Watson11

One poor game in 39C heat for a 6ft 9"" goliath and plenty writing him off for the season. Quote from articles on heat stroke " The largest athletes are the most heat-sensitive." Another " Large people have lower surface area to volume ratios than smaller people. Evaporative surface area is relatively small in large folks so they have higher risk of developing heat stroke than smaller people." Not surprised that Preuss was cooked after the first qtr, or TMac had a shocker. Don't jump to conclusions too quickly.

A lot of times you need to look at the differentials as game style skews overall rankings. ie For 1, we were ranked number 1 in contested mark differential, so it is the complete opposite of what you had assumed. We just don't chip the ball around like other teams in the back half which is mostly a positive, as we were first for scoring from defensive 50. For 3, we are 13th on tackle differential. Magpies were 1st. Our tackling can tend to go missing at times. We know Goody would hate this stat, hence why not much patience with those who don't tackle. More interesting stats that we have to be better at this year are: 1. Ranked 14th for disposal efficiency and 12th for disposal efficiency differential. For a side that was 4th for most handballs and 11th for kicks that is pretty poor. 2. Ranked 9th from scores conceded from D50 entries. 9th flatters us, as we are 1% from being 16th but 6% from being top 4. 3. We rank 1st for centre clearance differential but 12th for stoppage clearance differential. My view is we are at our worst in the forward half of the ground, especially when Max dropped a kick behind and we pinch hit. Probably why Goody wants Max and Pruess to spend time in the forward half. We ranked 5th for inside 50 scoring efficiency which surprised me. Against top 8 teams this dropped to 39% which would have ranked us 17th. We definitely need to improve our scoring efficiency against good teams. I suspect some of this is we bomb, and are pretty good at creating stoppages, but we are lousy at defending stoppages in the F50. I think our terrible F50 stoppage work is directly related to our leaking goals at the other end. Most but not all of the issues above were fixed up in the last 5 weeks (save for the prelim). But they are far more significant than the stats that we are 17th and 18th in.

Oliver is super quick. He'll win a brownlow when he uses his pace on the outside a bit more and kicks as much as he handballs. He could win two or three when that happens.

Game is in Port Pirie which is even hotter. And they schedule the Tasmanian game for the evening!

I really like the little I have seen and heard of Chandler. We seem to be drafting players that have had to work bloody hard to get a chance (AVB, Frisch, Sparrow), and with pretty good results. Chandler seems to also fit that bill.

Counterbalanced by Mick. We must be a certainty to play in the GF, as Mick never even picks the grand finalists in the top 8, let alone the premier. His 2017 prediction: MICK MALTHOUSE TOP EIGHT: GWS Giants Hawthorn Geelong St Kilda Sydney Collingwood Western Bulldogs West Coast PREMIER: GWS Giants WOODEN SPOON: Brisbane Lions CLIMBER: St Kilda SLIDER: Adelaide BROWNLOW: Max Gawn

Micks 2019 predictions are on par with his 2018 ones MICK MALTHOUSE (The Herald Sun) Top 8 1. GWS Giants 2. Adelaide Crows 3. Essendon 4. Port Adelaide 5. Geelong Cats 6. Melbourne 7. Richmond 8. Sydney Swans Premiers: GWS Giants Wooden Spoon: North Melbourne Brownlow Medal: Joe Daniher (Essendon)

It won’t even be as bad as Port Pirie which is where the JLT showdown is.

??? Lachie Neale Lyon has been talking about opening it up since 2013. As soon as Freo have a bad loss or two he reverts back to what he trusts. If they were playing us in round 1 the new game style would only last a week.

Consider it training in case of another prelim in Perth.

The problem with your setup is rotations. Gawn, Tmac, and especially Weid need rest, so they’ll be off the ground for a cumulative total of up to 60% of game time (last years prelim). So for about half the game the talls would be one of Tmac or Weid, plus Hannan. Is that your intended setup? Compare this to West Coast. They never had 3 tall forwards on the ground at the same time. They rotated so they always had 2 tall forwards, for 100% of game time.

For those questioning 2 rucks, are you happy with a single ruck, and just one tall in the forward 6? If not and you want a ruck and 2 talls, for how much of the game? Some stats from the prelim last year based on time on ground. West Coasts grand final figures are probably similar. West Coast had a ruck and 2 tall forwards for 98% of the game, and a ruck and 1 tall forward for 2% if the game. Melbourne had a ruck and 1 tall forward for 60% of the game, and a ruck and 2 tall forwards for 40%. For most of the game, with our bomb it long tendency, one tall forward does not cut it. Yesterday was a scratch match with shortened quarters and trying things. I hope Preuss ends up spending limited minutes forward, but rucks for decent spells. Max still needs less minutes in 2019. I personally think we shoot ourselves in the foot in periods of dominance when we have 1 tall target.

“The 2015 NAB AFL Rising Star has impressed during recent match simulation, particularly when working his opponent up the ground and doubling back to find space” If he relies on this method to kick goals at Freo he is in for a tough year.

I don’t agree with George. The centre setup probably plays out 20-40 times a game. All of the tactics mentioned to limit centre clearances were already tried in 2018 plus putting an extra or two in defence plus extras on the square. I don’t have last years stats but from a year or two ago there were scores from 23% of centre bounces. With 6-6-6 this will definitely increase this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if this went up to 30% or 35%. Compare this to scoring chains from kick ins. We were the number 1 team at scoring chains from kickins last year at around 13%. The average was single figures. We probably only had to defend an average of maybe 12 or 13 behinds last year. Even doubling the best teams scoring chain efficiency is less than a goal per game.

Do you think the 12.8% other for Richmond was 7-7-4 or 9-6-3?

I’ll be interested to see how Richmond go with 6-6-6. They were pretty much the worst centre clearance team in the league last year, and started with at least one spare in defence something like 96% of the time. Unless they change their centre clearance work I can’t see them being top 4. I’m sure they are working hard to rectify it, but Nankervis is just not that great a ruckman, and their best mid doesn’t like to tackle.

Any player who can nullify the above 2 plus Josh Kelly, Sloane, Selwood, Lachie Neale, and Mitchell while also being damaging is no flash in the pan. If it was a one off, then maybe. But all those players are champions that no other teams could stop. We have a gun.

By comparison Hogan took 3 contested marks total in the 6 games against top 8 teams. For those thinking I’m bagging Hogan I’m not. I am on the record as saying Hogan could have kicked 100 goals last season if we used his once in a generation talents properly, which for a 100kg power forward is his speed and strength. He kicked very few goals after taking marks at full speed on the lead and none that I can remember in the big games. Hogan has no vertical jump and will never take many contested pack marks. Weids does have a leap, and already takes pack marks. So for our game style we are already better off. I would however like to see us lower the eyes a lot more in 2019, and bomb it long as a last resort. If we can do that we will be far more dangerous.

I bet he wished he did miss the Sydney game. But the vision of Isaac Heeney’s mark of the year in Q4 says he didn’t.

I included finals.

A 2018 record of 0 out of 6 against top 8 teams with Hogan versus 4 out of 5 when Weid replaced him tells me we might not be fooling ourselves.... Can’t wait to see what Weid does when he and TMac are the options against Carlton etc

No, he’s a natural.

https://www.teamedgeathletics.com/blog/the-next-big-thing-in-sports-data-predicting-and-avoiding-injuries.aspx Is it wishful thinking to hope the conservative management is related to MFC adopting the latest technology (developed by an Australian company mind you).

The umpires notice kicking more than handballing. When Clarry starts to do more damage on the outside and kick more he will get more Brownlow votes. So many demonlanders harp on about us having no outside pace, but it could be staring everyone in the face. Clarry was one of the quickest at his draft combine, and if he can get more outside ball (maybe mix up inside and outside if Viney plays a full season), then he will be seen as a true superstar and win a Brownlow. Think how Brayshaw, Martin etc kick a lot more and attract the umpires attention.

If 10+ minutes goal kicking practice 3 times a week is all they do then I am with Dr D on this, but only comfortable in the knowledge that the entire AFL industry is pathetic on this issue. It really is waiting for a club to put some proper work into goal-kicking. Someone is going to win a premiership off it soon and then the entire industry will follow and we'll see players doing goal kicking practice for a couple of hours a day. Would be great for us to be the first. Saty, maybe you can ask Max Rooke at training if he has any ambitions to see our forwards improve accuracy the way the true professionals have in the NFL. Back in the old days (60's), accuracy stats were around the same as the AFL at the time (~50%). Every decade the NFL has improved and now if you are not around 85% you don't have a job for long. The best career record is Justin Tucker of the Ravens at 90.1% over the last 6-7 years. The average field goal distance is around 38 yards (so 34m) so probably not that different to AFL. They don't have a ball drop but there is a bit of variation in the placement and their posts are about 1m closer together. Compare this to the AFL where accuracy has not really improved over the past 50 years. A professional golfer would not be professional for long if he did putting practice for 10-15 minutes 3x a week. On the bright side, for players that had more than 30 shots at goal in a season, Tracc sits at 13th on the all time list for his 2017 season. And for career stats TMac sits 9th on the all time list for those that have had >50 shots at goal.