Axis of Bob
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The 2020 Trade Period
Axis of Bob replied to Whispering_Jack's topic in Trade & Draft in the Time of COVID
Trade rumours rarely age well, but this one aged badly so quickly that it actually went back in time to before Zac Williams came out and said that he was exploring free agency to a Melbourne based club! That was about 5 minutes before you posted. -
The 2020 Trade Period
Axis of Bob replied to Whispering_Jack's topic in Trade & Draft in the Time of COVID
Ummm ..... the answer to our key forward requirements is 6 foot 1 wingman, Harry Perryman?!?!? -
The Jack Gunston Thread
Axis of Bob replied to Grimes Times's topic in Trade & Draft in the Time of COVID
A medium marking option is so far from our most pressing need. Gunston is a good player, but why waste resources (draft picks and money) on him when the incremental improvement is so small? It would be much smarter to use those on a player who fills an important, pressing need .... like a crumbing small forward or a running half back. -
He's a very good and long kick .... but I'm just not sure we can accumulate enough down the field free kicks to make him effective.
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We paid a future first, 26 and pick 50 (which is effectively zero since we weren't using it anyway) for pick 10 (Pickett), 28 (Rivers) and a future fourth rounder. In reality, we traded 26 for 28 (Rivers) and a future fourth rounder, and our future first round for pick 10 (Pickett). It makes perfect sense. If we had a first rounder in 2020 still, we'd be screaming out to draft Pickett.
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Nah, he's pointing at his direct opponent, who is less than 2 metres away, demonstrating that he's legally allowed where he is.
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I really like some of the comments here about how we were able to beat a top 8 team without winning the inside midfield battle. We won a structural battle with St Kilda, as we won despite giving them the stoppage and territorial advantage that we usually use to win games. We mostly didn't allow them to get in behind us and forced them to win contests against our excellent defenders in order to kick goals, and they weren't able to. We were really good at forcing them to go through our zone, rather than around it like the Dogs did and they simply could score because of it. They kicked a fe
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You're misunderstanding it. This is how teams defend because they can cover more space this way because the ball takes time to travel through the air. If you're kicking to a stationary player only 50 metres away, the ball would take up to 3.5 seconds to travel from the kicker's boot to the target. If you add the time it takes the player to kick the ball then that's over 4 seconds to get the ball to a team mate 50 metres away. If the ball is being kicked to a stationary target inside a zone 50 metres away, how far away do the defenders need to be if that player can mark the ball unco
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I'm reminded of the story about Ablett Jnr, earlier in his career when he was a dangerous forward pocket, being told by his teammates that he could be the best player in the competition if only he worked harder. Ablett was shocked and affronted because he thought he WAS working hard. Of course he later discovered what working hard really was but he wasn't able to know what working hard felt like until he actually had already done it. This happens with a lot of players and some unfortunately never cross that barrier, or it happens too late for them. The suburban leagues are filled with tal
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I agree that work rate is one of the most important things for getting the game on our terms (as well as defensive cohesion). Part of that is at selection and drafting, and it's a question that's hard to answer. Do we play defensive forwards at the expense of, much more talented, goal kicking forwards? Given that scores are lower and goals much harder to come by, is the sacrifice of the goal kicking for defense worth it?
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This is great. I think it backs up the general idea of how we feel about the game in losses vs wins, but also backs up the notion that AFL observers really don't have access to (or haven't developed) the stats to demonstrate what we're discussing. It would be so much easier if this was the Demonland baseball forum! The UP/CP differentials (and UM) do demonstrate the crux of what we're getting at, which is that we are excellent at winning games that are contested and poor at winning ones that are not. That's why our losses often look easy but our wins look hard (although it could be
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The Jared Polec Thread
Axis of Bob replied to picket fence's topic in Trade & Draft in the Time of COVID
The problem with Polec is that he looks good to spectators but terrible to coaches. That's because coaches know a lot more about what things a player does away from the ball (they have vision, GPS data etc), especially this year when spectators can only watch the game on TV. Spectators only watch the player with the football or in the direct contest, often yelling "kick the bloody thing!" without realising that there's nobody to kick to (which is either outside of screen or they just don't notice). Polec is not a team first footballer, and he's not good enough or impactful enough for coa -
"Relatively slowly" means that the ball hangs in the air for a period of time, which allows defenders to cover that space. It means that just because you're in space it doesn't automatically mean that the ball has enough time to get to that open player before a defender can cover them. Unlike a short handball, which can get to a team mate before the defender has time to react. The time the ball hangs in the air is the reason why a zone defence works, because you don't need a defender playing on every forward, you just need a defender close enough that they can cover the kick by the time it rea
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Firstly, I think pressure acts are a better indicator. You can see these on the AFL site but they're much more difficult to track because the AFL site is awful. Usually they show that Weid and Fritsch are the worst, Kozzie easily the best and everyone else in between (although closer to the bottom). I think that keeping our forward deeper is important to use our mediums properly. Mediums need space to beat their opponents, generally, whilst talls and smalls are less disadvantaged by congestion. However it does mean that we are in less of a position to defend when the ball is turned over.
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Just looking at the stats, during the 2 weeks where we played a single tall setup (Geelong and Richmond) Fritsch's had an almost hilariously low (for a forward) 3 and 4 pressure acts. By comparison, our number one key forward, Tom McDonald, had 10 and 8 in each game, whilst Kozzie had 16 and 19. Yikes! I'm not doing this to single out Bayley, I'm just showing that kicking goals isn't the only thing we need to look at. Currently the balance of the forward line doesn't seem quite right, IMHO, because our highest quality forwards are of a different style to the midfield and defence.
