Axis of Bob

At no point did I say that the change in game plan was solely responsible for Sylvia's good season, just that he has not struggled with the new style like Brock has. I used the two players as a comparison for why Brock's decision to move on was a good one. Sylvia is well suited to Bailey's style and has thrived within it, whereas Brock struggled somewhat and I was showing the difference between their playing styles, along with Davey's, to give people a better I idea of why I think Brock struggled.

I hope it doesn't seem like I don't think Brock is a good player. Because he is a good player. If he wasn't a good player then we wouldn't have received a first round draft pick for him. He will be very good for Carlton with his tough work and hard body. Carlton's gameplan will also help him get a lot of the ball whereas our gameplan reduces his personal effectiveness. They are far less defensive and their open running 'Russian roulette' game plan allows him to use his endurance and footy smarts to work into space more easily. Brock is a player who is in constant motion. His endurance is very good and he covers a lot of ground, albeit not very quickly. But our game style has trended away from roaming around the ground picking up kicks from just reading the play well, as he was able to do very easily when Daniher was coaching. He wins contested ball and one on one contests very well. But Bailey has our side playing a hard running burst style of game, which Brock just wasn't suited to. It is interesting to note that since Bailey changed our style after coming to the club Brock has struggled, yet Sylvia has grown an extra leg. Sylvia is a power runner whose understanding of the game wasn't that great, whereas Brock is a perpetual motion ball magnet who is a natural footballer but has struggled to adapt his style. Davey, too, has thrived when his burst play is harnessed with high midfield rotations and spells on the bench. Our draftees have great endurance, but are generally really good power runners who carry the ball. Scully and Trengove definitely are. I think it was a really smart decision by Melbourne, but also a really smart decision by Brock. Brock will play better footy at Carlton and we build a team more suited to our style of play. I hope, and expect, that both parties do very well out of the move.

His acceleration was never really, really bad. Not brilliant, but not artocious. He needed that in order to win clearances. But his top pace is poor, and looks moreso nowadays. Beating Judd in a 3km time trial means nothing about his speed, it just says that his endurance is very good. And it is very good. He's always tested well in long distance time trials.

I only read a couple of those "Facts"before I got frustrated. I personally don't care about this petty debate one way or another and won't bother arguing the merits of either side. But one thing that does annoy me is people calling their opinions 'fact'. It does show me why so many people form such stupid opinions - because they don't know what a fact is!!

No we don't. According to the polls, we have the least amount of supporters of any club. Melbourne is the best at converting supporters into members.

Just sitting back and enjoying your last name, Bob. There's also a sideshow bob out there too. Other than that there's not a heap to comment on. Although I don't think that we can't just lump all broken legs into the same category. It depends on the type of break, the bones broken and how it has healed. Nathan Brown's break may have hindered him later in his career, however he broke the tibia so I don't think that the injuries can be compared. If someone can give an example of how past players have recovered from fibula breaks then I'd be more interested. He won't be doing a full preseason this year (due to his recovery), didn't have one last year (due to a modified preseason strengthening program as a bottom age draftee) and would have very little fitness after missing a whole year of running. As such, I would doubt we will see a great deal of him at AFL level in 2010. I assume he will play a few 'developmental' games to give him a taste, but we shouldn't expect any meaningful contribution from him.

Are you just agreeing with everyone, because you don't really know? You don't need to comment on everything. It's often better just to listen to what other people have to say, especially if you're a little shaky on the subject matter.

What's wrong with Griffen's kicking? Griffen doesn't impact games enough yet, but he's a wonderful kick.

Oh good, I can see this degenerating into yet another Bruce/Miller/Newton/Bell bagging threads. At least Sylvia has stepped up, Robertson has been retired and McLean is at Carlton, so there are three less names. At least a few people will feel like heroes at the end before taking their hands out of their pants.

Could someone send this quote in a message to jayceebee31? :D

jayceebee31, any answers on this one? What is it about what you've seen of Hughes that makes it very doubtful that he'll make it?

Why is it doubtful? What is it,specifically, about his game that you don't like which makes it very doubtful that he'll make it?

So you have managed to deduce that injuries are bad for players. Surely that information should be included in the Royal Commission into our injury management that must be undertaken. We can longer accept mediocrity!! :angry:

Watts injured? How can our football department stand by as one of our brightest prospects' career is derailed by injury? This surely calls for a full scale review of the club's injury management practices!! Personally, I'm sick of this club accepting mediocrity.

No, it's not about that. It's about not picking up a player for 2 seasons when we are not yet in a position to win a flag. Bradshaw may be the difference between us winning 8 games rather than 7 in 2010, ie) who cares? Joel McDonald has a much great chance of being part of our flag side than Bradshaw because McDonald will still be playing when we are challenging for a flag.

Unfortunately my claim that "Temel's pick > 3x Butcher's pick" is not true. Unfortunately 'undrafted' does not have a numeric value attached to it, so one side of my equation is undefined and hence I cannot claim victory.

The way I would originally set up with that forward line is: HF: Bate Watts Sylvia F: Woenaeamirri Martin Jurrah The match ups would be: Martin - Warnock. He has the size and straight line speed to handle Martin. Martin is our most dangerous big bodied pack marking threat at the moment so should receive our best lock down tall defender. Watts - Frawley. Frawley gives more run that Warnock, so we should look to exploit Watts' youth and lack of strength. Frawley should look to dominate Watts, and also has the speed to defend him. Jurrah - Garland. Very important match up because Jurrah is our most dangerous forward at the moment. Garland has shown that he has the speed and his ability to play both small and tall is very important. Physical strength is not paramount, but athleticism is. Jurrah is a tough match up, so Garland i very important here. Bate - Jo McDonald. Bate will push more up the ground in this forward line (with Martin present). Better to have a more of a runner on him and JoMac plays medium sized and uses the ball quite well as a rebounding half back. This wouldn't be in a dedicated shut down role, and run from defence will be important. Sylvia - Grimes. You'd imagine that the amount of time spent inside 50 would be minimal, with Sylvia being a goal kicker in transition playing as an attacking midfielder. Grimes is strong enough overhead and who look to run off Sylvia and compete when they both move up the ground and Sylvia breaks forward. Woenaramirri - Bennell. As Prendergast said, when you have small forwards making an impact you've got to draft player to play on them. Quick, agile, good user and decision maker, so use him in defence to help mop up and also defend Aussie. I'm struggling to find a genuine match up for Rivers. His lack of speed would be a major issue against every one of those forwards you mentioned. If you felt that his influence in defence was such that his inclusion is absolutely non-negotiable, then I'd probably get him onto Watts (due to Watts' inexperience and lack of strength) and pray to hell that Watts didn't start finding the footy, move Frawley to Bate and McDonald on to Sylvia, with Grimes moving out.

fatty: The increase in the success of early draft picks since the inception of the draft nearly 25 years ago (and indeed in the past 15 years) indicates that the science of drafting has come a long way and improved the way teams draft today. There is an element of art, however the ultra-simplistic method of simply drafting the player who was best on ground has proven itself to be a failure over a period of time. If you were only drafting ruckmen on performance then you'd never draft a ruckman younger than 27! Do you know the name David Kellett? How about Ed Clarke? These were both very good junior footballers (Kellett was a dual AA), however neither of them were drafted because the science of drafting has indicated that these players would never be able to make the step up to be part of a successful AFL side. Leigh Brown is an example being used of a player who was a waste of an early pick, and he was drafted on the basis of being consistently best on ground at under 18 level. Matthew Panos this year? Going to your question about a key forward developing a key defender skill set, I actually indicated that this is entirely possible. Modern history is littered with players who were drafted as forwards but became defenders. That's because there are flaws that a key defenders may be able to cover that they couldn't overcome as a forward. Presti and Martyn are examples, where their power and athleticism were good enough to react to an opponent and nullify a contest at full back, but they lacked the tricks, skills, hands and innate ability to lose their opponents like a forward needs to. But it is very rare that a defender can gain the skills to become a key forward. I would argue that there are so many misses in the draft because there are aspects that are not analysed enough. Angwin, Beetham and Cupido are examples of players that shouldn't have been drafted so early because of their under-analysed issues. Leigh Brown shouldn't have been drafted early because he speed wasn't good enough for a bookend, and this should have been picked up if the recruiters analysed the needs for the position he played. The reason why there are so many missed in the draft is because drafting 17 year olds is incredibly difficult. There are so many variables, such as what position they'd play at AFL and what skills they need for that, how much development they have left in them, what level of competition are they playing against (ie, 40 touches in unders 18s vs 12 in SANFL seniors). It is not the simplistic view that you hold, and that's the reason that drafting has improved. The art of drafting is judging whether or not they have the skills, but unless you know the science of what skills you are looking for (or forecasting) then you are just pissing in the dark.

I'm talking specifically about tall forwards. Tall forwards require a different skill set to ruckmen or key defenders. Ruckmen generally fall into various categories, but generally the more mobile and skillful a ruckman appears to be at 18 the earlier the pick people will use on them. So aggressive tap ruckmen will generally develop later as their bigger bodies start to give them an advantage (such as Jolly, Sandilands, Spencer, etc) will generally go in the rookie draft because when they are you they just look like gangly, aggressive, uncoordinated duds. But the more mobile and less physical players (like Kreuzer, Fraser, Ryder etc) get pick up in the top half dozen players and start to perform at AFL level much earlier. Tall defenders tend to take time to develop as well, so usually get taken a bit later. You can pick up good key defenders anywhere in the draft and many are actually failed key forwards. Examples are Harris/Lake, Rutten, Hudgton, Presti (who was a failed forward), Warnock, Frawley, etc. They're a real mixed bag, but the common element is the time taken to develop (even Scarlett needed lots of time). Key forwards need time at AFL level, but their ability is far more obvious. They need skill, speed, size, good hands, innate talent and, most of all, the ability to be simply too good for their direct opponent. These are obvious and recruiters are getting pretty good at picking this. So if a key forward is missing something then they don't go top 5, which means that they just aren't likely to be good enough to be a dominant key forward at AFL level. Also, rpfc, you have mentioned several players that have missed out for reasons other than talent: Molan - early retirement due to injury Fraser - has made it and is a ruckman Longmuir - early retirement due to injury Thorp - injury and attitude Brown - poor selection because he didn't have the speed require to be an AFL key forward. Still has played over 150 games. Livingston - athletically gifted, but didn't have the talent to be an AFL key forward. But there weren't many selections after that who worked. McDougall - as with Livingston, but also lacked ticker. Angwin - headcase Polak - headcase Walsh - injuries and intensity Bradley - ruckman in a rubbish draft. If you look at those selections, there are very few who just weren't good enough. But that's not the point and I don't want you to get distracted in a side argument like this. By only citing specific examples rather than doing a proper analysis of talls v midfielders v flankers in the top 5 (I said top 5, not top 10) you are not able to get a proper picture. I was doing the exercise to determine that we were likely to be pissing into the wind if we selected a key forward with picks 11 or 18, because very few of them end up getting to AFL standard. We have almost as much chance with a 3rd/4th round pick as we do with a pick between 6 and 20. However, there are many midfielders drafted between 6 and 20 who become very good/exceptional players at AFL level. This is because, IMO, they don't directly have to beat their opponent one on one like a key forward does so their minor flaws are not exposed anywhere near as much by an opponent. We need to use our resources well, and drafting key forwards with high first round picks has historically been a disaster.

It'd be because Watts hasn't done a preseason before, nor has he had to put his body through an AFL workload yet. I'd suggest that he's basically being treated like a new recruit and will do a fair bit of his work with the likes of Trengove, Tapscott, Gysberts and Fitzpatrick. The imagination runs wild with the thought of Jurrah after doing a preseason. I don't imagine that aerobic training was a big part of the Yuendumu Magpies' preseason program!

I think that Maric could very easily end up as a midfielder once he eventually builds up his tank, which he hasn't really had a chance to do as yet given his interrupted preseason last year. If he is able to develop AFL midfield endurance and has the 'cheap goalsneak forward pocket' knocked out of him then he has all the tricks to be right up there with the best in the business. I feel he gets forgotten about a lot by supporters, but he is a kid with serious talent. What I like best about him is his low to the ground running, agility and evasive abilities. We all know he can kick, but he's able to work really well in traffic which is really important for modern midfielders. All the public noises from the coaches suggests that he's fronted for preseason in really good nick and training very well. I really hope he gets a full preseason because if he gets his running capacity up then he could be anything.

Key defenders are generally available later in the draft, however it is only the very rare case where a really good key forward has not been selected early. The following is a list of proper AFL tall forwards and where they were drafted (2009 lists - please forgive me but I'm doing the draft pick numbers off the top of my head because I can't be stuffed so if you find any glaring problems let me know): Adelaide - Tippett (30s), Brisbane - Brown (F/S), Bradshaw (50s) Carlton - Fevola (38*) Collingwood - Rocca (2), Anthony (37) Essendon - Lloyd, Lucas (both top 5), Hurley (5) Fremantle - Pavlich (4), McPharlin (10) Geelong - Mooney (50s), Hawkins (F/S) Hawthorn - Franklin (5), Roughead (3) Kangaroos - Petrie (20s) Melbourne - Watts (1), Robertson (rookie) Port Power - Tredrea (zone selection) Richmond - Richardson (F/S), Reiwoldt (13) St Kilda - Reiwoldt (1), Koschitzke (2) Sydney - Hall (11), Goodes (43) West Coast - Kennedy (4) Bulldogs - * Players denoted by an asterisk were selected as 17 year olds when clubs were only allowed to select one 17 year old in the draft. Hence it is not a true reflection of where they sat in the draft pool in that year. Looking at that list of 26 key forwards, 4 of these were father son or zone selections. They were Richo, J Brown, Hawkins and Tredrea and I don't think it is unlikely that these players would have been outside the top 5 in their draft years. However I won't include those players in these figures, it's just important to note. 11 of the remaining 22 were top 5 selections. 3 were first rounders (not in the top 5) - Hall, McPharlin and Jack Reiwoldt. So 3 out of 26 AFL standard key forwards were taken in the first round after pick 5. Only 1 rookie. Only two second rounders in Petrie and Tippett, and both of those were originally ruckmen who have been converted into big forwards. Of those remaining there were 2 third rounders and 2 fourth rounders, although all of these players were selected a long, long, long time ago before the drafting science was very developed. I think what it says is that key forwards generally come in the top 5, but after that it's an absolute crapshoot. Very interesting is the lack of key forwards to come from the rookie list. It all goes to indicate that key forward talent is quite obvious so all of it gets taken early. And if a key forward is not worth a top 5 pick then it probably isn't worth wasting a first or second round pick on them because the likelihood of success is very low.

I don't think Miller is part of any premiership plans, but he will certainly fill a role while the kids develop. But his performance is neither here nor there. If you look at our key forwards and assume that Watts will make it as a key forward (which, for a pick 1, is not an unrealistic assumption) then we really only need one extra tall forward, if any. If Martin becomes that player that chips in with 2 goals a game and provides an secondary target then there's no problem. And this is assuming that Jurrah is simply a third tall forward. But you can set up a forward line in so many ways that I really don't see it as a particularly pressing issue. Sure we could go down then Buddy/Roughy, Riewoldt/Kosi route, or we could go down the multi-pronged Geelong/Port Adelaide option (which, by the way, have won two of the last 3 flags) or even the small WestCoast/Bulldogs option (who were a kick off a Grand Final). As long as you can control the middle of the ground then then you can set up your forwards to suit the cattle you have. either way, it's been shown that you can be a dominant team without a dominant key forward (Geelong/West Coast), but it very hard to be a dominant team with a stock standard midfield. The midfield is somewhere where we need to be more than just good, we need to be very close to the best.

Not especially quick? You've never seen him, have you? If you have then you didn't notice him. I think that explains a fair bit of your argument. Either way, he would have played last year such was his form. We were having a hard enough time delisting enough players to get the draft picks we did (hence delisting Newton and Meesen and rookieing them, as well as keeping Jordie McKenzie on the rookie list). He's a medium forward who is lightning quick, has great hands and is strong overhead. Injuries have held him back, but the talent is undeniably there.

Who cares who wanted what before the draft? Not I. I'd rather talk about Jordan Gysberts.