Watson11

Yet statistically we had the best defence ever by a long way. Even so, I do agree with your assessment re ground balls, and if we do clean up that little thing, we will break the record for the best defensive team ever again.

It can improve. The sports scientists killed it based on the myth that if you kicked too much you would pull a hamstring. If anything, Burgo now thinks the opposite so hopefully that’s left a mark. It’s also interesting that Simpson did not believe that and allows his players at West Coast to practice as much as they want and their accuracy average has led the league for a number of years.

Sparrow Bowey Harmes Petty Spargo Hunt Rivers ANB Jordan Dunstan The bottom 6 and role players are what will allow the others to be AA again.

I’d say there is too little science. A sports scientist having an idea and trying it out isn’t science. If you listen to Burgo and Brukkies podcasts, you can safely assume that the entire sports world believed you needed to rest people if sore etc. At Arsenal Burgo had 7 years of detailed data and 70 staff and then hired in the rocket scientists and they could not find any correlation between player management and injury. Burgo also had Adam Coutts and a few other gurus on his podcasts. From what I can tell, the only 2 scientifically proven things that cause hamstrings etc is 1. variations in training loads, and 2. not stressing muscles at least once a week. So Burgo trained us hard all the time, and players had 1 training session a week where the GPS had to show a 100% sprint. The biggest frustration was the idea that sports scientists had that you can’t kick for goal 100x at training because it might cause a hamstring injury. What a load of crock that is!

Getting my Bailey Scotts and Zac Baileys mixed up.

I agree. The gap is never as large as it appears. This time last year we never imagined we would be so dominant. But the thing about AFL these days, is if you have a weakness it gets exploited badly come finals. Like the dogs defence. Our run on may have been stopped after the first Fritz goal if May was full back for the dogs. Until the GF their defence was saved by atrocious weather against Essendon, a depleted Brisbane forward line and poor umpiring, and an inept Port midfield. Brisbane have a lack of midfield and defensive leg speed. Rayner is needed in there for the explosiveness but is 2 or 3 years away from really impacting. Scott will spend more time there. Ironically, I think they are a more dangerous team without Lachie Neale. And in the first final our weakness was defensive ground balls and we probably had the wrong matchup with Smith. If Hibberd plays I suspect we win by a lot more. We have no apparent weaknesses at the moment. But a few injuries and weaknesses can appear and we will be challenged.

To be fair, if that’s the criteria for being prejudiced against the Dees then 99% of demonland was prejudiced against the Dees until recently.

Small sample, but the GF replay at r17 for the last 5 years would have seen 6th v 11th, 1st v 12th, 3rd v 4th, 3rd v 10th, and 3rd v 12th. So is pretty rare to even have a decent game by that round.

Mighty Demon. Great job on these highlight reels. But you’ve missed 3 of Traccs possessions and 2 more that probably should have been possessions except champion data are blind. And yes I’ve watched the GF replay far too many times :-)

I've got into listening to the Burgo podcasts. For those that are interested in the hard science this one has a lot of interesting info. Burgo and Coutts (Sports Scientist) It's a bit of a technical listen. The amount of stuff they measure is mind boggling. Burgo had 70 people reporting to him at Arsenal, so I guess that is what they do all day. Brukner mentioned that despite the science soft tissue injury rates have not changed in 30 years. So what they do with teams right now is a huge experiment based on experience, understanding the science that doesn't work, and theories they come up with. Burgo has a PhD and I suspect could go against the grain with MFC. We may have been an experiment based on what he has learnt over the years. A few interesting things from the podcast: 1. Burgo mentioned that Arsenal had 7 years of detailed player data (from 45 games per year) and the data scientists could not find any correlation between the data and injuries. This says to me that all the managing players, pulling from training when sore or tired etc etc didn't work. At MFC, Burgo trained players through soreness, fatigue, etc to build resilience. It may have been the first time he ever did that and may be his most important professional achievement. 2. Coutts talks about a few of the things they do know for sure. One is training variability leads to injury. This goes against what elite athletes have done for ever with hard weeks/easy weeks, and the AFL tendency to do super hard AFL preseasons then back off when the games start etc. At MFC Burgo seemed to take the attitude to just train hard all year, even in the lead up to the GF. The Burgo/Coutts theory seems to be that doing so reduces the risk of soft tissue injury. Listening to Burgo you just have to have a lot of respect for his appetite for the science, and how he used all the data and experience to put together the 2021 season. I hope a lot of this has rubbed off on Selwyn but he has giant boots to fill.

That’s a great listen. I wish he had kept his secret about the two strategies regarding preventing injuries and how he used to be in the first camp but came around to the second. For those who don’t have a spare hour, the first is manage players by letting them have days off when tired or sore, while he now believes don’t do that and push through it and build resilience. It’s taken a long time for him to learn that and he has been at clubs that have fallen just short a lot. But he totally nailed 2021. He didn’t give away any secrets re making sure we peaked in finals, but his entire building resilience strategy is genius in hindsight. Most on here had MFCSS mid season when we had our mini slump, but @binman and others spoke about training loads and I was a bit worried about TOG for Max, Tracc, Oliver etc as they were being flogged by playing high 90’s game time. In finals it dropped back to the 80’s and in hindsight you would say he built fitness and resilience in the core superstars during the season to have them peak for finals. He also put that 15 minutes in the GF into context from a fitness perspective and explained it was partly due to how we had 4 fresh players in the square to start that run. Well worth the listen.

JV is my favourite player. 5s into the game after he crunched MacRae I thought this will be fun today. The last 15 mins in Q3 was an unbelievable team effort, but my view is Viney was key in 4 goals and without him we enter 3Q time probably behind. His contribution hads’t been recognised well enough. 9 minutes before the toe poke he started it all when he crashed the pack on the wing where the ball bounced off his chest and then he got a foot on it where the ball fell to Harmes who delivered to Fritz and 8 minutes before the toe poke at the centre clearance he bullied/pushed Treloar right into Martin creating space for Oliver to swoop in, give to Trac, and get the second in a minute and 30s before the toe poke at the centre clearance he got his foot to a ball that Bont looked about to pick up, then picked it up himself, gave to Tracc, who gave to Clarry, who gave to Sparrow who goaled. Then the toe poke. This all happened with LJ and that isn’t appreciated either. LJ was excellent at getting the ball to his feet where Viney was key. And it happened with Libba in there who usually gets first hands to those balls but Viney beat him to it. My view is Viney had as much to do with that 15 minute burst as anyone, and if you look at it closely his work started it and allowed Tracc, Clarry and others to do their stuff. Yet he was probably credited with only one possession.

Does anyone know the longest coaching streak at a club without a flag (even if they previously coached one)? Surely by 2024 Scott, at 13 seasons, would be close. Right now at 10 years has there ever been a coach that lasted that long. A few that come to mind: 1. Mick Malthouse went 10 seasons at Collingwood. 2. Neale Daniher - the longest in our drought at 9 full seasons. 3. Rodney Eade - 7 years. 4. Ross Lyon - 7 years at Freo

I absolutely love Roosy and honestly think there are a lot of people involved in our path to a premiership, but he is at the top of the list as he started it all. This interview is from a few weeks ago and is well worth a full listen, although the Melbourne part is quite short (from 33mins in and only 5 mins or so). The swans stuff is fascinating, especially how he benchmarked the swans list against Brisbane at the time. I believe he did the same for us using the Hawks as the benchmark.

I know Kate and Perty are busy, so I updated the strategic plan for them.

What about the bust at the start of the 4th. We had 2 goals by 1 min 53sec due to Brown and Fritz set shots and then Tracc burst out of the centre again and kicked a point. If you add that to then end of the 3rd we had 5.1 in 2 mins 50s. Surely that’s a record.

Special mention to Jack Viney in the GF. Big 2nd half. He was huge in the centre square and started most of those clearances that led to the quick goals at the end of the 3rd with either first touches or just bulldozing to make space. Key part of the turnaround.

16 premiership players today are 25 or under. Salem is 26. Viney 27. Gawn at 29 will play another 5 years now we have LJ. It’s going to be an exciting time to be a dees supporter over the next 4-5 years.

Happy for all the focus to be on stopping Max and Lever/May, and Naughton. But no side with a poorly ranked defence (outside top 5) has won the flag for at least 13 years (probably longer). The dogs are ranked #18 in defensive one on one contests lost (31% lost, and 36% lost in the second half of the year). We win by making sure our forwards can get space and a lot of one on ones. BB, TMac, LJ/Max, Fritta are a big chance to have big games, and Kozzie/Spargs when it hits the ground. 27 degree day and no wind suits us perfectly.

You should have stayed asleep. You missed Max kicking a goal after the siren to win the game.

Meaningless stats! Maybe a more useful one I found from 2019, is all the previous 10 premiers ranked in top 5 of each of the stats below. I suspect it continued with Richmond in 2019 and 2020. I can't find 2021 F50 ground ball gets or points scored from forward half, but I am sure we would easily be top 5 for both, and probably #1 or #2. Score differential from turnover Demons #2 Dogs #1 (by 0.3 of a point, probably inflated with a few of the dogs mauling's of other teams early in the year) Opp scores per inside 50 Demons #1 (best ever) Dogs #11 <<<<<<-------- Post clearance contested possession Demons #1 Dogs #4 Forward 50 groundballs Points scored from forward half (turnovers + stoppages) The Dogs are ranked #18 (last) in defensive one on ones lost (at 31%). Rounds 12-23 they were so bad that #18 was a no contest (36% lost). That is a huge stat for us to exploit. The weather in Tasmania, Brisbane without Hipwood, McStay and Daniher (even though he was on the ground), and Port just not turning up have meant no-one in the media is talking about their biggest weakness.

I agree. Such a non factor. The ironic thing is the dogs won the 1954 GF after 1 game in 28 days. And smashed it as well. When the top 4 and 5 were a thing it was the norm to win it after 1 game in 28 days. In 1962 Essendon won after 1 game in 35 days.

If Melksham, Hunt, and Chandler go down in similar fashion in the next couple of training sessions then I would say you’re onto something.

My Friday night football was rewatching R19. We would win that 8/10 times. Inside 50s were 55-51 to them. Probably 10-15 of theirs were directly from free kicks in the midfield. We had 24 scoring shots to 21. Tracc and BB in the first half had shockers missing everything. They got 2 goals from soft frees, and we gave up some soft goals from stoppages. We won contested ball by 23. Probably 40 if free kicks removed. BB and TMac looked dangerous against their short defence. On a dry evening I’ll back one of them or LJ/Max to get off the leash. Great if they all get off the leash. Smith went head to head with Tracc for a lot of the game. If that happens in the GF then I like that matchup for us. Tracc could easily win the Norm Smith. Our zone defence and Viney/Harmes at stoppages will cover Smith better than their defence. It looked like our pressure was a bit down, like it was for all of R13-R19. Especially noticeable that Daniel had a free run. Our pressure is back. If both teams bring the same game plan and effort on a dry night, I reckon we win by 20-30 points. The dogs have shown they can’t handle pressure around the ball (Richmond, us, Hawks), so if we bring real heat, I can see a no contest. Ports abysmal effort is masking a few issues for the dogs.

I hope that happens with Schache. There should be more focus on how the dogs will stop our forward line. Watched round 19 again, and BB and TMac worried the dogs defence on a wet day. We had 25 scoring attempts for 9 goals. We would win that game 8 out of 10 times and on a dry day watch out. Schache may be needed in defence.