Lord Nev

The average games per year and type of past injuries would have given a pretty good indicator I would have thought, doesn't seem that ground breaking to look at injury history if you're going to offer contracts based on it. Are you saying you weren't surprised when vandenBerg was offered 3 years (considering he was 27 at the start of the season and averaged 5 games per year)?

I'm not sure LH is saying he's in the job because of that, but maybe he won't be outed from the job because of that? Just my guess though, LH might clarify. And from what I can tell, boards are generally involved in captaincy/leadership decisions: "After an extensive process involving players, the football department, senior administrators and the Board, I am happy to announce that Ben Stratton has been selected as captain of the Hawthorn Football Club for season 2019 and beyond." Source "From there, they presented to the Board and they came back and appointed David Swallow and I as co-captains for season 2019." Source “The club’s Board had no hesitation in ratifying the recommendation from all our key internal stakeholders,” Koch said. Source "Fagan added that the decision had to be ratified by the club board, which had full confidence in the voting process." Source

Kent played 13 games. vandenBerg played 0. And as per above, Kent has average more than twice as many games per season.

Thanks mate, I think the article might have been updated since I read it, couple of different versions of it online now.

I don't recall that quote being anywhere in the article I posted. Would you mind posting a screenshot?

Yeah possibly mate. The Lions have overtaken us in the 'rebuild' stakes, here's the difference in Fagan's philosophy as opposed to Goodwin's "that wasn't us": "Teach everybody in the organisation about what the growth mindset is, and that failure is actually a good thing if you learn from it" Source

Yeah, except it could get tricky ie - We retain the ball inside 50, but don't score (missed goal, turnover etc)

I think they're talking about two different stats. The first one ('worst ever recorded') would be scores per inside 50, and the second one is retention per inside 50, meaning how often we get the ball to one of our own players inside 50. I think that's what it means anyway.

Not saying it's only Viney of course, but: “Their retention for kicks inside 50 went from second in the competition, now it sits at 16th. Last year when they charged through to the finals kicking the ball inside 50, no other team in the competition marked the ball more – they were No.1 in the comp … they’re 16th." The horror numbers that epitomise Melbourne’s demise

Nice but brief article here about Jeff and Kobe. Get the impression Freo are doing as much as they can to win him over to them, and they're probably in the box seat tbh, but at least they're leaving the door open somewhat. “He’s in a very good position where he’s got two football clubs vying for him." “At the end of the day, I want the best for him. Wherever he goes, I’ll be supporting him either way.” Love this photo of them too...

I never said he was as good as Melksham. But the evidence is pretty clear this year about the impact of not having players like Kent, Hogan and formerly Watts able to deliver the ball inside 50 for us. Hunt has done well forward, but that's only if we're talking goals, he is still a poor user of the ball. Sure, Kent is out for the season now, after 13 games, vandenBerg has played 0 games and you'd be a brave tipster to say he would get back on the park at all. Kent has averaged 11 games per season, vandenBerg has averaged 6. I'm not sure the facts back up who had more chance of being 'healthy' going forward. Fact is though, we traded out a quick, goal kicking, good user going inside 50, for just another 'hard at it' tackler who is a typical 'Goody Boy'. We don't lack grunt, it was a poor decision. We very much disagree on which player would have been of more use to us this year. Disposal efficiency is a useless stat, so won't even bother responding to that tbh. Yes, we are certainly missing Melksham, because we've traded out all our other good decision makers going forward. That's the point. If we're relying on Spargo, ANB, Fritsch and KK to improve us then I'm afraid we're in a bit of trouble. Apologies if I've come across a bit blunt with all this, I don't mean to seem like I'm having a crack, we're all a bit grump this year I would think. I've just been passionate about our inside 50 delivery for a few years now and watching it go steadily downhill is incredibly frustrating.

Not sure I need to repeat myself do I? How well did that decision turn out?

You clearly haven't watched him play much if you're labeling him as purely an "inside mid". He's a quick burst player with speed and a nose for the goals. But sure, we don't need leg speed and goals right?

Kent's delivery inside 50 (which was what I said, not a general comment about kicking), particularly in tandem with Hogan, was fantastic. I watched him very closely during his time at Melbourne. Kent wasn't let go because he was 'inconsistent', I can tell you as a fact that MFC did not offer more than a 1 year deal due to his injury history and because he has a new family he took the security of 3 years at the Saints for their sake. Staggering that the MFC then turned around and offered an even more injury prone inside mid type that 3 year deal. That has clearly proven to have been a terrible decision, it's not even debatable.

We definitely both agree on that point mate.

There were 'mutterings' last year also. Agree they might not have got noticed as much, but they were certainly there. (Have we forgotten the training camp already?) We're not winning due to poor performances, poor performances can come about due to club culture, club culture is influenced by things like those mentioned previously. They're not separate issues in my opinion.

Definitely agree that a captain's importance is not as high as it has been in the past, but I do think it still has a high importance during games, mostly from a game style reinforcement perspective. For mine, it's specifically the job of the captain(s) to model the actions the coach has talked about during the week, especially now that there's no runners most of the time. This is part of my worry with Viney. Either he is implementing the instructions of the coach and just bombing away inside 50, or he is going against the coach's instructions about 'lowering the eyes' and improving 'connection'. Either way there's a problem. Given neither Viney or Jones are 'instructional' in their leadership style, then the way they play and decisions they make are how they lead. Viney being such a bad decision maker would have to be part of the reason why the onfield performances of the midfield have headed in the same direction as his style of play.

Just second hand rumours really, but there's some tension mounting it seems, involving selection and management. Nothing most Dees fans wouldn't have already assumed probably.

Yep, there's a whole other thread that could be filled with the very current 'talk' going around about 'Goodwin's Boys'...

As far as I've heard we're into Langdon in a big way, also keen on Hill but doesn't seem as likely. Obviously we'd all prefer some genuine pacy wingers who are fantastic kicks, but I guess you have to settle for what's realistically available at some stage.

Forward structure is definitely part of the problem, clearly when you're changing up the coaching so drastically. Weid and TMac often seem to fly for the same ball, but I wonder again if that's a coaching issue in regards to our game style? The thing is, the kick rating stat takes situation and pressure into account: Kick rating takes into account the difficulty of a player's kick and attributes an expected percentage for any player to successfully hit a target in various scenarios. A zero per cent rating means the footballer is performing as expected. Source So Viney being 508 out of the 526 players with the metrics assigned, is a horrible look in that context.

Sensational news! Thanks Jane!

He's definitely got a bit of his 'burst' back. Have noticed he's more able to break away from congestion lately.

Not sure on the inside 50 retention stat over that course of time, but over the last month he's averaged 4.75 turnovers per game, which means 1 in ever 5.7 disposals is a turnover in that time. He's had much higher numbers disposal wise over the last month. The closest we can get potentially would be that he's had 3 goal assists out of 15 inside 50s.

I'm not sure on his individual numbers for that stat for previous years, it's not one that is generally available, seems to more pop up when articles are written and it's published. I'm assuming, but would guess it has gone down this year given it's being reported now, and also due to us as a team taking nose dives in those kind of stats. Anecdotally it did seem like his delivery was poor last year, but not to the extent it has been this year.