Axis of Bob

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?

You would have to pay extra to bring a free agent over of the exact type that you needed (who potentially? maybe another question). Getting the players to come at a price that works for your list ... that's the hard bit. Richmond threw money at Lynch and that worked, but haven't been able to bring in any other mature players (trade or free agency) since, whilst losing fringe players (plus Ellis to free agency). Richmond had to spend big to fix a gaping hole in their structure and nothing since. It's hard to keep a flag quality list together, especially when you are trying to bring in free agents. The best we could probably hope for is bringing in a player like Weideman but at a higher price. If we keep Weid then I think that we are, overall, a much better chance of winning a flag with this playing group.

The other thing that probably need to be said is that it's not just about this year. It's easy to say that Brown is better right now so we should play him. But what if Weid no longer sees opportunities here? Then we go into next year, the year after or even 4 years down the track without the riches we have now. Are we a better chance of winning the flag in 2023-25 with Weid at the club or with him at another club? And the easy answer to that is "we're trying to win a flag this year, so who cares?". Well the current chances of us winning a flag, according to the bookmakers, ($4.50) is about 25%. They are really good odds. And, say for example, that Brown playing increases those odds from 25% to 27%. That's still vastly more likely that we don't win the flag that we do. The difference between Brown and Weid is very small. But let's say that McDonald takes a big payday (hypothetical) at the end of the year, so our odds for next year are about the same with Weid and Brown (25%). But if Weid also leaves because he doesn't see a future here, then we've got Brown playing alone, and our odds drop to 15% and so on for the future years because now our structure is messed up. And this scenario would continue all the way through our premiership window without spending huge to pick up another mature key forward to pair with an ageing Brown. All of this for a possible (very minor) incremental benefit to this year when we are unlikely to win a flag anyway. The best way to win a flag is to be consistently good over a number of years, allowing the odds to work in your favour over time. If we are a 25% chance of winning the flag for 5 years, our chances of winning a flag are 76%. But if adding Brown increases our odds to even an unrealistic 40% this year, with drop offs in future years, we would only be a 69% chance of winning a flag overall.

Viney has certainly tweaked how he plays since he started. He would attack every football in sight in his early years and won B&Fs as a ball winning mid. With Oliver becoming our number 1 midfielder, Viney's possessions have dropped off but his B&F finishes are consistently at the top end, especially when considering the time he's missed. He won the ball fewer than 20 times a game last year and had lower stats nearly across the board .... but still came 3rd in the B&F behind Petracca and May. That's why I'm always interested in the B&F results (and selection) because it gives a great insight into what specific players were being asked to do. Remember how Oliver won the ball like it was going out of fashion last year? He won it 25 times a game (shortened games) and came top 10 in the Brownlow. He finish 5th in the B&F, 2 spots behind Viney despite playing fewer games. Demonland members nearly burned the website down when they saw that! But it's clear looking back that Oliver was attacking too many contests that he didn't need to and we were suffering as a result. Ironically it's now allowing him to win more footy, more contested footy and more clearances. More importantly, if you're looking at role changes from last year, he's averaging nearly 5 times the scoring shots, 60% more rebounds, 45% more inside 50s and his team is 11-1.

This is the most important difference between being a consistently top team and not. It's the 'trust' that top teams develop that if you do the right thing and hold your structure, rather than winning the ball like a hero, then things will work out. This is so hard to do because it so counter-intuitive to how a footballer thinks about football. You become a good footballer by winning contested football, so holding your position when the ball isn't coming near you is really difficult to do. If something doesn't go your way or you're not getting the ball the instinct is to do something to fix it because it's hard to trust that, overall, you're better off not doing something. It's hard to hold back, see something go wrong which costs a goal, CV and have the discipline to do golf back the next time. But good teams do it, win and then have the win reinforce the value of doing it. It one of those things that is really, really hard to do at first, but if you do it then the winning makes it easy to keep doing it.

And yet the teams he has been an important part of have kicked 94, 95, 87 and 97 points, including against 2 of the top 3 teams in the league. Often it's not about possessions. AFL ranking points? These clearly favour high possession players over low possession players. It says that the top 3 players in the league are Jack Macrae, Touk Miller and Mitch Duncan. It says Chris Mayne is a better player than Nat Fyfe. It says that Jarman Impey is better than Dustin Martin. It has Jack Darling as the second best key forward in the league. Weideman also currently has a higher AFL rating than Ben Brown this year. The point I'm making is that 4 games of AFL ratings is, at best, a pretty poor representation of a player's value to his team.

Lynch retired in 2004, which is 17 years ago. The game has gone through 3, perhaps 4 tactical revolutions in that time, so these examples are no longer relevant.

You're comparing the very best young key forwards in the game to make the point that Weideman isn't making an impact. Those things are completely unrelated to each other. It's like saying that Neitz didn't make an impact on the game because there are guys like Wayne Carey around. Or "I'm watching the likes of Matthew Rowell, Noah Anderson, Trent Rivers and Andrew Brayshaw speed right past him in terms of talent and impact on games". They aren't related events and has nothing to do with whether they are worth their place in the side.

Don't worry, I've made many worse calls than asking people to give a young key defender like Oscar more time, especially given the extensive evidence that key defenders often take longer to mature as footballers. Much, much worse! On these boards, posters have historically been very early to jump on players and call them no good (or, in your language, "he's a bust"). It makes sense that this happens because they are impatient and they simply don't understand what the expectations are on the player and what they are being asked to do. Generally people get caught watching the ball so much that they miss what else is happening, which is especially important for structural players like key forwards and backs. Weideman has played good football in the past and is playing a functional role in a league leading team. You saying that "he's a bust" is incorrect on several levels. Is Brown a better option for next week/finals? That's a topic for debate. Saying that Weideman is "a bust" is easily dismissed by almost every other poster and detracts from any other argument you are trying to make.

Weid is going OK. He's jumping, competing and we're kicking goals because of it. People would still complain when Brayshaw didn't win enough footy until Daisy Pearce spelled out to everyone how well he played his role. Everyone hated on Spargo forever. Lever copped it. ANB too. Even Viney cops it. There's a reason why footy clubs say that they don't listen to what supporters or the media say .... it's because they generally don't know what they're talking about.

It's interesting to see the different way teams line up against us. Brisbane went for even numbers in the stoppage to prevent our loose defender. That worked well for them in the first half because they were winning the clearances. In the second half we just rolled over them in the middle with Max and the loose man in defence didn't matter anymore. The clearances we won, in general, were of a much higher quality that theirs. There are two ways we can beat teams: a) with a loose man intercepting whilst Max and our mids make the clearance hard, or b) with even numbers across the field allowing the best ruck and powerful midfielders to take the ball out the front of the stoppages. It's the differential of quality of stoppages between those we win and those our opponents win which makes us so hard to beat. With even numbers this is even greater, and outnumbered we are still competitive plus we also dominate behind the ball. It's a great 1-2 punch.

We've needed to get a young key defender on our list to develop, so this pick made a lot of sense. Sounds like someone who reads the play well and makes good decisions, which is exactly what we want in a player who will be part of a defensive unit.

As a Melbourne supporter, I was taking a weekend at my snow chalet but fell sick after I put too much spice in my tea. I got a Tchai kov. Sky-ing was impossible after that.

Teams play badly against us. If you see it happen once then you could be forgiven for think that we were lucky to get a team on a bad day. But every team has a bad day against us. That's why we're good.

I always regret having a sneaky peak at the Gameday thread.