titan_uranus

That's true, but it was 8 weeks ago and if you watch it again you'll see that Geelong really didn't turn up. Since then their only two wins have been vs Gold Coast and North Melbourne, and they took until the fourth quarter to shake both. They also lost to Hawthorn, and wouldn't have been in that contest after quarter time if it wasn't for their ridiculously accurate goal kicking. Every game is a danger game - we either play a good team, and they're a genuinely good chance to beat us, or we play a weak team, and we all freak out because of our latent MFCSS.

All the talk of the Chandler gatorade shower makes me angry for a different reason. The AFL's records will say this was not his first win. He "won" the games he "played" as the medical sub. The notion of crediting players with "playing" when they're an unused medical sub is just so stupid. The rule is this: 18.6.3 Free Kicks - Holding the Ball: Incorrect Disposal Where a Player in Possession of the Football has not had Prior Opportunity, a field Umpire shall award a Free Kick if that Player elects to Incorrectly Dispose of the football when Legally Tackled. For the avoidance of doubt, a Player does not elect to Incorrectly Dispose of the football when: (a) the Player genuinely attempts to Correctly Dispose of the football; (b) the Legal Tackle causes the football to be dislodged from the Player’s possession. So it's not a free kick if you have not had prior opportunity (as @Clint Bizkit mentioned) and you make a genuine attempt to correctly dispose of the ball. The distinction is prior opportunity. If you've had it, you must legally dispose of the ball upon being tackled or it's a free. If you haven't had prior, it's OK to miss the ball with your foot provided you genuinely attempted to kick it. I didn't realise this was being brought up? I mentioned it in the Gameday thread but thought it was just a random thing I'd seen. It shows competitiveness from Carlton which if I were a Blues fan is a major improvement on the Brendan Bolton era, but they're mired in mediocrity at the moment as they keep losing and can't take a step forward against sides above them on the ladder.

Radio, internet and post-game stats led to my earlier post.

Haven't seen the game but a few things I noticed were: Carlton kicked 10.8. That is the fourth consecutive week we've conceded 18 scoring shots, which we also conceded in Rounds 1 and 2. It is the highest amount of scoring shots registered against us all year (the other three games were 13, 15 and 14). The fourth quarter was level. Whilst we didn't win it, we obviously also didn't lose it, meaning we've still only lost one fourth quarter all season. An interesting flip in clearances: this week we were +1 in centre clearances but -16 in stoppage clearances.

Also, since sacking Brendan Bolton in mid-2019, Carlton have lost 20 games. But of those 20 losses, only two have been by more than 5 goals (a 68 point loss to Geelong in the last round of 2019 and a 31 point loss to Hawthorn last year). So they don't always win, but under Teague they rarely get well beaten.

We're playing one of the only sides comparable to us for poor starts: both us and them have only won 3 of 8 first quarters this year (North, Fremantle, Adelaide and St Kilda are the only other sides in the competition less than 4). They're 6 of 8 in third quarters, but only 4 of 8 in fourth quarters (we're 7 of 8 and the only loss was last week to Sydney by a point).

Even if they beat us in two weeks, that won't necessarily mean they are better than us overall, and certainly won't indicate they are in a "class above". I haven't crunched the data but I'm confident in many years the result of some finals is a reverse of the result of those sides' match(es) in the home and away. I mean, last year Richmond lost to St Kilda and Port during the H&A but beat them both in the finals. West Coast beat Collingwood in the H&A by 11 goals but lost the final. I do agree, though, that I think we can get better. I don't think we've put a complete four quarter dominant performance together yet.

As for the results yesterday, Richmond winning obviously hurts, but the Dogs winning IMO isn't a bad result. As some have said, the difference between finishing 1st and 2nd isn't anywhere near as bad as between 2nd and 3rd, particularly when interstate sides such as Brisbane and Port are in the running for the top 4. If we win today, we'll be 3 games and around 15%+ clear of Geelong in third. Indeed, assuming West Coast wins, 3-7 on the ladder will all be 6 win sides. Which I suppose also means if we slip up in the second half of the year, there could be a real glut of sides ready to pass us.

Ridiculous post. Unless Fremantle beats Essendon by 10 goals, the current top 8 will remain the top 8 after today's games. The Dogs have a 3-1 record against the top 8, but one of those wins was Brisbane in Ballarat, in Brisbane's third consecutive week stuck in Victoria. We have a 3-0 record. Hardly "a class above". For comparison, here is every top 8 side's record against the top 8: Dogs: 3-1 Melbourne: 3-0 Geelong: 3-2 Brisbane: 1-3 Port: 1-3 Sydney: 3-1 West Coast: 1-2 Richmond: 1-4 If there's a "class", we sit comfortably in it alongside the Dogs and Geelong. Sydney, interestingly, is standing up in big games more than the rest of the top 8 sides, despite being the side many consider most likely to drop out of the 8 by season's end. Brisbane have won five in a row but Port (at home) is the only side higher than 10th on the ladder they've played in that run. Port have looked good this year but Richmond is the only side higher than 11th on the ladder they've beaten. West Coast have barely played good sides this year, and don't really before the bye (Adelaide, GWS, Essendon, Carlton).

I really hope Hardwick's comments about Richmond playing at Marvel resonate through the AFL community. The same principle applies to us. It's not our home ground, our fans don't like it, and it robs us of a true home game. We've been fortunate the last few years to not be given a home game there but we are selling a game each year to Alice Springs. If the AFL needs to make up a minimum number of Marvel games per year, make Essendon and Carlton host them. They're the clubs who signed on to be Marvel tenants. Yes, that might mean our away games to Essendon or Carlton in the future would be at Marvel instead of the G, but that IMO is a fairer result than us or Richmond having to host games at Marvel to make up for it.

The state of umpiring in the game right now is appalling. That's not necessarily the umpires' fault, but for various reasons it is the AFL's fault. There's no bias for or against any particular side. There's just wholesale inconsistency within and between games. And that's largely because of ever-changing rules which are incredibly subjective. The HTB rule is very difficult to umpire with consistency. But there are a number of other rules that need to be improved. The deliberate out of bounds rule is becoming a farce. Holding the man takes on a completely different complexion if you're a key defender as compared to a midfielder at a stoppage. Even the stand rule is being bent: Dougal Howard stepped all around the mark at one point on Friday night but wasn't penalised.

Carlton are better than almost everyone is prepared to admit. Their losses this year are to Richmond, Collingwood, Port, Brisbane and the Dogs. The Collingwood loss in hindsight is bad but the other losses are to top 4 contenders. And there were periods in all four of those games where they looked the better side. At some point this year it is all going to come together for them across four quarters. If that happens today and we're not switched on, we'll lose. If we concede centre clearances the way we did last week we'll concede more goals, simply because Mackay is better than anyone Sydney had in their forward line last week. But if we apply the level of pressure we know we're capable of applying, their skills can go to water, and when they turn it over they're terrible at defending in transition. If we're switched on, we win, but I can't help but feel this is going to be a nerve wrackingly close game all day.

Our fixture post-bye is tough. After the Essendon-GWS fortnight, every second week is an away game on the road, and that span includes Port Adelaide (away), the Dogs, West Coast (away) and Geelong (in Geelong). If we're getting some Friday night games in that run we'll also likely be having some six or even five day breaks. Indeed, you can break our final 14 games down into two halves, with the next seven being relatively "easier" games (Carlton, Adelaide, Dogs, Brisbane, Collingwood, Essendon, GWS) as compared to the final seven (Port, Hawthorn, GC, Dogs, West Coast, Adelaide, Geelong). The more we can bank in the first seven, the better placed we'll be to hold our top 2/4/6 spot through the final seven.

So by Round 15 we'll have had 10 FTA games and only 4 Foxtel games. If I have a complaint, it's that only two of those 10 FTA games will have been Friday nights (and zero Thursday nights), only one of which was a home game and it will have been in Alice Springs. By comparison, to the same point of the year St Kilda will have had one Thursday night game and two Friday night games, and two of those as home games at Marvel. It's a very minor complaint TBH, given where we've come from. Plus further opportunities to come (albeit again mainly away games): Round 15 away to Essendon - they're playing on Sunday the previous week so would have to get them on a 5-day break to get a Friday night Round 16 home to GWS - not much competition that week for prime time (Geelong v Essendon?) so might get a Saturday night at best? Round 17 away to Port - has to be a good chance for a Friday night, or Thursday night if they're still happening that late in the season Round 18 home to Hawthorn - nope Round 19 away to GC - nope Round 20 home to the Dogs - another good chance Round 21 away to West Coast - possibly, but Perth games are so often on Sundays Round 22 home to Adelaide - nope Round 23 away to Geelong - will depend on ladder positioning going into that round.

Melksham dropped. Wow.

But the issue isn't that the stats don't exist. They exist. They're just not made available to the public. This year has seen a major step forward though, with the AFL website now making significantly more data available to the public. It's not an easy system to navigate but much more info is there now.

Thanks @Axis of Bob. Out of interest, where did you get the scores from centre clearances differential stat? Is it on footywire?

Jackson out sucks. Big time. He's not just a "second ruck". His midfield/clearance work when he's up the ground, and particularly in at centre bounces, is strong. Whether Weideman or TMac, they don't have his skill in the clearance work. Good luck to Weideman. This is his chance. Jackson will come straight back in when he's ready, so Weideman has two weeks to try to convince the FD that someone else should make way for Jackson.

This is a great post and IMO the best summation of things. Maturity is the single biggest factor I think. It's not just getting older and playing more games, it's learning from those experiences, and I'm increasingly confident Goodwin has learnt how to help players extract knowledge and improvement from their games. On ruthlessness I'd add that he traded Frost in circumstances where he was much loved within the club and supported by a sizeable chunk of fans. It is much easier to argue now having seen how May and Lever (and Tomlinson) have worked together this year, but it was apparent to me in 2018 that the single most important thing we needed to do was to move on from OMac and Frost. It was a tough call to make because of the number of supporters who liked Frost's dash, but it was the right call. Game style is interesting though. I'm not sure that's a net win for Goodwin. He's made a number of mistakes over the last four years IMO with how we set up and play and I'd overall say he's struggled to work out how he wants us to play, and to implement it.

Yes and no. We're second last in the comp for average centre clearances and we're third last for centre clearances compared to our opponents: we average 2 fewer centre clearances than our opponents per game. So being -13 in that stat is an outlier, but the general concept that we're weak in centre clearances is not.

What if he or Rampe had broken Butler/Langdon's neck? Then we'd all of a sudden care? Both of them engaged in off-the ball non-football actions. The fact neither Butler nor Langdon got injured doesn't mean they shouldn't be penalised, it means the penalty should be low (a fine maybe). May engaged in an in-game football action. Franklin's decision to oil his arms up is the likely reason his elbow slid way up from its starting point. He did little wrong. Again, the system continues to look at outcome (May hits the head, Lemmens and Rampe don't do any damage to their opponent) rather than action.

It doesn't look like Lemmens got anything for the body slam on Butler. Apparently these are OK but an obviously accidental elbow which slides up someone's greased arm is worthy of a fine. As I said last week after Fritsch's penalty, the system is not working.

Don't start me on the god-awful AFL clash "policy". It's a disgrace. If Sydney's uniform clashes with ours (whether jumper or socks), they should be required to change it to avoid the clash. Not us. Them. However, there is no sock clash. Sydney's socks have white strips. We didn't wear different socks in last year's Cairns game.

Hawthorn has 70,000+ members and drew 15,000 to a game against West Coast (a bigger interstate side than most). We've been insulted since the dawn of time for having supporters who aren't invested, don't know the players, etc. It grates me to no end that Hawthorn escapes those insults. Their membership figure is inflated, they have a smaller core of supporters than we do but the amount of people who signed up after the threepeat was off the charts.

How? I can accept that we can set up and plan to win whether or not we win centre clearances. But how exactly will we be "far less dangerous" by winning them?