deanox

How is that not in the back to Lever?

Melksham is having a shocker. Unless he drastically changes his game, no chance he plays next week. TMac is giving us nothing.

Agree about how underrated he is. Does not get enough credit for what he does. Most of it is too quick to see. He has worked on his kicking, and started to extend his vision from in close to long range. I know disposal count isn't the most accurate stat for how good someone is but he has averaged the following number of disposals per game since his debut year: 19.2 (in 2016), 30.0, 29.4, 30.0, 25.1 (2020, equivalent to 31.4 pro rata for shorter quarters). For context, no other Melbourne player has ever averaged 30 disposals per game over a season. If he hit the scoreboard directly a little more often (ie kicked those goals against GWS when he went forward) I think the media conversation would be a bit different. Also he has a bit of lip on him, and I think he is one of those players that opposition supporters love to hate. Which probably adds to the downplaying of how good he actually is.

Carlton took Lachie O'Brien (pick 10) and Liam Stocker (pick 19) after Adelaide handed them off as part of the Bryce Gibbs trade. We got Petty (pick 35), and traded the 47 (with a pick 36) for 27, which got us Sparrow. So it's almost: Lever, Petty, Sparrow For Bryce Gibbs, pick 35, pick 67!

I actually think that Lever is an outstanding reader of the play. Sitting up high at the G, it is amazing how many times Lever leaves his man well before it is kicked, to run 35 m, and end up making the spoil. He also directs a lot of the traffic and positioning down back.

We really only paid equivalent of pick 8. 2017 pick 10, 2018 picks 19 and 67 For Jake Lever, 2017 pick 35 and 2018 pick 47. Or think of it like "pick 19 for pick 35 and 67, and Lever for pick 10".

Sorry mate, autocorrected to another great, but slightly better known, sportsman's name.

I feel like with Oliver, Petracca and Viney plus Jordan, Brayshaw and Pickett, add Sparrow to the mix too, there probably aren't too many opportunities for Spargo to step into the midfield. Buy I would expect him to rotate through there as one of the high half forward adjacent midfielders, like ANB does.

From Useles AFL stats

I also wonder if it's something to do with the leading patterns Fritsch has been training? If we are planning on playing Fritsch with Weid/Brown or both, you'd expect the main leads up the middle would be Brown. Fritsch is likely to be the decoy to the pocket or flank. We may have told him to keep that structure.

I wonder what the longest days between AFL losses is.

I know he doesn't hold the marks, but gee it looks like he "drops" them into the lap of a crumbing player with enough consistenty and control that you'd think it was on purpose.

See this is where I wish we got more than just the top 5 on the telstra tracker!

I thought Melksham was average. He made really good use of it when he had it, but I felt he was lucky to get it, if that makes sense. He didn't appear to work really hard to get to those positions, he didn't win his own ball, etc. I didn't watch him purposely all game, so maybe he was working really hard and that's why he ended up in those spots, but I didn't see it.

Mitch struggled with leading patterns/angles. More than once I saw him lead to a dead spot on the wrong foot of the player trying to kick into 50 and get angrily waved/pointed at where he should be going. They weren't decoy leads, they were the main ones. Did better in the last but, we all did and Hawthorn really fell away.

Honestly, Lever not being in the top 3 is criminal. His reading of the play and intercepts today were outstanding, and he influenced 4 quarters of football.

Lever TMac Gawn Langdon Petracca Hibberd Apologies to Pickett and probably Oliver.

We're playing rubbish and are 2 points down with 3 more scoring shots. Good signs if we can click even a little bit in the 2nd half.

The point of it is not to be self sustainable though. The point is for it to be good enough to support the proper development of young players and good enough that journey players (who are good enough to be on the verge of the AFL but clearly not career stars) aren't lost to the game because they don't get paid. Basically the reserves league is propping up the quality of the main comp. Thus the investment. I like the idea of something that adds interest, and I think salary cap or draft picks would be a good idea. Edit: Draft picks might work as a balance. Keeping a strong seconds list means higher draft picks. Drafting too many raw kids means the ressies get smashed and the picks go down.

I think the issue is 9 rounds in a 14 team comp. We had a much harder draw than any other team, and finished equal on winds for the year. But the harder draw meant we didn't get to beat up on the new, weak teams and gain percentage, so we were forced to play away finals. Had the draw been even, we'd probably had finished top 2, had a bye and a nice rest week 1 of the finals, and a home prelim at fortress Casey which would have meant we'd be odds on favourite for playing in the GF.

Why does the reserves comp need to be financially self sufficient? If we fund the reserves comp out of the AFL money, it will increase the quality of the AFL product overall. Increased quality in AFL product would mean increased revenue overall. The only problem is that this is a long term approach to growth (a but like sharing the TV exposure around). And the AFL have taken a short term approach to maximise the earnings of the top handful of players (a bit like playing Collingwood every Friday).

13-17 wins are the typical range of the top 8. 15+ should get us top 4. We've got 4. So need 9 of 18 to play finals or 11 of 18 for top 4. So I think these 8 point games are about top 4, not top 8.

I didn't say it was effective, but it isnwhy the rule is there.