deanox

They listened to you Syd. Egan’s standouts from Round 11 practice match

What if the stint training/playing in the ruck taught him to be more physically competitive, and taught him how to use his body while attacking the ball in the area? It could be the reason he has started taking those marks instead of dropping them when nudged.

Have been saying he is a lovely kick just let down by execution, and this supports that somewhat. I suspect he was under instruction to kick more, which he did but rushed and ineffective. He then retreated into his shell because it wasn't working. Looks like he has had further coaching to drive or burst out of congestion before attempting the kick, which has given him the space and confidence he needs to execute. Good coaching. Let's hope he can continue this improvement and doesn't drop back to old ways.

They seemed very determined to get to pick 3. Given the Dogs and Eagles did a little trade that swapped pick 2 for pick 3, I wonder if this top couple of talents overall are very strong, but drop of afterwards?

I'll cop that. In dying seconds it is definitley game on despite being 2 out 3 kicks behind. But I do miss the tactical battle of position in the early quarters.

I think the 666 rule stiffled innovation that was only just beginning. It may not have affected us (according to public comments by the coach) but it took away one of the few things the coach can control on game day - positions - limiting opportunities to implement tactics based on positions. RE the GPS positioning: I think it helps with match ups and a bit with zones. It is good to as ego is where, who is in space, how the switches are working in real time and what is unfolding forward of the ball. Give it a try! I'm not satisfied its perfect and it does go haywire occasionally but it's much better than just the tv.

I think Oliver improving his drive out of contests will help this because he has the ability to become a power player not just a ball winner. https://www.facebook.com/AFL/videos/2824933957729828/ Also that clip is all about Petracca, but I'd like to highlight Olivers understanding of where the kanga were in space around him. By changing direction he put an effective sheppard on both Dummont (14) and Hall (43) and gave Petracca the clear run into space. It's subtle but it's the reason the got the ball out like that.

When you watch the game live on the AFL App you can watch it either as the tv video or as a top down plan of the ground with the little player numbers moving around (their GPS locations). It's a few seconds delay from live but if you delay your Kayo stream you can see the full ground at all times.The ball is shown as well, probably hand drawn in thus the delay. I use it a lot late last year, and some may recall posts I made about Tomlinson playing the defensive wing position which you don't see on tv. It's really frustrating that they don't publish the data or the heat maps after the game. Honestly, I think most of the published AFL stats are rubbish, or at the least they don't infer what the media claims they do. Contested possessions (picking up a loose back under no pressure or running a physical contest in the backline) and DE% (hit a player on the chest or bomb it long to disadvantage in a 4 v 4 pack) are the classic ones. For example, to gauge pressure I'd be interested to see effective corrals and total tackles, not just tackles that cause possession spills. I've been looking for a good stats and tactics analysis website for a while but am struggling to find much. I've recently read posts here but I struggle to find much more detailed. https://www.statsinsider.com.au/afl/stats-that-matter-the-tactical-evolution-of-afl I'm particularly interested in positioning and zone movement vs ball movement because I think that's key in 2020. The post above by @Axis of Bob lays out the few available strategies so simply, everything after that is tactical execution but it just never gets described that way. At the ground I usually sit level 2 behind the goals, so @binman your post resonated with me. The last few years we have been more exciting to watch than most teams because of Goodwins experimental set ups and positioning (diamond defence anyone) and I was very frustrated when 666 came in and stiffled that innovation.

My other observation was the ground covered by Pickett. I'd like to watch the replay, but on a number of occasions he made the first lead out of the 50 which opened space, but then had double backed and was back flying past the contest 30-50 m away seconds later.

Tactical observation from last night: Watching the player GPS on the AFL app, in the second half, I saw on occassions that we had a spare player inside our forward 50 when the ball was up on the wing or HBF. It looked like North were opting to allow this to occur to give them an additional number at the stoppage, but we saw what happened in the last when we kept getting it out the back or to the switch and suddenly had a lot of space to drive forward. I observed that our spare player forward on a couple of occasions was Petracca. My hypothesis is he rotated forward to rest, his midfield opponent didn't go with him. When we won the ball in the contest and moved it forward, he often played a role around the high half forward line getting the ball into the 50. This has a couple of effects: a) an opponent had to move back to find him, creating an overlap, and b) because he left the 50 to win the ball at half forward, there was often a hole of space in the 50 left behind him helping us score.

I love how nonchalant he is. It gives the impression that he recognises goals are created by a team effort, he just gets to kick them. On AVE scoring shots per game he is about 5th in the AFL right now, and equal 7th for goals per game. If he keeps those averages up he'll comfortably finish top 10 in the comp, and with improved accuracy could push the top 5.

Yep, 77% game time, 7 score involvements (=4th most on ground) out of 12 disposals. Basically when he gets involved he creates. He also had more disposals in the first half than the second.

On top of, tackles recorded are only those which cause the ball to spill. In the forward 50 you might lay 5 tackles in a sequence with building pressure but only the last tackle that causes the spill is actually listed as a tackle.

He kicked 39.24 over his career, showing he is a great kick for goal. This year he has 12.7. Even adding a couple of misses to that, he still has a healthy accuracy.

When players duck their heads to try and slip out of a tackle that should absolutely be play on.

QFT. I said this last night, can't have it both ways.

Yeah that's what i was saying, it's about the same pro rata. But it is a massive loading difference in terms of recovery etc.

I saw on the AFL stats tracker that our 2017 round 20 game against GWS was the highest record distance covered by both teams combined in a game of AFL, 619.6 km were covered that day by 44 players for an average of 14.1 km per player. That is the most, so not an average game. But yesterday, the two teams covered only 483.6 km, about 78% of that distance. Against PA, the two teams ran a little less (470.3 km). Against Brisbane 454 km (73% of max). In the Perth heat in round 1 it was as low as 428.8 km). For this week's context, North did 8 km more than us yesterday. So what are my take aways? Not much from this small data set although it does appear that shorter games correlates to distance run reasonably well. Does this mean faster recovery? Less soft tissue injuries? Does it mean endurance athletes are less important? Or does it make them more important, with a few players running all day and allowing burst players to rotate more frequently? Are any positions doing proportionally more/less? Has anyone had any thoughts on how this is effecting the season?

If we can get up over North with both of us having short breaks, we'll have a 2 day extra break on the pies the week after, and we'd have to be a chance to push into the 8.

Why wasn't that brought back for a review?

16 disposals, 8 clangers.

If that is a free kick, Fritsch should have been lining up for goal instead of giving away a 50 against Brisbane.

Vanders making strong use of the metal plate early.

That's tough for ANB. If Hamill didn't try to kick, it wouldn't have been a sling. Yes, there was a sling result, but it wasn't the tacklers fault.

I wouldn't rest both Brayshaw and Oliver. Rest one, give the other that additional responsibility.