deanox

I saw it published last week and had the same thought RE the $1 million game. Perhaps the richest ever game of Australian rules football?

Honestly, I loved what Steven May said, and as a supporter it felt great. He could've qualified it by saying "We really let ourselves down with our kicking so didn't perform well enough to win BUT I think we are better than Collingwood on our day" or something, but he was a few drinks in. That kind of personality from players is fantastic and helps build the contest! But list strategy? No chance anything real gets discussed external to inner sanctum.

It's part of the CBA, basically the players are promised X million as part of the deal so the club's must pay the floor. It's partially because clubs like Footscray and North and possibly us were deliberately underpaying in the 90s and early 2000s to try to manage club finances. Personally I think there are better ways to manage it: - instead of clubs getting as large a dividend, all wages are paid by the AFL directly not by the club's, so the club's don't "save" by paying less than the cap (clubs can still pay what the play is worth, but they aren't incentivise to underpay) - clubs can pay down to a threshold (say 92.5%) but below that all unpaid salaries go back to the AFL. That money is distributed to the players at the end of season in accordance with a formula (bonus on match payments for every player? split equally amongst every player on a list? Split proportional to actual payments? Split only to the bottom 40% of players league wide?) I actually think the 92.5% rule makes it harder to attract FAs for lower clubs. Because you think "WCE/North or in the day us have a [censored] team so must have lots of money available for FA" but in reality they don't, they have max ~700k (the cap was $13,540,000 for the 2022 season, with a salary floor of $12,863,000).

I reckon you could write it yourself: "We think our current list is really well placed to continue to challenge over the next few years and our aim is to make it better with top end talent. Even though Grundy and Gawn didn't work this year, we were confident it would've worked with a bit more time, but we respect Brodie's decision to want to be the No. 1 ruck elsewhere so we facilitated his trade. We needed to replace Grundy and we're confident that Fullerton is ready to take that next step up this year and can't wait to see him out there working with Max. One area we wanted to improve was our forward line efficiency which is why we targeted McAdam who is an elite shot for goal. We have a few kids who we expect to challenge for senior games next year (maybe name Laurie, Howes?) and wanted to add some more elite talent. We traded up because we thought that the players in the top X of the draft were high talent, but even still we were excited when Y was available at draft pick Z because we had him going much higher than that. He has elite Z talent. There'll be no pressure on Y to play next year but if he has a good preseason we might see him in the seniors throughout the year." I'm sure that over the next 2 months there will be a bunch of interviews with those kind of statements and you can piece together your own cliche post to rival mine.

Can you point me to an example of a club ever commenting on list strategy in the way that you mean? Sure, there are generic examples like "we really needed to boost or tall defender stocks and we think X will add depth in that area" or perhaps "we would have loved to have kept X at our club and offered him a contract but salary cap means we couldn't offer what he wanted" or "we have built a war chest for next year" (from a bottom side). But anything about overall list or cap strategy?

I DO think though that repeated efforts, and accuracy misses leads to lack of scoreboard pressure by us, and an increase in scoreboard pressure ON us. So even if we are creating sufficient shots of sufficient quality to win games, there may be a mental/psychological factor which reduces scoring likelihood even further which the xScore isn't considering, meaning some kind of tweak to the game plan might be required. * alternatively we kick a bit straighter earlier in games and we break the hoodoo and all is good in the world!

I disagree RE poor shot creation. xScore take into account a range of factors which assess shot difficulty and success likelihood. And on that metric we should have won a lot of those games we lost, including the final against Collingwood by 20+ points.

That's a 2 goals a game forward most weeks!

Future 2nd is overs for an uncontacted 28 year old who has played 50 career games, played 7 games last year and is borderline best 22 for them. I'm happy with the offer from us because it's a fair and reasonable offer. Theyl trade will go through because it's more than fair and Adelaide's demands "we want a player" are unreasonable and also out of our control.

Depending on how his contract was structured, future 3rd could be a good deal.

I generally agree and think that's his best spot (despite inaccuracy in front of goals late this season). But in reality Sparrow held that forward/midfield rotation position and was in better form than Harmes. He can't play ANB or Pickett's roles. He doesn't play Fritsch or Melkshams role. And he doesn't play Petty, Brown or TMacs role. And ultimately they went with Spargo, Woewodin or Laurie ahead of him at times as the 7th option. It's a surprisingly tough forward line to crack!

If both Melbourne and Brisbane keep winning, that last round match between us could be playing for a $1 million.

Yes. We beat them during the year. And we should have beat them in the first final. I think we win that game more than half the time as well.

I think Pickett's high rating from the coaches should be a good indication that he is under instructions to fly for marks in the forward line. It's a defensive tactic designed to bring the ball to ground and prevent an intercept mark, and he does it consistently well, rarely giving away a free kick.

At 40 votes per game maximum (4 coaches each give a rating for each player out of 10), there was only one game between 3rd and 10th this year. Unbelievably even season.

2023 2nd 2022 4th 2021 16th 2020 3rd 2019 2nd (Gawn/Oliver = 1st) 2018 17th 2017 2nd 2016 1st 2015 2nd 2014 11th There is the full set (I can't find 2013 though) Adding in a 3rd and a 4th, it's a pretty good run. 7 top 4 finishes in 10 years. In 2018 he only played 10 games.

Is that Vineys 4th 2nd place?

I never understood the decision to move Harmes to the HBF as I thought he played his best footy in the Tom Sparrow HFF/mid-rotation role. He has reasonable hands overhead for his size and I felt he was always a chance to cause trouble drifting around the flank. He did this a couple of times, but not consistently. But I never thought he had the kicking skills or defensive accountability to play HBF.

I came here to say this. All 10 of the 30+ crew played big roles in the season and the GF (except due to injury eg Taylor Adams). Daicos led their disposals yesterday with 29. The next 6 players (every other player with more than 17 disposals, except Bobby Hill) was in that list of over 30s. I'm not saying they'll fall in a hole next year, but it's a very short window that could close very quickly. And is very reliant on a couple of young guns. Contrast that with our list, we only have a few players over 28 in our best 22. Sure May and Gawn are big holes to fill, but Viney is the only other consistent best 22 aged 28+ that we'll be hard pressed to replace in the next 4 years with what isn't already on the list. And we were a dice roll away from it all coming together this year. It means we are drafting and trading to improve our position, not cover our losses. And we have lots of cap space becoming available with TMac, Brown, and potentially Harmes, Jordan, Melksham, etc.

Congrats WCW on the amazing culture the demon army has been able to foster!

Fair. It's a tough call either way.

Campbell stuff, she's been great. But I can understand Colvin ahead of her as a senior member of the team.

While I agree with not getting carried away, our record over the last 13 games is pretty incredible, including lack of opposition goals in second halves and in particular last quarters. It extends further back than 4 wins this year. 100% we need to beat the top teams over the next 4-5 weeks, and until then we should be circumspect. But I don't think this is "they haven't beaten anyone yet" territory.

Future picks that must be traded for players is the best possible assistance a poor performing club can get. I like that it's a future draft giving them two years to trade it: they aren't held to ransom as easily. Other benefits better than early picks and more kids include some salary cap concessions, to help them attract players. You could also give them alternate FA rules: no offset of FA in and FA out for bottom 4 sides. It means they can recruit FAs without diluting a band 1 or 2 compo. An extra 2 list spots means they can bring in AFL ready journeymen to play now without losing the spots needed for development of juniors.

This year Fritsch averaged 2.2, Pickett 1.6 and Melksham 1.5. In 2022 Fritsch averaged 2.3, Pickett 1.8 and Brown 1.6. In 2021 Fritsch averaged 2.5, Pickett 1.6, McDonalnd 1.3 (special mention to Brown who averaged 1.9 from only games). The last 3 years McAdam has averaged 1.7, 1.5, 1.7. From his limited games. I don't think his goals per game average is a problem, it's a strength. At the end of the day he is replacing Melksham in the forward line for a few years as a defensive forward who can kick goals the other way (he played on Lever when we played them trying to disrupt his intercepting). We aren't paying a lot for him. But he has a spot as a role player over the next few years if he can keep form.