titan_uranus

Yeah well Whateley also thinks there should be a "play in" for the finals where the sides in 9th and 10th get a shot at finishing 7th and 8th. In other words, sometimes he says some silly things.

Maybe because Jackson's not playing as badly as some on Demonland think, whilst Weideman would hardly be an upgrade? Jackson's primary benefit to the side is his time in the ruck/midfield, not his time in the forward line. Weideman would be the opposite way around. It throws structures out. Weideman can't run around in the midfield covering the more athletic rucks (like Tim English) the way Jackson can, and he's never really shown an ability to be a link up midfielder like Jackson.

I reckon one of the other reasons their scoring has dropped off is that their first 10 games weren't all that hard. They opened the season with Collingwood, West Coast (in Melbourne), North, Brisbane (in Ballarat, at the end of Brisbane being unexpectedly stuck in Victoria for three weeks), Gold Coast, GWS, Richmond, Carlton, Port and St Kilda. Since then they've had us, Fremantle (in Perth), Geelong (in Geelong), West Coast (in Perth), North, Sydney and Gold Coast. IMO, the latter 7 games have been against better quality sides and they've played a little bit worse as a result (it's all relative though, they're still 12-4!). They've had 8 more scoring shots across 7 weeks. Barely one more per game. All 8 of them were goals too, so they've scored barely one goal a game more than us over the same period. So whilst technically yes it's been better, the difference is negligible.

I think there's no doubt at all that if the MCG can hold 40,000 on Grand Final day, the Grand Final will be at the MCG. The AFL will have a threshold figure in mind and I suspect it will be lower than 40,000.

Returning to footy, does anyone know what this article says? The photo has Hawthorn and Melbourne in it and so I'm wondering if it talks about us?

The conventional wisdom has been that after this week we'd fly to the Gold Coast, then from there to Perth to play West Coast. I wonder, though, whether we'll be staying in Melbourne to get our game vs Adelaide played while they're here. I could foresee the AFL reshuffling our games to keep us in Vic for a block, and then interstate for the GC and WC games, rather than sending us interstate for two weeks but still needing to bring us back.

We're 9-0 against the top 11 and the only team we haven't beaten is the only team we haven't played. But you only need to read Demonland to see why people think, after the draw with Hawthorn (and the loss to GWS two weeks earlier), we're not good enough.

Remember we won that game?

The Harmes-Libba thing is interesting. Do we do it again because it worked so well last time, or do we avoid it because they may have prepared for it and either it won't be as effective, or we could maybe surprise them by sending Harmes to someone else? I'm inclined to think Libba won't be tagged out of it by the same player twice in one year, so I'm not sure it will work as well for us again this time.

Is it, though? It's one thing to stop May and Lever taking intercept marks, but you then have to do something with it when the ball hits the deck. I'm sure, though, that they won't have all of Naughton, Bruce, Ugle-Hagan, Schache and English forward at once. Most likely English/Bruce will be in the ruck, and one of the others will be on the bench, meaning three at a time with mediums/smalls around them. Ugle-Hagan was good last week but nowhere the week before when the pressure was on vs Sydney. Schache is just meh. My concern remains, as it would have been regardless of selection, on Naughton and their midfield.

English too. I wonder whether this is a ruck issue - they don't want to be too small when Bruce is in the ruck giving English a rest, so they want to ensure that at any time they have Naughton, Ugle-Hagan and one of Bruce/Schache forward to keep May and Lever honest.

Obviously! Fixed. Also Mitch Hannan comes back.

Dogs have gone tall, bringing in Schache to play alongside Bruce and Ugle-Hagan (and Naughton, of course).

Emergencies are Bedford, Sparrow, Weideman and J Smith (i.e. Sparrow, last week's medi-sub, is "out").

Harmes in for vandenBerg.

I agree with this. On a disruption basis, our fixture has been good. But this is also true: On a financial basis, we've copped it bad. I haven't read that Herald Sun article but it would be no surprise to me at all if we had the worst financial result from the COVID disruption this year of any club. We've had four home games impacted by the two Victorian lockdowns, two of which were huge (Alice Springs and Queen's Birthday), one of which is this weekend's 1 v 2 game that you'd expect to have filled whatever capacity the MCG was allowed up to maybe 60,000 in a non-COVID year, and another vs a Victorian club in Hawthorn. A contrast is Hawthorn, who so far have had one home game impacted: their Round 14 home game vs Essendon, which was moved to their other home ground in Tasmania and drew a huge crowd. Every other game they've played in the two Victorian lockdowns has been an away game, including again this week. So whilst disruption wise it's been a good year, financially it's been terrible.

The COVID stuff is draining but jeepers, "return to 2020 form and results"? We've lost a grand total of zero consecutive matches. One draw, the week after belting a top 4 side on their home ground. And we're top of the [censored] ladder!

Those are last year's stats, @jnrmac. The menu at the top allows you to select a season and you've got it on 2020.

Brown's key responsibility is to be a good forward. That might mean kicking goals one week, but if he's not kicking goals he needs to be leading, making contests, being a threat, etc., to help release pressure on TMac/Fritsch and to bring our smalls into play. Given how we played vs Essendon and GWS, I remain of the view that we can't go into games with just TMac as the tall, and Fritsch/Jackson as support. We need, IMO, a second tall. Our options really are Brown or Weideman. Brown's now had five games, the same as Weideman, and his stats are now almost universally better than Weideman's for the season. Weideman averages more tackles per game and more defensive half pressure acts, but Brown otherwise is doing more: he gets more disposals, has more kicks, generates more inside 50s, has a higher disposal efficiency, gets the ball at ground level more (ground ball gets), takes more marks (contested and uncontested), kicks double the goals, and has more shots on goal per game. So in my view, we have two options, and the one currently in the side is outperforming the other one, and we need one of them in the side, so there shouldn't be any debate right now about Brown holding his spot, not unless/until his performances are inferior to what we'd expect from Weideman.

Where did you see that? Footywire has us 4th in the comp, at 61.8 tackles per game (GC, Sydney and St Kilda the three clubs above us). And we're 9th for team/opponent average differential of tackles, at +1.4 (i.e. we average 1.4 more tackles than our opponent each week). We're 9th for average clearances per game, and 7th for team/opponent differential at +1.0 (i.e. we average 1 more clearance than our opponent each week). Or were you referring to a recent period?

This seems to be the AFL's position. Don't have a bye if the games can go ahead. If Port-Collingwood and Adelaide-Hawthorn can proceed in Melbourne, then they should proceed. Save the bye for a week where it's impossible, rather than just difficult The problem is that the harder it gets, the more unfair the solutions become. Having Fremantle host Carlton at the MCG is unfair. Ditto Port hosting Collingwood. Both are instances of one side getting two home games in one season against a particular opponent, with Carlton already having hosted Fremantle in Melbourne and Collingwood the same with Port. The AFL will say who cares, just play, but it's becoming harder and harder to justify that.

The concern I have isn't losing to teams outside the 8, it's specifically against the four clear bottom 4 sides of 2021: Adelaide, Collingwood, Hawthorn and North. I can't off the top of my head think of any top 8 side with a record as poor as our 2-1-3 record against those four sides. I'm not suggesting that good sides should never lose to bottom 10 sides: that's unrealistic. And ultimately if we're going to lose games it is less damaging to lose them to bottom sides than our competitors around us. But to be at less than 50% against bottom 4 sides says to me that we don't prepare for those particular games, where we are overwhelming favourites and there is an expectation we'll walk it in.

But most of these stats were the same when we were 11-1. We've been mid-table for hit outs to advantage and clearances all season, it's not like we were dominant and have fallen away. So the two areas that are of real concern IMO are pressure and transition, and for mine pressure takes the cake - it's elite when we're the hunters, against a strong side, etc., but it's nowhere near as good when we're the hunted and our lesser opponent throws caution to the wind. I don't consider our ball movement to be a big concern - we're generating plenty of inside 50s, marks inside 50 and shots on goal, and if we were nailing our easier set shots we'd probably have beaten GWS and Hawthorn. By leaving 10 out of 12 premiership points on the table vs Adelaide, Collingwood and Hawthorn, we're forcing ourselves to bring elite pressure every time we play a top 8 side, including again this week. I have faith we can do it, but one slip up vs the Dogs, West Coast or Geelong and we could well lose our top 4 spot.

Last time they belted us in clearances 36-27 (including 25-14 at stoppages), had 54 more disposals, 6 more inside 50s and, despite having more of the ball, they had 11 more tackles (57-46). But we still won. The confidence I take from that is that they got on top in areas they usually get on top in, but couldn't work out how to turn that into an effective method of scoring.

I agree re: Martin. In our game last year English rucked the first half and we led at half time. Beveridge was so angry at the ruck situation he swapped English and Bruce. Bruce ended up doing better than English in the ruck (was a low bar to cross) and English kicked 2-3 goals and helped win them the game. They're a better side with Martin first ruck and Naughton, Bruce and English in their forward line. They're close to getting Libba, Wood and Vandermeer back from injury. I'm not 100% sure if Wood and Vandermeer are best 22 but I would have thought so. But Martin's not ready this week. Presumably they'll stick with a Naughton, Bruce and Ugle-Hagan forward line.