Watson11

That’s fair. Tracc is not the same player as he was pre injury yet. His kicking efficiency is his poorest ever. But his score involvement percentage is still ridiculously high. It was 35% of disposals since 2020 down to 30% this year which is still really elite. Which contradicts what the marks inside 50 data suggests.

Kicking efficiency is such a useless stat. It rewards 15m backwards kicks that are a far worse outcome than a kick to a lead inside 50 that falls short but still might result in a score. If you want a meaningful stat, then Wheeloratings also has Kick Rating made up of Risk Rating and Retention Rating. It’s only available for teams from what I can tell. @WheeloRatings Are the individual player kick ratings available? Our team retention rating is 5th in the AFL so it’s not too bad overall. I’d love to know where each of our players sit compared to other teams, as that would actually be useful.

Of course fitness plays a huge part but you are right that it’s probably more psychology than anything. But what is your explanation for our amazing 37-7 run that took in the flag? During that run it was the same players and skill level. Interestingly we were either behind or even at 1/2 time or after in 26 of those games yet only lost 7. That is not a first half record of a team that would normally even make finals. If we were not super fit and mentally didn’t believe we were super fit during that run we probably finish bottom 6 in 2021.

That last statement is factually incorrect. More than often it does happen. The AFL era is now 38 years and in 21 of those years the flags are part of a repeat or 3 peat. 10 of the one off premiers played in a GF the year before or after as well. But it could be that everything went right in 2021 for us. If you just looked at our first halves or into 3rd quarters that year we were not looking like a premiership team. We were either behind or even in 11 home and away games at half time or after that we came back and won. Think about what 2021 would have looked like if we finished games like we have in 22 or after.

And yet Longmire said “We had a great uptick when we changed completely… one of the reasons why I went and got Don Pyke, I thought Don Pyke was one of the best attack coaches in the competition and I was very strong with my defensive philosophies, and I thought he was able to balance that out a fair bit.” Sydney missed finals in 2019 and 2020 and were bottom 4 for scoring yet changed completely in the 21 preseason to become the second highest scoring team and only miss top 4 on percentage. Clearly Longmire was being gentle on Adam Simpson who completely stuffed West Coast. Good coaches can get teams to change over a preseason even if it’s difficult. Longmire is a good coach. Macrae is a good coach. Plenty of other examples.

Expected score ???

Do you really need to call out specific incidents or just look at the Frees For leaderboard. Some of the ruck infringements given against Max were ridiculous.

I suspect every supporter thinks their team has quite a few butchers who can’t kick. It’s our confirmation bias. @WheeloRatings has a great stat that measures field kick retention rating compared to the average kick from and to the same location in games. We actually have a pretty good kick retention rating when accounting for all the other variables. It’s a much better measure than kicking efficiency (where we are ranked #2). But we are way behind the better teams in the risks we take by foot. Goalkicking is a separate issue. We are #18 by some margin in difference between expected score and actual score. The crows have a 3 goal advantage over us just because they are stacked with brilliant kicks for goal.

Wow. Those other three games resulted in an average losing margin of 92.3 points!

Sometimes horrendous pressure ratings are structural. Sam Mitchell spoke about it after they got walloped by the Pies, making the point that they just did not get in the right positions to apply pressure and tackle, ending up with only 38 tackles. It looked like we were the same. The Saints just got extras back into our forward line and then had loose players everywhere when they ran it out. We were totally unable to get near them. It reminded me of the performance against Geelong where we just let them have the extras in defense.

@WheeloRatings I noticed the Saints only had 2 forward half scoring chains? Do you know if any team has ever had that few, let alone won the game?

Expected score says we win by 1 point. Conceding 67 points from defensive half says we didn’t deserve to win because we didn’t apply pressure and didn’t work hard enough.

You clearly haven’t looked at Geelongs draw. The AFL have arranged 10 practice matches for them in the run home just to get them finals ready. They are a lock for top 4.

Binman, we have had at least one game since 2018 with a higher score. In 2021.

@Dr. Gonzo I think you are 100% right. We have been predictable going inside 50 forever under Goody and then from rd 1 2022 we stopped pressuring teams once they controlled the ball in there (we dropped our zone back). But it’s changed since round 6. I think it is becoming clearer what Goody is trying to do and in my opinion it’s a recipe for premiership success, and it’s not copying the defensive half scoring game but countering it. Yes we are trying to move it quickly from defence and hit targets inside 50, but not at any cost. Our chipping around at times is trying to minimise score from forward half turnover for the opposition. When we do get it forward and don’t mark inside 50, we are applying a lot more pressure and seem to be making the opposition earn the defensive 50 exit, even when they have control. I don’t think we have seen f50 intercepts like recent games since 2021. We no longer completely drop the zone back (although we did versus hawks which was strange). It’s risky, as when sides breach our setup they are a good chance to score, but if we apply forward half pressure I think Goody is betting we score more and it’s working. The result is our score from turnovers and score from forward half have gone through the roof, and we have minimised the opposition score from forward half. If you look at what it means from a stats perspective, it’s best shown by score source differential, with our forward half score and turnover score differentials going through the roof since round 6 (see chart thanks to @WheeloRatings ) Our score from defensive half should improve but we won’t dominate it and it doesn’t matter. It will do Daniel Hoynes head in! And it’s all built on pressure. We got it 100% right against Sydney. I think our pressure rating was 192 for the entire game. If we do that against the best teams we win, and then we are playing finals and doing lots of damage. Just by way of comparison, our score from turnover differential is 14.5pts a game since Rd 6, and forward half differential is 22.7pts. That is elite and both stats are better than seasons best every year since 2020 (except Geelong in 2022 who had a higher turnover differential but lower forward differential). And the premiers have led both these stats every year since 2021 except in 2023 (when Brisbane led both but fell 5pts short in the GF). Great signs. The challenge will be that the team needs everyone switched on to apply that type of pressure and we can’t afford too many slips.

Agree. Not sure how anyone thinks he is a poor kick. Spargo is not back to his 2018-23 kicking level yet but he will get there. His kicking is as good as anyone playing in the forward half. His career goal average is 0.6 v Miers at 0.7. Miers has spent 17% more time on ground in his career as well. He needs more kicks but maybe we just need to accept he will be 7 kicks a game and they will be impactful. As long as he combines that with pressure he shouldn’t be dropped.

Or glass half empty. Here is the ladder after round 10 2024. Notice West Coast

Maybe our forwards (including Max and Tracc) can stay on the training track for longer and not leave until they have kicked 28 out of 30 from 30m. Max and Tracc might never be able to go home. https://www.afl.com.au/news/1291484/inside-the-meticulous-routine-of-the-games-most-lethally-accurate-goalkicker-north-melbourne-star-nick-larkey

I didn’t make the game so was listening on the radio and following on the abc app. At the end of the first qtr on the afl app, they quoted that although overall our pressure was 180, in our f50 it was only 90 compared to the Hawks 180 in their f50. I thought we were done when I read that, as in recent weeks our f50 pressure has been a key part of our turnaround. Our f50 tackles this week were way down. The Hawks scored 54 points from defensive half. Why was our f50 pressure so bad? Was it a tactical change by Goody or just a selection issue with Fritta, Jeffo, and a down on confidence JVR just way off it defensively.

Just adding to that. He had 11.2 pressure acts per game in 2021, which was his best season as far as pressure goes. He is 8 or 9 a game since. There is no reason he should not be at the level of say Jack Gunston who consistently averaged 11-14 pressure acts a game when kicking 50 goals a season. Gunston’s player rating (ie score impact), even when averaging the same goals per game as Fritta, is significantly higher (12-14 v Fritta at 8-10). It’s all due to creating pressure and turnover. Even if Fritta gets back to 2-3 goals a game, he shouldn’t get a free pass re pressure.

Maybe not lazy, but his debut year 2018 defensive effort was much better than any other year. The stats show that. I’m pretty sure he played forward most of that year. He could apply pressure if he chose to. 2018 pressure acts per game - 11.2 2022-25 pressure acts per game - 8.3 to 9.1 2018 tackles per game - 2.6 2022-25 tackles per game - 1.5 to 1.8 I really like the player ratings as it shows the contribution to the net expected score (ie actions likely to improve the teams chance of scoring). It rewards direct actions as well as pressure acts that result in turnovers etc and penalises poor kicks etc. Frittas 2018 player rating was 10.23. He has only exceeded 10 in one other year (2022 it was 10.24). It’s a shame that despite only kicking 17 goals in 2018 he had as much or more scoreboard impact than every other year.

The forward issues are really obvious. But the alarm bells are in defence as well. We have gone from the hardest team to win one on one contests against to the easiest in no time. Our defenders are losing 42.9% of one on one contests. That must be an AFL all time low if it continues. I think our current predicament is as much or more on the playing leadership group than Goody. Several of them mentioned the session at Staffords farm where they hashed out their values as the turning point in 21. Others mentioned the offseason work on culture that Goody wasn’t involved in as important. Our success was despite an off field mess at that time. So the playing leadership need to stand up again and take matters into their own hands and honestly hold each other to account starting with why our forwards don’t lead, why our mids bomb it long all the time, and why our defenders can’t win a one on one. Whether Goody stays or goes, nothing will change unless our players lead the club out of this mess, like they did in 2021.

There may be something in that or there may not be. Clarkos record was 122-65 with Yze as an assistant and is 97-116 without him. The reality is Yze was an assistant at both clubs right when they were in the window, except the last two years at the Hawks in 2019-2020 (when they were 16-23)

So are you saying that Goody should stand down like Buckley did in 21.

Can’t understand how you can’t be impressed with Fagan. He took Brisbane over when they were rock bottom and a mess. He did the full rebuild, not just the finishing like Goody. Ie from 18th to a flag. Yes they struggled in finals initially but they were finishing top 4 at the same stage of their rebuild when we were missing the 8. They were a young team. Since their straight sets exit in 21 they have played in the last 3 prelims, 2 GFs, and won a flag. They are 4-0 this year. Finals record is 8-2 since 21. He’s a brilliant coach.