Lord Nev

Won that purely on talent rather than workrate. Clearances/stoppages and defensive running by mids still a massive issue. Lot to like about our next generation though, thought Jordon was great, Sparrow cracked in hard all day, Kozzy was a sparkplug, and Rivers and Jackson showed snippets. Lever sensational, as was his partner May. Great to see TMac find a patch of form too. ANB and Spargs leading the way for inside 50 delivery, but need their team mates to take notice. A front-running win.

It's been going downhill for 3 years, but we've lived with this falsehood that we have this amazing contested footy team.

Jordon and Sparrow - 8 tackles combined Oliver, Brayshaw, Petracca, Harmes, Jones - 7 tackles combined

We lead the hitouts by 12, we trail in clearances by 11.

Right on cue as always! haha

Kozzy and Spargs have a bit of synergy, like it. Spargo also with some important kicks inside 50. Liking Sparrow's toughness so far too. Is Gus even playing....?

Dermie with 5 flags.

He's right. Ask Port.

Can you just let it rest mate. We get it, you hate Spargo, but there's no need to make posts every 5 minutes about it. Or at least be constructive in some kind of way.

Don't get the hate for Spargo. I think with no Melksham available he and (a much improved user in) ANB are our best available options for delivering the ball effectively inside 50. Would have had Chandler in ahead of Jordon though on balance for mine.

I'm just saying mate, you've been criticizing OMac for a LONG time, so when you're saying 'he's not currently up to AFL standard' for like 5 years straight then it's pretty clear what you're saying. Just own it. You're allowed to think he's no good and not up to AFL standard. People will disagree, but that's footy. There's a ton of players with premierships who people could argue weren't up to standard. It's not as black and white as a lot of people in this thread want to make it I reckon.

To be fair....

So they brought in an interchange cap to make the players more tired, but then brought in a sub to reduce the impact of having less players.... Rightio.

I'm among the unconvinced as far as Goody's coaching goes, but he's been around long enough; and we've seen enough of him now to understand he really does not enjoy doing the media/interview/press conference things. It should be noted some of the 'incidents' (if that's the best word) indicating such the last few years. Yet he shows up and does them. Personally I think that's admirable of him. I would judge his performance on his most important job, our game day performance, rather than any kind of public speaking he does.

All but confirmed that Jordon will debut, that's not who I was talking about though. Maybe my clue was too subtle Koz some people seem to have missed it...

Given we've been talking about our clearances here a bit, thought this was interesting: If the Demons are going to play finals - and they’re built for it, with the sixth-oldest and sixth-most experienced list in the AFL - they need to capitalise on their major strength. No club won a greater percentage of hitouts and hitouts-to-advantage last year, thanks to the brilliant Max Gawn, but they ranked sixth for clearance win percentage, 12th for clearance efficiency and 13th for points for clearances. They simply must hit the scoreboard from that source. One key stat that shows how well - or badly - your AFL team will go in 2021

Wasn't told much about it as a concept. So not sure if it's just a sometime thing or a more settled role, but given he was our number 1 for tackles inside 50 last year (and he got his first goal that way in the VFL practice match too!) I would be VERY surprised if it was a full time role.

Have heard snippets here and there. Defensive zoning will be a big thing Adem is pushing. We'll run forward hard and fast, but players behind the ball will be left in no uncertain terms about where they should be positioning themselves to try and prevent the opposition rebounding we're so used to seeing. Gawny will be forward a fair bit. Not sure if that will change once Weid and/or Brown are back, but it's absolutely part of the strategy. Other talls, namely Jackson and TMac will be tasked with getting higher up the ground to make that work. We may also see a bit of a surprise on the wing... I'd give a clue, but then you might pick it. ;)

Love it. Having a good read of that now, really well put together. Context around stats and trends in footy is a bit of a rabbit hole hey? Despite some of our differing opinions around some of the other aspects, I think most of us commenting about this stuff in this thread now seem to agree that the quality of our clearance work needs to improve for us to start maximizing the talent we currently have.

For mine, I'm trying to be clear about how ineffective we are at centre clearances. This is not an area we're good at.

All well argued mate. Appreciate the work you put into these posts btw. I'm not sure I 100% agree we lack depth for inside mids though. It would be a pretty rare occasion during the season where we would be missing all of Viney, Oliver and Brayshaw. Take 3 of the 4 top mids out of any team and they'll struggle. I think a list of Viney, Oliver, Petracca, Brayshaw, Harmes, Melksham, Jones and Sparrow is a pretty decent inside mid lineup on paper, but as they say, the game isn't played on paper, and the base of my argument is about the structures and strategies, not the players. Add Gawn and Jackson to the above list and we should have a pretty formidable midfield. Should. There are obvious problems though, some of which don't seem to be improving (crowding the ball, forward delivery, tackling), and some which are seemingly getting worse (centre clearances, defensive running by forwards and mids).

I'm not sure you can discount me using averages and then use them yourself. 2018: 1st for centre clearance differential. 2020: 12th for centre clearance differential. I disagree that's a 'strength' and that there's "very little difference" there. That's a big drop. I do very much appreciate your in-depth analysis, even though I don't agree it's still really interesting to read.

The point I was making using teams ranked by averages was the differential in hitouts and clearances. To me those stats say we are nowhere near as efficient as we should be in that area. Also, in 2020 we were ranked 12th for centre clearance differential. In 2019 we were 3rd. Also in 2020 we were ranked 3rd for hitout differential. So whichever way you look at it, there's a disconnect there between hitouts and clearances.

All teams ranked by averages.

Yep. Interesting Stafford was moved from the ruck coach role end of last year, and a little concerning we don't have someone in that role now, but hopefully Yze as midfield coach can bring some improvement. It's not been tracking the right way the last few years. 2018 Hitouts: 1st Clearances: 3rd 2019: Hitouts: 3rd Clearances: 8th 2020 Hitouts: 3rd Clearances: 15th