titan_uranus

It sounds like Essendon v Adelaide is going to be the Friday night, which I suppose leaves us for the Thursday night:

Source? Regardless, I can see two reasons for Channel 7 wanting the Dogs v Sydney game in prime time: both sides like to score (albeit Sydney's scoring is down recently); and fair chance Sydney will be still be in some form of lockdown, meaning plenty of eyeballs on screens in Sydney. There's a fair chance there is also going to be a Thursday night game next week: they can't put Dogs v Sydney on Thursday because Sydney's on Sunday this week, so there's every chance our match will be Thursday night and then they need something to fill the Friday night, and the only other option is probably Carlton v Geelong.

We're 12-2. You're running the same schtick you ran last year when we were 7-8.

Huh? Dylan Moore kicked 4. He’s 176cm. O’Brien kicked 2, from 5 marks. Good but nothing spectacular. Koschitzke barely touched it. Most of the rest of their goals were from mids.

Wowee. Back to back losses to St Kilda and GC. End of Richmond? Quite possibly. Freo takes 8th by beating Carlton. If I were them I’d be pretty livid my home game got moved to the MCG but I suppose they want experience on the G. If Freo loses though, and if we beat GWS, the round could end with Essendon in the 8, and/or St Kilda only percentage out of the 8, and Carlton just one win out.

Few other reasons we won that game. They had three in-game injuries (Coniglio, Davis and de Boer), but otherwise we won because of our strong defence (they generated 13 scoring shots from 49 inside 50s, but kept the margin respectable by kicking 11.2) and our pressure (+18 in disposals but also +9 in tackles and a whopping 4-17 tackles inside 50).

I'd have picked Brown, but if it's wet I can understand why we might choose to stay small. Would prefer Bowey isn't the medical sub for his debut, and given Chandler's done it so many times might be vandenBerg's turn. Also what's with Jones being injured?

So what you're saying is "if we didn't kick the goals that we kicked, we would have lost". No [censored]. I mean, we could have scored 120 but if Essendon had scored 115 you could say the exact same thing. The fact the game was close does not make your argument about us needing more forward power any stronger.

The optimist says WA, SA, NT and Queensland will all be done with their lockdowns and issues by this time next week. SA didn't go into lockdown and has no new cases. The others locked down early and appear at this stage to be doing well. If that optimistic situation arises, the WA, SA and Queensland teams will go home either next week or the week after. Meaning the Vic hub may only last one week (this week), save for the NSW teams who aren't going to be playing games at home any time soon it seems. At any rate, if they are trying to get Adelaide v Brisbane played in Adelaide, I'd suggest right now it's more likely than not that we'll be playing Port in Adelaide next week.

Is this a dig at us or a compliment? We've scored 70 or more in 11 of our 14 games. Our opponents have scored 70 or more in 5 of our 14 games. Compliment, yeah?

Despite Adelaide flying out of SA, the talk is that they are still angling to FIFO to play that game in Adelaide. So our game vs Port is still on the cards to be in Adelaide I think, at least at this stage, and particularly if that family of positive cases didn't spend time in the community when infectious and as such there are no more cases in SA over the next few days.

Yes but you also "saw" us losing to Essendon.

So is there no fear of our game's timeslot being changed to accommodate a change to the Fremantle v Carlton game?

Victoria had more than 800 deaths from COVID last year, almost all of which occurred during the second wave. Do you seriously doubt the proposition that if COVID is left un-defended by either vaccines or lockdowns/restrictions, there wouldn't be hundreds of deaths?

There are only two of them: Collingwood and Essendon. Prior to that are the two games you've just referenced, Brisbane and the Dogs. It's not a long term trend yet. It's one game where the whole side was off, and then Essendon (which, by the way, I do not agree was our third worst game for the season. Essendon was a good opponent and that performance was superior IMO to the North and Hawthorn wins at least). These are just guff statements that aren't true. We currently average 87 points per game and have a percentage of 131.4%. Here are the last four premiers (in full seasons): 2019 Richmond averaged 86 points per game and had a percentage of 113.7%. 2018 West Coast averaged 91 points per game and had a percentage of 121.4%. 2017 Richmond averaged 90 points per game and had a percentage of 118.3%. 2016 Bulldogs averaged 86 points per game and had a percentage of 115.4%. If we keep doing what we're doing we will be right in the mix in terms of scoring, with a percentage that well exceeds any of these four recent premiers.

That's a sample size of two games. Against Essendon we did only score 68, which is low, but we also had 23 scoring shots, which is bang on our season average of 24.5 shots per game. The issue there being inaccuracy. Prior to Collingwood, our previous four scores were 97, 87, 95 and 94. The first two of those scores were produced against two of the best sides other than us, Brisbane and the Dogs. I am arguing that we can improve our scoring but that it's nowhere near the problem that is being suggested on here (although by clarifying your post it's clear you don't think it's as bad as I had thought you did). Well not the sentiment that we have the least potent forward line in the league. I also don't agree that our elite defence is irrelevant to considering the effectiveness of our forward line. It's essential, for context. We don't need to score big every week. Maybe some other clubs in the competition do (Essendon would be one example) because they're less capable of stopping sides scoring. In 2018 that was us. I also don't agree that scoring has been the primary reason for both our losses this season. We scored 95 points against Adelaide. The issue in both those games was that our opponents scored at a rate well higher than any of the other 12 sides we've played this year. But the key point remains: despite all of the so-called weaknesses, we have scored the fourth-most points in the league. We're 68 points behind Brisbane across 14 games, which is the equivalent of 4.86 points per game, i.e. less than a goal per game. Another metric is average scoring shots per game: Bulldogs - 27.57 Brisbane - 25.07 Melbourne - 24.50 Essendon - 23.76 Geelong - 23.07 Sydney - 23.07 Richmond - 22.64 Port Adelaide - 22.50 West Coast - 22.14 We generate the third-most shots on goal and the fourth-most points per game in the competition. If anything, these stats show me that our inaccuracy is holding us back. I agree with your final line, though. I'm confident this is a glass half full situation.

Who are you referring to here? Pickett? A second-year player with 28 games under his belt? Who else?

I wholly dispute the proposition that the fourth-highest scoring side can simultaneously be described as having the "least potent and least reliable forward line in the league". As to the bolded line, Fritsch is averaging 2.1 goals a game which, if he plays every game from here will result in 44 goals. Now, I accept that we're lacking a dominant forward, and I accept that our forward half connection was poor vs Essendon and has been poor in many games this year. But despite that, we're still outscoring 14 teams, and we're doing so with our elite defence (i.e. compare that with a side like Essendon who scores more than us but at a major cost to its defence). The "problem" exists but it is being blown wholly out of proportion.

We're third for average inside 50s per game, behind the Dogs and Brisbane. Essendon is 9th. I can't find average scores per inside 50, though. I'm not sure it matters much if the end argument is "we don't score enough". The end product from how we're playing is that we've scored the fourth most points of anyone. We know we prioritise time in our forward half and repeat entries, so if we have lots of inside 50s but comparatively fewer scores, but still end up outscoring 14 of the other 17 clubs, does it matter?

That's still three weeks away. Queensland's gone into lockdown very early, with only three new cases today. Previous very early lockdowns in Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide have been short and successful. Even though this is the Delta variant, I'd say the odds right now are that Queensland will be out of lockdown by the time of our game against GC. Indeed, I foresee a modicum of bad luck against us with this arrangement. The Dogs had no crowd vs West Coast. Carlton's going to get its trip to Perth brought back to Victoria, as is Richmond with its trip to the GC. Our next interstate trip is to Adelaide and right now that is the only interstate trip that is not in COVID jeopardy. So we won't "benefit" from a Victorian hub unless the SA-Vic border closes in either direction, and at the moment that's not on the cards. And that's on top of us being the only side to have two home games lost during the Victorian lockdown. Not trying to make this a "woe is us" thing. Just pointing out what I foresee to be bad luck - we could lose home games to the Victorian lockdown and then not "benefit" from the NSW, Queensland or WA lockdowns.

Just a reminder that, since 2018, we've won more finals than Brisbane. This is complete and utter bull[censored]. We have scored the fourth most points in the league. Read that again. We are top 4 for scoring. One of the three sides above us is Essendon, which means only two current top 8 sides score more than us.

Now even you're saying this? If we're fully fit, as we currently are, which midfielder is vandenBerg replacing?

Meanwhile The Age is reporting both Brisbane and GC are leaving Queensland today: https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/lions-head-to-melbourne-suns-on-the-move-20210629-p5854s.html Whilst Brisbane was always planning to come here early before going to Adelaide, GC is supposed to be hosting Richmond on the GC on Thursday night. So if this report is correct, change is afoot. A Victorian hub for the next 1-3 weeks is looking increasingly likely.

Agree, but it's not just chopping and changing advice, it's letting distrust, misinformation and panic set in by being lax (in the extreme) on messaging around the entire vaccination program.

McGowan's just announced Perth's going into a four-day lockdown from midnight tonight after a third case was discovered. That will run until midnight Friday at the earliest. Aside from the country starting to spiral out of control, you'd have to think the Fremantle-Carlton game will be moved from Perth.