deanox

This will slow the game down though. Every stoppage we'll need to stop and have a few bloke's run 100 m to get back to position. Or we get penalties for being out of position. It just won't work.

Agree with this except the timing was wrong for us to hold him. Press for a pick for Brown was a great opportunity vs the risk that his value wouldn't go up next year. Also, if we play Preuss we'd risk hindering the development of Jackolson, and also risk disenfranchising him with the go home WA factor looming.

That seems like the appropriate outcome, but will the AFL have the guts to enforce something like that?

He was in the UK and signed a contract to return to Melbourne. I'm not sure of the situation, but his wife and kids were with him during his time at Arsenal, so the divorce could have happened after he returned. Perhaps it happened while in the UK and his wife said "I'd like to go back to Aus" and the job at the MFC was an opportunity for them to all come back to Australia. Maybe there were no plans to live in separate states? Maybe there were plans to live in separate states. Melbourne would be a short flight from his kids. He could regularly do 2-3 days a week in Adelaide without affecting his role. Except this year, with covid, he has been stuck behind borders, presumably in the hub. We don't even know how long his contract was for! Maybe we signed him for 1 year, but he has agreed to stay on for another because he knows how hard it will be to replace him with the pandemic? I find it strange that any of us are commentating on something like this when we don't actually have the info.

I enjoy good defence too. I'm a big rugby union fan, and great defence is amazing to watch. But in all sports we see scores trend down due to defence. It is easier to be solid and methodical in defence, back your system to prevent them scoring and hope they make a mistake that opens for you first. I can see AFL scores getting lower before they increase. I'll use another example: lets incentivise high scores with bonus points. Personally, I don't think this will work. Coaches will say "Who cares? I want the safe 4 points first, and I'll try for the bonus, only if I am in a safe position to put them to the sword, or I am desperate for bonus points in the back end of the season and can risk the loss because I won't make finals anyway if I don't get the BP." So incentivising attack isn't enough. And measures to try to reduce congestion aren't enough. We actually need to disincentivise congestion, make congestion a bad thing, not the preferred but unobtainable thing.

Is there any club who may be interested in the points available from 28 and 50, the list spots to actually "take them into the draft" and a willingness to give away a 2021 second? Alternatively, same deal but 19 and 50 for a 2021 first? (Using 18 and 28, keeping a list spot open for mid season draft)

Ok, re-read my post interchanging the word "stop" for "reduce"! The intent is the same, I understand there is no way to actually stop congestion. The point is that coaches love congestion. They'll do everything they can to create it. Why? Because congestion means it is easier to defend, there is less chance of an opposition fast break, etc. All the AFL thinking is about changing other things about the game that try to make it harder for coaches to create congestion (ie fatigue) or to create contrived situations where players can't truly compete (the man on the mark not being able to step sideways rule is designed to create heaps of free space for the player with the ball, making uncontested possession retention easier). But regardless coaches will try to force congestion. They'll pick athletes not football players to run despite reduced rotations. They'll devise strategies to implement mini zones around the ball location, holding the ball in. They'll kick to the boundary to allow a reset stoppage instead of risking kicking to a potential turnover. If players are forced back or forward into zones, they'll abandon the wings or flanks to have an extra player at the ball. Or some other tactics that creates congestion and restricts easy opponent balĺ movement. Fixed zones would be pretty effective at stopping or reducing congestion but it goes against the fabric of the game. So the rule changes need to incentivise "no congestion", not try to stop, reduce or prevent it.

With 18, 19, 28, 50 but only 3 spaces, we may well look to upgrade our picks or swap into next year in the lead up to the draft. That being said, not using pick 50 isn't a big deal.

I still think that relying on fatigue to stop congestion is a poor idea (for the reasons @titan_uranus mentioned), and that using positional restrictions goes against the grain of what makes AFL AFL. I think the only way to stop it is to remove the benefit of congestion itself. Pay holding the man quickly around contests to let the ball winner have a clear run. Remove ruck nominations, allow the third man up and throw the ball up immediately before teams can get numbers there and set up defensive stoppage positions. Pay holding the man immediately instead of theatrically. Penalise the 3rd player who tried to hold the ball in to create a ball up. These things remove the incentive for congestion. They encourage coaches to leave players outside the contest to receive or mop up the loose ball. Penalise sheparding in marking contests (where the initial defender doesn't try to win the ball and instead just holds body position, preventing the attacker from competing for the mark, and a third player marks or spoils). This will make one on one marking a feature again.

I haven't quite got my head around the exact permutations, but if Sydney are risking damaging their first round pick next year, perhaps they'd be interested in: Sydney's 2021 first and third round for picks 19, 50 plus our 2021 second. Or similar. Yes, they lose their 2021 first, but it was going to be damaged anyway. So they get another clean 2nd rounder to go with theirs, plus some extra points this year.

I think this is of particular interest. Most of these streaming services are international with large equity backing. They are buying market share and killing local "tv channels". Coming after big sport contracts is one of their next steps. Consumption of sport via streaming is becoming more common. This means that even though the Aussie economy may stagnant, there may be a premium to be paid for media if a competitor decided they wanted to kill off foxtel.

I agree because regardless, no one knows what the cap and list sizes will be in 2023 right now. He has also spent more time in the hub than in Melbourne city. I can understand a base reluctance to commit for too long. Any extension that means a player is not out of contract at the end of a coming year is gold. 1 year or 3 years. Doesn't matter in that regard as long as there is no media storm during the season. Also, every time someone signs for longer people lament their loss of form, saying they got lazy with security etc. For those people, short extensions should also be gold.

I reckon the opposite, go for needs at 18, then pick the best available slider at 19 ;)

He is one who I think was affected by the 666 rule. His strength was zonal play, getting to where the ball was headed and killing it. He did his best work leaving his man, or choosing which option to go to, and when to push hard up the ground, leaving his man exposed, during our Diamond Defence phase. He would have been a great combo with Jake Lever if we had ever got the full zonal defence going for an extended period. 666 exposed his man on man strength weakness and only ok ability on the lead. May was brought in to take the number 1, but he still needed to play a role as a lock down/lead spoiling defender, occasionally being a 3rd man. Unfortunately he is probably a little too tall and not agile enough to use his strengths playing the 3rd tall defender role in the current game. It isn't a surprise we tried players like Smith instead. As others have said, 81 games is a great effort for a limited footballer. If people understood his role better, I think they would have more appreciation for those 81 games.

We have poor foot skills and exceed at contested ground ball. Anything that increases player fatigue will reduce skill execution, decreasing the gap between us and the opposition. More skill errors means more ground ball and stoppages, which suits us. It will mean we need to restructure our zone defence, and it might be harder for midfield to get back and help defence, but could make players who are good at leaving their man to be a third man in defence like Lever (and OMac) have a big role to play

I remember reading an interview with TMac in late 2018 (I think) where he talked about sometimes getting mentally bogged down by structures and how sometimes Goodwin would give him licence to run and roam through the midfield or the wings for 5 minutes to get some ball, and find his mojo, before heading back forward. I do wonder how much the shortened quarters affected that this year and also whether not having Casey meant that he didn't have the opportunity to "find his own form".

I think trading up is only considered if you have a very specific target, and you think there is a measurable difference in quality between the players you expect available. So perhaps in 2020 the top 12 are expected great prospects, but in 2021 its the top 20 before a drop away. Or perhaps there are 5 really good outside mids in the draft pool but all are expected to go in the top 15, leaving inside mids and utilities to round out the top 20. In that case, it may be worth trading up on a needs basis, but increasing risk.

Because it groups 11-20 you might find that 18-20 is a bit worse, but not by much. Also games played is a good metric, but doesn't tell us about the quality of those games. I don't know if a difference is measurable.

With those picks there is historically a 50% chance of getting a 100 game player across all drafts. So two picks is better than a single pick 15 next year (assuming we finish 4th, as they are clearly backing themsleves). https://www.draftguru.com.au/analysis/pick-value-comparison

Different ages, and there are a lot more rumours around about Cripps going back to Perth than Oliver leaving Melbourne too.

Big call that I haven't seen reported anywhere. Where is this from?

It is a reasonable concern, but I think because there are fair arguments both ways, and we don't know the decision process, we need to trust that they weighed the risks and got it right. Getting two top 20 players in this year could be better than getting a single top 20 player next year (e.g. finish fourth and we'd have effectively traded pick 15 for 18 and 19). Getting two top 18 and 19 instead of just one pick "doubles" our chances of finding a player who makes it. Is the draft lower quality? Reportedly. But does that mean there are less players or that the players aren't as good. I feel like the later could be true for the top 5-6, but otherwise it is just a matter of depth, so more chances is better. Is getting players now instead of next year better than getting one next year because it gives us the extra year of development to these players and our list? Can we trade back into the 1st round next year, just like we did this year? Using a 2022 draft picks, any players that decide to leave or we decide to move on? Does reducing list sizes in future years mean that we plan on taking less picks in 2022 and 2023, thus meaning next year we are willing to package our 2021 2nd and 3rd to upgrade to an early 2nd. Then package our 2022 2nd with the 2021 2nd to move into the mid first and have a top 15 pick again when we only plan on using 2 picks? Etc. Edit: re trust they got it right: they don't always. Sometimes we acknowledge that. But in this case it is pretty balanced so claiming it was a bad decision is based on emotion.

How many clubs play winger/taggers? I wonder if Harmes run with skills would work on players like Gaff, Hunter, Menegola, Daicos, etc. or if he'd lack the aerobic capacity to keep up? Even for short bursts it could really disrupt opposition game plans, by removing their outside accumulator and "get out" option from their moves. He could then drift forward to the HFF to rest and someone else could man the wing in a more traditional role.

I heard that rumour too. But if that's true it is a really easy and honest thing for Collingwood to say publicly. Perhaps it was more like "Treloar asked if that was possible, Collingwood said no, Treloar said ok no worries I'm just asking, Collingwood decided his wife going to Qld was a risk, tried to trade him."

Yeah I agree. When you are so old, but still a challenger of course you roll the dice to snare one. But 3 first round picks could have set them up for another decade. I am not sure that Cameron was worth THAT much to them.