Lord Nev

This is one... in another team's forum.

Couldn't disagree more to be honest. We have plenty of 'grunt', and grunt isn't improving our delivery or use inside 50.

Maybe because the hysteria built up over that time?

Yes you will, because Whateley was at the briefing. Not everything is a conspiracy to make people hate footy.

Perhaps a deep breath and a cuppa needed folks... “It was fake news. The AFL is not considering rules to reduce the amount of tackling in the game. It’s just not. In fact, there are no new rules in the pipeline,” Whateley said. “Their stated aim, which was reiterated at the briefing, of which tackling did become part of, is to open the game up and thus, as a cause, the tackling numbers would reduce. “So the discussion was around Greg Williams saying I don’t go to the footy to watch people tackle and Steve Hocking agreed with that. He felt that 161 tackles in a game as opposed to the running and the marking and the kicking of goals was out of whack, but there are no rules being contemplated to reduce the number of tackles. “That got completely misconstrued and led to a really damaging and fake debate." Hocking tackling comments "misconstrued" and led to "fake debate": Whateley

Sensational post mate! Definitely agree it seems more harsh on Oliver than Brayshaw, but optically it did seem like Oliver lacked defensive intent early in the season, there's been a big noticeable improvement over the last 4-6 weeks or so. I wish they had context stats for tackles, as I think sometimes they can get skewed (a bit like possessions) for players that play as inside midfielders. Would love to know if Champion Data record a stat along the lines of '2nd effort tackles' or something along those lines. In a similar way, that may have effected Gus' stats given he's playing less in the guts, but again, optically he has definitely seemed off this year, and some of his defensive efforts would have been the type of intent that saw him 'dropped' at the start of last year. There must be some reasoning behind why he hasn't been this year, his form has easily been bad enough from an outsiders perspective. There are enough commentators and analysts now talking about his lack of accountability, particluarly on the spread, that it's a valid point. One of the things I think is telling with Gus' form is his metres gained. Hard to rank him for clearances, tackles and possessions given he attended 15 more centre bounces last year (despite 3 less games to this point), but he's also tracking at about half of his average for 2018 in metres gained. I think we'll probably have to wait for the offseason to find out what's been up with Gus. Either he'll request a trade (unlikely) or the club will finally release the info about him playing under duress (as to not make it sound like an excuse by saying so during the year). He has a massive preseason ahead of him. A very disappointing start to 2018 and an even more disappointing whole of 2019. I believe in him and think he'll put in, but the pressure is on him now.

Nah he wasn't, which made it even more impressive from a leadership perspective. He could have just mentally checked out and gone into celebration mode for his last few games, but instead he's focused on trying to set up our culture and future. Deserves better treatment from some Dees fans than he gets.

Darling officially off the table for anyone who thought it was a possibility.

Yeah that's part of the reason why I think there's a possibility he may request a trade. I don't want to trade him as such, but given all the factors with his happiness, the call of WA, playing with his brother, us and Freo both getting what we need, it's just something I think could potentially happen.

Yeah agree with everything you've said mate! At first I wasn't into this year's trading and drafting because I thought I wouldn't need to be, but now it's more just being so flat about the season it's hard to be positive for next year. As a pure hypothetical, would you consider trading Brayshaw and a 3rd or 4th round pick for Langdon and Hill?

Whom would you put in that category that is realistically available, and how do we get them?

“I reckon he’s bound to Victoria at the very least,” Cleary said on AFL.com.au. “Melbourne’s coming the hardest for Ed Langdon. It’s hard to see him being at the Dockers. He’s flirted with the opportunity at going home to Victoria a number of times. “He’s officially put contract talks on hold now. If I was a betting man, Ed Langdon will be playing in Victoria.” Source

"But 17 rounds into 2019, Melbourne remains entrenched in the bottom-four and now every club will ask about Brayshaw’s status in the exchange period." "Unequivocally, Melbourne plans to keep Brayshaw at the club next season after signing him to an extension last year. The only way he could leave is if he lost faith in the club, and that would be a surprise if turned out that way. But there will be a discussion at the end of the season about his best role, his two-way running and midfield accountability." Angus Brayshaw suffers alarming stats drop as Melbourne struggles

Yeah, which I explained in my next post where I said you're either all in or all out. ie - You play Lewis because culture is important, but then you don't have integrity at selection, so you're not all in. You don't pick JKH because he's 'not the future', but then you play Lewis who is about to retire, so you're not all out. Does that make more sense now?

Yeah I obviously couldn't post the whole article, but I made sure I included that first bit about "they’re going to be fantastic in the history of that club". I think all of us still believe that, no matter how grumpy this year has made us.

Haha what thread is that mate? And to be honest, I don't mind Lewis playing, he made the best comments this week on Fox Footy when he said something like 'Finals may be out of reach, but how you treat these games is how you setup for next year' (paraphrasing). That kind of comment, combined with his intent the last couple of games is why I don't mind him out there right now. My problem is that you're either in or out. You either set up the culture, or you just stick with the Goody way.

No problems with anyone disagreeing mate, happy to discuss our differing opinions and how we came to them, but simply responding with 'nah, you're wrong' or that someone who thinks differently to you has opinions that are "laughable at best" is not constructive in my view, and I'm more into discussing things practically than taking pot shots on the internet. Cheers.

Hey mate, only read the article, haven't listened to the whole segment, so can't answer for you. The whole thing is here though: https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode?id=398037

The article is about both players, so that's how I was framing my comments. Thanks for your well thought out opinion though, always good to know which posters play the ball and which play the man. Have a good one.

Borders on irrelevance whom comes in IMO, the upholding of standards and culture and the integrity of selection is more important, even more so for a team struggling to eek out acceptable quality performances.

I don't think Oliver should be, but I think Gus should have been a few games in, as I said above. I was keeping my comments close to the context of the article rather than trying to turn it into a Brayshaw thread. In saying that, Clarry was pretty inconsistent early on in the year with his defensive efforts. I'm not sure why you're trying to deflect from the original point by being pedantic to be honest?

Neither has been dropped, Brayshaw deserved to be about a month in, and neither named in Casey's squad this week so obviously both are playing AFL.

How many of our players are putting in "AFL standard" performances this year? Selection has turned into a farce and I strongly believe it's creating (or has already created) cultural issues that we thought we had banished from our club. A player's parent was heard to describe the culture of the club as 'Goody's Boys' recently and this is a prime example of that. A bloke is in the best for a month straight yet can't get a game while a massively underperforming team continually picks underperforming players. And if you want to argue something like 'he's not the future of the club' then tell me why Lewis is playing and tell me at what stage of the season it's ok to turn our culture off? I think Goodwin has great potential as a coach, but there is a growing concern with his sheer stubbornness that even has his former mentor quietly fuming behind the scenes.

In particular, he singles out Clarry and Gus: “They’ve got some wonderful players and the two that stand out, they’re going to be fantastic in the history of that club, are (Clayton) Oliver and (Angus) Brayshaw. “Right now, from what I’ve seen this year, I’d rank them, as defensive midfielders, three and a half, four out of ten. “They’ll tackle if in a pack and somebody just gets the ball and they’re half a metre away from them, but to actually go and hunt a tackle is a different thing. “They need to step that side of their game up.” Hard to argue with him Yet neither apparently is going to cop the ultimate message from the coach, again.

Looks like no Weid this week, but Bull might get a call up. Source