titan_uranus

+17 disposals, +14 CPs, +8 clearances, +13 free kicks, +10 inside 50s, +5 scoring shots, but scores level. I know that the underlying stats indicate we’re doing things right in the other two parts of the ground but if we don’t work out how to score from these stats soon, we never will (in 2023).

Fortunate sub option, Melksham replacing Fritsch. Big chance for Melksham to stake a claim for a spot in our forward line. Fingers crossed nothing serious for Fritsch. I don’t see us contending without him.

Salem up the ground isn’t a bad call but I want it to be Rivers instead. I like the idea of Salem staying at half back, we can’t strip all our good kicks out of there. With Bowey, Salem and McVee all in the side maybe this is the week we push Rivers further up.

I posted elsewhere that our top 4 chances could well be determined by the next 4 games (GWS, St Kilda, Brisbane, Adelaide), given the latter three are “8 point games” when it comes to the top 4. If we struggle through this month we are more likely than not to miss top 4.

Pretty bold thing to say given we just beat Collingwood.

The flatness of the ladder and the number of matches between rivals means I reckon there's a strong chance 12 wins will be enough for finals. Probably can write off everyone from Gold Coast down. Fremantle's draw is tough and their percentage is poor so it could well be down to 9 teams (Geelong and up).

The odds of us finishing top 2 are small enough to be disregarded. Neither Collingwood nor Port will lose enough games for us to pass them, and we won't run the table anyway. This is all about finishing 3rd or 4th and we have work to do to make that happen. Our season rests on us doing better from here than all bar one of Brisbane, the Dogs, Essendon, St Kilda, Adelaide and Geelong. After tomorrow, our next three are then St Kilda, Brisbane and Adelaide. It is, IMO, the biggest month of our season so far (including tomorrow). Finishing with Richmond, North, Carlton, Hawthorn and Sydney doesn't pose the same challenge or level of importance as these four games. 4-0 in the next month probably seals top 4, given the damage we get to do to our direct rivals.

We were on and ready for the fight in Round 4 vs West Coast, Round 6 vs Richmond, Round 7 vs North, Round 8 vs Gold Coast, Round 9 vs Hawthorn, Round 10 vs Port Adelaide... Or by "on and ready for the fight" do you mean "dominant and looking a million bucks"? The two are not the same.

I’m not a massive fan of dropping JVR. I don’t think he was playing poorly. If it’s a short term rest thing then I can accept that but it was described as an omission, not “managed”, so I’m not sure. I’m still not convinced by Smith as a forward so I guess JVR might get that spot back, assuming Brown gets a decent run at it.

Brisbane now only 1.1% behind us. @binman - unfortunately that 13% gap we had post-KB has nearly dissipated. (edit: and obviously they’re also 2 wins up albeit with one extra game)

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.