titan_uranus

TMac’s a perfect replacement but our chances take a hit with May missing. How did he get a fractured larynx? How have we had two of those in 3 months? Edit: club has said it was a knock at training on Friday, but it’s not currently thought to be as bad as Gawn’s.

I'd be far more staggered if they finished top 2. I certainly think they're closer to 9th than 2nd. It's all too common to read too much into Round 1 (even Rounds 2-4). But I'm with @At the break of Gawn in that I think last night was more about Port being awful than Collingwood being amazing.

Can’t wait. Really hope that enough of us are prepared to brave the rain to go today. The weather and the GP are going to severely dent our crowd. Just our luck that in March, when we could have had mild sunny weather, we get this.

Sorry to burst any bubbles but they have to be better than “orright” by now. They’re missing just Wardlaw from their best 23 against a Dogs side missing Bontempelli, Treloar, Weightman, JUH and Jones. They might win from here, but tbh that should be the expectation at this time of their development against this version of the Dogs.

Turner also unavailable this week, so that’s 5 best 23 IMO who were unavailable this week. But as @old55 has already said, TMac, Billings, Laurie and Woewodin are all fit and available and were the players getting these spots last year. Rather than go back to that well, we’re trying new faces. Like most, I like it (although I’m surprised Billings didn’t get picked).

No but his clear mantra, for the 3 years I’ve been listening to him, is that the game has moved away from stoppage and territory dominance. Success now largely comes from being able to score off turnover and defend off your own turnover. We know that in 2022-24 we struggled with the turnover game relative to better sides. The big question for me on Sunday is what we try to do in that area of the game to improve on the last three years.

Final team: Melbourne v Greater Western Sydney at the MCG, 3.20pm AEDT MELBOURNE B: H.Petty 35 S.May 1 C.Salem 3 HB: B.Howes 22 J.Lever 8 J.Bowey 17 C: E.Langdon 15 C.Petracca 5 C.Windsor 6 HF: J.Viney 7 M.Jefferson 21 T.Sparrow 32 F: B.Fritsch 31 J.van Rooyen 2 K.Chandler 37 Foll: M.Gawn - C 11 C.Oliver 13 T.Rivers 24 I/C: H.Langford 19 X.Lindsay 20 H.Sharp 30 A.Johnson 42 J.Henderson 43 Emerg: J.Billings 14 T.McDonald 25 T.Campbell 29

I think we have to assume he dominated that VFL game. It’s still hugely surprising that, even if so, that was enough to displace Disco who struggled but at least at senior level, but I’m certainly all for rewarding form at selection.

Wowee. Not only am I shocked that Jefferson's getting a debut after his pre-season, I'm equally shocked that Billings has missed out despite appearing to be in the A team all pre-season. As @DeeSpencer has reasoned, it looks like AJ's beaten Disco to the second tall forward role, Jefferson and Fritsch are going to be the third tall with Fritsch pushing higher up the ground, and a combination of Sharp, Lindsay and Henderson/Langford are going to have to rotate half-forward and wing. I do quietly like that JVR won't have to ruck, but when the ball hits the deck in a forward line of JVR, AJ, Jefferson and Fritsch, and without Pickett...jeepers...

If he’s talking AFL debuts, then based on the Freo match wouldn’t it be Lindsay, Langford and Adams?

It certainly doesn’t help us attract a crowd. We were already up against the Grand Prix, now with the rain the crowd’s going to be thin, I fear.

Cal Twomey says Culley’s out for 4-6 with bone stress in his foot (can’t embed the Tweet). Is this new or has the club already announced this and I missed it?

Based on how we played in 2022-24, you could write a script on how this game is going to be played. We dominate hit outs, CPs and clearances, resulting in a high number of inside 50s and time spent in our forward half, but with low quality shots on goal leading to an inaccurate score. The Giants often enough will break through our zone with pace and run and generate easier shots on goal. I think the idea of our pre-season has been to work out how to avoid this from happening. This week is probably our first look at seeing what we’ve done to address it.

There’s no doubt that without Pickett we are going to look slow against them. There’s also no doubt they are a talented side in contention this year. But Collingwood yesterday looked just as slow as I expect we will, and played one down on the field when N Daicos slowed to a walk, and yet generated similar scoring shots to 3QT and, on everyone’s favourite stat, the xScore margin at the end of the game was 2 points. Collingwood was also +21 in CPs, +4 in clearances and +1 in inside 50s. Tom Green makes a difference to these stats but they show you where GWS’s problems were. Unlike Collingwood, we should be able to take advantage of them having a weak ruck, plus we play at home not away (and hopefully not in the heat), plus we’re hopefully able to run the game out better than the Pies did, plus we get the benefit of an extra week to plan against what we just saw. So whilst they’re favourites, I can see how we win.

Great stuff, as always. Your site also tells us that in 2024 we scored more than our Expected Score across the season. On its face, this tells us that our inaccuracy last year comes principally from taking low-percentage shots on goal. We take far too many shots from angles (and interestingly, mainly the left hand side). @WheeloRatings Do you have the ability to break down how many games we lost where we ought to have won based on xScore, and vice versa? I'm interested to know whether the xScore across the season is skewed by outliers.

It’s both, isn’t it? There’s no doubt the quality of our entries has been too poor, generating too many low percentage shots from 40+ out on 45+ angles. I agree that comes from Goodwin/the FD believing that dominance of forward half territory was the way to go. But we lose enough games on expected score to tell us that we should be scoring more from the shots we do generate. We have unreliable kicks all over the field and, excluding Fritsch and Turner, that includes our forwards in set shots.

I assume when you say “preferred” you acknowledge this is no chance of happening? Like, for example, Turner suddenly playing defence alongside May, Lever and Petty?

This is what gets me, too. I like AJ, but he isn't playing unless we're dropping one of these three other guys. We haven't set up all summer with JVR, Turner, AJ and Fritsch. Yesterday AJ would have been on the bench until late but came on early because JVR went off. If we were going to play all four, we would have done so yesterday. AJ is priming himself for Turner's spot, IMO. Turner would want to start the year well.

I’m sure plenty wrote the season off at half time. It was a practice match. I’m principally concerned with the JVR injury and how we tried to move the ball. From the looks of it, we’re trying new things. It’s ok for them not to have worked well today. However we’d dearly want the goal kicking to be a cobweb-blow out sort of thing. Doesn’t matter how well we move the ball this year if we still can’t kick it between the big sticks.

Confirmed that Culley’s 46:

As an addendum to this, last week David King said we were one of 6-7 clubs who could be ruled out of flag contention. Despite this, yesterday he said he had us in his top 8, until last minute switching us out for Gold Coast. He does not have Sydney, Carlton, Port Adelaide or the Bulldogs in his top 8, despite ruling none of them out of flag contention last week. Strictly speaking not inconsistent, but generally speaking classic David King.

Gawn on radio yesterday said he’s playing, and he expects everyone to play except Melksham and McVee.

I think this is the right call. I don’t think we’ve had adequate midfield depth for a while now and from all reports Culley has done everything asked of him, and more, this pre-season. I reckon we’ll see him in the side earlier than many expect, even if only for a handful of games.

Cal Twomey’s article suggests the rationale to cutting it off as early as possible is to allow lower league clubs to know who is actually going to be playing for them, without fear that at any minute their players might be picked up by an AFL club. Surely the end of February/start of March isn’t too early for leagues which don’t start until the end of March? And even if it is, surely today (for example) is practically no different to Friday, but allows us and the other clubs who had their practice matches on Saturday to get in before the cut off?