deanox

If the slinging action alone gets a week, then Sicily needs to be looked at.

I'm not an expert, but I think there are actually different pools. The average punter is betting with fixed odds against the house. The house adjusts odds to try to balance their books, and take their margin. Once you punt enough (often enough, enough money, or even just win enough) they move you off the normal accounts and into other pools where you are effectively betting against other punters (with the house still taking a margin, albeit much slimmer margin as they are now winning off volume). Basically at this point they ban you from betting at fixed odds: they know you are able to predict the market better than them, so why would they let you bet? There might be some other situations/arrangements/products as well.

It's been a pretty useful metric used for the last 5+ years at least. If you haven't seen it, it might be worth brushing up on some of the currently used statistical measures. While metres gained has its limitations, it shows his disposals aren't all backwards passes, short chips sideways or handball.

Interesting considering one of my concerns this year is how we have been carved up on transition a few times.

Thanks for your efforts as usual guys. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about Clarry's game, and if you think there have been changes this year. He is averaging 5.2 marks this year. The last few years he has been around the 3.5 mark. This has seen him pick up a few more uncontested possessions. He has pushed his kick/handball ratio a bit higher as well. Do we see this as a deliberate change in his game? Is it about trying to break the tag/attention he gets when at the coalface? Or just a result of sharing on-ball minutes with a few more players Rivers, Kozzy etc. (resulting in him being a bit more outside)?

I watched him a bit today and his competitiveness was really good. Kept working hard and eventually it paid off with a couple of marks.

Earlier this year, I thought that maybe he had lost a touch of pace. It might just have been part of working his way back into match fitness. It might be that he has lost a touch of pace, but it is only going to be apparent playing on the Cameron's of the world. But if he has lost a touch of pace, it hasn't affected his performance tonight whatsoever. Was fantastic, and you're right his ability and positioning in the contest was great.

When Petty lined upon front for his goal, Clarry called all the players downfield to get close, and when he kicked it they all mobbed him. There was a real team celebration of Petty kicking that, and I wondered if it was a behind the scenes confidence thing (you've been doing everything right and even though you haven't hit the scoreboard we know you will soon). After he kicked the goal he started clunking some good marks around the ground too.

Joeboy - on the ball Your three words for McVee were very well crafted.

6 Trac - explosive power and strength in the contest 5 Oliver - becoming a complete midfielder, adding intercept possessions and link up marks to his repertoire along with being the best inside player I've seen 4 Rivers - arguably our best long kick, and used it as a weapon tonight 3 Viney - just wills himself into contest after contest, smart body use, constantly creating space for everyone else too 2 Hibberd - Benjamin Button 1 May - got his marking mojo back. Impenetrable down back.

I think generalist is the right word. Lots of clubs would love to have him, and in 95% of my time watching Melbourne he would have been amongst the first picked. You're right about his endurance being a strength, maybe I haven't seen it on display as much because of how often he is sub?

It's a good point, but Viney has only just turned 29. You'd think he has 2-3 good years left before age becomes a factor. Lachy Hunter will be 29 at the end of the year and should have a few years left too. Meanwhile Jordan will be 23 at the end of this year. Does he really want to wait until he is 25-26 to own his own spot? I'd think his best chance of winning a flag is with us, and that would be the carrot to dangle, not Vineys age. He has actually had a pretty good run. From debut in R1 2021 to R23 2022, he played every game. He was an unused sub only 3 times, including the GF (where I think we did the wrong thing by him). He wasn't selected for the finals last year (probably a mistake in hindsight) and didn't play R1-2 this year. I expect he'll be sub again this week. He is probably a victim of us not having many injuries to our midfield in that time. Oliver, Petracca, Viney, Langdon, Brayshaw, Sparrow, Pickett, Spargo, ANB, have all had very good runs. With just one of them down at went time and Jordan would have had even more game time.

One thing that hurts Jordan is that he is a really solid all round midfielder without having an xfactor in any area. Doesn't have super endurance to make him a top tier winger, explosive pace or brutal strength, he isn't a silky kick, not an especially creative handballer, he isn't particularly tall and strong overhead for a midfielder. Probably one thing he does significantly above average is tackle. He doesn't have major deficiencies and does everything well, better than most players, so fills gaps perfectly. But in almost every position, a specialist gets the nod ahead of him at Melbourne at the moment. I think he has 200 game foot soldier written all over him, if we can somehow keep him. But I think that he will be attracted to the certainty of getting a go somewhere.

I'd like to see them clarify something like this: "Swinging arms and fists that connect directly with the head or face in an attempt to spoil is not incidental contact. Straight arm spoils where there is no contact between the first and head, will be considered incidental contact, where the sole objective is spoiling or contesting the mark." Overhead marking contests means high contact will occur. As it does in netball. But swinging fist style spoils probably void the duty of care to the other player, where that swinging fist is aimed at the head and not the ball.

Yup. If no prior, you must make a legitimate attempt to dispose of it. I thought that due to the great tackle, he wasn't able to make an attempt, therefore it should have been holding the ball. Also another suns player ran in and took it off him. That's incorrect disposal, you can't hand it to a team mate

That was actually some really good forward connection there. Pity Viney missed the shot.

I pulled my data from here, have not confirmed it's accuracy. https://www.zerohanger.com/your-afl-teams-state-by-state-list-breakdown-133368/

I assume Greens kids won't be eligible for Tasmania, because he was recruited from Manchester!

There are currently 18 players in the comp that come from Tassie. For context there are 32 NSW/ACT players. But 22 of those are listed with GWS or Sydney. Also 32 Queenslanders in the comp with 20 listed as GCS or Brisbane. Hopefully with a bit of investment in Tasmanian footy, there can be an increase in that number of players.

Yeah "Net Hit Outs to Advantage" is a much better stat (ie how many more hit outs to advantage than hit outs to disadvantage).

It's actual actions that strike at the core of who we are, so definitely not token. However, I made a suggestion during the constitution consultation recently that I wish was taken up: to include Naarm Football Club as a name we are known as, in our constitution. I did suggest that consultation with the First Nations community might be needed first; might not have had time for that.

Sounds silly but there isn't actually a "Perth" team making an extra WA side an easy sell in that sense? Perth also has the largest population outside of the three east coast cities and it is a footy town not a rugby league turn I feel that SA market could support the extra team, but no idea where you'd locate it/name it. With Adelaide and Port Adelaide, adding a South Adelaide would be laughable. Mt Gambier is the second largest urban area in SA by population. Perhaps based north of the city in the Gawler region? Canberra and Newcastle are double the population of Hobart, and Wollongong is larger than Hobart as well. But the risk with these locations (as well as Townsville and Cairns which are smaller than Hobart) is that they will be money sinks for the game as they aren't AFL heartland. Canberra may be the exception, but has the problem of a more transient population. Similarly Darwin or the NT (pop. of ~250k with 150k in Darwin itself) probably doesn't have the population or economy to support a team financially If a 20th team is added I think it needs to be ultimately successful financially and not on perpetual life support (because GWS and GCS are still that). For those reasons my gut says the only options are Canberra (more risky and could damage GWS, but does technically grow the market) or SA/WA, both safe but boring.

I really think he did his best work across half back though. His intercepting work was a real weapon for us and complemented the intercept marking of Lever, Rivers, May. Most of his possessions were down back too, only a few in the middle.

If Dangerfield copped half as much as Oliver did RE his kicking it would be a miracle. I think we all understand that blokes who win the ball inside and bang it on the boot under pressure aren't hitting targets as much as a loose outsider.

The thing that has astounded me has been his absolutely elite disposal. That word gets thrown around a lot but Chin has truly delivered so far this year. Field kicking and set shots, he has been attempting kicks of significant difficulty and nailing them regularly.