Engorged Onion

There are two sorts of supporters in this world. Each game is an 'audit' (ugh) of your capabilities and extrapolated out to your teams ability to reach a specific outcome or Each game is taken case by case, context specific, as a way of making sense of the overall trajectory of the team and it's potential throughout the season. Choose your weapon.** *many beers in

Mostly love Demonland for this sort of binary analysis. 🫠🤷‍♀️

I get it's hard to conceptualise how brutual and taxing the game is on the body until you've done it yourself. It's such an odd thing to personalise Parfitt's (or anyone's) 'management' as a statement of arrogance as opposed to 'literal' management of his fatigue and loading for a competition whereby most athletes will be running effectively 30-40km weekly, plus all the intense contact that comes weekly, and still having to put in those km's - and then doing it 8 months of the year... Here's the thing: managing players is a crucial strategy in today's elite sports. Squad Rotation: Teams have a larger pool of talented players than just the starting 22. This allows coaches to rotate players to prevent fatigue and injuries. Match-Specific Strategies: Every opponent presents a different challenge. Coaches might choose players who have a specific skillset that directly counters the strengths of the team they're facing. Injury Management: Even minor niggles can be a concern for elite athletes. A player might be listed as "managed" to avoid aggravating a slight injury and ensure they're fit for important games later in the season. That said, it's also fair to acknowledge the complexities involved. Without being privy to the inner workings of a team, it's difficult to definitively judge the motivations behind a player's "management." There could be a genuine need to manage fatigue or a niggling injury, or perhaps there's a tactical consideration at play. Ultimately, the goal should be to maximize the team's success while prioritising player well-being. Open communication between coaches, players, and the public can help foster trust and understanding in these situations and, the reality is, is that that information is rarely for public consumption.

Who's a better bloke, Charlie Cameron, or Max Gawn? {insert discretionary interpretation here}

@Roost it far, that's great sentiment and feels accurate 😃 Context was that we had injuries, (and got injured - see Brayshaw) and the correlation/causation between how healthy a list is/in game injuries, and where you finish on the ladder, is well undeniable... and not very oft' spoken about in the public domain. Hence we get language like 'wasted opportunities' whereby it's more about opportunistically injured....but maybe we're saying the same thing and I am being a pedant.

Well, in a perfect world, you'd get a premiership once every 18 years (a 5.5% chance annually)... so 4 in total over the course of a life time to feel satisfied? Being a child of the late 70's/80's - I never thought we'd win one. So I feel fairly satisfied, and shake my head at myself and my naivety for daring to buy into the notion from 22 onwards, that we 'could' have a dynasty with the list that we had/have... because, that very very rarely happens, and has either happened due to draft concessions affecting other teams whilst your playing list is of a certain calibre, or $$ behind closed doors...

Thought it would be a good time to open up this dormant thread again. And chew the fat with some good analysis from those that see the game from a technical/tactical lens. A question...2 months in. What seems to be our preferred game style (understanding that we have some significant outs currently)? A few questions for this week How does this contrast against this weeks opponents (Geelong)? Knowing how Geelong prefer to play, what do we tweak as part of our system to minimize/distrupt their game plan? Knowing how Geelong prefer to play, what can we potentially take advantage of to maximise our outcome? Thanks to those who wish to contribute. 😃

C'mon now Ollie AFL is [censored] serious sport - it's life and death, it's existential, it's the answer to the question in The Hitchhikers Guide . Don't you recall the footage of Jack Watts daring to laugh, watching his team get slaughtered... I lost faith in humanity that day, and wrote a letter to the whomever the president was at the time as I was incredulous that employee of the MFC could behave in such a way, exposing the anemic culture of the club - and rightfully should be traded because he wasn't in full view doing his best version of this...

@titan_uranus @binman Gents, good context below.... AFL AVERAGE DISPOSAL EFFICIENCY IS 73.1% 67.3% for kicks 81.8% for handballs

Probably worthwhile to pin this to the top of the threads? ❤️

If that was Cyril Rioli, he'd be lauded 🤩

Like clockwork eh 😇

Can someone please re-post the link whereby you can listen to the radio in synchronisation with the tv :) TIA

Bloody hard this one @Demonstone . Coincidentally I went for a wander around the little town where I am at the moment, and I did see an ADF bus/coach with all the paraphernalia. Wondered if they were recruiting school kids :)

Would you want your product, associated with the ire of supporters around the country whom you are supposed to be courting? But in the end I guess the marketing take would be - don't care about the 95% of people you [censored] off, care about the 5% you convert. Are there any marketing guru's on here?

Yes, but doctored for a reason? Or failing my cynicism, if not that, fatigue won't be mentioned by the AFL sanctioned media, when Carton (and I suspect they will) win comfortably.... and then we get in the death spiral comments of 'our season is over' 'we're not really a contender' - 'Is Goodwin the Right Guy (tm)' hand wringing... which makes sense, because it's anxiety provoking, and failing to take on board the context of each teams training, matches and other load/fatigue (can I join these together??) related factors...just looking at pure outcomes without understanding the relationship to why the outcomes occurred in the way the occurred, because you know EO, it's a [censored] outcome industry. I'm already emotionally accepting that Carlton will win... and that's ok - it's not relevant to finals - but geez, it feels like it should eh!

Huh :) that counters your entire treatise - I'd reword it - Shocking performance, for which there is not but an excuse but a reason.

It’s almost as if The AFL as an entity can’t see/refuse to see the link between player health and thus the best exponent of their ‘product’ in display. Or at least are happy to wear the cost of disregarding it in favour of tv rights 🤑. I’ll never forget Andrew Dimitrous condescending comments around High Performance Managers being ‘phys-Eders’ in the public domain. Granted that comment was about other happenings in another context, but I wonder whether it’s a pervasive way of thinking, detached from the the realities of the game

It's not coincidental that both Melbourne and St Kilda looked exhausted from the first quarter of their third match after consecutive 6 and 5 day gaps. That's accumulative fatigue playing out right there. Not heart, not effort, not game plan, not coaching, not personnel.

Andrew has led an interesting life and likes to challenge the status quo... hence the willingness to not tow the line... Does great music reviews as well :)

From the lovely guy that is Andrew Stafford in The Age "Spare a thought for Petracca and Oliver. Both were far below their best, with 38 possessions and just three clearances combined for the match. But the Dees were playing their third game in just 13 days, after backing up a narrow win over Port Adelaide on March 30 with a 15-point victory over the Crows on April 4 for Gather Round. Both games were Adelaide Oval. Is it any wonder they looked flatter than the Nullarbor? The early start to the season – with eight teams playing opening round and byes everywhere you look – has resulted in some deeply iniquitous scheduling. Collingwood also played three games in 13 days after a shortened pre-season. They will play another three in 13 after their bye this week. The fixture is contentious enough already without placing such insane demands on the athletes, who need adequate time to recover between half-marathons. Moreover, the staggered schedule means it won’t be until the end of round seven – when all 18 teams will have played the same amount of games for the first time this year – that we will truly know where clubs sit on the ladder. In an attempt to compete with the NRL’s Las Vegas adventure, the AFL has only succeeded in further distorting the fixture picture in a way that serves no one except broadcasters."

Agreed. Brisbanes midfield is very very good - if else we are going to be objective as a supporter base. Other teams may have the ideal of a blueprint just not the athletes to actually pull it off. We’ve been very very fortunate to have the players we have had in the midfield perform exceptionally consistently over many years now. This one (whilst consistent with trends/themes around clearances in 2024) felt like one out of the box.

I'm accepting that we will never be as good (in the context of what it was) - as this. ever again.

It’s a really well written and considered piece, and explains what we see is evolving before our eyes🙌🏼. *I’ll add some further thoughts later

Thanks for your input as always @Sir Why You Little 🙂