titan_uranus

Unless we brought in Rance, Hurley or some other established FB, IMO we just can't afford to lose TMac at this stage of our development.

M Jones' elite running puts him above Harmes for mine. M Jones gets to more contests and provides outside run. Harmes doesn't. They both turn it over. So M Jones does more, IMO.

I'm excited to see him play and hope he gets a good crack at it. I'm not sure I want him playing all four of our remaining games, but to get a taste before his first full pre-season should hopefully do good for him.

As is Harmes. There's no way I would have dropped M Jones before Harmes.

It's semantics, but I disagree, I think Kent's kicking is actually great. The issue is almost always decision-making - at his worst he is dumb and lazy and that manifests itself in kicks like the one on Sunday. At his best, though, his kicking is an asset to the side and when he is working hard through the middle of the ground, he is one of the players I want delivering the ball inside 50 (Petracca is another).

I am firmly in the same camp as those who believe he should get at least one more pre-season.

He has one of modern football's most important traits - good running skills. He runs all day, he runs to the right spots, and he has pace. He can kick at full burst, too, also important. Really happy with his development this year.

Haven't read the whole thread, got tired of reading people saying Dawes, OMac or M Jones should be dropped. Dawes is improving and took some contested marks for the first time in who knows how long. Not the time to be dropped. OMac played his best defensive game for the club against quality forwards in Lynch, Day and Wright. Ridiculous call. M Jones is having disposal issues but so are about 10 other players. Meanwhile M Jones continues to run all day, use his pace, and provide the key outside run that only he and Stretch are consistently providing. IMO Harmes is the first one out, he gets a tonne of it but adds very little to the side offensively with far too many turnovers. Garlett surely is in trouble too, the more so if Kennedy is in form in the VFL. I agree with you on using stats and I haven't read the thread fully, but disposal efficiency is a flawed measurement. A kick that goes 40 metres or longer to a 50/50 is counted as an effective disposal. A handpass to a stationery player is effective even if that player is about to get crunched, or even if the handpass is a hospital handpass. A short kick that ends up with the intended recipient is effective even if it misses that player in open space, but he is able to run onto it. I don't like the way it tries to measure the thing it's aimed at (quality of disposal).

6 - Watts 5 - Stretch 4 - Gawn 3 - Tyson 2 - OMac 1 - vdB

Beelzebub, you wrote this last week: Your post above on today's game is, IMO, wholly hypocritical. You cannot say when we lose "I don't care if we showed improvement, we didn't win and that's all that matters" but, when we win, say "I don't care that we won, we did it sheepishly and undeservedly". The two don't align. Either you accept that losses can carry positives (because today proves wins can carry negatives), or you maintain that all losses are negative and all wins are positive.

I thought I'd come on here to see old dee, SWYL and beelzebub praising the performance because, as we all know from the last 8 days, all that matters is the 4 points. They should be ecstatic! The rest of us should acknowledge that this was an appalling performance. Let down, yet again, by our leaders. Vince was truly awful today, he continually has games where he looks like he doesn't care and doesn't put the required effort into his kicking or handpassing. Viney, while younger of course, was terrible too. Just looking for easy handpasses out the back. N Jones had little influence, Dawes took a contested mark and had a defender running near him, but otherwise again a low impact performance. Harmes is a liability in the side right now. Surely we have other players at Casey who can do better than him. Our turn overs at half-forward are a disgrace. So many times we would telegraph a sideways kick and then execute it, allowing a GC player to intercept. Tyson's one in the third quarter was a perfect example. The positives are few, but include Watts, Stretch, OMac (that has to be his best game for the club yet?), Jetta and Gawn standing up when it mattered. I'm confident, though, that we will do better next week as we always seem to back up our worst performances with better ones. We also won't be favourites. You should be over the moon. The four points is all that matters, right? So why does it matter that it was "offensive to the eye"? I can only put it down to bad coaching. After GC kicked their third goal to take the lead, I saw Watts screaming at the runner and pointing forward. I'm confident he was imploring the coaches to put him forward. An almost game-losing decision to put him back. I remain less than impressed with our match-day coaching and hope for significant improvement in that regard in 2017.

Gold Coast had Wright, Lynch and Day in their side the last time we played them. They will put Day forward this week but didn't he play on Hogan last time? Hogan finished that game with 1.3 from 9 touches, in a game where we kicked 24.16. We had no problem with Lynch and Wright the last time, the reason being the same tactic as today: we restricted their inside 50s (75 to us, 35 to them). Keep their opportunities down and our midfield and forward line should be good enough to win the game. Laziness through the middle and from our half-forwards though...

How about some of the stats coming out of the Test: Third biggest comeback this century (117 being the third lowest first innings score from a team who's gone on to win) SL's second win over Australia ever Worst performance by an Australian opener since Mark Taylor's pair in 1994 (Warner scoring 0 and 1) Seven out of eight opening innings in the match were single digits (never has there been 8 out of 8 opening innings fail to make it to 10) Nevill's was the third slowest innings ever, the partnership being the slowest partnership ever End result is all too similar - lack of talent against quality spin. Also, Mitch Marsh is not the long-term option for us at 6, the top 5 isn't good enough for him to be batting at 6.

Weather aside, I think this is over now.

If we win it will only be because of Smith holding it together. Just saved on review as I type. The tail can bat but not against spin in Sri Lanka/India/UAE.

My vote is Pedersen only, for two reasons: Pedersen is more versatile. He can play KPF, KPD and second ruck. Dawes is only KPF. Pedersen is a better mark. Dawes, IMO, is too bad of a mark to warrant a spot at CHF. There's no doubt we need to do better than both but if I had the decision I'd give Pedersen another year and I'd be looking to move Dawes on (good bloke, good team man, but not good enough IMO).

This got me interested in that conversion stat across the year. Goals from inside 50s as a % in our losses: Essendon - 24.4% (compared to 19.6%) NM - 31.7% (compared to 41.2%) St Kilda - 27.3% (compared to 36.4%) Dogs - 25% (compared to 27.9%) Port - 18.9% (compared to 33.3%) Hawthorn - 20% (compared to 19%) Sydney - 8.5% (compared to 23.5%) Adelaide - 31.2% (compared to 34%) St Kilda - 22% (compared to 25%) West Coast - 12.1% (compared to 27%) Average across the losses is 22.1% (compared to 28.7%). Compare that to our wins: GWS - 21.4% (compared to 20%) Collingwood - 28.1% (compared to 16.4%) Richmond - 35.5% (compared to 25%) GC - 32% (compared to 40%) BL - 37.3% (compared to 20%) Collingwood - 34% (compared to 16.7%) Fremantle - 17.9% (compared to 19.5%) Average across the wins is 29.5% (compared to 22.5%). If you take out four games (GWS and Fremantle wins, NM and Adelaide losses) there is a bright line of 27.5% - if we are scoring goals from 27.5% or more of our inside 50s, we win, if not we lose. I guess it raises a chicken/egg question (i.e. are we losing because of low conversion or does low conversion come from being outplayed), but one of the signs of us being "on" during games is when we look dangerous inside 50, and that almost always arises when we kick goals every time we go inside. So you don't like it when we play on, but you also don't like it when we take our time to assess options after a mark/free kick? Viney is trying to keep our ball movement pace up. I'd rather consistent mistakes arising from playing on than consistent mistakes arising from being too slow.

Percentage is critical for GWS so they should have every motivation to crush Richmond.

I can't imagine it would have been that often that we'd lose after losing the toss but bowling the opponent out for 117 in the first innings, but I think we're on track for a loss in this one. Left-arm wrist spin is the toughest spin to play and their new chinaman bowler is good at it. We only need 185 more but most of that is going to have to come from Smith and Voges.

Do you realise how foolish you sound saying this?

A reprimand for biting? That is an absolute disgrace.

Not sure this is a great argument. You're effectively saying "we're not as good as we look because we exceed the AFL average in a particular category". Does that mean teams who excel at clearances aren't as good as they might seem because if they only came back to the pack on clearances, then they wouldn't get as much of the ball?

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and hoping this isn't a reference to Vickery's on-field seizure/concussion incident. If I'm wrong, that is very low, even for you.

There are plenty of others: Jake Neade is 170, McDonald-Tipungwuti is 171, Betts and McGlynn are 172, Ballantyne, Lewis Taylor and Puopolo are all 173. The issue isn't height. It's consistency. Kennedy's shown he has what it takes to play AFL level football at his height (see the first 6 or so weeks of the year). I see him in a similar position currently to what Kent was about two months ago. He needs to get involved through four quarters, and avoid prolonged periods of going missing. Those aren't things that depend on height, they depend on effort and adjusting to AFL level.

Agree that he is unfairly maligned but I remain unconvinced anyway. His positioning and bodywork don't appear to have improved as the year has gone on. He still looks timid when we transition to offence. He generally still looks lost out there. I appreciate though that the FD would prefer to play him than Dunn or Garland but I do not see an obvious KPD in OMac at the moment.