titan_uranus

6 - Oliver 5 - Harmes 4 - Lever 3 - Rivers 2 - Spargo 1 - May

A few struggled at times (Weideman, Jackson, Hunt, Melksham) but no one played so badly to warrant being dropped IMO. No change unless injury. (if Langdon's out next week vs Brisbane that will hurt, big time).

The Dogs had 19 scoring shots, that's their lowest all year (they had 20 against Richmond). And we kept them to that amount on Marvel.

Huge game. They dominated the stats and had tonnes of the ball but the stats don't show you how much they were mucking around with it because of our pressure and defensive set up. A massive team effort. Oliver was dominant but this was as much about the stars as it was about lesser lights, like Harmes tagging Libba, Jordon's midfield role, Weideman continuing to present despite having a poor first half, Spargo/ANB/Pickett gut running repeatedly to keep the pressure on, Brayshaw's amazing defensive game on the wing. We had to match them in the middle and we did, winning CPs by 21. We had to dominate the air and we did, +5 marks inside 50, +9 contested marks and a lot more intercept marks (can't find that stat). There will be those who qualify this win, noting that they were missing Treloar, Dunkley, Wood and Martin, and arguing the lack of a Dogs home crowd helped us. But [censored] them. We brought our defensive A-game and our pressure A-game and like Richmond, a top 4 contender couldn't go with us.

Almost as good as the first quarter because they started really well and the ball was stuck in their forward half. To come out with 3 goals to 0 is a massive effort. One more quarter...

This is one of your worst. You’re upset about us not kicking on from a 5 goal leas against the ladder leaders?

Disappointing to give those two late goals back. Should be further in front. But they lifted that quarter and we still dominated for most of it. Big third quarter coming up.

AFL deemed it a clash. It’s a [censored] disgrace. Carlton is allowed to play Collingwood, Essendon and Richmond in its regular jumper but we can’t wear red against their blue.

Arguably our best quarter this year. Our team defence and pressure are right on.

All this talk about the Dogs blowing teams off the park. Here's who they've beaten by more than 20 points this year: North Melbourne, Gold Coast, GWS, St Kilda. Us by comparison: Fremantle, GWS, Geelong, Hawthorn, Richmond, North Melbourne, Carlton. Their percentage is through the roof because of those two massive 100+ point wins, not because they're consistently destroying their opponents each week.

That's the spirit.

Big games for those under the pump: Weideman, Melksham, Fritsch.

There is plenty of scope here for the AFL to get through the next few weeks, although much hinges on the six clubs in Victoria this week being permitted to go to other states/territories. Next week, Round 12, there are three games scheduled in Melbourne (St Kilda v Sydney, Essendon v Richmond, Carlton v West Coast). St Kilda is the only one of those sides in Victoria this week. I imagine that if they can get negative tests, one of the other states will let them in, and that game can get moved. The other four clubs are already out of Victoria and I can see a situation in which they are all moved into neutral venues (I think Dreamtime is already being discussed as moving to Perth). In Round 13 only Queen's Birthday is scheduled in Melbourne, and that's 11 days away. By then, potentially/hopefully, things will look better. Assuming WA is tough on things, if NSW, Queensland, SA and/or Tasmania are willing to let clubs into their states even if they've been in Victoria in the preceding 14 days, the next few weeks should be manageable. Some clubs are going to lose home games and revenue, but there will be scope to try to adjust later games to fix that I suspect. There's also scope for late season games to be brought forward (e.g. maybe our trip to Adelaide to play Port, or our trip to the Gold Coast, or something like that, leaving later months free for games in Victoria).

There's no way they can do this. But there's likely no need to either. The initial lockdown last year was substantial because the entire country shut down. Right now only Victoria is in the weeds. Only four clubs are going to be here this week (the Dogs, us, Geelong and Collingwood). With byes coming up, there is some flexibility in getting games arranged in other states and territories.

You hinting at something here @Mach5?

There aren't many winners from all this, but there is luck associated with it all. We're missing a crowd at an away game, not a home game. That's some luck. We've already had a fair amount of MCG games (Essendon, for example, has already travelled four times, and now might have to play even more games interstate). That's some luck too.

I suspect the AFL's rationale here is that they are getting games played this weekend because it's possible. You don't know what is going to happen in the future so taking a bye this week runs the risk that a further game will need to be caught up in the future. Getting the round played is one fewer game that the AFL has to work out later.

Bontempelli and Libba, or Bontempelli and Macrae, or Macrae and Libba, or any of those and Treloar... Sure, Oliver and Petracca are amazing and the best the MFC has ever had, but they might not even be the best duo in 2021, let alone of all time.

Sure, that's all fair. I'm confident we can go 6-6 at worst from here and that gets us to 15-7 and in the running for top 4. Reality is, though, we have a very tough fixture from here whereas some of our contenders for top 4 spots do not (e.g. Richmond's already played everyone in the 8 except West Coast and only has West Coast, Geelong, Brisbane and GWS (arguably not actually a top 8 side) in their run home). Funnily enough losing to Adelaide is probably a better result for us than losing to contenders in so-called "eight point games". If we beat the Dogs on Friday that 1-1 split is better for us than the other way around.

A lot people are arguing we should return to TMac, Jackson and four mids/smalls as we were running with up to the Richmond game, because our form has diminished since then. I think there's a chicken-egg question with that. Has our form slid because we've inserted Brown/Weideman into the forward line? I'm not convinced, particularly because I think two other metrics have bugged us since Richmond: Viney's been out, reducing our midfield capability (both at clearances and defending on transition), and our forward half pressure game hasn't been at the same level (except for the Sydney game). So I'm not sure that by dropping Weid and not bringing Brown back, we automatically start playing better.

https://www.afl.com.au/stats/stats-pro They've released significantly more data to the general public this year, and it's largely available here. You can compare players and then see their season or career averages.

IMO Jetta has to be dropped even if Salem's not fit. I know the VFL is on a five-day turnaround but I just don't think we can take Jetta into this game on a fast deck at Marvel against the Dogs and come out alive. The stats don't really back this up too much. At AFL level this season Brown's averaging 5.3 pressure acts per game to Weideman's 6 (i.e. less than one pressure act per game the difference), but importantly Weideman's averaging 3.5 defensive half pressure acts per game to Brown's 1. That's important because it shows Weideman is playing a different role to Brown and getting more ball up the ground away from the forward line. Taking the defensive half pressure acts out, Brown's averaging 4.3 forward half pressure acts per game to Weideman's 2.5 (just under 2 more per game). Tackles is the same. Brown's only laid two tackles in three games but both in the forward 50. Weideman's laid 5 tackles but only 1 in the forward 50. Same with marks: Brown's averaging 3.3 marks per game to Weid's 4, but inside 50 Brown averages 2.3 to Weid's 1. The way both have played this year, Brown offers us something different and IMO stronger in the forward half/50 than what Weideman offers. Having said all that, it doesn't look like Brown played well in the VFL yesterday and I'm not a huge fan of players coming in without earning it (although to counter that counter argument, I don't think Brown should have been dropped in the first place).

Not sure 4-5 more wins gets us top 4. Most years the cut off is a 15-7 record. That's six more wins from here (indeed, a break-even 6-6 record). In some years that hasn't been enough - in 2019 West Coast finished 15-7 but missed the top 4 on percentage and in 2016 the Dogs finished 15-7 but 7th (in 2016 the bottom six were terrible, with Richmond 13th with an 8-14 record and a sub-80% percentage and the five lower sides even worse than that. With the bottom six all sucking, more wins were taken up by the top 12 and in particular the top 6). I'd suggest we'll need five wins, minimum, to be in the running for 4th as that will get us to 14-8. Six wins and 15-7 will make it far more likely, and seven wins and a 16-6 record should guarantee it. Anything beyond that and we start to play off for top 2.

Possibly for the same reason the umpire didn't call holding the ball on Blicavs in the Geelong-Brisbane game. Doedee was nowhere near it. It was blatantly deliberate. There probably wasn't a deflection off Spargo but even if there was, there's no way the umpire saw that live so that can't have been his reason. He likely saw an Adelaide player near the ball and used that as his comfort to not have to pay a free kick against the rampant home crowd with the game on the line.

If anyone needed any more evidence that the MRO system is absolutely broken right now, look no further than this round. Nick Holman being given two weeks for a run-down tackle is the lowest ebb in the history of the MRO. And it happens to come in the same week as Darcy Fogarty throws an elbow into Jake Lever's back, and that gets a fine. Suspending a player for a tackle whilst fining a player for throwing an elbow. Broken. The AFL must fix this shambolic situation immediately.