deanox

i wish he was coach round 22 last year :S

yeha i reckon he has had a great season...

did Bell not play?

personally i thought bartram had one of his best games of the year on the weekend...

yep. post circle, stynes would be my pick. right now, stynes would smash him around the ground. i dont think white would work hard enough defensively around the ground on stynes (maybe im being harsh, and not remembering his best work), but white has tended to drift into space, block a hole in the backline, rather than check his opposite number, which could make white pay in this case... but pre circle, whites leap would mean he would be dominating the center...

pre centre circle, or post centre circle?

i noticed the same thing about aussie, didnt realise it was the same for miller. the upside is we've been kicking well, the down side is, if we have been making such good a rate of conversion, we obviously arent having anywhere near enough shots on goal, given we are getting well beaten in most games. does anyone know where to get a list of all clubs overall goals and behinds kicked, rather than just total score for? also it is probably worth mentioning here, that i was thinking about our scoring and noticed that for a side with a lack of forward targets we have been doing alright. i mean all the forwards have been kicking a goal or two each, every week. we dont have anyone kicking big bags, which would help us kick winning scores, but i think we've been let down by our midfield in the goal department. with the exception of jones and bruce, who seem to have spent time resting forward, we havnt kicked many goals coming out of the midfield. is that part of the game plan, or are our midfielders struggling? i thought mclean, sylvia and a few others were capable of kicking 55 meters on the run, but they dont seem to do that...

he was probably right. the stat sheets dont count every time a player trys to tackle another player, they only count effective tackles that force the player to dispose of the ball or lose possession. if it was a high tackle it wouldnt have counted as one of those.

jeff got 1? possession in the 2nd half on sunday. jeff was a great ruck until the center cicle cruelled him. he doesnt do enough around the ground these days, is very hesitant and often takes poor options to players under pressure. unless he comes good he is well past his best. time will tell with mark? how much more time could you possibly ned to give him? he can ruck well but does donuts around the field. and will almost certainly be the same forever.

dunn has not shown any ability to mark in packs, or under physical pressure. his overhead marking has not been a stand out trait either, and he hasnt shown any nous to lead into space ie he doesnt pop into the right areas out of nowhere. he also doesnt have the body strength to be a traditional KPP. he doesnt have a great leap, or scinilating pace that could make him an effective small or medium forward, and he doesnt seem to have a knack of being were the ball falls like a crumber ie wonnameri. on the other hand, he has shown that he has an above average engine, pretty good pace of the mark, the ability to stop high profile opposition. basically his height and strength are greater than the average midfielder even he still has the running attributes to be one. why do you think he is better suited to playing forward than in the midfield?

i thought he was bigger than that. did i read 193 cm's somewhere? that'd be 6'4 wouldnt it?

the afls 'registered juniors' in queensland include any school kid who has participated in a free auskick clinic run during school hours...

he needs to kick two goals a week, even when having an average game. he is a CHF, and while its great that he gets lots of marks and disposals, he needs to hurt opposition teams on the scoreboard. id be ecstatic if brown, or riewaldt or franklin or richardson took 15 marks and got 20 touches and kicked 1 goal.

his brother has mentioned he is trying to get him to melb. just wondering, is he a victorian boy? if not, you would think that unless he got a far superior offer than ours that he would be keen to play with his brother?

spot on rhino. as good as cox is, and as valuable as he is, if we learnt anything from WCE the last few years (apart from dont do drugs) its that the ruckman needs great midfielders around him. i think that the difference made to the teams performance as a whole between having a champion ruckman and having an average but competitive ruckman is minimal. out of interest, if the centre circle rules were changed again i think this would change dramatically. ie if the afl said 'no center circle and no line - the players can stand where ever they want, same as any other ball up around the ground, then the value of a ruckman could increase.

i dont think he is going to be a lost cause. hasn't he shown the last 3 or 4 weeks that he can play as a very effective stopper? players like goodes are hard to stop because of their physical attributes. your usual tagger types would have limited influence as they are usually smaller. given he is young and has only been playing this role for a short time there is every chance he will learn to get more of the ball himself. apart from the free kicks i thought he beat goodes yesterday. if he had of kicked that goal he definitely beat him.

i like him forward, even if thats because i think he is a lovely kick.

good call about green jaded, it is something that can be learnt and instilled. i dont think he should be dropped. he had a pretty good game, with a couple of standout low lights that doogo correctly said cost him a spot in the votes. hopefully bailey will take im aside and show him the tape and tell him that he never wants to see that again. im not sure it is drop worthy. how many touches did dunn get today? he is obviously learning a new role and i think he is coming along nicely. he has done some pretty good stopping jobs, hopefully he is starting to be able to get as may touches as his opponent. the step after that is knowing when, as a tagger, you can leave your player and get possessions without allowing your player space. that is a pretty hard job, and there arent too many players in the league who are capable of that...

i think warnock has been stiff because he has had no help. however he needs to focus on the ball more and stop trying to out muscle hall.

we look better when bate drifts forward. i would like to see him play up there the rest of the game. its hard to tell on tv, is he lining up at CHF or FF? because he has taken a few marks leading out of the square and looked good when up there, good body strength good hands, poor when the ball was on the ground though...a bit fumbly. is PJ playing on a wing? he is doing a good job, im happy. im not sure why jamar is playing though. what a waste. we could have had an extra small on the bench. i thought we'd see him up forward, but he's obviously not up to it. i cant work out why we would ever kick long to a contest that involves davey or aussie as our marking option. if you need to kick to a contest, kick to a tall. or kick it into space for the little guys to run onto. i dont blame warnock, has done not much wrong, but no one is helping him out. midfield should be dropping back to cut of leading space, and dunn should have gone in hard to spoil over the top. otherwise im happy with dunn, he is beating goodes, who is a dirty [censored]. he should get suspended based on the afls policies, but he wont. frawley and garland both need a bit of strength, but you cant blame them, they are young, and the kicks have been to the advantage of the forwards almost everytime. if the kick is good, you can out muscle even a strong opponent, when the defender is weaker it makes it even easier. frawley has been very, very stiff from the umpires. and so has dunn. in fact the umpires ruined our chances in the first 10 minutes, with all those free kicks.

does this analysis indicated that to be in premiership mode, you need to have your best 22 players closely corresponding to your 22 most experienced players, and obviously have these players available throughout the year (generally injury free)? if i get time, i might compare a couple of other sides (hawthorn and wbs). i am not sure how to compare previous seasons premiers and view their lists as a snapshot in time (ie the players, ages, and games experience at the time they won the flag). if anyone knows where i could get those type of stats, please let me know, id be interested in doing the analysis.

i know this thread is becoming a discussion with myself, but i noticed the 'median age' and thought that was worth expanding on also. for those who dont know the differences, the average (whether it be age or games) in the total sum divided by the number of samples. for example, 5 players have played 10, 10, 20, 30 and 40 games respectively. the average is 110 divided by 5, or 22. The median is the 'middle value' of a list. so in the same list of players above the median games played is 20, as there are two values above and two below. This doesnt look important at first, but consider the playing list. There are 44 players in the analysised list. some are draftees who have never played, others have been around varying amounts. the average games played can be skewed by having a large number of values at either end of the list. if we drafted 5 players two years in a row, and none of those 5 had made their debut, the average games played would be very skewed as 10 players havnt played. what the stats above show us, it that there is a big difference in our average games and median games. given the list of 44 players, you could assume that if the club was fielding its most senior 22 (possibly the best 22), then the median games played would be the number of games played by the least experienced member of the best team. obviously melbourne is not in that mode - we are developing players and leaving players out who could possibly be in our 'best 22' because theirs is not the future of the mfc. in fact i would argue that 6 of our top 22 experienced players were not in our best 22 and a further 3 or 4 are currently injured/retired and probably wont play much this season). thats half of your most experienced players not competing in your best side on the park. in geelong for example, it is assumed that their best 22 would almost be their most experienced, or close to it. having a look at there player list, there are a couple of fringe players who have been playing, that have less experience than the median, and these players come in for injured players, or other players who have proved not quite up to it, who will be moved on in the next year or two... our average games next year will be 53. our median games next year will be 13. geelongs average is 66 and its median is 43. the key here, is that over half our list will have less than 13 games experience. this indicates we wont have much depth. it indicates our senior team doesnt have the experience that a geelong team would have. it shows that there is a bigger gap between the sides, than demonstrated by 'average games' experience, which could drop even lower if white and jmac retire (about 500 games between them), in fact the average games per player on our list at that point could drop lower than geelong median games. we very much are a young club, and there is obviously a lot of growth available....

do we play them here or there? because there is no way we could win over there... and do they play freo anytime soon, because i doubt even WC are worse than freo, and im not sure if the local pride would allow them to tank against their cross town rivals...

ah but 39 or so other blokes on the list age by 1 year in that time. so you lose 33, 30, 30, 25, 27 (total 145), gain 5 x 18.5 (total 92) plus an extra year per player on the list (39) so you really lose only 14 years, divided by the 44 on the list. (all the details includes rookies, considering we are playing both valenti and wonameri this year i thought it was appropriate). i realise there are a lot of numbers and a lot of information here that may be pointless but i thought it was worth looking at the current set up and distribution of our list with respect to age and experience, given we have done a lot of analysis on what positions we need, and lots of discussions about what players we can trade for draft picks. as much as id love to offload bruce for a 1s rounder, im not sure we can afford that given that any kid we draft would be coming to a club with virtually no players over 26 except for robbo, green, wheatly and wheelan, and given that there are no guarantees on robbo or wheelans future on the park. on the upside bailey and co are in a genuine position to scourge the football club of poor attitudes and habits as they have a young list, with very few of the old guard hanging around. and those that are here will be gone within two years. if you ever wanted to instil a culture change now looks like a perfect time to do it.

this post seems to come with a lot of weight. as in you read that post and you truly believe everything it says. i think its the avatar.