Axis of Bob

As you'd probably assume, my post demonstrated the extent of my expertise. I certainly didn't anticipate that my knowledge of early 20th century psychoanalysis would be tested beyond knowing how to spell Rorschach! ?

They're the ink blot tests that a psychiatrist may show you and ask you what you see. Link: Rorschach test - Wikipedia In reality they're just blots of ink on a page with no meaning. Despite this, the patients will often see meaning in them, revealling more about the issues in the patient's head. In other words, I find that comments about body language only really reveal the poster's issues, not the subject's.

I tend to find that comments based on 'body language' tend to be most akin to Rorschach tests.

But Bowey did play well in the VFL scratch match ......

Good article.

Cheers, I appreciate it. https://www.statsinsider.com.au/blog/afl/understanding-how-clearances-shape-the-results-of-afl-games FWIW, this is the best place I've seen dealing with clearances. It gives a good idea (point per clearance, for and against) of some of the issues. I prefer those sorts of articles a lot more than the 'ideas' of what's happening, as AFL is so chaotic that it's hard to really analyse, plus we all get caught up in our own teams and miss whether or not these are issues with us specifically or with the whole competition. I, almost always, try to temper my feelings with the knowledge that things are neither as good nor as bad as they appear, so I'd prefer to have hard data to let me know if I'm in the right ballpark or if I'm completely FOS.

I was showing you the other side of the coin for the statistic you provided. If you rank a team in average clearances per game, then you need to know what the opposition did in order to know if you were better than them. The differential does this because it incorporates both sides of the coin. I offered up the opposing side of your 'average clearances' statistic by showing 'average opposition clearances' to demonstrate that you couldn't draw the conclusion you did from the data you had. If I had used our excellence in limiting 'opposition average clearances' as justification for a claim that we are the best stoppage team in the league, then you could justifiably have thrown my logic back at me. I fully agree with you that there was a big drop off in centre clearances last season. I'm not entirely sure why, since we had 2 of the best centre clearance players in the league (Oliver and Viney) and a very good ruckman (although I'd suggest he is less dominant as a centre bounce ruckman than in a wrestle). I'd imagine it has a lot to do with how those players work together as well as the lack of impact of our second string centre square midfielders. Of the top 3 teams, West Coast had 5 players with more than 1 centre clearances a game (4 mids and Nic Nat), Power 4 (3 mids and Lycett), Geelong 5 (4 mids and Stanley, of those that played more than 6 games) and Carlton 4 (3 mids and Pittonet .... although Cripps was number 1 in the AFL). We had 3 .... Oliver, Viney and Petracca. After that we had Brayshaw and the Gawn, and then nobody else really playing a meaningful role. It was not dissimilar in 2019 and 2018, although our second unit was definitely bolstered by the likes of Jones, Harmes and Brayshaw. Lacking that depth through the middle means that we end up with some pretty average units in there trying to help Oliver or Viney. So, in short, I think the issue is probably our depth of centre square midfielders, more than anything. This bore out against the Dogs last week where we were smashed in clearances without Viney, Oliver and Brayshaw.

So your argument is that teams have figured out how to stop our clearances ..... by allowing us to win clearances? I'm sorry, but this is getting pretty silly now.

You can't make that point with anything based on total clearances (like an average) because it doesn't adjust for the number of stoppages that a team participates in each game. It needs to be a differential in order to adjust for that. In fact, one of the most interesting stats in all of this is ..... .... Melbourne were the best team in the league at preventing opposition clearances. Teams had only 26.9 clearances against us last year, comfortably better than any other team. Probably better would be to work out the probability of each team winning a clearance. We were +6% chance of winning a clearance (6th best), with Port being best on +16% and Adelaide worst being -20%. Interestingly Richmond were 16th with a -12% probability.

And the point I'm making is that there has been very little difference between our strong clearance numbers in 2018 and our strong clearance numbers in 2020, just the number of stoppages that we have been involved in when compared with the rest of the competition. Slipping for 4th overall to 6th overall is barely significant (especially since we were 3rd in between), as it still says we are a top level clearance team. Of the top 7 clearance teams (differential) last year, 4 of them had a negative hitout differential. We were one of those three teams (along with West Coast and Gold Coast) that had both a positive clearance and hitout differential. Based on the stats, we are a very effective clearance team and its is a strength of ours. People think about hitouts like it's 1975, where a dominant tap ruck could feed a midfield. But 50 years ago (even 20 years ago) there was a lot of space around the stoppages so a tap ruck could create more advantage. Nowadays it's far more about the midfielders whilst the ruck is more dominant for what else he can do (ie, mark, tackle, win contested footy). They need to not be terrible in the ruck, but serviceable seems to be just as effective as excellent. The correlation between hitouts and clearances is very weak across the competition, so I don't know whether you can make an argument us being 3rd for hitouts and 6th for clearances represents an issue.

In 2020 we were 6th in clearance differential. 3rd in 2019 and 4th in 2018. We have been comfortably better than our opponents for the past 3 years. So we have been consistently good at clearances. The total clearance statistics only reflect that our games have involved fewer stoppages in the past two seasons, not that we have been poor at them.

Maclure was a good footballer in his day, which was last in 1986 .... 35 years ago! However I'm not necessarily sure that he's the one to be talking about off-field culture either, given his reputation during his playing days. The reason he has the nickname 'Sellars' is because his messy behaviour when drinking reminded them of Peter Sellars. Is this the guy who you want to be lectured to about culture?!?! Did he give 100% of himself? Reports are mixed. As for listening to him rather than bagging him, the reason I'm bagging him out is because I have listened to him! I'm bagging him out on the basis of what he says. And what he says is terrible.

We have been bad for different reasons at different times. Combining them is lazy. Maclure is beyond lazy, intellectually. He's just there to make the viewer feel better about their own knowledge, although not necessarily for the same reasons.

As I said, it's low-analysis populism. It resonates with those who don't like to think too hard, like Maclure.

He's just speaking in generalities that can't ever be proven or disproven. It's extremely lazy. His evidence of poor culture is senior players not being dropped (which I'm sure Tom McDonald disagrees with). The only reason he is still kept around in the footy media is because he has name recognition and because his low analysis populism appeals to a certain subset of the population who relate to what he says. It's easy to come up with his comments, which I'll do for any team that lost this weekend: Bad culture They're soft and don't go hard enough at the contest Lazy and don't work hard enough Bad gameplan Players look lost Players don't want to win enough Coach is out of ideas and has no plan B Not fit enough Players unmotivated or 'not switched on' It's completely unprovable, but just panders to many supporters' existing feelings. It's like reading your horoscope. If you put generalities out there without any evidence (or knowledge) then people will just insert their own preconceptions into it. If you want to see how this sort of thinking works, just check out this forum after a loss.

I think clicking on any link that follows this sentence is a pretty good diagnostic test for internet addiction.

Garry Lyon is the worst commentator out there. An impossibly self-important lightweight. I often wonder if he lives in constant fear that everyone's going to realise that he doesn't know what he's talking about anymore, although I suspect that that he probably doesn't have the self-awareness for that.

Our forward line, for all the missing players, was actually fine yesterday. We played a forward line of (mostly) TMac, Jackson, Fritsch, Chandler, ANB and Spargo, and we managed to have 13 marks inside 50 from only 41 entries. As a yardstick, the Dogs also had 13 marks inside 50 from 64 entries. From 41 entries we kicked 10 goals (24%), whilst the Dogs kicked 15 from 64 (23%) despite having many of those extra entries from stoppage clearances, which are far more dangerous. Our structures held up pretty well and, despite what has been said here, our kick ins were very dangerous and a real weapon. Having two players who can cover territory quickly, along with 2 ruckmen, means that our direct kickouts are going to be very dangerous. That, in turn, will force teams to throw numbers long and straight, which will open up gaps later on. They kicked 6 goals to 1 in the 3rd quarter where, from memory, I think we only won one clearance for the quarter. That isn't a typical occurrence for us since contested ball and clearances are usually strengths for us, but with 3 of our 4 best contested midfielders being out we were exposed. That is a one off, so we should be looking past that and thinking how we fared assuming we win 50/50 contested ball and clearances, rather than losing them 113-164 and 24-48.

Without our best contested midfielders, we were dominated in the clearances and contested footy. That's pretty much the tale of the game right there. Alex Neal-Bullen was our leading clearance winner, and he was essentially playing as a defensive half forward. At one point our centre bounce setup was Jackson, AVB, ANB and Sparrow. It's pretty hard to judge how went, TBH, because we were beaten around the ball by so much. Not ideal but not particularly concerning.

I believe they were 2015 and 2016 whilst playing for Casey in the VFL. Certainly at AFL level he hasn't. I think ANB is a better player than most think he is .... but Dr D is clearly wrong about him (among others). His value is as a hard running defensive forward, not as a midfielder because he isn't big enough, quick enough, classy enough or good enough. If he could solve 2 or 3 of those problems then he can play midfield. But full credit to him for pushing past all those failings and getting a satisfactory AFL career almost entirely from hard running and a first class attitude. He should be lauded for what he has been able to do.

It's an interesting play because it's all set up for Cotchin to be the target for an aggressive Nankervis tap (against Jackson, not Gawn). Cotchin goes for the outside space and runs forward, but Harmes keeps body contact with Cotchin and maintains position on the defensive side, which blows the play up. After that it's just Oliver winning a one on one and Dusty finding defence a bit too difficult. But, in short, the set play is broken up by Harmes' initial bodywork on Cotchin, allowing our best two players to win the footy. It's certainly a much better structure (and was all game) than we've seen the last year or two. Good clip, TPF39.

Of course they don't. It's a 3/4 practice match between the 30-40 players on AFL lists and whatever VFL players they could cobble together to fill out the numbers, being umpired by some assistant coaches and volunteers doing the goal and boundary umpiring. Nobody cares. I'm thankful that we can get a stream at all. I'm happy to listen to the commentary if they interview guys like Balme, who gave some interesting thoughts on the game and even how he thought we played.

Don't read the gameday thread. I accidentally did after a long offseason but immediately regretted it. It's an awful place purely designed for people to let off steam whilst not flooding the main board. You could almost call it Demonland 'quarantine'.

Good hit out. We looked pretty solid, structurally. Up forward, McDonald and Jackson contested pretty well against a really good defensive intercepting team. Plus we were solid in the air in defence, with Lever and May looking threatening in the air. Obviously we're trading some speed (Hunt, Rivers) in defence for defensive solidity, but given the pace of the game that seemed to be a risk worth taking at the moment. Up forward, having Chandler just made us look better. His speed and finishing gives a nice balance to our small forwards, with Spargo being clever and industrious and Kossie being a bit more of a high end talent. The new manning the mark rule played pretty well, as it encouraged teams to take risks and we got more even contests inside 50. It also looks like it will provide more opportunities to our hard running tall and medium forwards.

The Gameday thread is just as bad preseason.