Accepting Mediocrity

6 hours ago, Demon Disciple said:

He’s struggling with his form and needs to get back to the basics of being a small forward. 

Is he though? It's been demonland narrative all year, but the stats don't really back that up.

Compared to 2021, he's averaging the exact same number of goals, marks and disposals. He's averaging more goal assists, overall tackles and I50 tackles.

5 hours ago, whatwhat say what said:

Reckon the afl will ‘manipulate’ the compensation for McKay a la Frawley (ie actually give compensation from his departure its  worth) and make sure north get a pick after their first pick

This narrative is an absolute myth that refuses to die.

When Frawley left, he was a 25 YO, All Australian Full Back, and one of the very best key defenders in the game. He was absolutely worth Band 1 Compo at the time - not our fault he peaked so young.

McKay is a handy player, but can't see how he falls into the same category.

47 minutes ago, hemingway said:

The story of Jake’s career. 

Harsh. You don't play 200 AFL games without being a consistent performer. His 2018 season, in particular, was exceptional. It's a game of fine margins. If he nails those 2 set shots in the qualifying final (as he usually would), suddenly he's had a pretty good finals series. 

He'll be a handy depth player next year. 

30 minutes ago, Demons1858 said:

Adelaide got more than market value. His best and fairest results and need for the team to play a particular structure for him to shine proves that

You severely overrate draft picks.

Look up the 2017 and 2018 drafts.

With all of the benefit of hindsight, choose 2 players that would have been available to us (i.e.  pick 10 or later (2017) and 19 or later (2018)). See if you can come up with a better pair than Lever and Petty.  

Lever is a cornerstone of the best defence in the business. He had a down year, but his b & f results prove nothing other than the fact that he's been injured for a fair chunk of 3 out of 5 seasons at MFC.

9 minutes ago, Demons1858 said:

We could and should have got Lever and the premiership without bending over to Adelaide for lesser picks.

There is no universe in which we got '"bent over" by Adelaide. You don't get a proven, 21 YO gun key position player without paying a premium in draft picks, even if uncontracted. Just as Freo will need to come up with 2 first round picks (or equivalent) to land Jackson.

If we'd played hardball, maybe we'd have got him for a 1st and a 2nd round. Maybe. Alternatively, maybe Adelaide would have walked him to the PSD, or struck an 11th hour deal with another club who were willing to pay a fair price. Or maybe Freo and GC wouldn't have been as keen to deal with us the following year and we would never have landed May.

Dodoro plays hardball and 'wins' every trade week. How's that working out for Essendon?

6 minutes ago, Demons1858 said:

Agree with most of that, but has he played consistently like a pick 5 each year? No way, but like all key positron players they are important to structure. Re the Carlton kick, unlike the Geelong one, it was a miss kick in my opinion, but points for being there first to the ball

Bagging the Lever trade is such a weird hill to die on. 

Sure, we got Lever and Petty (and, as a direct consequence, a [censored] premiership flag), but with the picks we gave up we could have had...

*checks notes*

Liam Stocker and one half of a 29-year-old Bryce Gibbs...

Lever could retire tomorrow and it would still go down as one of our best trades in the AFL era.

1 hour ago, Sir Why You Little said:

You would have found him not guilty if you were on a Jury?

But your personal belief deep down was that he was guilty of the crime…

ok

Mate it's impossible to comment since I wasn't on the jury and didn't see the evidence they were presented with etc. All I'm saying is that if I was, say, 60% convinced that he was guilty of murder, that wouldn't be enough for me to find him guilty on a jury, but I'd have serious reservations about recommending the bloke as a potential dating candidate to a friend.

But that's besides the point - my point is aimed at those posters who argue that it's unreasonable to form an opinion on the matter before all the accusations have been tested in a court of law. It's frankly a ridiculous assertion given the circumstances.

1 hour ago, Hannibal Inc. said:

I'd hate to be an accused and have Demonland as my judge and jury.

Here's the thing Prodee. We aint in a court of law. We're posting on a footy forum.

The weight of evidence required to convict someone in court vs inform a personal opinion are very different things, surely you realise that.

The reaction from Demonland has pretty much universally been along the lines of: "Jeez they are some very serious allegations coming from a growing number of sources that would be oddly specific to make up. On the balance of probability these accusations likely carry weight. If this is shown to be the case, there will be very serious consequences for the perpetrators." 

A neighbour of mine was arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife. There was a bucket load of circumstantial evidence that he was guilty, but ultimately not enough proof to secure a conviction.

Would I have found him guilty if I was on the jury? No.

Am I glad the justice system places the burden of proof on the accuser rather than the accused? Yes.

Do I personally consider it far more likely than not that he is guilty? Also yes.

2 hours ago, faultydet said:

 

11 minutes ago, CYB said:

I have a mistrust in all things media as they are inherently conflicted in their duties these days to sell papers and I find it just way too coincidental that they decide to release this report on the eve of the GF. 

Fair response mate - but if the journalist in question (and legal team) haven't done due diligence, his career will be over and he will be sued to within an inch of his life. He's put his (highly decorated) journalistic career on the line here. Those aren't the actions of someone operating on a hunch.

13 minutes ago, CYB said:

Yes. The proof is as far as I know circumstantial.

I find takes like this disturbing. The same can be said for any crime committed away from public view - rape, paedophilia, domestic violence, etc. Doesn't mean that these crimes can't and shouldn't be punished.

I'm all for innocent until proven guilty and all that, but there is a significant (and growing) body of evidence that some seriously abhorrent [censored] went down at Hawthorn. This isn't coming from a single jaded ex-employee - it's coming from multiple ex-players, partners, families etc - and given the standards of the journalist in question, you can be sure that there's corroborating evidence in the form of emails, text messages, etc. Not to mention the early retirement and subsequent comments from Cyril Rioli etc.

On balance, the possibility that the available evidence has been fabricated/ embellished by multiple witnesses appears to be extremely remote.

48 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

I'm genuinely confused why we're putting all our eggs in the Grundy basket when our biggest need right now is a key forward. On top of that, we're then happy to pay at least $650-700k for his salary for the next few years.

This amount of money could be saved to go on an all out assult on say a Harry McKay from Carlton or a Ben King from Gold Coast.

All this just makes zero sense to me.

Hard to disagree with any of that Dazzle.

But then, I was pretty vocal about wasting a first round pick on a highly speculative small forward (Kossie) over Brodie Kemp, and couldn't for the life of me understand why we'd pick a ruckman in Jackson at 3. Plenty questioned the recruitment of Lever and May.

Our list management team have serious runs on the board. If they're chasing Grundy, they'll have a plan for how to use him. 

I'll back them in.

4 minutes ago, John Demonic said:

For you or anyone else, does pick 2 ensure we get Cadman? Who do North look at picking up if it isn't a Cadman/Full Forward, if there are no standouts besides Ashcroft who's off to the [censored]n Lions

The fact that I know SFA about the top draft prospects this year puts the disappointment of losing a semi final in perspective.

31 minutes ago, drysdale demon said:

Unlike you, I will not be accepting mediocrity in any trade, 2 first round picks or a top 5 pick and one of their best young players.

Unfortunately we supporters don't get a say. And the reality is that no uncontracted player has ever been traded for a top 5 pick and gun young player who wasn't named Chris Judd.

If WC's pick 2 (3) isn't the centrepiece of the deal, it will likely be Freo's 2 first round picks (2022 & 23) and steak knives.

I'd rather pick 2.

1 minute ago, sue said:

How can a pick 2 who may turn out to be a fizzer be equal to a former pick 3 who helped win a GF?  There has to be more than steak knives in addition.

It will likely be pick 3 after FS selections (Ashcroft) - but that's still a great result for us. 

We are never going to receive 'overs' for an uncontracted player. The best we can hope for is adequate compensation.

Pick 3 is as about as good as we could realistically hope for.

Poor goal kicking, much like umpiring, is tempting to blame because it implies that we outplayed them in the remaining aspects of the game.

We didn't. They had more scoring shots than us in any case.

We might have been in a position to commit daylight robbery and pinch the win if we'd converted our opportunities in the last quarter - but up until that stage, we'd kicked remarkably well. That's not the reason we lost.

We won the inside 50 count 56-50, led contested marks 17-6 and led inside 50 marks 11-7. That's encouraging, because those numbers are strongly correlated with winning footy matches. These stats are indicative of a game plan, systems and personnel that are largely doing what they are supposed to do.

The key stat we got belted in was the inside 50 tack count: 13-25. That's where the game was won and lost right there. That's where the vast majority of their scoring opportunities came from, and we weren't able to generate many of our own.

This isn't such a bad thing: this is an area we can address with an attitudinal tweak, rather than reflective of a broader systematic problem. If we get the chance to play the swans again in 3 weeks, I'll back us in.

On 7/26/2022 at 9:36 AM, Demon3 said:

I also reckon that fact that ANB is playing up the ground a bit more is a genuine factor, his pressure has been great up the ground, but we are missing his deep inside 50 pressure.

Good call. He was #1 in the comp for forward 50 tackles last year. This year he's ranked 59th.

He's actually averaging slightly more tackles overall though, just getting them further up the ground as you say. This suggests a slight shift in strategy rather than simply a lack of effort among our forwards.

I think the absence of TMac is also a factor. He's surprisingly good defensively for a big guy - he was ranked top 20 for forward 50 tackles last year as well.

1 hour ago, old dee said:

There is no doubt IMO that we will finish in the top four however I find it difficult to believe we can win the flag this year with the poor state of our KPF's.

Our 2 key talls (BB & TMac) combined for 9 out of 53 goals we scored during last years finals series. Replace TMac with Weideman and we still win the flag. Granted, they both impacted in other areas of the ground (particularly BB), but we absolutely have enough firepower to win it without major contributions from our tall forwards.

10 minutes ago, deebunked said:

Interesting point about Jeelong not known for  chasing after big money tall ruckman.They seem to manage ok.

Gawn  is on 900k?  with three more years to go.

He could be cooked by next year. Thats alot of cap space.

You watched the prelim last year right?

You could make a very good case that a lack of even a B grade ruckman has cost them a flag over the last few years.

19 minutes ago, A F said:

What a brilliant deal that was. 

Even funnier when you consider that the Crows spent pick 10 (along with another 1st round pick) on a 29-year-old Bryce Gibbs!

55 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Re: people's refusal to acknowledge Collingwood as a genuine contender, what would be the difference between Richmond's 2017 flag and a potential 2022 flag win by Collingwood?

Richmond 2017 and Collingwood 2022 are polar opposites. Richmond went 0-3 in games decided by less than a goal that year, and finished the season with the 4th best percentage. They also had genuine star power and AA level talent in every part of the ground. And they had Dusty.

Collingwood are a mile off. They've had unprecedented levels of luck in close games (statistically speaking, close games are essentially a coin flip). That might yet enable them to sneak into a top 4 spot, but I just don't see them having the talent to mix it with the best teams in September.

23 minutes ago, 1964_2 said:

Further, without question he is worth Young and a first rounder. A 20 year old, who has potentially shown more than any other 20 year old ruckman at the same age for the last couple of decades. 

Jackson might be worth Young and a first rounder on the open market, but Jackson isn't on the open market.

Obviously, they can't blatantly take the [censored], but any eventual trade will be skewed in Freo's favour and there's not much we can do about it. Look at it from Freo's perspective - why would they give up one of their most promising young players (contracted) when they don't have to? Any deal will be centred around picks, possibly with a fringe player thrown in. Freo will probably look at wheeling and dealing picks with clubs bidding on academy/ fs prospects to acquire trade currency in the mid-late first round.

Jake Lever is probably the most valid recent comparison. The eventual trade was Lever, pick 37 (Petty) + future 3rd rounder for picks 10 (2017) and 19 (2018). 

21 minutes ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Correct me if I’m wrong, it seems to me, based on the reading of the CBA between the AFL and the AFLPA, that Jacko can’t go anywhere without the MFC facilitating a deal. If we’re not satisfied, he stays. Is that correct?

He's uncontracted. If he states that he wants to leave, a deal will get done.

23 minutes ago, Deesprate said:

Rippa great result for Dees beat Pies where locked in top two

Wouldn't count on this - Sydney have North, Collingwood (at the SCG where they are 8-2) and St Kilda to come. Very good chance they make up the 4 points and 5% between us even if we go 2-1 from here.

5 minutes ago, deespicable me said:

Oliver is a definite lock for AA, Petracca probably as well, then Max probably still holds the ruck but English is a chance (not much), I think Brayshaw and Fritsch are the next Dees players in? May is a chance, as is Langdon  and Kossie but they may miss and Lever won't make it this year.

Pretty much spot on I reckon. Oliver and Petracca are in, Max should be if he finishes the season strongly. Plenty of good defenders this year, but May has probably been of the pick of them, so should be a lock. Brayshaw a chance for a HBF/ bench spot.

Kossie and Lingers are a fair way off the pace I reckon. Viney might be a sneaky chance if they throw in a left-field selection on the bench, but there are plenty of more eye-catching mids out there.

3 hours ago, Fork 'em said:

I wonder if the media perception of him being selfish will hinder his AA selection.
Reckon there was a good argument for his inclusion last year.

You could make a decent case for AA but there are probably a few ahead of him at this point. Curnow, Hawkins and Jeremy Cameron are locked in you'd think. Rightly or wrongly, the selectors like to throw goalkicking mids on the flanks, so those spots will probably go to Petracca and one of Bontempelli, Rozee or Cripps. 

Fritsch probably competing with Heeney and Charlie Cameron for the other spot. As good as Fritsch has been, Heeney has probably been better tbh.