Axis of Bob

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.

It's been a long, hard slog to develop a good culture in the club. I'm not sure that the club would be keen to take risks with that just yet.

If this is the bar you need to jump over to say a team won't win a Grand Final soon, then it would be absurdly easy to write one about every team in the league. For example: Bulldogs: Class is mostly in one area. Defence terrible and defence wins premierships. Zayne Cordy has to take the number 2 big forward. Awful in the ruck. Halve the midfield and you beat them. They're flat track bullies. Went to water when they faced pressure against an understrength Richmond. Brisbane: Defence ordinary after Andrews and struggle to defend run ons. Poor in the ruck. Too many small midfielders who have been bullied around in finals the last few years. Rely on too few to do too much, and they're all similar players. Had their chance in the bubble and still didn't threaten. Port: Butters out indefinitely. Lack a big marking option after Dixon. Too many 'meh' smalls. Struggle to score in tight games. Many players lack class. Best players are either old or young, with middle filled with average footsoldiers. 'Stars' aren't good enough to win games like others can. Had their chance int he bubble ... now they're all a year older. Geelong: Old and lack pace. Midfield lacks class. Ruck is terrible and costs them games. Play a high possession game that can get shut down in high pressured finals. Have struggled to win finals during their run at the top. Their old list plays well during the regular season but doesn't have it in them to raise their game again once the pressure goes up in finals. No team is perfect. Nor are we.

We had a lot of chances going forward and didn't take them, so we shouldn't have given the opportunity for those late decisions to matter. We played badly and they played well. Sometimes that happens. We missed Salem's presence behind the ball quite a lot.

I agree that it's a really good one. The idea of community, the journey, and the many layers of people and support that it takes to make a club is a great message. I really like the indigenous guernseys. Each artwork tells a story and it's wonderful for the broader public (myself included) to be exposed to the significance of them.

Had.

I have a different idea around the idea of Goodwinpressing. I think think the better tactical equivalence is Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid. Klopp pushes men up to win the ball as soon as the opposition gains possession, which is before they have time to make decisions. This is the 'forward press' that was popularised by Ross Lyon. Our game is more Simeone, whose philosophy is to flood dangerous positions on the ground (ie, the centre), and allow possession in places that are easy to defend (ie, near the boundary/touch line). Once you can get the opposition pinned in a difficult position that's when you press them hard and force a defensive kick to a place where you are superior (ie, long down the line). So for Atletico this manifests itself as forwards and mids covering the centre of the ground, allowing easy passess to wide backs and mids who are then pressed hard as the defenders shift across to them, causing a pressured long ball or a turnover. For Melbourne, it means blocking the switch kick and allowing an easy chip wide, before pressing that player hard and preventing them from any kick other than the long kick down the line, where we have our superiority in Gawn, May and Lever. It takes great discipline from players to avoid taking the easy option wide because they are so free. But the next possession becomes extremely difficult, which is where you get the intercepts. FWIW, Atletico is a tactically disciplined team that usually win low scoring, grinding games against more talented teams.

We could be 19-0 playing a 16 man North Melbourne and I guarantee someone would say "This is a danger game."

When was the last time a team didn't make mistakes in a game of footy?

There's a reason why the best teams tend to at, or near, the top in terms of least scores against. It's because strong defence is far more consistent than strong offense. Defences are systematic, so a good team can rely on their defence even when they aren't playing well. The best offenses can blow teams off the park in a matter of minutes, but it's much harder to rely on attacking brilliance, especially when the pressure of finals steps up. I think we win this comfortably because Carlton hasn't demonstrated the ability to defend well when they aren't playing well. They can stay with us for long periods of time, as most teams will, but they've gone to water defensively for periods in each game they've played and let through multiple consecutive goals. Given that we are unlikely to do that, we will probably win by the number of goals that we kick when Carlton have their defensive lapse. But footy can be a funny game sometimes.

I was never a MFCSS sufferer, so this season has just been very enjoyable. But I have noticed that the season has made a lot of supporters uncomfortable, probably because they are torn. They know that we are a good team, but they've defined their whole supporter experience as being that of a loser. Losing is their comfort zone. They know all the jokes about their team being terrible. They know how to react when someone says they're terrible but don't know how to react when we're good. Like someone who has just lost 50kg and they still see themselves as a fat person who is masquerading as a skinny person. I think a lot of supporters are still finding their feet as to who they are as football supporters, now that their football world has been tipped upside down. I think it may take some people a long time. Maybe they'll be telling people that they're still a few kilos overweight forever.

Nah, it was in an article that I read in the past week. I can't remember which on it was, although I'm sure someone out there will know. It's a shame that we can't get access to a lot of those more advanced stats, as they would really be informative. You see a greater level of coverage of a lot of baseball and basketball etc because these advanced metrics are available to help analysts and help them prosecute certain arguments. In baseball you can have interesting and legitimate arguments about whether a pitcher is better because they are getting more groundballs vs flyballs, and then be able to back that argument up with data, whilst we AFL spectators get BT telling us that players should aim at the goals like it's the most complex thing in world sport.