Axis of Bob

We are playing a style of footy designed to work in finals. Running into space and chipping it to leading forwards inside 50 require space to work in and time to make decisions/execute. When the pressure is at its highest (like a GF) the decision making is at its most difficult. So you need to develop the easiest possible workable game plan that will hold up under the most intense pressure. This is almost the entire reason why Richmond won last year. Their game plan was basic, revolved around applying and absorbing the most intense pressure, and meant that relatively talentless hacks were able to execute the game plan on the biggest stage and become premiership players. Adelaide, despite being vastly more talented, lost because their plan didn’t work when you took away the time and space required to make more complex decisions. We are trying to develop a style of play that is very difficult to break down and easy to execute for even the least talented players in our team.

He’d want to have done something around the ground, because his opponent had 67 hit outs to Pedo’s 9! Even their back up ruck had 16.

I’m happy with the changes. We’ve lacked speed, especially forward of the ball. Kent is exactly the type of player we need more of, because our weakness is outside the contest. Hunt’s poor form has hurt us a lot in this area. Pederson has been poor. Also, how many goals have we got from slow plays? We’ve got Hogan kicking goals, mainly from quick plays, but we’ve been relatively ineffective in the areas where you would expect Pederson to be a help in. We have really missed TMac in the first few weeks, especially since Pedo has been so ineffective. Frost was apparently excellent last week, but he also allows us to structure more similarly to Adelaide last year, with two key talls plus Lever as the interceptor. The way North play, that structure seems more logical plus it allows Lever to use his strengths more. It also shields us somewhat from Lewis’ lack of pace down there, where Lever can structurally cover the potential holes.

It doesn’t matter about the other countries because the punishment handed out will be done in the best interests of the Australia as a sporting nation. It may well be that other countries accept cheating from their sporting teams but, culturally, Australians don’t. Check out what happens after every sledging episode, with people arguing for and against, especially with those who have played being mostly for it in the right context. And what happens with ‘spirit of the game’ things, like walking. These are wishy washy things that are not specifically illegal, so it comes down to gamesmanship. Even whacking players in Grand Finals, which is exploiting the rules. Then check out what happens when Essendon is done for drugs .... year long suspension and almost everyone (except Essendon supporters) say “good riddance, drug cheats”. And in this episode it has been universal condemnation and an appetite for a fair and substantial punishment. This is different in other countries, where the deliberately cheating is not viewed as badly as in Australia. But they may also view things like sledging much worse than us. There are cultural differences between the playing nations, which is why the ICC is so weak on ball tampering. We are a country of laws and the rule of law is held much higher here than almost anywhere. So pushing the boundaries within the law is often accepted, but deliberately breaking the law is not. They need proper suspensions to show the public that the team still represents the values of Australians because, as of a few days ago, they do not.

Agreed. Melksham and Petracca did it when we played well last year, but we need to find players who can do it consistently. I suspect that was the thinking behind drafting Spargo and Fritsch last year.

We lost 10 times last year. We won the inside 50 count in 6 of those. Of those, 4 times it was very close and twice we won by 11 (against Geelong and North). But 23 times is a smashing and clearly a statistical outlier. We lost today because we let them score too easily when they went forward (especially early) and we struggled to carry the ball from the midfield to give our forwards clean looks. But I also think our game style will see us win a lot of inside 50 counts.

I'm not going to read the last 14 pages because ..... well I'm sure you know! It was an interesting game of completely contrasting styles. We played a hard nosed contested style of footy, while Geelong played very uncontested footy. It shows that there is more than one way to skin a cat (not pun intended). They held possession and then counterattacked through the corridor, often successfully. This meant that they had a lot of easy goals and one on one opportunities, while we often scrambled the ball forward and held it in with pressure. Our game plan requires us to put pressure on and make the opposition's possessions messy. When that drops off we don't give our defenders much of a chance. I think our game style will be successful against good teams. I think we were clearly the better team today. But in the times where Geelong had the ascendancy, we allowed them to score too heavily. I'm still bullish about the season, even though we lost a winnable game.

Warner's runs are totally irrelevant. If he's there to "shut up and make runs" then he shouldn't be VC. That's CA's mess. The players and coaches need a strong blueprint for what the team should look like (culturally), provide support to the players to change and put in place people in key positions who live those values already. It's not a short term fix.

It's the risk CA has taken in giving a relatively young Smith, an ultra-competitive and single minded player, captaincy without providing the support around him on the field to temper him. Instead they have made Warner vice-captain, who is older, hot-tempered and prove to overstepping the mark under pressure. Smith is being guided towards this end of his personality rather than counterbalanced with a calm, rational leader. I can see how this happens in that team. The conversations are about reverse swing, SA's success with it, linked to Faf's history of tampering and how they need to do it to make it a level playing field. If they keep agreeing with each other then eventually it seems acceptable. But with a wise, calm, older and respected head on the team that conversation gets shut off before it gets anywhere near that point. If a young Michael Clarke (purely as a hypothetical) starts down that path then Hussey and Gilchrist quickly tell him to pull his head it, and the train of thought ends there. I'm sure Smith could well have been a fine captain, but there's nobody in the team to tell him to stand up to him when required. The only senior players are Warner and SMarsh. Warner will egg him on and Marsh has never been a leader. As a result, Smith has had too much say, whether he's been right or wrong, and has never been able to learn how to lead properly. While Smith is ultimately responsible for the ball tampering, Cricket Australia has failed him badly. I hope that this sad day can be used as a catalyst for genuine culture change within the team for the betterment of Australian cricket.

I think there are two reasons: 1- They are being ranked in relation to their peers, but their peers will develop more in their final year (or the latter half of it). As a result, any development of the injured player is invisible to recruiters, while the uninjured players continue to improve. So the recruiters need to extrapolate any potential development to be able to rank them equally with their peers. This represents a risk, especially for a player like Spargo who may have developed earlier than others. 2- It may actually be a really nasty injury that could affect the player. Burton was, Stringer was, Lever could have been (see Menzel). I agree that shoulders are unlikely to, but there are others. Will they be the same player again? Probably, but it is a genuine risk when you have invested a top 20 pick and a lot of money. I think the first is more relevant to Spargo. When you are 17, a year of development is a lot. So he may have been an earlier ranked player with his peers before he was injured, but the rest are now better players than Spargo was before he was injured. The risk is in the unknown.

...... you have a terrible, terrible memory. First of all, Cam Hunter was 6 foot 1, while Spargo is 5'8. Hunter was very light for his height, unlike Spargo, who is a nuggety player. Hunter was a high flying aerialist with psychotic courage, while Spargo is a fall of the ball player. Hunter was a bad kick, while Spargo is an excellent kick. Hunter was a flanker who played above his height (but lacked 'little man skills'), while Spargo is a midfielder or small forward. Hunter was drafted based on size and athleticism without form, while Spargo is a footballer who has been dominant at junior levels. Hunter was a massive smokey who only played APS, while Spargo has been well known for many years playing at TAC and carnival level. But you played footy in the same team as him ..... like my brother. You may have been in the same team 15 years ago, but you are either terribly forgetful or a terrible judge of players. Spargo and Hunter are completely different types of footballer, both in playing style and how they were drafted. As I said before, I would struggle to find a worse comparison.

I could not think of a worse comparison. You obviously didn't watch Cam Hunter play at all.

Pace and competitiveness. It's definitely a theme.

Dangerfield was also a free agent. Geelong could have got him for nothing, but instead paid more than we did for Lever.

Fully agree. We haven't been in this position for a while, but now is the time to use good picks to get guaranteed value in important positions. More kids doesn't help us much anymore. If we picked Lever at pick 4 with 3 years of development, then we'd be very excited.

Two things. We could drag it out, but getting a deal done early means that we can do other deals too. We have consistently shown players and player managers that we are a club that can get a deal done. That makes us a more attractive club for players. It's probably post of the reason why Lever chose us.

I think Petracca is going to be the better player, but I'd be reluctant to go too hard against McCartin. He could easily be an excellent player. If you want a comparison, I think Josh Kennedy is the right one for Paddy, in terms of style. Straight line, hard leading, contested marking forward inside 50. His output was similar at the same stage of their careers. I'd rather Trac, though. We don't desperately need McCartin for structural reasons, and Trac is a special talent.

A lot of talk about the quality of Oscar McDonald. I think it's important to see how the development of key defenders is generally different to most players. Oscar gets pushed around a bit by the really powerful tall forwards (Hawkins is one) but he competes a hell of a lot better with them than almost every key defender of his age and experience. At this point in their careers (just turned 21 years old): Frawley was playing as a medium defender (on smaller marking players), Tom Mc was playing as a back up to Frawley and Dunn, Harry Taylor was not yet drafted Brian Lake was still undrafted (and was still Brian Harris!) Heath Grundy had played 11 games in 3 years as a forward. His games were ... underwhelming. Ted Richards has played 12 games at Essendon as a forward. Very underwhelming. Josh Gibson had not yet debuted (and would not debut for another year too) Ben Stratton had not yet been drafted. Zac Dawson spent that season and the following season in the Hawthorn VFL team. Sam Fisher had not yet been drafted Ben Rutten had played 2 games as a struggling forward. Dale Morris was still a year away from being drafted in the rookie draft. Rance had just rejoined the team having spent the majority of the previous year in the VFL (he was being kept of the AFL side by Luke McGuane, Kelvin Moore and Will Thursfield!) Scott Thompson was still not yet drafted Sam Rowe was still 4 years away from being drafted! Jeremy McGovern was still a year away from being drafted Now, far be it for me to labour a point, but it takes key defenders a lot longer than most players to develop into AFL standard (even the exceptional ones) because their job involves being able to physically compete with big, physically strong opponents. Oscar does this very well at this stage, given that he is not yet fully physically developed. He is tracking waaaaaaaaayyyyyyy ahead of where he should be at this stage. We're very lucky there.

Many people are talking about McCartin like he's a bad player. He is not. McCartin is an excellent contested mark and tracking pretty well for a young key forward. He's tracking a lot better than Josh Kennedy was at this point, who is probably the type of player that McCartin is most similar to. Just because we have a great talent like Petracca, doesn't mean that you need to rubbish McCartin to justify it to yourself. We are not the basket case we were. Petracca being good doesn't automatically mean the alternative is bad.

Our first rounder for this year is Weideman. You can't look at this draft in isolation.

There is also a chance that we knew we could always do the trade for this year's pick, and were just waiting until late in the period to do it in case a really interesting opportunity came up in the meantime.

Also, not doing that deal has meant that they haven't been able to do other deals. In the past we have done the deals quickly, allowing us to look at trade period as a whole. Essendon have sucked at trading because they have only looked at deals in isolation. Given our desire to do fair deals over last period, I'm happy to back our club's judgement on this at the moment.

Dunn is capable and none of those things you mentioned are really important. But being capable is different to actually doing it. I am capable of baking a chocolate cake. But if my boss asks me to bake a chocolate cake and I keep on making bicycles then my boss probably won't trust me to make him a cake for a while. In the same way, Dunn is capable of playing a role in our defence. But he didn't do it when required and now needs to show the coaches that he can be trusted to do it when required.

The stats don't mean anything in this case because when you are looking at a zone defence the more important thing is that everyone is playing their role in the zone. If he got 100 kicks a game it wouldn't matter because the team as a whole is worse while he isn't playing his role in the zone. The number of kicks he gets becomes irrelevant. If Oscar is playing the role asked of him, then we are better off as a team than we are playing someone who isn't playing their role. It can be hard for older players to change the way they are used to playing footy, so he's probably being given time to work on that in the VFL (where it isn't costing the AFL team goals).

Even the sole Sam Wiedeman thread, a player we drafted less than 48 hours ago, is hijacked to become another Jack Watts thread.