Axis of Bob

I love the idea that bringing out players in their late 40s is going to be somehow motivating to a 19 year old. Just because it means something to the old guys on Demonland doesn't mean that it means anything to the players. I'm in my late 30s, and I'll nod and smile when people talk about Robbie Flower but they may as well be talking about Ron Barassi, Bluey Truscott or Allan La Fontaine. Sure, I know they were good players because old people keep telling me (whilst I smile and nod politely), but I don't have any connection to them beyond that. Luke Jackson was 2 years old when that happened. His first reaction to seeing the 2004 team is likely to be "OMG, there's a third Nathan Brown?!?!"

The kick was a miscommunication between him and Jackson. Jackson needed to double back towards the ball and Viney thought he was …. but he didn’t so the kick looked silly even though the idea was right. The movement was very poor from the forwards, with all three running back towards goal and none come forwards to separate the defenders. The only option Viney had inside 50 was a bomb to the top of the square to what would have been a pack situation. It was terrible forward play.

I just calculated this from his total possession and contested mark stats. This year he has 40 possessions and 5 contested marks = 12.5%. Last year he had 7.7 possessions a game (ironically fewer than he has this year), for a total of 100 possessions and took 17 contested marks (17%). He's actually winning more contests this year (4.6 contested ppg vs 3.6 last year), he just isn't kicking the same number of goals.

I find that very hard to believe after missing several months with stress fractures in his femur. In 2018 he played 10 games and that was only because Hogan got injured. He's not a high possession player, so the difference between his good and bad games is often just about a chance taken here or there as he gets a high proportion of his possessions from contested marks. Last year, for example, he had a decent year but only had more than 8 possessions in 3 games. In his career he has 13.6% of his possessions coming from contested marks, which is very high. This year it is 12.5% (close to average) and in 2020 it was 17.0%, so the difference between his good and bad games is just having those grabs stick or not .... and his low possession game makes that a low sample size. This year he has more contested possessions than uncontested, which implies that he's probably struggling more with running, which fits in with the stress fracture injury he had. Players that are based around contested marking take longer as they compete against directly against bigger bodies in the most difficult circumstances. That's why you see the best of them peaking and excelling as they approach (and exceed) 30 years of age. Weideman has had some poor games, but he's not miles off being OK, it just seems like that because of the way that he plays. After all, he's marked the ball inside 50 as many times as TMac since he's come into the team.

There are a lot of assumptions being made about Weideman on here. The most straightforward (and likely) issue is that he missed a large chunk of time with a stress fracture in his leg, which robbed him of a lot of fitness and strength as he's had to spend time off his feet. Given that he's young and not yet established himself as a best 22 player, (and one without a mature forward's body) that has made it a difficult barrier for him to overcome. I think time playing VFL is better for him at the moment, but there's a lot of overreaction in this thread.

I cannot overstate how much I want us to select Lukas Cooke as a developing key forward. Sometimes I just want to watch the world burn.

That's like asking if we would be better off replacing Tom Sparrow with Dustin Martin. Of course we are better off replacing a role player with one of the best players in the league, but it's not a useful comparison. Geelong paid 3 first round picks for Jeremy Cameron. West Coast, in part, gave up Chris Judd for Kennedy. There are trade offs for all the decisions. I'm sure that if we spent 3 first round picks and a chunk of our salary cap, we would have a superstar key forward to pair with TMac ..... but our team would be worse off overall.

It's funny because the winning team has kept their opponents to 50, 25, 74, 60, 67, 61, 74, 62, 81, 81, 52, 68, 89, 44, 84, 54, 73, 84, 66, 82 and 75 since the year 2000. Even when footy was higher scoring in the early 2000s, no team has kicked 90 points and lost a Grand Final. The average score of a defeated grand finalist since 1999 is 67 points, and since 2013 is 59 points. Defence wins premierships because it can survive under the highest intensity. That's why we've comfortably beaten every other team at the top end of the ladder because our game stands up when both teams are bringing the heat. We beat both Geelong and Brisbane, with their 'goal kicking firepower'. Brisbane kicked 3 goals after half time. Geelong kicked 5 straight in the 3rd quarter, but only 9 for the match. Geelong and Brisbane are both defensive teams like us because defence wins premierships. Ignoring all that .... we've still kicked the 3rd most points of any team this year. Edit: Lord Nev put up averages, which is better. Our numbers actually look less flattering because we haven't run up the scoreboard against the poorer teams like some other teams have .... but doing that doesn't mean anything in finals.

How does "don't take the game on" square with "take the game on"? The difference is when it doesn't come off. They've been doing the same thing all year but it didn't work a few times this week. You don't want to stop them trying to take the game on because it has made us very successful. Imagine asking Dusty to give the first option rather than trying to take on the tackler. C'est la vie.

Meh, we played badly and lost. It happens in a long season. The SCG very much didn't help us.

I think that he was both a good and poor coach. He had just come out of playing and had very limited experience coaching when he took the head coaching job at Collingwood. As we've seen with others, this usually plays out badly and Buckley has been one of the very best at it. He started off as a poor coach and that probably resulted in them wasting a period where they could have won another flag or two. But he regenerated the list and created a team that was a legitimate flag threat for a few years, which also could have netted him a flag. I think he's now a good coach. Coaches get better as they get older, generally. I think the next team that he coaches will get a much better coach than the one that got him in 2011. He probably needs to do a couple of other roles in football first to round out his experience, but I can see him coming back again as a very good coach.

I was desperately searching for a link from Cowton to Crazy Horse. I even read most of the Wiki article on the native American chief of the same name! Unfortunately Gary was a bit before my time. ? Thanks ds, it was very interesting.

Cow town = Buffalo Springfield?

I agree with this. Korda needed something to differentiate his board from the Eddie board. This is them cutting the cord from the Eddie days in the eyes of supporters.

Buckley can clearly coach and should probably be a premiership coach already. But he's in an absolute basket case of a club at the moment with upheaval at every level of the club since the exit of Eddie. It reminds me of The Death of Stalin. I feel sorry for Buckley. He seems like a decent guy and he's a good coach, but the club he's part of is a complete dumpster fire.

I find it incredibly unfortunate that that a simple survey of football supporters' view undertaken for academic research is seen by some as so controversial. It's just a survey. It's hard to draw any conclusions on anything without decent data, and all views are welcomed because it gives a best chance of getting a snapshot of what is actually happening.

You are dead right. I've been running with the wrong assumption that McDonald was in the last year of his contract, rather than his second last. ?

This was your original post on the topic. In response I asked why knowing he will be off next year would make him perform poorly. You responded that it was because he was out of contract. I didn't think that this was a reason for him to be playing poorly. So you think it's possible that he could be playing poorly because he's out of contract at the end of the year and may be off to another club. I think it is illogical that a player would not be playing well because they are out of contract. In fact the opposite is more likely to be true, as players are more motivated by the lure of a future big contract when they are coming out of contract. But that wasn't your point, if I cared to read what you said.

No, but he is tied to us by a contract he signed last year. That means that he's the only one that we know will be with us next year. Neither Weideman nor McDonald have contracts for next year, so there is the possibility that Brown will be our only AFL quality key forward, which is not ideal for a team looking to win a premiership that clearly favours a setup with 2 key forwards. If McDonald leaves as a free agent and Weideman spends the year playing VFL then what do you think becomes of that scenario?

I was simply using the least biased predictor of what our chances of winning a premiership this year were. Specifically I mostly wanted to demonstrate the point that, despite being top of the ladder, the significant likelihood is that we won't win the flag this year. This point was being made against the 'go all out for a flag' argument. Going 'all out' for a flag is fine for a team that is on its last legs and only has one realistic shot left (like Adelaide in 2017 or Sydney in 2016) but is not the best way to win a flag for teams coming into their premiership window, like us. The best way to win a flag is to be consistently very good over a number of years because there are so many variables that are largely out of a team's control. I think that this is what we should be trying to maximise our ability to win a flag across multiple years rather than looking at 2021 in isolation.

But why would he not be trying to play as well as he can, just because he's out of contact? Are you suggesting he'd rather miss out of playing finals? Or playing worse which would reduce the value of his next contract? Or .... ? It simply doesn't make sense.

The only real one is that we're $4.50 premiership favourites at the moment (which is about a 1 in 4 chance (25% ish). The rest are hypotheticals to illustrate a point, although the calculations done with them are real year 10 maths. ?

I'm not seeing the logic here. You say you'd be happy to win one flag but want to go all out for a flag this year even if it meant reducing the chances of a flag overall. You're speaking like the supporter of a team that loses and sees this as our one shot of winning a flag. It isn't because we'll have chances in future years. The Bulldogs are the only team to really have a 'one-off' case in the last 20 years. Other than that, Richmond were top 4 from 2017-2020, West Coast were top 8 from 2014-2020 and 2002-2007, Hawthorn only missed twice from 2007-2018, Sydney only missed once from 2003-18, Geelong missed once since 2006, Port were minor premiers from 2002-2004, and Brisbane was top 4 from 1999- 2004. Winning a flag isn't a one off. You need to consistently put yourself in a position to win it because they're hard to win. Adelaide's best chance was 2017, where they went all out and got Bryce Gibbs for several first round picks. That's actually the best counter-example to your argument because they went all out for a flag ..... but sacrificed their future to do so rather than just continually competing at the top end.

Do you think that this story changes if the club is one that has won a flag recently like, say, Hawthorn?

I know this is ridiculous, but could you tell me what Weideman's rationale would be for this?