titan_uranus

Correct. All intentional strikes should be a minimum week. It is as disgraceful an aspect to the MRO box-ticking system as there is.

This probably belongs in the Stats File thread, but great find. Not only are we 1 at defending clearance, we're 2 at attacking from clearance. So, whilst our raw clearance winning numbers are down, we make the most of them without being punished the other way. We're not being outscored in the stoppage game whilst having spent the first 7 weeks of the year working hard on our turnover game (which needs more work, given we're still only 11th for scoring from intercept which puts us behind all of the better sides in it and, weirdly enough, also behind North and Hawthorn).

Let's see how that compares with the other sides who came into this round with winning records (and prior to the three games so far): Geelong has beaten St Kilda (2-4), Adelaide (1-5), Hawthorn (1-5), Bulldogs (3-3), North (0-6) and Brisbane (2-4) GWS has beaten Collingwood (3-3), North (0-6), West Coast (2-4), GC (3-3), St Kilda (2-4) and Brisbane (2-4). Lost to Carlton (5-1) Carlton has beaten Brisbane (2-4), Richmond (1-5), North (0-6), Fremantle (3-3) and GWS (5-1) but lost to Adelaide (1-5) Sydney has beaten us (4-2), Collingwood (3-3), Essendon (4-2), West Coast (2-4) and GC (3-3) but lost to Richmond (1-5) Port has beaten West Coast (2-4), Richmond (1-5), Essendon (4-2), Fremantle (3-3) but lost to us (4-2) and Collingwood (3-3) Essendon had beaten Hawthorn (1-5), St Kilda (2-4), Bulldogs (3-3) and Adelaide (1-5) but lost to Sydney (5-1) and Port (4-2) We had beaten the Bulldogs (3-3), Hawthorn (1-5), Port (4-2) and Adelaide (1-5) but lost to Sydney (5-1) and Brisbane (2-4). Of these 7 sides, three of them came into this round without a win over one of the others on this list (Geelong, GWS, Essendon). Port, us and Carlton all had one, whilst Sydney has two. So only Sydney, of these sides, had done better against the good sides than us. Travel-wise, we had played 3 interstate games. That's the same as Geelong, GWS, Sydney and Essendon, and one more road game than Port and Carlton. As for the losses, yes, people are upset that we lost to Brisbane who otherwise suck. But Carlton and Sydney have lost to sides with worse W-L records so we're not alone in dropping a game to a weaker side, either.

"They still own the MFC"? What, because of their *checks notes* one consecutive win against us? FFS, if that's an "owning" what the [censored] was what Hawthorn, Geelong and North Melbourne used to have over us? (PS do we now "own" Richmond, having won five in a row?)

I get the natural reaction to Brisbane's loss is the SWYL style "what an embarrassment". Every year we get to a point where we get the "circle of parity", whereby you can say "A beat B, but B beat C, but C beat D" and get all the way back to where you started. Last year Collingwood lost to Hawthorn a month before finals, Brisbane (2nd) lost to Hawthorn and also lost to Gold Coast (another bottom 4 side) a month before finals. Yes, we lost to Brisbane, badly, but they love playing us, they would have steeled themselves for the game, and despite their poor start to the year the talent on their list is obvious. And that's before we get to the fixture lead-in to the game, whatever that was/wasn't worth. It's frustrating, but not embarrassing.

I agree with most of this. It's precisely why I don't need to see us out in front of the competition in CP/clearance-related stats. I do, though, think the balance is out a bit and we're conceding too much territory. I'll defer to the stats, although I prefer @old55's use of turnovers as opposed to DE. I think TMac's role with ball in hand this year has been modest but as we continue to cover for Salem and Bowey's absences he's going to be part of transition more and if that's the case, I'd be quietly confident his DE stat will drop and his turnover rate will rise.

Once you acknowledge the bolded bit, I'm not quite sure I understand most of the rest of the post. Yes, we are no longer dominating CPs and clearances like we did in 2021-23. Why are you then rhetorically bemoaning this? We have spent the past two years dominating CPs, clearances and time in forward half only to go 0-4 in finals. Very few people, if any, responded to that with "it's OK, let's just do it all again in 2024". We have made concerted attempts to lower our reliance on stoppage scoring and increase our reliance on turnover scoring. It's therefore no wonder that we're down in those stats you've mentioned. Don't get me wrong, I'm not quite at the @binman opposite end of the spectrum. IMO we're conceding too much territory to our opponents and spending too much time in our back half. We're clearly still elite at our back half defence and intercept game, and we're more likely to go all the way if we are reliably good at scoring off turnover than off stoppage. But IMO in our desire to shift the balance away from stoppage and towards turnover (or away from scores from front half and towards scores from back half), we've overbalanced. As has been mentioned so far, it doesn't help that we're down Bowey and Salem (and, from pre-season planning, Brayshaw) and have found ourselves with TMac (a terrible field kick) doing so well in most other parts of the game to warrant a spot in the backline.

The one rider I’ll put on Brisbane is that they have had a relatively brutal fixture. GWS, Geelong, Carlton, Collingwood, us, Fremantle (away), North. Their next month is GC, Adel, Rich, Haw. If they can’t go 3-1 or 4-0, then I’ll be happy to say they’re done.

It’s an interesting article and no doubt right up your alley, but on the bolded bit I don’t think that is right, Richmond had the bye last week too. Plus at any rate the “away” factor for us wouldn’t apply as much in an MCG game against Richmond.

I don’t think any of this is right. Last night wasn’t a case of being switched off or lacking hunger. It was simply a case of us committing terrible turnovers by foot.

I don’t know much about Andrew Wu it his views on us but this reads like it’s laced with disrespect. Never mind that it’s Caleb, not “Jacob Windsor”, or that our ability to score in 2021 wasn’t confined to just the last two finals. He writes about Turner kicking goals as if it’s a bad thing, that it reeks of desperation. If it were Geelong who had found 3 goals from a kid, what’s the bet the commentary would be “they’ve found another one, how do they do it?!”. And the gratuitous reference to “smoking them” at the end, when the article has nothing to do with May, or Collingwood, or anything related to that story, just to me feels like disrespect. End rant.

A reminder that despite being tagged and clearly not being at his best, Trac still had a game-high 7 score involvements.

6 - Gawn 5 - May 4 - Lever 3 - Langdon 2 - Turner 1 - Rivers

The first half turnovers were awful. At one point I thought there was a jumper clash, we were kicking it straight to them. But if it wasn’t for the turnovers they otherwise barely troubled us. Fewer second half turnovers saw us blow the game open. I get the whole “play like that next week and we get destroyed” thing. It’s obviously true. But I’ll bet we won’t play like that next week. How often have we found these ANZAC Eve clashes to be tight, scrappy and contested early on? Feels like most years. The Geelong game isn’t going to look like that. Plus I’d account for us taking a bit of time to adjust after the bye. The backline is going gangbusters. Windsor’s turnovers aside, he’s doing so much right off the ball. Contrary to some on here, I liked Howes’ game and feel like he is reliably holding down a role without fuss. Turner could be a revelation. I noticed that Trac, Oliver and Viney all had around 76% TOG. Something feels up with their fitness - whether they’re injured, “loading” (shudder), or we’re deliberately resting them more in game. But it’s a bit weird. Woey was poor, sadly, and we barely gave Laurie a look. But I’m far more concerned about Petty and, to a lesser extent, Sparrow. Looking forward to how we follow this up next week.

I’m not 100% sold on Turner for Brown but I’m happy to back him and the FD in to try it. Perhaps trying for a more defensive forward sort of role, the sort we might be using Melksham in if he were available. Tholstrup out a sad but correct call IMO. Just not quite ready yet. He’ll be back. I’m very, very unsure that Laurie is now or will ever be good enough at AFL level but I understand the importance of rewarding VFL form and with Salem out, we needed another runner (whether starting 22 or as sub) so he earnt it.

This feels like recency bias. We lost our most recent game whilst sides like Carlton and Collingwood won, so it feels like we’re sliding. Go back two weeks to find Collingwood a kick off losing to Hawthorn, Carlton an umpires’ decision off losing to Fremantle (who just lost to West Coast), and Sydney losing to Richmond. We’re two games clear of Brisbane who are winless at home. We’re one game behind two sides who have looked amazing in Carlton and GWS. And we’ve done that despite having had 50% of our matches to date interstate (we’re not the only ones in that camp but it’s equally not like we’ve had some dream fixture run so far). On the first six games’ evidence I don’t think the conclusion is that we can’t match the top 5 sides. I think it’s that we’re still very much in that group.

Does anyone actually think they’re not the real deal? They should be the best side in it. They have the best list in the comp, IMO. Imagine taking our midfield, giving it a bit more depth, and then chucking Curnow and Mackay in front of it.

We won our first 10 games in 2022… Edit: I see he’s deleted the Tweet.

We copped flawless Brisbane last week. They love playing us and got themselves up for that game. Reality is they are a mid-table side, at best, right now. They will end tonight with the same number of wins as West Coast. Meanwhile Geelong’s had an easy draw so far but equally still have 7 games to come at GMHBA. Lock them in for top 4, sadly.

I didn't think the Tribunal could surprise me anymore. I was wrong. In a long and sad history of them, this may well be the most manifestly unfair and illogical decision the Tribunal has ever made. Put to one side the fact that Cameron has had a number of previous fines - remembering that the AFL says a fine is a genuine punishment, because an intentional strike to someone's gut is "punished" with a fine. Even if he genuinely had never been suspended before, that should be almost entirely irrelevant, and particularly when discussing head high contact from an action such as a sling/dump tackle where the AFL has had significant focus of late. We are now going to see repeated Tribunal headings convened by players who haven't been previously suspended, who say "well if Charlie only got a fine, what about me?". It's a circular argument and one which no one out there, except presumably Brisbane supporters, should stomach. (PS: this has nothing at all to do with the fact that the victim of the tackle was a Melbourne player. That's irrelevant too, and I do not at all buy into the conspiracy theories. This isn't a conspiracy, it's incompetence).

We had the MCG game on our terms last year for most of the first quarter and part of the last. Regardless, the “magic spell” isn’t some sort of secret formula that only Brisbane have. It’s just talent - they’re a good side and are capable of matching/beating us in the middle. Any side who can do that can beat us. They haven’t “worked us out” anymore than anyone else has. They’re just better than most other sides.

The conspiracy theory is that the MRO refrained from penalising Butters because to do so required high contact, but a free wasn’t paid on the night. Second week in a row the umpiring in a Fremantle close loss was under the microscope.

Don’t disagree about us. Just noting there’s a stack of clubs outside of us and last year’s grand finalists who appear legit this year.

Right now it feels like GWS, Port, Fremantle, Carlton and Geelong are all legitimate flag contenders. For whatever reason, IMO the jury's still out on Sydney. I can't shake their fortnight of a loss to Richmond then trailing West Coast for a half. But you can probably add them to the list. That's six sides before you get to Brisbane, Collingwood or us. It's a pretty strong year at the top, IMO. It doesn't help us that we have each of Brisbane, Collingwood, Port and Fremantle twice each.

I don't get to watch Casey much so I rely heavily on Demonland to help me with our VFL performances. It's hard, therefore, when I come on here after what I assume was a gritty win and the thread is substantially posters taking pot-shots at Jefferson. Just on a rudimentary reading of the stats, I'd have hoped to see healthy discussion about what Disco offers as a forward, whether Laurie showed enough to suggest he might add to our AFL midfield mix, and whether Schache did anything different in taking 7 marks and kicking 3.1.