Stu

Musing over 2022 during the off-season has been an interesting process. I’m sure all of this has been discussed six ways to Sunday but it’s January and I’ll do anything to spur more MFC discussion to temper the withdrawals. For me, one of the big challenges during 2022 was the number of physically challenging games. Teams were well aware of our strength around the contest, and often tried to get lots of numbers to stoppages and make the game a bruising encounter to have a chance of winning. Ignoring the games against the top 8 (as you expect these to be challenging), there was a few of these against the bottom 10. Round 2 against Gold Coast was warm and humid and the Suns really competed hard. Round 10 against the Kangaroos was similar, with the first half full of fake aggression from them (Langdon had his ribs broken in this game). In Round 16 against Adelaide, they pushed heaps of numbers around every contest to make it ugly and the game was tough. A lot of Dees players looked sore after the game. Round 18 against Port in Alice Springs was an exhausting game on a warm day on that large ground. The game was very end to end so the players looked pretty exhausted afterwards. In the Round 22 game against the Blues, they played man on man the entire game making every contest and stoppage a battle. When the Dees have looked their best during 2021 and 2022 it was when more of our players were getting to the next contest / spill of the ball. But due to small injuries and decreased fitness we were unable to sustain this during the second half of the year. That made more games more physically taxing – either by turnover (forcing more defensive running) or by more fiercely contested stoppages. It's a bit of vicious cycle – due to injuries and decreased fitness, the players were unable to move from contest to contest and win more post clearance possession, which in turn created more physical burden on their bodies leading to new or aggravated injuries and fatigue. This is highlighted in the Round 22 game vs Carlton – that game was a slog because the players didn’t have the fitness to push forward and back to get any sort of outnumber or overlap. Because our few elite level kicks were out of form (Salem, Bowey), having to constantly kick or handball to a contested situation meant our disposal efficiency was down, and turnovers were up. A lot of our goals come from outnumbering teams as we transition from defence to attack, rather than from elite disposal that cuts through a tightly packed defence. My question is – will the coaching team develop a strategy to combat overly physical games to help protect players from fatigue and injury, or will they continue to see contested ball as something we always have to win on the day. There is merit in having a tactic that can be engaged at times during quarters to try slow the game down and/or reduce stoppages. This will give opposition teams something else to consider. I remember two games - Sydney (vs Freo in Perth) and Carlton (first game vs Pies) - where they adopted slow deliberate ball movement to get themselves back into the game and swing momentum their way. If the team is fit enough to play the field position, surge style game play, they’re also fit enough to lead into space to hold possession through short kicks. I know there is a limit to how long you can do this before a long kick to a contest is needed, but given we have very good marking defenders it’s something we can probably repeat several times in a row once we win back possession. The longer off season (compared to 2021) and no longer being reigning premiers will (on its own) increase our chances of not having as many bruising encounters. Teams won’t be quite as ‘up’ for games against us as they were in 2022. But I hope lessons have been learnt, and the coaches have some strategies for trying to protect the players so they are fresher at the pointy end of the season. If we start strong again this year, teams will start to focus a lot of attention of us and I hope we have strategies for dealing with it better than we did in 2022.

He does have a pretty good sense of humour and doesn't take himself very seriously. A refreshing change from a lot of the ex-footy player turned journalists who write as though they are THE authority on the game.

I wonder if perhaps having Gawn a kick ahead of play (rather than behind) will offer us the easy option when teams are playing man on man? Our lack of quality by foot became an issue when teams went man on man, and our fitness started to drop (because normally the better fitness allows us to get better post contest possession / clearance). Having an outlet like Gawn sitting 30-40 metres off the throw-in / bounce might be an option. With Grundy taking the ruck contest, Gawn's opponent is likely to be undersized, or Grundy will ruck against their second-choice ruck which may enable a clean clearance.

During the season, the $6 a month fee for their full articles is really worth it. One of the few footy news sources with content they've created and aren't just padding out fluff stories.

In the brief glimpses he certainly seems to have good, fast decision making.

Did you used to post on the Melbourne Victory board under the same @Nasher? It seems very familiar from around the time I would frequent that board.

The level of fitness required at the AFL level is where the talent issue is coming from. Only at the AFL level can players train full time, so if you don't make the cut at 17 years old the gap is only going to get wider the more time that passes. I believe that the AFL needs to create a second national competition that it funds like a 19th AFL team (e.g. same amount of distributed funds as 1 club). Keep it to 12 teams, ask state league clubs to apply and pick those with the best facilities, balance sheet, and future plans. Could potentially accept bids from consolidated teams like Canberra or Darwin where no AFL team exists. Keep AFL reserve teams out of it. Set a salary cap of $3 million with no salary floor, but teams can only pay what they can afford. No draft - teams simply compete for the next best talent not contracted to another club. Keep list sizes to 30, with an additional 5 loan spots available per club for AFL players, like first year and development players to cut their teeth in a more competitive competition. The windows for loaning and recalling players is pre-season and during the mid-year draft period. When an AFL team wants to recruit a contracted 2nd division player, they have to pay a fee equal to the players annual salary multiplied by the length of the contract they're offered. This can be done in mid-season draft order if the AFL wants to ensure there is equalisation. The fee going to the smaller club allows them to invest in their facilities and own player development which will only improve the talent pool. If clubs can no longer afford to compete at a national level, they're simply replaced with another state league team that can. With no Saturday AFL games for the next 9 years, this league can potentially generated revenue from TV rights for staggered Saturday games. Once this league is well established, I'd look at structuring Victoria's metro and country leagues to ensure there was a pathway for talent to move from a local bush league, to a regional league, to the state level. It's ridiculous that talented players are getting $50k a year to play for Yinnar or Seymour where they win every game by 90 points. That money is being stripped from junior development to buy country league flags when there should be a way that talent can play at their level and get paid commensurate to that level.

And the Lions play well at the SCG. Beat them there earlier in the year.

Maybe “fingers washed” then fingers crossed after that 😁

I think you're right. @Slartibartfast it may be worth also trying to reduce the hertz on the TV down to 50 or 60 (if that's an option) as it might be running in the 100-200 range. The much higher hertz can cause ghosting during action movies or live sport when the frame rate it's being shown in isn't high enough.

I have two questions (because I’m greedy): 1. Sydney overcome their contested ball deficiencies by spreading hard from the contest. As we’re great in the contest and can also spread well, how do you see that influencing the swans ability to win first use of the ball? 2. Longmire likes to change up tactics game to game, and appears to have a group that is easy to instruct. How do you see this chop and change style holding up in the heat of finals intensity? Thanks for indulging me 😊

Slight correction for you 😉

I’m sure you’ll cover this in the review of the game, but the kick to players leading towards our goal was used very successfully. This allowed the forwards to stay inside 50 and then lead up to the player with the ball sitting 70-80 metres out. It’s not commonly used by any teams and seems to be a point of difference we might employ in this finals series.

How amazing was that spoil from Petty? Love it.

They really can't slow momentum can they? I hope we keep the foot down and win by 80 points.

It's our night :-)

Brisbane can't hold up momentum. They've had it all this quarter and we've actually extended our quarter time lead. Shows you the importance of reading the game and not having just one gear.

I’m arriving in Brisbane on Sunday for a holiday at Noosa… you’re making the wait seem even longer now 😂

Great question, and one I'm unqualified to answer adequately, but for what it's worth: I think our scoring shots from centre clearances over the past four weeks would have to be the best or near to the best in the league. Without knowing exactly, I expect the inside 50 efficiency from centre clearances is much higher than those from standard clearances. They're figurative gold for AFL sides because of the 6-6-6 rule. This year has shown that teams have adapted to our strengths, beginning with a strategy to combat our clearance domination, and then a pivot to working around or nullifying our defensive structures. That is why our form and fortunes have been a bit harder to gauge compared to last year because teams have been throwing the proverbial sink at us trying to beat us and different teams have employed different tactics. I believe our form on scores from clearances this year is in a better position than at the same time last year. I think this is a good indicator for the finals series, where there is often very little room and opposition players are rarely left free. When things get tight, muscle memory and consistency is important - our consistent gameday strategies, strength at the contest, and enviable ability to score from centre clearances will make us a daunting challenge for any team. Just one final comment on our form - the Bulldogs (60%) and Collingwood (65%) had scoring accuracy far in excess of the season average (49%). It's even significant when compared to the most consistently accurate team over the last seven years (the Eagles at 52%). If things had gone our way just a little more in those games, our form since the bye would read 7W-1L or 6W-2L if you think Carlton were more deserved winners on Saturday night. We'd also be on a 3 game winning streak and all of us would be talking about the similarities to last years form.

Yep! I distinctly remember the discussion on Fox during the finals was how we were a team that scored from turnovers and how it suddenly changed to stoppage goals in the finals. So the analysis he offered is actually pretty useless.

It’s important to note that King compared our last 7 rounds this year to our last 7 games (including finals) last year, which is skewed because we all know how bonkers our clearance work was during the finals. I think the comparison between the same periods in both years is actually much closer. King just using selective statistics to back up his opinion.

Looking ahead to Friday’s game: If we get up by 4 goals mid way through the last quarter, does Goody keep up the intensity to take 2nd spot or do we revert to the norm and shut up shop happy with securing the top 4 spot?

For all the negative Dee's supports here, take a moment and ponder this question... take all of your negative feelings about our game plan, our weaknesses, our team selection, and analyse it through the lens of our ladder position. If, and I mean IF, everything you feel is true and we're still second despite all that, what does that mean for what we can accomplish if we address all that concerns you?

Honestly, it seems like Freo, Sydney, Bulldogs, Pies all played the games of their seasons against us... a nice easy one against Carlton would seem fair and reasonable.

Don't you mean "The Package"?