Axis of Bob

22 minutes ago, Lord Travis said:

By the same token, the best players, especially tall forwards, are usually highly talented juniors taken in the first round of the draft.

100% I agree with you. If you want a dominant key forward history shows that it's almost entirely in the first round because it's such a difficult skill set. My comment was only in relation to the correlation between underage goal kickers and dominant AFL forwards, not the value picking a key forward int he first round of the draft. There are a lot of ways to kick goals in juniors, it's a recruiter's job to know (and detect) what parts of a player's game translates from juniors to AFL .... and that's really tough!

2 hours ago, Lord Travis said:

He's also a proven goal kicker, averaging 3.6 goals a game at underage level and being the leading goalkicker at underage level and the champs.

Our main issues up forward are a strong marking tall target, and lack of goal scoring firepower. Cadman's a strong mark and big goal kicker. That's exactly what we need.

Josh Schache kicked 34 goals in 7 TAC Cup games (4.9 goals per game) and 24 goals in 6 Championship games (4 /game).

I'm not saying that Cadman is a dud (or making any judgement on him at all), I'm just saying that 'being a proven goalkicker' at junior level is often pretty uncorrelated to success at the next level up. The way those games are played, and the relative development of the different players, can often result in very different skill sets being rewarded.

3 hours ago, mo64 said:

I didn't see much evidence of us counter attacking from the back half.

Just because we didn't counterattack well (we really lost a lot of run from the back half with Salem hobbled, Bowey out, and Rivers and Hunt offering very little offensive punch this year) doesn't mean that having the opposition kick inside 50 slow and short is bad defending. This was especially obvious when Brayshaw went back into the midfield.  

Also our pressure around the ball was down on last year, which means that it's a lot easier for the opposition to avoid being counterattacked.

2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

The acquisition  doesn't 100% make sense as we want Gawn spending way less time next year in the forward line than this year.

Hard disagree. They will want him spending a lot less time in the ruck than this year, not more, given that he's a 31 year old behemoth that's had 3 knee reconstructions. Keeping Max going as long as possible would surely be the number 1 priority, and having him be smashed in the ruck for 80% of the game is the worst way to do that. 

Getting a big brawler to bully the ruck contests means that we can protect Max and use him to dominate the highest leverage aerial contests (wherever they may be). 

20 minutes ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Not sure about Max (or Grundy) behind the ball. 

I think that belongs in the 'it was a 2021 tactic' basket.  It worked in the first part of this year but when we played Geelong they did everything but kick it high into f50 or anywhere near where Max was. 

Other teams have followed that with varying degrees of success.  Not sure Max behind the ball is the same weapon in future that it was in 2021.

The new mantra to play against Melbourne:  keep the ball low into f50 where Melb struggle to defend.  Every team will try that tactic in 2023 so fixing that part of our defensive game will be a key for 2023 success.

I know that you're talking about this like it's a bad thing but I see it as the opposite. 

We are forcing teams that are used to playing a particular way, to play a way that's different to how they want to play. If we are forcing Geelong to kick the ball away from Hawkins and Cameron then that's a win. It also means that we are forcing shallower entries and slower entries, which helps us to counterattack more easily. 

What Max allows us to do is to troubleshoot. If we are dominating the defensive aerial contest or struggling up forward then we can swing him forward, and vice versa. Max has gravity - wherever he goes the opposition's focus will follow. By bringing in a big ruckman to bully the ruck contest it allows us to use Max to exploit his league leading asset .... his contested marking ability. 

26 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

Obviously the days of Fev on the lead are over but even Mason Cox on his good days knows how to lead in to spots in the zone.

Mason Cox has kicked 6 goals in 16 games this year, whilst averaging about 40% ruck time. He averages 0.7 marks inside 50 per game, whilst Max has averaged 1.1. Max is top 50 for marks inside 50 despite being a primary ruckman (23), with Darcy Cameron the next best on 16 and Tim English on 14 being the next highest rated primary ruckmen. 

The other thing it allows us to do is we can play fewer tall forwards when we know that we won't get beaten in an aerial contest. This allows us to play smaller forward lines where Kozzie can be a more attacking small forward or we can play more creative players like Laurie. Currently we need to play multiple talls because Brown can't reliably bring the ball to ground without a supporting tall to hold the pack. A kick to Lynch, McKay or Hawkins is , at worst, a crumbing opportunity because they won't be outmarked. This allows you to play more mobile players that can cause matchup problems (eg, Cameron, Curnow etc). We have the mobile forwards to make this work, but we need Max to take advantage of it.

6 minutes ago, jumbo returns said:

Good data!

http://dfsaustralia.com/ 

That's where I got it from.

16 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

He’s played more than 30% in recent weeks, and he’s the best contested mark as a ruck, taking on opposition rucks and dropping behind the ball. Marking as a forward - and the leading patterns required - is a completely different skill set.

He attended 56% of all ruck contests against Sydney. That's basically the same as his 53% rate for 2022 and 58% in 2021. He averages 89% game time in 2022, which means that he spends about 35% of his time on the field NOT as the primary ruck. This also includes the times where he is just playing behind the ball.

Gawn is the best contested mark in the league and teams absolutely wet themselves when the ball is kicked near him. The leading patterns required of a footballer 20 years ago (or even 5 years ago) are very different to now .... since 2017 nobody has even kicked 70 goals, let alone 100. Brendan Fevola was the last player to even surpass 80 goals, which was in 2009. You don't need to be able to lead for the ball anymore because you don't play as much one on one with a zone defence. What you do need is a player that can take advantage of a weakness in the zone (eg, a weaker opponent nearby) or to be able to mark/influence a contest against a set defence. Max does both of those. 

33 minutes ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Huge potential

Being an early pick is not the same as having huge potential.

3 minutes ago, Supreme_Demon said:

He's a former number 2# AFL Draft pick from 2015.

Originally from the Murray Bushrangers in the TAC Cup and is friends with Clayton Oliver.

Even won the Larke Medal at the State Under 18 Championships back in 2015 too.

He is 199cms tall and can be played in defence or up forward.

All these things were true on draft day in 2015.

Since that day 7 years ago he has provided a mountain of evidence across multiple clubs of why he's not an AFL footballer. 

We have Oliver, Petracca, Brayshaw and Salem all signed up for at least 5 years, with the first two signed up even longer. That's the period we need to be looking at for our success. Whilst Oliver and Petracca are on the list, we are a chance at winning the flag. With Max still around we would be near-favourites.

We should be maximising our ability to win flags over the next 6 years or so, whilst we have our best players playing their best footy. If that means that we have a moderately bad team after Petracca and Oliver retire, then so be it. The difference between finishing 10th and 16th in 2030 is not really important.

57 minutes ago, Bobby McKenzie said:

But we lose Jackson after three seasons when we could have had Young for his career.

Imagine Hawthorn supporters' disgust at drafting Buddy from WA (pick 5), then leaving Hawthorn in the middle of his career for an interstate team .... when they could have had John Meesen (pick 8) for his entire career!

At least you would have been happy that we had a whole career of Jack Watts, rather than that West Australian Nic Naitanui.

What a terrible, terrible post.

6 minutes ago, Grand New Flag said:

That's my mail.

Your mail isn't worth the paper that you flushed.

6 hours ago, leave it to deever said:

Won't he be 29 next year.

That's getting old for a ruck. Imho.

Rucks tend to play on longer than most. This is especially true for those that don't rely on leaping. I imagine, based on his big bodied bullocking style, that Grundy will still be effective at 34-35.

9 minutes ago, old55 said:

Daniel Bradshaw is 43yo now.  I know we need a key forward but leave that age recruiting to Geelong.

Don't be silly, old.

He was clearly referring to Darren Bradshaw, who is Daniel's younger brother. He's only 41 now. 

21 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Shots fired! @Supermercado

To be fair, I was referring to writing a blog without receiving feedback. Supermercado clearly gets more than enough of his human interaction from the African start-up community.

12 hours ago, Winners at last said:

A pessimist is an optimist in possession of all the facts.

I see pessimists as not seeing the forest for the trees. Can you look past the individual faults to see the strength of the whole?

It's incredibly easy to see things that are wrong. As humans we are hardwired to be pessimists because we respond to threats far more strongly than we do to opportunities. That's because misjudging a threat often led to being eaten by a lion whereas misjudging an opportunity might have resulted in a meal of nuts rather than meat. The consequences of our failures were very different, so humans erred strongly on the side of caution .... on pessimism. It's easy to point out the individual flaws in a bigger plan because it makes you sound smart and other people are more likely to react positively to the pessimism because they are hardwired to do so.

The challenge for us all is to acknowledge that those possible threats exist but also to understand that we are inherently biased towards being influenced by those threats. Overall we are an excellent team who has a proven finals record and several of the best players in the league.

And if that is too difficult, because it is genuinely very hard to do, then think about it from the opposition's perspective: If there was one team that you didn't want to play in finals this year, who would it be?

The answer is, obviously, Melbourne.

1 hour ago, CYB said:

If you don't like what people have to say, you don't have to read it. It really is that simple. 

The counter to that is that if you don't want feedback on your comments then start a blog. 

This is an online community. If you choose to engage with the community then you will have to accept that you will receive feedback from the community. This is one such item of feedback. 

Because blogs are boring. 

22 minutes ago, mo64 said:

McLean has upside as a ruckman, whereas I could never envisage Weid playing as a pure ruckman at AFL level.

Similar stats, different players.

McLean is a tall forward, not a ruck. Since he was dropped back to Sydney's VFL team he's amassed 23 hitouts in 8 games - that's fewer than 3 per game. 

He's been decent up forward in the VFL, with 18 goals from 8 games. Weideman has kicked 14 goals in 6 games and JVR has kicked 28 in 13 games. 

My point here is that we need to evaluate these players properly. We tend to look at other teams' players and imagine their very best once they join the Dees. There's a lot of overrating of opposition players that goes on just because we don't see very much of them. 

13 minutes ago, mo64 said:

McLean has kicked a goal in 7/8 games he's played this year. Averages close to a goal a game, and is still young and developing.

A second ruck who gives us 25-30 goals a year would be invaluable. He's a big body who could give us a contest up forward, which is our game style. Only 23. A perfect fit IMO.

Hayden McLean: 197cm, 23 years old, 10 goals, 35 hitouts, 8 games.

Sam Weideman: 195cm, 25 years old, 13 goals, 29 hitouts, 10 games.

Not having a good ruck division is fine ..... if you set up your team to not rely on good rucks. 

But we have Max Gawn, one of the best rucks in recent memory. We have set up a game around his ability to win contests and help others win contests. So we have set up a team around his ability to dominate the ball in the air where other teams cannot. It's one of our great advantages as a team. 

A lot of great rucks haven't won flags because their teams haven't been good enough to exploit their skills in a way that wins flags. We don't. We rely on Max's ability to win big contests when we're out of options, which allows us to play defensively. Our game needs good rucks and the FD seem to be doubling down on that. 

Max is the best ruckman in the game. He has won a flag.

1 hour ago, Axis of Bob said:

Baseball and basketball have, as binman says, undergone a transformation in how the game is played due to analytics. Baseball was all about base hits and sacrifice bunts ('small-ball'), whilst Michael Jordan feasted on a steady diet of mid-range two pointers. Now baseball is about the three true outcomes (strikeouts, walks and home runs) whilst basketball is about three pointers and shots at the rim.

I'm just going to quote myself because I'm a terrible person ....

These transformations in teams have been really interesting but there is a value in zigging when the others are zagging. This works for a couple of reasons but a lot of it has to do with the idea that everyone is setting themselves up to win against the prevailing style. This also leaves some quality players for a different style as being very undervalued. 

In the NBA, there are a lot of players who are excellent finals players because they are able to hit the 'low value' mid range 2 pointers. The analytics say that this is bad basketball but the opposition defence is entirely geared around preventing 3 pointers and shots at the basket, so a good mid-range shooter can find the seams in the defence to beat them in a game they're not set up to play. The same with baseball, where big hitting pull hitters are able to lay down low risk bunts to get on base because the defence is playing so deep and shifting. 

In the AFL, Hawthorn found low cost kickers when the game was being dominated by the scrappers of Sydney, who actually found value in scrappers during the Brisbane/West Coast/Port midfield skill period. Richmond got value in role players when everyone was searching for the high skill players of the Hawthorn era. Now everyone is going to be looking for dominant contested midfielders from our era, so there will be value to be had elsewhere. 

That's just a thought bubble, I think! 😄

14 hours ago, Engorged Onion said:

An extra scoring shot per game lifts your team's winning percentage to exp(0.164)/(1+exp(0.164)) or 54.1%, while a 1% increase in your team's conversion rate lifts its winning percentage to exp(0.0618 x 2)/(1+exp(0.0618 x 2)) or 53.1%. So, you want the player who can generate 1 extra scoring shot per game."

It's good to see this sort on analysis as it's sorely missing in AFL coverage. The first question is ..... what do you do with that information? And the second is .... how does the probability change when the opposition knows what you are trying to do?

 Baseball and basketball have, as binman says, undergone a transformation in how the game is played due to analytics. Baseball was all about base hits and sacrifice bunts ('small-ball'), whilst Michael Jordan feasted on a steady diet of mid-range two pointers. Now baseball is about the three true outcomes (strikeouts, walks and home runs) whilst basketball is about three pointers and shots at the rim. But the difference between these games and footy is that they both have distinct, predictable and repeatable phases of play that can be measured specifically. In baseball, a pitcher starts the play by pitching a ball to a waiting batter so you can measure the outcomes based on that. In basketball the ball is (almost always) given to a player deep in their defensive half and the team must score against a waiting defence, so you can measure an outcome from there.

Footy is different. The ground is so big and there are so many ways to play the game, most of which is based on physical contests. You can measure the contests won/lost, but not all contests are equal. A contested mark next to the boundary in defence is far less valuable than that same mark taken in your attacking goalsquare. Or a centre clearance won by running the ball forward is far more valuable than one where you shuffle it back and dump it forward. A contest you win 1 vs 3 is far more valuable than one you win 3 vs 1. A contest won in the centre with a  player free in the goalsquare is more valuable than one where there's nobody else to kick to. 

So what do we do with the information? We try to kick more scores! But is winning a function of valuing scoring shots over goal kicking, or is increased scoring shots a function of a more holistic dominance of a football team over their opponents?

I think the limitation of those stats is that they are really crude measures. And that's totally reasonable because we don't have much information to go on and it's ridiculously difficult to quantify what creates wins in a sport where not all numbers mean the same thing. You can set up your team to win a statistical category but that doesn't have the same impact on the result as a lot of other sports.

2 hours ago, Axis of Bob said:

Grundy is a box filler. 

He doesn't win the important possessions that you need a ruck to win for your team to be successful. He's a hard worker who you can plug into the ruck all day and get an honest contest, but he's the smallest 203cm 108kg player that you could ever see. 

More important than that, though, is that his contract makes him completely untradable to a contender. Hard pass.

I was too harsh in this post and I can see a role for him if we get him. It just needs some planets to align before it's possible. 

The contract is a huge one. It would also require Grundy to change his play a bit to fit in with our style. He probably wouldn't be allowed/encouraged to play the same way as he has at Collingwood. 

He's a massive body who could play well into his 30s as a sort of premium Jarrod Witts. He gives a great contest in the ruck and competes long and hard. Gawn is a better player and we need Gawn around as long as humanly possible. Grundy would be great at soaking up those minutes allowing Gawn to play as a tall marking forward for a number of years, with shorter ruck stints. 

Grundy would need to play more as a conventional, wrestling, down the line ruckman, transitioning away from the 'extra midielder' role he's played historically. He can do it because he's huge, but he's always tended towards the easy ball around the ground rather than being happy to just compete for the long ball. He's not a great contested mark for his size but we would only really require him to stand under the ball, compete and halve those contests. 

Grundy would be playing first ruck, with Max giving him a chop out. The contract would need to be sorted out (!!!!!!!) and he'd need to 100% buy in to what we need him to do but anything that keeps Gawn around for longer is extremely tempting.

Grundy is a box filler. 

He doesn't win the important possessions that you need a ruck to win for your team to be successful. He's a hard worker who you can plug into the ruck all day and get an honest contest, but he's the smallest 203cm 108kg player that you could ever see. 

More important than that, though, is that his contract makes him completely untradable to a contender. Hard pass.

26 minutes ago, WalkingCivilWar said:

Cringe WA newspaper thing .....

That's genuinely funny. Everything about it is so incredibly embarrassing.

All the other articles on the page actually make the whole thing even better .... WAFL oval conditions, Rory Lobb yawning, 1 year extension for peripheral veteran ..... and even managed to get their contractually obliged mention of Naitanui into the paper. Chef's kiss. 😘