titan_uranus

Feels like it’s Harmes for Jordon and Bowey for Hibberd. Spargo as sub should be replaced by Melksham (there aren’t any other options unless we drop Pickett or Smith from the 22). Not hugely inspiring but he played well at Casey last week so it’s not undeserved. Last spot feels like it’s Brown v JVR. I don’t think JVR deserves to be dropped but I also want to see Brown back in the side. I suppose Smith could be dropped for Brown, and I admit I thought his second half last week was poor, but I doubt that will happen.

I think this is criminally underrated by most of us. Oliver goes down in Round 10 vs Port. We move Trac into more midfield minutes to cover. Our scoring decreases. Yes, we need Oliver back, but I’d love us to have more midfield depth to be able to cover Oliver with others and keep Trac forward of centre more. I’m a big advocate for Rivers to become a midfielder. I continue to believe we play too many small forwards and not enough mids.

Feels like you’ve gone full doom spiral @praha. I’d be really keen to know what our inside 50 conversion looked like in 2021. It’s never been our strong suit. I can’t accept that we never looked like beating Port or Geelong. Geelong FFS we were leading for most of the game! Port we absolutely looked like winning at 3QT and I’ll continue to argue we were quite good in that game despite it being in the wet and on the road. And Fremantle was a game we should have won had we simply kicked straight. A lot of what we are doing on game day is what we need to do to win the flag. It isn’t enough right now because we keep missing easy shots on goal and wasting good scoring chains with bad kicks inside 50. I agree that it isn’t as simple as flicking a switch but I can’t accept we’re closer to falling apart than putting it all together.

I agree that it wasn't a perfect season. I also can't stand it when people look at our finals performances and think that is the standard required, or the standard we maintained all year. But I've argued a number of times that I don't agree that 2021 was "stuttering" until the finals. We had a dip in form mid-season, but our overall record of 17-1-4 made our entire 23-round H&A season dominant on the whole. Remember that, prior to the bye, we beat GWS (away), Geelong, Sydney, the Dogs (at Marvel) and Brisbane. We were great pre-bye, then were comparatively poorer in Rounds 13-19 (although in the middle of that run we beat Port Adelaide, in Adelaide, by 31 points - they finished 2nd and made a prelim and that was their only loss from Round 14 to the prelim), then nailed the final month and the finals.

Agree, and I wasn't suggesting you were arguing this either. It's the same as when people (myself included) refer to other clubs' seasons, such as the slow starts Richmond had in their premiership winning seasons. The fact they've happened before doesn't mean they are necessarily (or even probably) going to happen to us, but they are examples of what a season can look like and why our season to date can be considered enough to have us in flag contention. As you say, there is a lot we have to do to win it from here. I agree that we've given ourselves a good platform to attack the final 9 weeks of the season.

Obviously the odds are against them to make the finals, given the logjam above them, but I wouldn't call it "fantasy land". At 6-8 they're 1 win behind 8th. Their percentage of 97% is poor but only 5% behind the Dogs, who are 7th (two wins ahead though). They've won 3 of their last 4, with the loss being by a kick, and the wins including Geelong in Geelong and Fremantle by 12 goals. They're also capable of winning on the road (4 of their 6 wins are away games). They have games to come against Hawthorn, GC (at home), Sydney, Essendon and Carlton. If they can win those, they'll need to find a couple of wins from us, Adelaide, the Dogs and Port. Admittedly tough, but may mean that they view this week's game against us as almost an elimination final. I wouldn't be taking them lightly in the slightest (not suggesting you were though!).

You should do what I do and listen to the programs on delay, as podcasts. The SEN app has them, I'm not sure where else you can find them, but as podcasts aside from an ad at the start they're ad free so you get the entire show/segment without the ads and therefore without the delays as well.

Thanks @WheeloRatings. Your work is exceptional. Interestingly our numbers this year are similar to our 2021 numbers, with the defensive criteria being stronger than the scoring criteria but across the board, not just top 6 but top 4 in most (and with bounces conceded being no good in both years!). I agree to an extent, despite my posts today in this thread. I don't think it's helpful or healthy to keep referring to 2021 and assuming that we're just going to "click" and everything's OK. The players also have said this year a few times that in 2022 we were guilty of trying to play 2021-style football too much and we've gone away from that this year. I was relieved to hear that. However, what I do think is interesting to compare is that a lot of what we're doing this year on the numbers is similar to what we were doing in 2021. We've now played every good side in the comp other than Adelaide so the numbers under consideration are statistically significant and give us a good data set. Again, this doesn't mean I believe that in the next few weeks everything's just going to flip.

On radio last night Daniel Hoyne from Champion Data had a few interesting tidbits about us, including: We are one of two clubs (Port's the other) to be top 6 in both conceding opposition inside 50s, and conceding scores from opposition inside 50s, noting that 14 of the last 17 premiers have been top 6 in both of these categories Our profile over the last 6 weeks (which would be Rounds 10-15) is very similar to how we looked across the 6 weeks of Rounds 13-19 in 2021, including: scoring (15th in 2021, 16th now) generating scores from inside 50s (41% in 2021, 41% this year) generating shots on goal (7th most in 2021, 8th most this year) hard shots on goal (2nd hardest in 2021, 3rd hardest this year) accuracy (worst in 2021, 2nd worst this year) Remembering that in 2021 this was our "poor stretch" and then we won the final four games and looked much better as we headed into finals - although I don't necessarily accept Hoyne's reasoning that we're about to flick a switch or something and it's all just going to come together. This would, though, align with @binman's views that we're in the middle of a poorer phase of play (for various reasons, including our training regime) but can expect to trend upwards from here.

There is precisely 0% chance McVee is dropped.

Yes, supporters could attend, but history tells you they generally wouldn't attend a Marvel game. From a purely football perspective I'd prefer we didn't play in Alice Springs but the money we make from selling the game has to be taken into account in the decision-making. That money helps us stay at or above par given the soft cap crunch.

Ignoring 2023 debutants, I'd argue that our most improved players so far this year have been Rivers, Chandler and Salem (on the limited football he's been able to play this year). McVee and JVR are obviously "improved" players but had nothing to compare to previously. I'd also argue Petracca and Viney have improved this year. Petracca has taken his defensive work to another level, particularly with Oliver out. Viney's getting better with ball in hand. I think Sparrow is a more consistent player now and is getting scapegoated unnecessarily, but I also believe he is capable of more and can lift.

Is this directed at me? Is there anything particular about my post above or view on this issue that you think is foolish? I’ve tried my best to explain myself here.

Yes @A F and @binman, I’ve listed to the Selwyn podcast. I absolutely accept that clubs tailor training programs throughout the year. Of course we do. What I am challenging is the strong assumption that you two (and others) have drawn that says that we have engaged in a heavy training block over the last few weeks, so much so that it goes a long way to explaining certain losses (eg Geelong). Last year I did the same thing. I asked if there was evidence that we had engaged in a heavy training block to help explain mid-year losses. I don’t believe there was any (other than general research and supposition). I said I wanted to see us bounce back with strong running later in the year, which didn’t happen (but admittedly may have been due to other factors such as injuries). In the podcast I hear Selwyn talk about the bye and the weeks around it. In the same sentence when he talks about getting “an increased exposure in aerobic capacity development” during the round 12-15 window, he also talks about the importance of giving the players a break because they will need it. That to me tells me we approach things on a more micro level, week to week perhaps, but I don’t accept that interview leads to the inevitable conclusion that we engaged in a heavy training block across those weeks. When I say there’s no evidence, I mean that, as far as I know, I haven’t seen a coach or a player reference it in an interview, or a Demonland track watcher notice it in a training session. So whilst we may have added loads in particular weeks as the season unfolds, I don’t believe there is enough evidence to sustain the argument that we must necessarily have done a heavy loading block across a few weeks, which necessarily must be impacting current performance. There are other reasons why we might have seen a decrease in performance through this period. Generally all footballers slow down in the colder months as the footy and ground gets heavier. Clubs continue to work on each other’s gameplans and strategies and learn more about each other. Injuries might hit. And whilst we’re seeing most clubs off the bye struggle, the funny thing about that argument is that we didn’t really have a bye, with our 10 day break the same as the break prior to KB. We had no sign of loading hitting our players late on KB. And we know subsequently our players took a break, so if anything the post-KB 10 day break was lighter on the track than the pre-KB break. So for the tl;dr version - I accept we structure our training carefully and at times during the year we train harder with a view to maximising our fitness, but I don’t currently believe there’s enough evidence to conclude definitively that we’ve been training so hard of late that it must necessarily be the biggest factor to explain our loss to Geelong.

Or you could just accept that the hospitalisation set him back a few weeks. It sucks but the hysteria around his injury has been off the charts.

How many people do you seriously think would turn up to this game if it was at Marvel? If we knew it would be at the G I’d be more inclined to move it. Hopefully we don’t need the revenue as much these days but with the soft cap crunch, any extra revenue to get any leg up on our opponents is worth consideration, and we’ve won, what, our last 3 at Alice Springs?

Because the same argument applies to every Melb-based club and particularly Collingwood, Richmond, Essendon and Carlton. They have to play some Melb-based clubs at GMHBA (they currently have 9 games there and can’t host all 8 interstate sides so there are 2-4 games a year for Melb-based clubs to play). It routinely means it’s us, St Kilda, the Dogs or North. The AFL continues to let them play two home games at the G. I don’t know whether that’s the AFL forcing Geelong, or Geelong asking for it to make money and/or get more games on the G. Regardless, until that ends and Geelong plays all 11 home games in Geelong, which is what should be happening, we will continue to be overburdened with trips down there to offset the absence of the bigger sides. In the interim, it beggars belief that Hawthorn, in some respects a smaller club than us and currently a weak on-field club, gets to avoid the trip. They should be down there next year. So should Carlton and Essendon, two sides who haven’t succeeded in finals in a decade.

I don’t know how many more times I can explain why I consider everything you’ve just said to be rubbish. Again, we dominated Carlton everywhere except our goalkicking accuracy. If we had kicked straight and won by 40 would you describe that as a “mild victory”? I doubt it. Carlton didn’t lose any of its losing streak games by more than 34 (including losses to Collingwood and Brisbane) so it’s not realistic to have expected us to have belted them by a huge score and, again, our dominance of the game was enough to warrant a 40 point win. I can absolutely deny the Collingwood thing. Their own coach denied it. There’s no evidence to properly show they were unfit. And the allegedly sick players still ran well on the day.

Ah @binman. I applaud your resolve, running so openly and strongly with this after mast year. I will maintain my view from last year, which is that I’d prefer to see concrete evidence from the club that shows we have actually engaged in loading through this period of 2023, before accepting this is the dominant reason for our performances as you argue. Last year there wasn’t such evidence IIRC, and we waited to see us bounce back with running fitness as the weeks went by, and it never happened. Granted, that may have been due to injuries, but it meant there was no real evidence that the loading block had occurred. If you can prove me wrong with interviews, or confirmed reports/vision from training, which show us increasing our training load over the last few weeks, I’m all ears.

Isn’t this all a storm in a teacup? He did his hammy. He then got a blister. The blister got infected (bad luck more than anything I’d guess). He had to be hospitalised to treat the infection. The hospitalisation meant he lost his progress recovering from the hammy. So he’s still not ready. Seriously, there isn’t any more to it than this, right?

I agree that we play too many small forwards. Spargo shouldn’t be playing and was a horrendous choice as sub. But IMO that spot should be another midfielder. We lack midfield depth and need another runner to work through stoppages. JVR, plus another tall, plus Fritsch, plus Gawn or Grundy resting forward, is probably sufficient. I don’t think we need to add Smith to that.

Some food for thought for selection next week - Bowey, Tomlinson, Melksham, Brown all putting their hands up.

I lost count of the number of times Smith was outbodied or out of position. I’m sure some of that was due to kicks to him being poor but I’m also sure some of it was to do with him being a limited forward. Not all his fault as he’s continually flipped from back to forward through his career, but I don’t know that he is a viable long term option as a tall forward.

You can’t keep calling your negativity “reality”. They are not the same thing. You are inherently pessimistic. For as long as I recall you posting on here, you have been. That doesn’t mean the “reality” is as dire as you perceive it. Your proposal to wait to season’s end is a classic pessimist’s ultimatum. 17 of the 18 clubs won’t win the flag. The odds are always in favour of the pessimists. It’s easy to say we won’t win it because that’s the likely outcome. And of course, if we do, no one will care that you’ve been OTT negative all year.

I didn’t suggest otherwise. But we didn’t “limp over the line” against Carlton and we didn’t just benefit from some rumoured illness at Collingwood. In both games we were the better side in most facets for most/all of the game.