Watson11

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.

Yes your mum knows nothing about footy. AVB was one of the few who stood up and handled the footy properly in the prelim.

Those soft culture days are slowly being totally wiped out of MFC. The last 5 years, it seems everyone at the club is on the same page and building a hard culture both on and off the field. It pervades everything, all the way down to list management, drafting, and selection. In the past I doubt we would have traded former number 1 draft picks or dropped obvious walk up selections. It came together in the elimination final where you could see exactly the hard edged culture MFC has been trying to build. Any setbacks won’t be because of a soft culture.

I agree. If you look at differentials they were 15th on CP and 18th in clearances. Even GC were better than them. A case could be made that Fremantle have a better midfield than Richmond. I’ll be really interested to see how Richmond go this year with 6-6-6. They relied on pressure and defensive intercepts last year. Rance looks like a superstar when he can play loose and intercept rushed kicks. Looks VFL B grade when he needs to be accountable one on one. If they are 18th again for clearance differential they won’t finish top 4.

http://m.afl.com.au/news/2019-01-12/who-has-the-best-onballers-we-rank-every-club Understandable Collingwood ranked first. Happy for Richmond to be overated at 2nd! According to afl.com Richmond have the best defence, best forwards, and second best mids.

Nat Fyfe came back too early from his broken leg and broke it again 7 months later which effectively wrecked 2 seasons. Both times against Hawthorn. It sounds like Fyfes leg wasn’t as serious as Mitchell’s double break.

Agree. If you want to look to a premiership team with a forgettable forward line the eagles in 2006 were full of poor to average. But dominant mids and strong defence got them a flag.

http://m.afl.com.au/news/2019-01-05/who-has-the-best-forwards-we-rank-every-club Not sure how they worked out our 2018 average scoring as follows 2299/22=94 (instead of 104.5).

I would have Harmes breakout season in front of the other 9. I suspect Joel Selwood, Rory Sloane, and Josh Kelly agree with me.

Infinity should step up to be the BOJ sponsor? Roy Morgan produce research each year about car sponsorship of AFL, as the automakers get good ROI from it. Seems cheap for a car manufacturer to not be a major sponsor. If Infinity don’t want it then Pert has history signing sponsorships with car manufacturers.

If Tmac/Weids are injured, the next key forward will be a role player and we’ll be looking for goals elsewhere. The role will be to provide a contest, bring the ball to ground, tackle, pressure, etc. Those stats are the stats Goody would be interested in, not the fact Pedersen averaged 2 goals a game at Casey. Smith averaged 6 tackles a game in his limited opportunities.

Yes thats wrong. We were 79.5 points against including finals. Not sure how journos can be so clueless. There were 4 of them writing this article.

Where would Perty find all of those ex members. I suspect he would be doing the rounds of aged care facilities followed by cemetery’s for most of them ?

For unknown reasons, players that do an ACL at less than 18 are a very high chance of redoing the same ACL (almost 40%). Maybe the fact they are still growing makes it weak. The second ACL injury repair is usually a lot stronger. So here’s hoping it is like Max who also did his first one at 17 and second at 20.

How true. If players were traded whenever they considered a move home then Gaff, Sloane, and Kelly would be playing at different clubs.

The value of a 208cm forward target in a full on pressure final was shown by Cox when he wiped Richmond in the first half of the prelim, and Gawn is 5x better than Cox. When forward Max can take big grabs, and with 10 or 11 goals enough to win a close GF a few goals from Max/Preuss when forward could be the difference. Just having Max fresh in September will be huge. I love that the footy department are just leaving nothing to chance, and don’t have the “ain’t broke don’t fix it mentality.” Even if we win every game and the flag in 2019, we should still be looking to improve.

Maybe but I’ll back Max and Preuss to lay more forward 50 tackles than Hogan did last year.

Judging by the number of photos posted in the last 4 weeks of Preuss versus May there is no way that Goody isn’t locked in on Preuss spending time forward as the 3rd tall. Hopefully it works well all season. Will be really valuable in low scoring finals.