Watson11

I would imagine it’s not easy to get any company to invest $1m+ per annum in a sponsorship these days. Well done to MFC. Hope it turns into a longer term deal.

Indian. Owned by Tata Motors. Aren't Range Rover in the Jaguar group?

Happy to have signed up and to support Andy. Also happy that when my wife looks over my shoulder at what I'm doing she doesn't see those annoying Dating site ads targeted at old people!

I encourage everyone to click on it as many times as possible. They can pollute our screens for free, but as soon as anyone clicks on it they pay money. I’m sure we can ensure they make a loss in 2019

Apparently it’s going to be Monday. Maybe the sponsor knows no one is interested in aflx and are interested in any footy related news

Why didn't you do a global word replace, Brisbane<-Melbourne, Hodge<-Lewis, Fages<-Goody, Neale<-May, Lyons<-KK...

Prodee's analysis is excellent. For round 1 though I think we may see at least three changes to the lineup Prodee has. Hunt out for Lewis. Hore out for Frost. KK out for Preuss. Preuss will definitely be in, unless we want Ryder and Lycett to run Max into the ground in round 1. KK will be a great player, but after his last 2 seasons it doesn't hurt for him to show some form in Casey first. Didn't hurt Brayshaw last year. Hunt needs to get the credits back through some good Casey form as well. I'm bullish on his season overall. But you would have to imagine Lewis will play round 1. Hore is only 189cm, and Port will probably have 3 giants in their forward 50. Dixon (200cm), Westoff (199cm), sometimes Lycett or Ryder, and probably Marshall (198cm). Frost is a better matchup for us. Back onto Hunt. Interesting article on afl.com (http://www.afl.com.au/news/2019-02-07/the-need-for-speed-lions-set-to-go-small-onball). Speed on the wings will be crucial this year. I think and hope Hunt will get a good run, and I suspect it may be on the wing. His speed will be really valuable with the extra space. He can probably dob them on the run from 50-65m as well which is a better use of the part of his kicking which is strong. Hoping he is lining up along side Charlie Cameron on the wing by the time we play Brisbane in June.

I love your posts hemingway. I would imagine this is tongue in cheek. I can't edit it for you, but replace the highlighted line with And of course that fans sometime have better different insights than they do !

If I was a new sponsor, I would be telling the club to wait until prime time before announcing it for maximum media coverage. Not sure when that is but it isn’t December or January, and probably not February.

Port in 2013 to 2014 were in a similar situation to us now. A brilliant season in 2014 getting to the prelim with a very young list and a 5 year premiership window. Then Hinkley decided to be a big softy and let that %$^* Kane Cornes play games at the start of 2015 just to get to 300 and Port has been [censored] ever since, including 2015. So Watts is just a sign of the ongoing cultural problems at Port. Just shows never take stuff for granted, including where we are now. It can unravel easily through bad player management. We seem to have the right people in place not to let that happen though.

We were the number one third quarter team in 2018. Number 4 in 2017. Sign of a good coach is one that can analyse the game and make adjustments at half time. He inherited an OK list with some great young talent, but has turned over 20 players (50% of the list) since he started. The improvement of the other 20 has mostly been really significant. The list now is his list built for the style that he wants, and rid of the dead wood and culture killers. He deserves to own it. He's done the hard work building the culture by making the tough calls, even more so than Roos. In my opinion he deserves a 4 or 5 year extension. Injuries and murphy's law mean there are no guarantees, but if Goody can't deliver a premiership then no one can. I'm confident he'll do it.

I guess we have you and the other posters to thank for Goody changing?? Although the thing is Goody hasn’t changed what the game plan is. He has been trying to work out the best combination to implement it, coaching the players on how to deliver it, trading out players that don’t have what is required, and fine tuning it. It is still ongoing. You may call it mistakes but others called it good coaching even after bad losses (special commendation to @prodee). Plenty of others posted some pretty ordinary stuff.

The bookies are only really worried about the top 6 or 7 players. The rest is highly correlated to the stupidity of each teams supporters. It's why they didn't bother with any other MFC players but put odds on 6 of Collingwood.

His disposal efficiency was 76% last year which is really high. I can’t think of a small forward that would come close. 5 score involvements per game as well. Betts, Rioli x 2, Ryan are all 70% DE or less.

I’m hoping in years to come, Spargo develops like a Sam Mitchell. He is similar in a lot of ways (footy brain, great awareness, quick with hand and foot, unbelievable vision, same limitations). He just needs to build up his strength and endurance over the next 3 or 4 years and he could be a champion inside mid.

I’d like Hogan to do really well this year. Considering we only play Freo once at the G, I hope Freo win every game in Perth as that will help us. But I think Weideman will kick more goals than Hogan in 2019. Mainly because Jesse will get a lot less opportunity and Freo move the ball at snail pace which does not suit his game.

I couldn’t fault his commitment and the way he trained. He trains hard and presented fit, but for the quickest player in the league last year (according to Champion data) he didn’t chase and tackle and that is just down to attitude. I was hoping the club would get him to work on that and improve it but if he does it isn’t with us.

I love what Hogan could have brought but time started ticking after the Sydney game last year so we already have some evidence. 2018 Record. With Hogan, wins against final top 8, 0 out of 6. Hogan kicked 8 goals Without Hogan, 4 out of 5. Weids kicked 8 goals. Hogan is a huge talent. We didn’t make the most of his speed which is what should set him apart. But for all his strengths attitude was and is questionable and forward pressure was poor. We’ll perform far better if Weids kick 30 goals but simply applies pressure. Good exhibit is the Port game last year where we kicked 9 goals from over 60 forward 50s and Hogan’s direct opponent was BOG. I doubt Weideman let’s that happen.

Everything you say is logical and couldn't agree more re forward 50 pressure and turnovers being key. But playing 2 rucks does not necessarily mean you have 3 big guys in the forward 50, so it will be about rotations. Last year, rotations saw Tmac off for 14% of game time, Gawn for 15%, Weids for 20% (Hogan was off only 11%). They vary game to game but up to 40-50% of game time we had a big guy on the bench. We can't afford Max to ruck for 85% game time again as he was cooked in September. That 40-50% of game time last year where we were down one big man, we would have Preuss on. Maybe add another 10-20% of game time for Preuss and that is when we have 3 big guys in the forward 50 and we use that to create a match up headache. If we get a really good mismatch, the coaches leave it longer to really take advantage. If it is done right I expect Max to impact a few games in the forward 50 ala Cox on Queens Birthday against us and in the prelim. The thing you lose by this is an average of 1-2% of extra time on ground for the other 18 players, and maybe Max spending less time on the ball. So it will only work if Preuss is really good when on the ground. I suspect we will be able to review this after round 1 because Preuss will play that game. If Preuss is really good in the ruck he'll play most games, and Ryder and Lycett is a good first up test.

How do you think Max will go against Ryder and Lycett tag teaming him?

I can see the logic of playing Frisch in defence. Most scores come from turnovers. So the best pressure players are going forward and the best kicks are going back. It’s all about getting the ball forward and if you don’t kick a goal creating turnovers in forward 50 and lack of turnovers coming out of defensive 50. Defenders often kick inside 50 with repeat inside 50s as well. I suspect the best laid plans don’t always work and he’ll be thrown forward at some stage though.

Apologies. That is an impressive calculation under the influence of claret.

Considering all the flack about grammar on demonland, we can’t let numeracy errors pass. 47 plus 5% is not 65 (try just over 49). Either way, last year Weids already bettered Jesses 8 goals in 6 games against top 8 teams. I’m not as fussed about the 39 in 13 games against the rest (which includes 0 against Port). Weids won’t get as many goals out the back, but you don’t tend to see those types of goals against the good teams.

You make good points re young mids but the dual eagles rucks helped them win a flag. In the last 2 finals they came up against the 2 dominant ruckman in the game and completely did them over. In the GF, both WC rucks were on the ground for over 20% of the time, and in that time Vardy kicked a crucial goal and had a hand in a couple of others. And if we think we can play Max for as many minutes in 2019 as he did in 2018 then he’ll be cooked by September again. We would have to use the rotations in a similar way to WC, and not just park Preuss forward. And it is a rotation that is super hard to match up on. Petracca rotating to the middle, Preuss to the ruck, Gawn forward creates an imbalance. One of our big issues in big games was lots of inside 50s resulting in no goals. Part of the issue was not lowering our eyes, but a bigger issue was not providing genuine marking contests with long bombs. When games unfold with lots of pressure and forward space is closed down, there will be lots of long balls and being able to isolate the third defender creates opportunity. I’m also hoping Wied becomes our tackling machine. He has the right attitude.

Yes his disposal can improve, but inside type players hardly ever end up with elite efficiency. Around 70% efficiency by hand and foot is ok and AVB is just below that. Oliver is slightly better than that. His disposal was better than nearly all of his teammates in that final.