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Patrick Cripps once he is free to play

After a few days of seething in anger I have (finally) recuperated from our loss to Collingwood. It really was a game we should of won. What annoys me the most about Collingwood isn't even their players. I can have begrudging respect for some of the Magpies players. It is the numerous amount of vile, disgusting, obnoxious and arrogant Collingwood supporters that there are and the fact that they still think the Melbourne Football Club are a joke to them. Getting stuck on the train carriage full of them on the way home from the MCG is never a pleasant experience. I have always had the view of quality over quantity when it comes to Melbourne Demons supporters. In many ways being reigning 2021 AFL Premiers didn't do much except give them more reason to ridicule us when we lose. Getting beaten by them twice so far this season has really sucked. I am definitely hopeful we can enact revenge upon them in the finals. Anyway, I hate Collingwood and I look forward to the days when we can begin beating them again on a regular basis.

AFL must be counting the Brownlow votes first

I don't have any major issues with 'no change', we didn't lose last week because the team isn't right (as such), we lost because we missed a few we should have slotted (and probably would have most other days). 13-11 is not a terrible day at the office. And the Pies were having a day in front of goal they likely can't replicate, and got the rub of a few frees they shouldn't have. I will add, I'd have liked to see Harmes get a game, maybe at the expense of Jordon who has not looked right, but I guess the faith is being shown in Jordon and the likes of ANB getting the job done. I reckon the boys now have additional fire in the belly from the loss to the Pies, and will look to atone bigtime against Carlton. On the topic of JVR, what's the point of bringing in someone underdeveloped, who will most likely suffer from the same issues plaguing most forwards in our team - poor delivery/bombs i50 etc. I don't think many forwards would survive with our current approach. If we work on our delivery, we might just find Brown, Fritter and the rest in better positions to score (aside from Gawn - his misses have generally had little to do with delivery). JVR would almost be set up to fail, and there'd be a loud contingent of people calling for his premature exit. Nah, let's get him right, but specially our delivery and approach. We've got this. Pound for pound, we demolish the Blues. Let's just get it done, then tear the Lions a new one.

This team is good enough to win and should win Just get it done Dees

At 47.28 how consistent do you want? 6th in the Coleman and better than Fritta. And he is only 22.

“ one or BOTH of the first rounders we get fr Jackson” go F yourself with that deal.

All I’m asking is who is in the team!

My initial response was FMD ……. but I took a deep breath and reflected on last weekend. It was perhaps the best game of footy for the season, huge stakes between two top teams, enormous pressure and some important breaks went against us. We lost by only a few points, with lots of upside to the level we know that we can play at (eg. goal kicking and delivery to our forwards). I’m okay with no changes in those circumstances.

20 premiership players. We did it last year, we can do it again. just need a major change in form and attacking flair changing fringe players won’t make us better

What an exaggeration. I spotted Maysie kicking to the right at training this week.

Steak knives as part of Naughton deal.

At $700,000 they can have him That is an absurd figure for an injury prone 29 year old

It's good to see this sort on analysis as it's sorely missing in AFL coverage. The first question is ..... what do you do with that information? And the second is .... how does the probability change when the opposition knows what you are trying to do? Baseball and basketball have, as binman says, undergone a transformation in how the game is played due to analytics. Baseball was all about base hits and sacrifice bunts ('small-ball'), whilst Michael Jordan feasted on a steady diet of mid-range two pointers. Now baseball is about the three true outcomes (strikeouts, walks and home runs) whilst basketball is about three pointers and shots at the rim. But the difference between these games and footy is that they both have distinct, predictable and repeatable phases of play that can be measured specifically. In baseball, a pitcher starts the play by pitching a ball to a waiting batter so you can measure the outcomes based on that. In basketball the ball is (almost always) given to a player deep in their defensive half and the team must score against a waiting defence, so you can measure an outcome from there. Footy is different. The ground is so big and there are so many ways to play the game, most of which is based on physical contests. You can measure the contests won/lost, but not all contests are equal. A contested mark next to the boundary in defence is far less valuable than that same mark taken in your attacking goalsquare. Or a centre clearance won by running the ball forward is far more valuable than one where you shuffle it back and dump it forward. A contest you win 1 vs 3 is far more valuable than one you win 3 vs 1. A contest won in the centre with a player free in the goalsquare is more valuable than one where there's nobody else to kick to. So what do we do with the information? We try to kick more scores! But is winning a function of valuing scoring shots over goal kicking, or is increased scoring shots a function of a more holistic dominance of a football team over their opponents? I think the limitation of those stats is that they are really crude measures. And that's totally reasonable because we don't have much information to go on and it's ridiculously difficult to quantify what creates wins in a sport where not all numbers mean the same thing. You can set up your team to win a statistical category but that doesn't have the same impact on the result as a lot of other sports.

I'm also confused by Goodwins presser yesterday. He stated that they have been really happy with Gawns progress in the forward line and could see this as something that could be used more often down the track. Checks notes and see that Gawn hasn't kicked a goal since round 12 against Sydney... Goody is a funny bugger. ...

simple. my hate for the filth is unconditional and eternal.

I love our captain, but the less I have to watch him line up for set shots on goal, the longer my marriage will last.

Article in the Sun by Jay Clark stating the Todd Viney is tipped to becoming Clarko's right hand man in a Neil Balme type role at the club. Supposedly Clarko is putting the feelers out to get a working crew behind him for the job. In the same article it also states that according to industry figures, there's strong talk that Adem Yze will be the man for the GWS job.

Is Ah Chee free to play this weekend? oh right, I forgot [censored] joke

And this is why, if Melbourne folded tomorrow, I would never watch another game of football ever again.

I can live with Cripps action not being worthy of suspension. I can’t accept there being a different set of rules for star players than the rest of the competition.

307 posts ,13 pages and a whole lot mind space and time put into the whole changes thread. Feels a bit of a waste 😜

Well it seems the one tall forward set up ( with Max dropping in) is considered viable for September! I don't like it but .................... Go Dees !!!!!

Maybe the FD have researched and understood that well north of $1M by 7 years and 2 early 1st rounders for a King brother or McKay is just not feasible and we need to make our bed some other way - $700k and a 2nd rounder for Grundy could be astute business.

Didn't think you could post selfies on here.

Goodwin has condidence in the team. They should of won last week. He looked furious at the post game presser. He and the players know what is expected of them Saturday night

Carlton name cripps. They are a poor man's Collingwood

Is it confidence or stubbornness? - not sure

I like the idea, mostly because it seems to be the opposite of the consensus around here. Get in Grundy! If nothing else the game day thread will be filled with fury, finger pointing and rant. So probably not that different.

I'm just going to quote myself because I'm a terrible person .... These transformations in teams have been really interesting but there is a value in zigging when the others are zagging. This works for a couple of reasons but a lot of it has to do with the idea that everyone is setting themselves up to win against the prevailing style. This also leaves some quality players for a different style as being very undervalued. In the NBA, there are a lot of players who are excellent finals players because they are able to hit the 'low value' mid range 2 pointers. The analytics say that this is bad basketball but the opposition defence is entirely geared around preventing 3 pointers and shots at the basket, so a good mid-range shooter can find the seams in the defence to beat them in a game they're not set up to play. The same with baseball, where big hitting pull hitters are able to lay down low risk bunts to get on base because the defence is playing so deep and shifting. In the AFL, Hawthorn found low cost kickers when the game was being dominated by the scrappers of Sydney, who actually found value in scrappers during the Brisbane/West Coast/Port midfield skill period. Richmond got value in role players when everyone was searching for the high skill players of the Hawthorn era. Now everyone is going to be looking for dominant contested midfielders from our era, so there will be value to be had elsewhere. That's just a thought bubble, I think! 😄

This is an old post of mine, which may give you an indication what that horrible place was like. In round 20 of 1982, my Demon mate and I went to Victoria Park for the first (and last) time to watch Melbourne play Collingwood. We found standing room in a packed outer but soon realised we were surrounded by a seething mob of dirty, ugly, loud, abusive, obscene, smelly and toothless black and white supporters. Almost without exception, they were drunk, smoking like chimneys, swearing like wharfies and even at this early stage of the day fighting amongst themselves. Rather than relinquish their spot in the crowd, they were peeing where they stood. Some of the men were just as bad. We started well with the wind but the Pies had regained the lead by half-time. The third quarter was all ours with eight goals and in the last, we kicked another eight to finish all over them by nine goals. Glenn McLean was magnificent that day, marking everything in sight and earning the three Brownlow votes. Collingwood were so impressed that they traded for him and you will rapt to hear that Glenn went on to have a wonderful two-game career with the Pies. Having kept very, very quiet all day for fear of attracting the wrong sort of attention, the beers (ice-cold cans!) finally got the better of me and this is when I did the craziest thing in my life. As Mark 'Jacko' Jackson kicked his seventh to seal victory, I let rip with a loud "Go Demons!!". Things then went eerily quiet in the outer as hundreds of pairs of beady eyes bored into us. I looked at my mate, he nodded and we turned and ran as fast as we could towards the exit and kept going all the way to Johnstone Street where we jumped on the first bus we found. It didn't matter that it was heading in the wrong direction, we just wanted to get away from that horrible joint. Only my drycleaner will know just how frightened I was that day.

I'm not a fan of Collingwood but Geelong are my pet hatred. They caused us so much misery in the Bailey era. Beating them in the 2018 EF and the 2021 PF couldn't have been more satisfying.

My husband is a medical specialist and a life long Collingwood supporter. I am a third generation demon supporter and my family all despise Collingwood. I have to hand it to my husband, he supports the Dees in every other match, comes to the footy with me and accepts the Dees membership that I give him every Christmas. I on the other hand show no such grace and if he handed me a pie’s membership, I would flush it down the toilet. I have been to two GF with him and supported Geelong and WCE. He is obviously a better person than me. His fear has always been a Dees vs Pies GF ( for obvious reasons). There are some good Pies supporters out there. ( But I still loathe them)

Snow White is at home one day when she hears an emergency siren sounding, which means there has been a bad accident at the mine where the seven dwarves work. Full of trepidation, she races down to find there has been a cave in and her seven little friends are trapped underground. She puts her ear to the blocked mine entrance and very faintly hears a small voice in the distance singing "Good Old Collingwood Forever". "Thank goodness", she says. "At least Dopey is still alive".

66,010

Another great piece of analysis on our game from the ABC for all of you data nerds - this time on clutch players and the art of winning close games. A glowing endorsement to Cameron Zurhaar who tops the league table in terms of % of his team's close fourth quarter scores. Imagine what he could do at the Dees! Though not mentioned, Petracca and Oliver rate amongst the best in the league for share of first possession at stoppages, with Petracca lifting significantly in final quarters. Also interesting to read that this year for every 100 times a team wins the ball in a game, they score about 71 points. That rises to 91 points from 100 won centre clearances. It goes to show the importance of our contested game style. Inside the Game: Taylor Walker, Patrick Cripps, Cameron Zurhaar, Liam Baker — the clutch players of the AFL - ABC News https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-11/who-stands-up-in-clutch-time-in-the-afl/101317946

A similar logic has fundamentally changed how basketball is played in the NBA. In simple terms, the data showed that teams score more on average by shooting a higher ratio of 3 point shots, despite the much lower percentages of them being made compared to 2 point shots. The highest percentage shot in basketball is from under the hoop. And so for a long time the NBA model involved working it inside to monster centres. I read it years ago, but can't recall the specific ratio (axis of bob or George will know). But for illustration lets say in the 80s and 90s it was 80% 2 point shots and 20% 3 point shots Now it is a three point shootathon, with maybe a 60-40 split (again I'm guessing here). Scores have gone up and the type of players making the NBA is changing in terms of their role and physique. Fewer crazy big centres, more athletic players who can play multiple positions. To be honest, I don't like watching the NBA as much now as I liked the more physical crash and bash style in the 80s. It was more like footy. Funnily enough, you could argue footy has gone the opposite way, and perhaps for the same reason ie data driven. The premiership model now is forward half, territory football. Get it inside 50. Trap it inside 50. Win contested ball and in post clearance contested ball. Turn it over with pressure and score. Get shots on goal. Often from congestion, stoppages, or crappy angles. If you miss, set up and trap it in. The first 10 mins of the third quarter against the pies was the perfect example of the model. That model jibes with the data above re increased scoring over the journey with increased scoring shots. Why I say the AFL has gone the opposite way is that the best type of player for the forward half combat model is strong bulls who can compete in the clinches. Almost like rugby players. Sure you still need some silky skilled players, but not as many as say 10-15 years ago.

If I see one newspaper with Cripps' face on it on my morning walk tomorrow I will buy it, burn it and urinate on the ashes.

I agree with this. I've been p*ssed off with the game of AFL for years and have several times stated that the only reason I continue to follow is because of my irrational attachment to the MFC. I don't even like watching a lot of game, sometimes even when we're in them, because of ll the throwing, umpires choosing which subset of rules they'll apply each week, etc etc. Of course our magnificent flag has rejuvenated my enthusiasm. But let's face it, overall, the game is [censored]ed.

FMD !! If this goes much longer my shiraz supplies will be severely depleted

Was it Lachie Hunter that took out half a street of parked cars?

Would rather the filth keep him the next 5 and be obligated in paying his $1m/year salary

MFC trades for Grundy: It's a terrible decision. He's injury prone/too old/contract is too long/$ too big. GFC trades for Grundy: It's a great decision. They keep doing this and never bottom out. I hate Geelong.

sometimes hate doesn't seem a strong enough word to convey my feelings for the filth

The ground is public open space. The building is used, in part, for some useful community purposes. Victoria Park used to be referred to as the zoo. Insulting to animals really.

Hate Collingwood but I do like Craig McRae

I just watched the hit for the first time, over which Leigh Matthews was on commentary saying - “I suspect that was incidental contact”. Wowee! Thugs never die I guess. Incidental of course to the fact he wanted to maim Ah Chee without having to look at the ball or make any attempt to take possession of it.

He didn't get much love on here for that goal. Stood up when needed and the team should have made sure it was a winning goal.

This is undeniable. As I mentioned in another thread, I was on banner crew on Friday night. When their banner was raised and their players ran out the noise was like nothing I’ve ever heard. Comparable to when a jet puts on the afterburners, only way more overwhelming. It’s different when you hear it from the middle of the ground, as opposed to from the stands. It’s absolutely insane. And unless the players as well as the umpires are robots, there’s simply no way that sound is not gonna affect them. Sadly though, when we raised our banner and our players ran out the noise was just as mind blowing, only it was booing. 🙁