ghostwriter's training reports have long held excellent standing on land, and now they're tackling the cloud with the same fierce loyalty and unrelenting accuracy. The club’s spine may wobble, but the target of your venom does not. Love you Ghosty.

I met Ghostie on the weekend. I know Brownie personally outside of DL so this was my first crossing of paths with a DL

I took my 10yo son to his first game (excluding a Suns Swans pre season game in Lismore in 2018 - doesn’t count). After the game we went to say hi to Ghostie who had some Dees merch for my son - GW was thoroughly lovely and even voiced how disheartening the game was ****in the first quarter****. Didn’t seem deliriously happy coming up from Melb on an early flight, cheer squad duties, pack up, late flight home.

My sense is GW doesn’t like losing either but also doesn’t like the sometimes nasty and personal attacks against players/club.

Bit of restraint / perspective needed perhaps.

[For the avoidance of doubt - I obviously have form in my views of the club - particularly the way we don’t respond to continual bad umpiring and most of all our utter failure to instantly pushback forcefully against the media and Collingwood mafia after the hit on Angus, and I mean getting in front of the channel 7 right at Daicos’s side to have an instant right of reply and calling for 8 weeks minimum. ]

Edited June 30Jun 30 by Superunknown
K

Rewatched some of the game.... a glaring difference was THEIR general field kicking as compared to ours.

They kicked to advantage easily 3 to 4 times more than we did. They were "on" ... we were a bit here , a bit there. This game was nothing particularly different in that respect imho. Our kicking / passing skills are... well, when they turn up I might know.

5 hours ago, Watson11 said:

Kicking efficiency is such a useless stat. It rewards 15m backwards kicks that are a far worse outcome than a kick to a lead inside 50 that falls short but still might result in a score.

If you want a meaningful stat, then Wheeloratings also has Kick Rating made up of Risk Rating and Retention Rating. It’s only available for teams from what I can tell. @WheeloRatings Are the individual player kick ratings available?

Our team retention rating is 5th in the AFL so it’s not too bad overall. I’d love to know where each of our players sit compared to other teams, as that would actually be useful.

Yes, the retention rating is also available for players. If you click "Select statistical categories" and select "Disposal Efficiency" or Custom -> Show custom fields -> Disposal Efficiency has the individual fields.

Of the 169 midfielders and mid-forwards with 20+ kicks, here are Melbourne's ranks for retention rating:

7th Pickett (+10.5)
20th Lindsay (+6.0)
38th Langdon (+4.0)
61st Chandler (+1.9)
64th Langford (+1.5)
102nd Oliver (-2.0)
160th Viney (-11.2)
164th Petracca (-12.3)

15 minutes ago, WheeloRatings said:

Yes, the retention rating is also available for players. If you click "Select statistical categories" and select "Disposal Efficiency" or Custom -> Show custom fields -> Disposal Efficiency has the individual fields.

Of the 169 midfielders and mid-forwards with 20+ kicks, here are Melbourne's ranks for retention rating:

7th Pickett (+10.5)
20th Lindsay (+6.0)
38th Langdon (+4.0)
61st Chandler (+1.9)
64th Langford (+1.5)
102nd Oliver (-2.0)
160th Viney (-11.2)
164th Petracca (-12.3)

Therein lies our biggest problem... our three main mids are terrible at hitting targets.

The positive is Pickett, Lindsay and Langford are all near the top and they are our future.

1 hour ago, sue said:

I'm not so sure. Whenever a team catches up a bit in the Q4 it is often attributed to the leading team putting the cue in the rack etc. But often the only evidence of that is that there were outscored for the first time - that's not proof of lack of effort in itself and other possible explanations are not hard to list.

In the GC case they needed percentage and they seemed pretty excited every time they kicked goal in Q4 for a bunch of rack cuers.

It does seem to be the first thing that people jump to. No one stat can really measure all round effort but in times like this I do like to check the pressure ratings.

GC's first quarter pressure rating was 209 while their 4th quarter rating was 166. Our first quarter 160 and our last 170. It does suggest that it wasn't GC's best quarter for effort but again, it doesn't tell everything.

Interestingly we had 213 in the second quarter and I do feel this was probably our best 'effort' quarter. We couldn't quite get the reward for it and make the in-roads we needed to but we were right in their faces. Which makes me even more annoyed about the meek first quarter intensity.

9 minutes ago, DistrACTION Jackson said:

Therein lies our biggest problem... our three main mids are terrible at hitting targets.

The positive is Pickett, Lindsay and Langford are all near the top and they are our future.

The XL, Langford and Kozzy have high volume disposal?

It will be interesting to see if they can keep the higher efficiency as their volume of leather increases.

Too many of our players are not living up to expectations that's not only from outside the tent. As a supporter I don't have a clue where this club is going, nor do I have a clue what the coaches are doing. I'm not invested as much after the GF and losing patience with losing the same way week after week. This list is going backwards and the club looks flat.

36 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

The XL, Langford and Kozzy have high volume disposal?

It will be interesting to see if they can keep the higher efficiency as their volume of leather increases.

I have no doubt they will be able to keep at least their current levels, especially Langford and Lindsay.

Pickett is already top 10 so doesn't really have to do much different. Just keep doing what you're doing.

2 hours ago, ElDiablo14 said:

I think based on how dominant GC was in Q1 and Q3 you can expect them maintaining the score gap pretty much unchanged through the last, If they were 100% invested.

Unless they were just tired. It would be a first for us, we tend to be the team that runs out of steam in the last quarter.

Don't get me wrong we were inexcusably poor in the first quarter.

The Suns should have buried us - but didn't because of their inaccuracy (how many times have we said that about us).

But I reject the narrative that the Suns put the cue in the rack, were in cruise mode afger quarter time and if challenged could just go up a gear.

if that was the case it would be reflected in the pressure stats, which it wasn't until the last quarter:

Team pressure

Quarter	For	Agn	Diff
1	160	209	-49
2	213	198	+15
3	174	189	-15
4	170	166	+4
Match	180	190	-10

The Suns were flagging and it's worth noting their game against the giants ladtvweek had almost exactly the same pattern in terms of pressure - incredible in the first and blew the giants away before dropping each quarter and having their worst rating by some margin in the last quarter.

If Melksham kicks his last shot at goal its 13 points with nearly 4 minutes of the clock and we had all the momentum. If that goes thru we are well and truly a chance of winning.

Again, its worth noting the comparison with their previous game.

22 points up at 3 quarter time, and seemingly in control, the Suns stopped to a walk in the last conceding 9 scoring shots and the game. The Suns had 5 scoring shots

Apart from the margin at 3 quarter time the numbers were almost identical

We had 11 scoring shots in the last quarter, and the Suns had 4, and as noted we could have snatched it.

The difference was we kicked 5.6 and the Giants kicked 8.1.

Again, we were woeful in the first but lets not fall into the trap of downplaying how well we played fir the remainder of the match, particularly given we were down a defender, our key forward and one full rotation for over half the game.

6 hours ago, Ghostwriter said:

He had a ball. He thoroughly enjoyed the loss. He is now considering jumping on the misery-mongers bandwagon, is Ghostwriter. 😃

Has he got on board the wine for breakfast diet?

34 minutes ago, ANG13 said:

Has he got on board the wine for breakfast diet?

Nah he’s more your whine typa fellah… breakfast, lunch and dinner.

On 28/06/2025 at 21:31, titan_uranus said:

One part of what happened today really resonates with me as the crux of our list problem.

…

Therein lies our problem - our list has no midfield depth on it, which means we can't do what we desperately need to do and replace Viney and Oliver with players who can kick. The ones who can kick can't compete, whether because they're too young (Langford) or, mainly, they're just not good enough as midfielders (Sparrow, Salem, Rivers, Laurie, Woewodin, Billings, Brown).

I would say that we really don’t know what we have in the spares box.

Brisbane had one of the longest injury lists of all last year. Because they were forced to play first year players, they discovered that Logan Morris was ready to play. If they had a fit list, he probably wouldn’t have played as yet.

I would throw the keys to anybody who has shown themselves able to win a one on one clearance.

Chandler, Windsor, McVee, Bowery, Tholstrup, Laurie, Langford, Lindsay, Woey, Culley and Brown. Hell, I’d even throw Adams and Verrall through there, just to see what they had.

18 minutes ago, DiscoStu17 said:

Hell, I’d even throw Adams and Verrall through there, just to see what they had.

You would think Adams would get a run before the end of the year. Lever sick apparently, so not going to help his return. Alarm bells re May, though presumably longer term Petty and Turner can hold the fort, especially if Lever can get back to some kind of decent version of himself and help marshal the troops and provide leadership down back. But perhaps for next season ...

20 minutes ago, DiscoStu17 said:

Chandler, Windsor, McVee, Bowery, Tholstrup, Laurie, Langford, Lindsay, Woey, Culley and Brown. Hell, I’d even throw Adams and Verrall through there, just to see what they had.

Agree. But in the understanding that playing inexperience, young, fringe players we increase the risk that we'll lose games.