deanox

He is our best player because his overall performance isnt reliant on those couple of key moments. He does it every week: he beats his man, and wins the ball and uses it well. However those key moments are what will make him a generational player. Weeks where he has 10 score involvements or 3 goals as well as his usual impact are absolute world beating, and put him close to best player in the comp.

I can't recall whether Fritsch was too, but we definitely had Weid, Brown, TMac lining up in the forward line with Gawn in the ruck. Often Weid went off and played the around the ground ruck role and Gawn played forward half. TOG% Gawn 93% McDonald and Fritsch 79% Brown 77% Weid 72% Those stats equal exactly 400% TOG, indicating that on average exactly 4/5 were on the ground. But there could have been times with 3 and 5 to balance.

I think his 1.2, 2 goal assists and 5 other score involvements meant he was super damaging this week. So good to see.

I was going to say that both Rivers and Jordon have constantly been in my 7-12 bracket, but their best games have also correlated with strong games from others. I'm confident they'll both be recognised in the bnf, which rates each game from each player, so there aren't a finite set of scores.

I gave my votes first; the stats are supporting this argument though.

I understand where you're coming from but there is a clear correlation between high disposal players, and high contested possession winning players and high "clanger" players. His average clangers is high but not out of the ordinary. Also remember that while he had 11 clangers, 5 of the clangers were "free kicks against". His extreme value today was the fact he won the ball 16 times in close quarters, and he had 10 score involvements. His career clanger average isn't much different than Cripps, Fyfe, Dusty, Tim Kelly etc. Cleaning this up won't be what makes the difference in his career. It will be when he has the scoreboard impact he had today every week.

23 touches (2nd most for melb) 16 contested possessions (most on ground) 14 kicks (only 9 handballs, so can't be that many wasted) 10 score involvements (most on ground) 6 clearances (2nd on ground) 10 tackles (2nd most on ground) 348 m gained (9th on ground) 2 goal assists (most on ground) 1 goal, 2 behinds 26 pressure acts (4th most on ground) 4 inside 50s (=6th on ground) He was at the coalface, and was probably the most damaging player on field. That Carlton had more inside 50s than us and we repelled them is why Lever was higher rated in my opinion.

Yeah does LJ come in for Weid or Brown or Chandler?

In a winning side, playing against a lower side, Chandler gets another week to find the pace of the game. Melk was sub, so needs to perform at Casey to push back in.

6 Lever 5 Oliver 4 Salem 3 May 2 Langdon 1 TMac Apologies to Gawn (workhorse), Fritsch (cameo) and Rivers (saved the day on many occasions), as well as Kozzie (who threatened but broke even on the dangerous Saad).

Wouldn't be because the AFL own 49% of champion data and Andrew Dillon (the AFLs chief legal counsel) and Simon Lethlan (former AFL GM of broadcasting, and Football Ops Manager, now St Kilda GM) were directors of CD would it? https://www.afr.com/technology/how-the-afl-could-crush-an-aussie-tech-success-story-20150904-gjewar

Seriously good analysis. I really wish AFL stats were public!

Crazy how much the intention of the rule has changed yeah? That reads like you were not meant to run with the ball. You were allowed to run to find balance before disposing of it, but not run and carry unless you were constantly bouncing. Basically while running you had to be constantly either in the action of bouncing or the action of kicking/handballing.

Interesting take. I can see the value of Brown pushing up as you suggest, but also he is so good one out that having him recieve a deep kick in is pretty deadly. In previous weeks it has been Fritsch playing the last in attack role hasn't it?

Yeah we were doing the mothers/women/pink thing on mothers day against them but that seems to have disappeared.

For clubs with white as one of their primary club colours, I really think that when playing against a team without white, then wearing white shorts should be the norm. For example Swans wearing white against us looks normal and creates no clash. But usbwearing white introduces uncertainty. It's similar for us v Saints. With the socks, instead of us wearing blue and red, simply making the top of their sock white instead of red would solve the clash, and keep the uniforms very close to normal.

I cant recall seeing red and blue hoops before, but I have recollection of red socks with blue tops (no idea if a true recollection though).

Who else would replace Brayshaw on the wing though?

That's the first I recall seeing it, so though it was much more extreme that game. Goodwin obviously liked something about it because he is still doing it.

Oliver has been standing wider, and I think it's so he can hit the ball at speed when hunting the clearance. I think in the tactics thread, someone talked about our conversion from clearances: apparently we're winning less but scoring more from them. I can't pull those stats anywhere but if true it looks like we're playing high risk high reward footy, and backing our defence to intercept and win the ball back if we lose the clearance (to mitigate the risk).

Great call. Was interesting to see how we tried to handle it, initially trying to force Hunt onto Hayward, then at times letting them just 2 on 1 Lever and having a loose man running around further afield.

10 disposals, 5 contested, at 90% efficiency in the last quarter was massive.

I think when we are 8-0 we only make changes on two basis: 1) Injured/forced change (includes overly cautious resting of sore players who are walk up starts) 2) "it's your spot to lose". Once a player is in, and we're winning, you need to play pretty poorly to lose the spot. We didn't get enough from Fritsch or Hunt but neither were dreadful enough to cancel out re ent good form. Others could improve, but not enough to get dropped from someone who didn't play in the VFL. No change unless forced for me.

Salem TMac May Jordon Oliver Langdon Apologies to Spargo.