titan_uranus

We've been given one extra home game against a Victorian side (Coll, Haw, Rich, WB, St K). We get home games against three big Vic clubs. We get QBD and the ANZAC eve game. Only one finalist twice is also helpful. The remainder of the draw is abysmal. I hate that the AFL through its own incompetence is contractually required to send MCG tenants to play home games at Etihad. I hate it even more that the AFL thinks its OK to have us host an Etihad tenant in the process. We effectively have 10 home games this year and 12 away because of that. No Friday nights is bad but expected. No Saturday night home games is a disgrace (that's a reduction from 2014 - how could we go backwards after an improved year?). We play in the dreaded Sunday 1.10 slot 5 times. Miniscule FTA exposure. Worst of all, we have one fewer game overall at the G (down to 12 from 13 this year). How our draw could go backwards in two or three regards despite only improving in one regard after our clearly improved year on field escapes me entirely.

We've also got the Alice Springs home game against Port Adelaide in Round 10 (indigenous round) on a Saturday afternoon. http://m.afl.com.au/news/2015-10-28/indigenous-round-honour-for-one-of-the-games-aboriginal-pioneers

Agreed. GC, Brisbane, GWS, St Kilda, Melbourne to all have zero Friday nights is what I'm predicting, and maybe Essendon to have zero as well. I'll be pretty upset if any of the other members of the bottom 6 get one and we don't.

Hosting GWS in Round 1 is a good thing - with a strong NAB Challenge we could quadruple this year's crowd against them. I'd rather get that game out of the way in Round 1 than leave it until one or both clubs are out of the finals race. The two things I'm most interested in with our 2016 fixture are how many home games we get against Victorian sides (I'd love to see home games against Hawthorn, Essendon, Richmond, Geelong and/or Carlton) and Friday nights - we were the 'best' of the bottom 6 so I'd like to think we would get no fewer Friday nights than Essendon or St Kilda get, though I expect us to get 0 again.

Incredibly fortunate IMO to be in Melbourne for Round 1 again. Also quite lucky we get Easter Saturday whilst the Dogs are given a home game on Easter Sunday instead. Already cannot wait.

Wonderful sentiment and fantastic quotes from Garland. There is no need to say any of that stuff when re-signing, so I value those thoughts highly. I'm somewhat in the STMJ camp in that I'm not overly enthused with him on the field based on 2015, but now that he's recommitted and, clearly, displaying the right attitude for 2016 and beyond, I'll back him in to become the leader we need him to be, and I hope he is a role model (both on the field, and off) for anyone else who may be thinking about chasing a ready-made flag with Hawthorn/Sydney/someone else.

You've gotta love the way Jon Ralph sinks the boot in: "It is a measure of Melbourne’s dependence on their marquee player that they would devote such energy so early to locking him away."

One exciting game does not make the NRL better than the AFL, nor does it say anything about equalisation (incredible that people would suggest otherwise). It was a great game of course, but good grand finals come and go. Last year South Sydney beat the Bulldogs 30-6.

Good win by the Ravens, even if it was against a Roethlisberger-less Steelers. My tips for this week are Packers, Panthers and Raiders. I have a feeling all sorts of records are going to be broken in GB-SF, and not in a good way for the 49ers...

There's no doubt, IMO, that the Judd trade, in hindsight, failed for Carlton. There's no evidence yet that Franklin has made Sydney anything other than better off - they finished top 4 this year and he didn't play finals. Sydney got very close to beating Fremantle in the first final and Franklin could easily have been the difference. Last year they were the minor premier. We'll see what happens in the next few years but to date Franklin has made Sydney better, not worse. As for Ablett, you only need to compare Gold Coast's 2014 until he did his shoulder with their 2014 post-shoulder and their 2015 without him. Ridiculous to suggest Gold Coast is worse off without him or that they are further from a flag because they took him than they'd otherwise be.

That issue reminds me of a quote from Adam Simpson regarding the development of West Coast: "They play on instinct now rather than trying to comply," Simpson said of his players in an extensive interview with Fairfax Media in mid-July. "And if they can understand their role and not have to think too hard about positioning or running patterns or how we want to defend or move the ball, I think then you see the growth in individuals." Our players are still learning to play on instinct and not to "comply". At times this year it was working to the point where I felt that there was cohesion and there was more instinct coming through but the bulk of the second half of the season indicated that too many players are still pre-occupied with the things the coaches are telling them to do and not enough on the game as it is playing out in front of them. My hope is that in 2016 we start to see this change, fewer players following their man and not even watching the ball carrier next to them, more players making instinctive decisions when they have the ball, etc.

Agreed, but I meant over-reliance in a long-term sense. Clearly they drafted well when they needed to, but they have recognised that, with a strong core, you do not need to continue to go to the draft to keep a club strong. It's a part of the reason why the draft isn't operating to equalise the competition - you don't need access to the draft to stay strong, so 'penalising' the better sides by having later picks than the lower sides doesn't always work.

Hawthorn has also shown the fallacy that is over-reliance on the draft. They have regularly traded out their first draft pick (I think they've done this in each of the last three years) which, for a premier, comes at around 18-20, in favour of maintaining the age profile of their list, and then backing in their culture and development processes to make better players out of second/third round draft picks. They have also brought almost all of their talls in from other clubs (Gunston, Frawley, Lake, Gibson, McEvoy, Hale). Talls are a lot harder to find and develop from the draft. Much easier to let other clubs do the hard work and take them later and trade out small players instead (e.g. trading Savage for McEvoy).

He played well today but it's not hard to play full back when the opposition is so pressured, frightened, weakened and plays with as little skill as West Coast did today. It was a 22-man effort that led to Kennedy being as useless as he was today, though Frawley played well when he needed to. Clearly he did the right thing and he's been vindicated for it, and it ended up working out for us too, but it doesn't make it any easier to watch one of the few players we got right at the draft table, did well enough in developing to make AA, and around whom we thought we saw a future, walk out when the opportunity arose to piggy back off a dominant powerhouse to a flag.

I think in splitting Hawthorn of 2012-2015 with Brisbane of 2001-2004, I favour Brisbane for one reason - Brisbane won three flags at the G against Victorian sides. Hawthorn, in contrast, has won its three flags against interstate sides. I think a clear trend has emerged regarding interstate sides - that home ground advantage is great for racking up home and away wins, finishing top 4, and winning home finals, but if you come up against a Victorian club in a grand final it means nothing. Sydney beat Hawthorn in 2012, but otherwise recent interstate clubs have struggled (West Coast 2015, Sydney 2014, Fremantle 2013, Port Adelaide 2007). West Coast and Sydney beat each other in 2005-2006, whilst Port beat Brisbane in 2004. So I rate Brisbane's effort to win three flags in, essentially, away games each time as pipping Hawthorn's effort at beating interstate sides on their home ground three times. Somewhat fortuitous for the Hawks that the best sides except them in each of the three years weren't Victorian. Agreed, he played a shocker. The only thing he can do outside a stoppage set up is take a hanger. Well beaten today by McEvoy and Hale, two much slower and more lumbering ruckmen. Having said that, I'm prepared to cut him slack for the emotional factors he'd have had at play.

There's no doubt that Hawthorn have earned their success. Six of their seven core 4-time premiership players were drafted by Hawthorn, not brought in by trade/FA (Burgoyne the only one who wasn't drafted). Despite all that, there is a problem with the AFL when 16 of the last 22 grand final positions have been shared by just four clubs (Hawthorn x 5, Geelong x 4, Sydney x 4, West Coast x 3), and of the remaining 6, two clubs have had four of those spots (Collingwood and St Kilda with 2 each). That's six clubs sharing 20 of the last 22 grand final spots. In other words, 33% of the competition has had 91% of grand final positions over the last 11 years. Hawthorn have traded brilliantly, but their targets are players from struggling clubs who want success: each of Gunston, Gibson, Lake, McEvoy and Frawley came to Hawthorn from a bottom 4 club. It's great for those players but not good for the competition, meaning it's not good for the majority of AFL players.

I'll chuck in a tip this week too - Colts, Steelers, Broncos.

Deserves it? Nobody 'deserves' a flag. You should earn it. He's cantered through the season doing very little of note, more poor games than good, playing for a club where his position is at its easiest, feeding off a culture, list and gameplan which have been cultivated, developed and proven over a number of years without him having any impact whatsoever. Spending years losing at Melbourne (and not putting 100% effort in at all times whilst doing it) does not mean you have earned or deserve a flag.

Turn it up, seriously, it's easy to be nonchalant about winning preliminary finals when you've made four consecutive grand finals. The majority of North's list won't have played in one, let alone won three flags.

I don't think I can watch the GF next week with Frawley playing in it. Genuinely makes me sick. In saying that, Fremantle primed itself for finals and couldn't perform. Hardly beat Sydney who were out on their feet, then pretty comprehensively beaten tonight. Need to learn to score a bit more. They've traded as well as they have lured free agents. The successful clubs continue to attract the talent, whether via trade or FA. They can afford to trade first round picks because they're not as desperate for top-end talented youth. It's another reason I hate them.

My interest in the GF is completely out the window now. I cannot stand Hawthorn, I cannot stand their arrogance, I cannot stand the way they poach other clubs' players to sap the competition (Lake, Burgoyne, Hale, Frawley, McEvoy). I respect they way they play attacking football but other than that I detest every aspect of that club and the level of success they have had is disgusting and a blight on the competition. This is Shaun Burgoyne's 6th GF. 6. No player should be experiencing that much success in the modern era.

A week for the perennially awful sides - Cleveland, Tampa, Washington, Jacksonville and Oakland all won. Meanwhile some of the Week 1 popular sides stunk - Buffalo, Tennessee, St Louis, Miami. Baltimore, Philly and New Orleans all look a bit off the pace this year on the evidence to date. On the other side, New England and Green Bay are going to be tough to beat, again.

I didn't say Dawes or Pedersen were better options, but given the price that it would take to get Tippett, I wouldn't necessarily want him. Yes he played well on the weekend, but I felt his 2015 (and 2014) were underwhelming. I'm not really sure his 2012 season for Adelaide is relevant much - Dawes had a good 2012 season for Collingwood too.

I wouldn't. I reckon Tippett's incredibly overrated. Benefits hugely from having Franklin there to make him the second forward. Super slow, as bad a mark as Dawes, and nothing special around the ground. I wouldn't be enthused by Tippett and I certainly wouldn't go near him at anything other than a very cheap price.

If you take out the sold home games our average home crowd was 28,895, and that includes the GWS game. Taking out other clubs' sold home games, the Dogs' was 24,801. St Kilda's was 27,313. North's was 29,814. Of the four small clubs we're second for average home games in Melbourne, well in front of the Dogs who made the finals this year. In front of St Kilda who everyone thinks is so much better than we are. Only just behind North, who are still alive in the finals.