deanox

Nah, they started it when they took Jason Norrish.

Pushed the ladder leaders to one point, and probably deserved a win today. Reckon we (and him) are on the right track.

What rubbish. Goodwin has been a coach at MFC since 2015 and senior coach since 2017. Gawn, TMac, Viney and Salem are the only listed players who debuted for Melbourne prior to Goodwin joining. Everyone on our list (including those four who were relatively young when he join) with the exception of a couple of mature recruits - May, Campbell, McAdams, Billings - have been developed under Goodwin. Even Melksham was coached by Goodwin at Essendon.

Respectfully disagree. Billings has played 172 AFL games over 12 seasons, averaging about 14-15 games per season. Clearly he has been good enough for AFL: he is in the top 1000 all time VFL/AFL games played (over 13000 have played at least 1 game, and only ~4000 have got to 50 games). Has he been an AFL star or able to regularly dominate at AFL level? No. Maybe right now he fits the "too good for VFL but not good enough for AFL" descriptor, but it doesn't sum up his career. However right now I thinkthat is how Laurie is tracking. He'll get more chances this year and next, but I suspect ultimately he will be not be good enough to play regularly at AFL level.

The multi member district system (including the senate) provides a much better representation of the population in parliament than single member districts do. In the recent federal election the 2 major parties captured about 67% of the votes but a combined 91% of the seats. On the other hand the Greens got more than 12% of the vote (1 in 8 people voted Greens) but only 0.6% of the seats. Preference voting means that the results represent a better outcome than FPTP would, but it's pretty clearly it's not representative. For what it's worth, you need the same number of votes for each seat in the Tasmanian multi member district (1 quota, either before or after preference distribution). The last seats don't get in with less.

I do wonder if this (unmanageable rules) is a strategy. Grey areas mean controversy, which means clicks and rage bait and engagement in the media, which in turn brings dollars in the door.

Oh yeah absolutely. A lucky sport in that they have no real competition in Australia outside NRL, and even that is geographical. Soccer and b-ball are 3rd rate sports in Australia because of the international order. All they have to do is put the product on and the money comes, they don't need to build a good business to succeed.

The AFL Executive (CEO) is accountable to the AFL Commission. The AFL Commission are effectively the board of directors, and have similar responsibilities to the Board of any organisation (fir all intents and purposes this includes managing the performance of the executive). BTW most of them are actually volunteers in this role (don't accept directors fees). The AFL Commissioners are appointed (voted in) by the Clubs (each club gets one vote). Similar to how a board of directors is appointed by the shareholders in a for-profit company. The Clubs can overrule the Commission on certain items and also retain authority for certain decisions (including whether to issue new licences for new teams). And the Clubs can remove the Commissioners if they are unhappy with their performance. If you really want to extend this, the members of each AFL Club appoint it's Board. Meaning the club members are ultimately able to influence the AFL Executive via who they elect. So there is accountability within the structure. Saying they are only accountable to themselves, is like saying "BHP is only accountable to itself". Note: I'm not saying they AFL is well run or that there isn't a boys club. But there is absolutely a relatively contemporary corporate governance structure in place.

I think it's simply that he didn't perform that well in that role his initial season at the club and they shifted him back. But also, in lower standard (and particularly junior footy) the best players all tend to play midfield, moving forward to kick goals. Once they get to AFL level, they often find a position more suited to their attributes.

Agree entirely about the rubbish of outcome based suspension. Mills had no chance to win/collect the ball, he just jumped to clean him up. Pearce from Freo got three weeks for his impact on PAs Bryne-Jones, in a situation where he really couldn't do much. My thoughts watching that were that Pearce was leading out to take a mark looked down and realised he was late and going to collide and tried (unsuccessfully) to minimise impact by going past him not through him. But it is outcome based so he gets longer.

I had always assume ld it was Cream, short for Full Cream because his name is FULLarton?

Thanks sorry for being grumpy!

Again, I'm not sure how this is in response to my comment. I haven't suggested he was tested. In fact, based on what I wrote, I believe if he out with an injury that was to be tested that would be listed as injured. If you meant "rested", then again, I think if he was actually rested they would state that (managed). I think the most likely situation is that he has been omitted. Yes he has been playing well, but he has lost his spot to an overall better player. Think of it like this: You coach a soccer team. Your number one Goalkeeper, the best goalkeeper in the world, is out injured. So your number 2 goalkeeper comes in to play. GK 2 plays out of their skin, amazing form, better than expected. But GK1 recovers from injury and is picked in the team this week. GK2 isn't left in the team as well because there is only spot for one GK. GK2 isn't managed or rested, they are omitted. Not due to form, but because others have been selected ahead of them.

I agree with this (his form) but not sure why it is relevant to what I said. He can be our most consistent and in form defender up til now but still be omitted from the team, now that the coaches think the players that make up our best 22 are available.

I suspect he was actually omitted though, unless the official wording has changed? I think it's ok to drop someone like TMac from the team and say "your not best 22 this weekend but not sure to your form and you don't need to go back to work on stuff. You'll be an emergency." Hard to manage someone but name them emergency too? Finally though, I believe that "injured", "managed", and "omitted" have contractual definitions with respect to the EBA, and the status of a play can impact their receipt of match payments, their eligibility for injury compensation, and trigger clauses in contracts. So I suspect that if there is not a physical/fitness reason why someone is being "managed" they probably have to list them as "omitted" even if it feels disrespectful.

I can see merit in all of this, but I don't think it's as simple as "can't play in the same midfield together" either. I think a big part of it is about what roles they are playing and how they are performing. When one or both are out of form, it's a mess. Particularly if it's Clarry, because when out of form Clarry isn't accountable. Even though we have talked about Clarry playing a "tagging" role lately, I do think it has been a different tagging role to what Viney was playing. Vineys was as a defensive, shutdown tagger. Clarrys was more about accountability for beating his direct opponent, which gave him licence to hunt the ball while also being responsible not to get completely outpointed. I think that personal level challenge (one on one with his man) really brought the competitive streak back in Clarey which is fantastic. So I don't think we have seen the end of Viney and Clarry in the middle together. Sure the early season versions of both was a disaster, but my gut says we should test it again with these new roles and form before writing it off. I do think that releasing Riv into the midfield a bit more provides an extra dimension due to his pace and kicking angles, and I agree we should work that in where we can. Between Clarry, Viney, Trac, Kossie, River, Langford and probably Lindsay eventually, have some credible midfield rotations now

To adapt a quote: The AFL is a lucky sport run mainly by second rate people who share its luck.

I actually think the lack of this type of content is deliberate. It's expensive to make compared to the usual boys club bravado [censored]. You need intelligent people, and media outlets will have to bid for them. Many of the genuinely astute people are already in coaching, and they probably don't do "media" as naturally. Also, the AFL wants to control all the media revenue. To get access to footage to use in this type of analysis costs a fortune. It's possible that the secondary camera angles not shown on the broadcast are not even available to anyone outside the official broadcaster. All the real stats are locked behind Champion Data, a company that is majority owned by the AFL. We get a smattering of BS stats that have been published for years and some extra stuff that sounds fancy but isn't useful published via the AFL app etc. Non-accredited AFL media can't access this stuff, and the AFL won't accredit direct competitors taking revenue of the main broadcaster. So in effect, the AFL locks down all footage and data that is needed for analysis, restricts it to the big paying broadcast partner, and suffocates any competition that it won't receive revenue from. As a result, the official broadcaster doesn't actually need to provide a high quality product to compete in the market. They have a monopoly.

A GM of football is responsible for managing the football department budget, and for managing the performance of the football department staff (coaches, fitness staff, recruitment, etc). Relationships are important for all roles, including the GM of football. But it isn't just about being a great bloke everyone loves.

Great call. And what about all the tactical innovations before Yze joined us (his first year was 2021)? Over the last decade we have worked out way through at least three distinct phases of "scoring strategy": Strategy designed to reduce opposition shot conversion percentage, while providing us extra numbers around the contest. (Opposition potentially gets quantity but low quality).(Think Diamond Defence era). After that we played a "centre at all costs" strategy, where we gave the ball off to someone 30 m out straight in front every time, to maximise accuracy/conversion (shot quality not quantity) From there we moved to the extreme forward press with repeat entries (quantity not quality). That won us a flag and got us top 4 for 3 years in a row. On top of that we have had a constantly evolving tactics around "defence, contest, and transition" that has supported the scoring strategy. This has included various defensive zone structures including Diamond Defence, and others including where we push a player up to contest, leave a man free out the back and back ourselves to work back faster than opposition transitiona. We've had contested ball tactics that have utilised +1 at the contest and -1 at the contest. We've used kick it long to Max and force a stoppage tactics. We've had play on at all cost tactics too. Now we use 45 degree cut out passes, short chips to retain possession. We use forward handballs. I'm sure Goodwin has had substantial support from his assistant coaches with these innovations and changes over the years. But my bet is we would find that he is an innovative tactical thinker, who uses sport science and data/stats to drive plans, and that even though he might not be the guy coming up with every plan, he is the guy leading those plans and encouraging his team to do that analysis and make those changes. This doesn't mean I don't think he will have an effective shelf life as coach, that he can get stale, or lose the players. It doesn't mean I don't think he is under significant pressure. But I do think,from a reasonable outside perspective, he has runs on the board (including 3 successive top 4 finishes with a flag) that means he should be allowed to see through his transition to a new strategy and game plan, unless something has gone wrong at the relationship level.

I've been encouraging him to have more showers ever since!

I reckon Melksham showed why the vast majority of supporters and coaches might think that way today. It's a faint heart beat but it's there. And if we can sneak into the 8, I bet no one will want to play us.

Oliver's goal!

You'd think it was Melkshams call, but I agree entirely.

Oliver's goal.