Chook

I disagree. A football player's job, in my opinion is to create as many entries into the area of the ground that you can score from, while minimising the amount of time it spends in the backline (where your opponents can score from). Anything else that happens is irrelivent, since it doesn't create or prevent scoring opportunities. I said yesterday that we should drop Frawley based on what I saw was his poor disposal. But having watched the game again, once now at the ground an once on TV, I now admit that Frawley was much better than I had previously thought. No way should we drop him. He was responsible for four or five turnovers that resulted in the ball entering our d50 when he was up the ground yesterday. However, to compensate, he was involved in around ten passages of play that resulted in the ball leaving our defensive 50, although a couple of these times were simply quick chip-ins from kick-ins. His disposal yesterday was poor enough to render his good defensive/attacking game against Medhurst less valuable than it should have been, but I now believe he did more than enough to make up for it. So having watched the game twice, I am happy to admit that I was wrong about Frawley's impact on helping us score more than Collingwood (which is ultimately the aim of the game). INS: Sylvia. OUTS: Newton.

Agree also. Our defending from kick-ins is so atrocious that I'd prefer we try to make goals easier to kick by spotting up lose men while in the forward fifty if at all possible, rather than taking a shot and risking the rebound that inevitably occurs after we score a point.

Here's a stat for you. It's been 23 years since that game and if we win the next 23 games in a row, our 23rd will win us the Grand Final. Coincidence? I think not EDIT: Or for the pessimistic, if we only just make the finals, our twenty-third game will be a heartbreaking loss against the Hawks in a Preliminary Final.

Totally agree. He's a damaging player - creative, fast, defensive. And I believe you can teach anything - even hardness. Why bag a player that's got so much going for him when there are others who don't contribute nearly as much to winning a game of footy as he does.

Dudes, he was actually good. Not great, but good. I have him involved in five passages of play that led to the ball going inside our forward fifty for the game, one of which resulted in a goal. He did have one turnover that lead to the ball either leaving our arc or entering our opponent's (I can't remember which), but this turnover didn't result in a goal. In effect, nothing Bate did today ever cost us a single point. Not one thing. And on top of that, he really got the ball into dangerous positions a lot, and effectively kicked a goal as a member of the four or five people who got the ball through the goals. If every player in our team did as much as him today in this regard, we'd have had about 50 entries into our forward 50 (the only place on the ground that can actually be scored from) vs 20. Them's winning numbers for mine.

When has he ever not seemed at peace with the result in a post-match interview. The guy's just a cucumber. As in "cool as a." If he wasn't mad about losing last week, then obviously whether or not we won is not an issue for him. What Dean Bailey cares about is making the most of opportunities. And until such time as we do that consistently, whether we won or lost won't be an issue with him.

Yeah, something like this might do the trick: Dear Jim/Dean, I work a full time job, I get paid and I do my work. And I guess it turns out Football is a slightly different kettle of fish, and you never do know what might happen, because today I saw the the one thing I expect from the team I love and support: genuine passion, commitment and some seriously dogged determination. I honestly have no problem with losing games of football, I just want to see blokes who are prepared to have a crack. Today I saw it. Good news is we were good. But we can be better, and there are 20 more weeks for us to prove it. I now know that the guys see this too, because they didn't pack it up until the final siren went today. Finally, the main reason I am writing this letter is because I want you to know that people like me care a lot about what is going on with our club, and that just as we see the negatives, so too do we see the positives when they come. I want you to be happy that I got to write this letter, because to be honest, this is not the kind of thing I do lightly, in fact I think it’s the second time I have ever done something like this, such is the way I felt from what took place on the weekend. My advice, get straight back on the track and give it another red hot crack… Kind Regards Paul Pitman Optimistic MFC member A few subtle differences.

Couldn't agree more with all of this. Although Scully wasn't too good. Not that I'd drop him after his second game ever though.

Frawley: 3 involvements in d50 clearances, but was responsible for 3 turnovers that resulted in the ball entering our d50 again. Net impact on scoreline - 0. Newton: 1 goal 1 behind, but was responsible for 3 turnovers that resulted in the ball leaving our forward 50 arc, one of which resulted in a Collingwood goal. Net impact on score-line: 1 Point. Dunn: 2 goals 1 behind, and was a part of 3 passages of play in which the ball entered the forward line without score and two in which there was a goal scored. That's actually quite good, but he was also responsible for three turnovers inside our 50 metre arc that resulted in the ball leaving that area, as well as one in the midfield that resulted in the ball entering the d50. The stats I gave you are 100% true. But if you like forwards who aren't able to hold the ball inside 50 and defenders who don't get the ball out of our defence, then keep these guys in the team. Can you give some statistics that show how these players helped our team in it's attempt to score more than Collingwood?But in retrospect, perhaps I judged Dunn too harshly for his poor disposal.

McKenzie was great today. So many of his tackles turn the game from worried defence into sweeping attack. Good to see our young'uns showing the older guys a thing or two about how to create a turnover.

I totally agree. Bate and Murphy play a kind of game where they are always part of the four or five touches that cause the ball to go from languishing on the half-back line to sitting cleanly in the mitts of one of their teams' forwards. Very often a part of a lot of inside 50 entries, both of them. But one thing Murphy does that Bate isn't doing currently is kicking goals.

I think Bate's playing style is highly underrated. He's almost always one of our best at getting the ball into our forward arc and today he did that again (involved in four passages of play in which the ball entered our forward 50). He doesn't make too many costly errors (today, none of his mistakes resulted in opposition scores, although one of them did result in an easy rebound from our forward 50). Nowhere near his best, though, as we know, and he wasn't able to trouble the scorers either, if I recall. Certainly not worth dropping, in my opinion.

Despite that, he wasn't responsible for much else. To win a game of footy, you have to get the ball within scoring range and the first step in this process is to get the ball out of your opponent's scoring range. That's a defender's job. Out of all the times today that our defenders did that, Frawley was a part of three. But his disposal today actually caused the ball to become turned over resulting in three entries back into our d50. Thus, his net impact in removing the ball from the place in which his opponents were able to score was zero. So under these criteria, that would rank him in the bottom two in our team. But he has been good in the past, so I guess he'll probably come good again next week.

For me, Newton was pretty bad today. He didn't score much, and was responsible for a couple of turnovers i50 (one in the first quarter and one in the second) and wasn't nearly creative enough to compensate. I'd drop him for Martin/Sylvia next week.

What should I do to fix it? Petterd was responsible for 1 turnover resulting in Collingwood rebounds in the first quarter, one that cost us a goal in the second quarter, 3 turnovers i50 in the 3rd quarter and totally went missing in the last, according to me.

INS: Sylvia, Garland (if fit), Martin OUTS: Frawley, Newton, Dunn Now hear me out. Frawley had no influence on getting the ball out of defensive 50. Despite the fact that he really didn't cost us anything on the scoreboard, he wasn't nearly attacking enough to hurt the opposition at all. Newton was also terrible. Again, he had no impact on the game for long periods of time and was the cause of some turnovers inside 50. We need players who are able to keep the ball in there so we can score. Newton didn't do this. Dunn. Sure, he did some good things and scored a couple of goals, but he was also one of the biggest offenders when it came to turning the ball over in the forward 50. We do too much work on getting it in there to have it all undone by a couple of non-marks or poor kicks. Scully also played poorly, but he's very much in our future, so I wouldn't drop him yet.

Apparently nobody is interested, but it seems I can't tell the difference between Bruce and McDonald and Macdonald, who I didn't even think was playing. Accordingly, probably half the points I gave to Bruce and some of Juniors should have been given to Macdonald. Oops. So, in all, Macdonald may have been one of our best today

6. Davey 5. McDonald 4. Grimes 3. Moloney 2. Green 1. Jamar

I'll be going to the footy today as I'm sure most of you (other than our favourite ankles country member) will too. But today, I thought I'd try something a bit different in my analysis of the game. Today, I'll be writing down the names and numbers of (and adding or subtracting a score to or from) each player in the following way: 1. -1/-6 points from a player who is responsible for a loss in possession (either through poor skills or by giving away a free kick) which results in the opposition scoring. The point deduction will be equal to the points scored (-1/-6 points for a behind or a goal, respectively). 2. -4 points from a player who is responsible for a loss of possession inside our forward 50. 4 points is the average between 1 point and 6 points. Considering changing this to whatever our scoring average is (ie our total score divided by the number of scoriing shots). 3. +4 points to a player who touches the ball in a passage of play in which the ball leaves our defensive 50. 4 points is the average between 1 point and 6 points. Considering changing this to whatever the opponents' scoring average is (ie their total score divided by the number of scoriing shots). 4. +1/+6 points to a player who touches the ball in a passage of play in which we score. Any thoughts on this? My reasoning is that since nothing matters in a game of footy other than who scores the most points, whoever does the most/least in this regard is by default the most/least valuable player. Comments will be really really appreciated.I'll post my results, for anyone who's interested, after the game. ..........NAME.................Q1..........Q2..........Q3..........Q4..........TOTAL 1. Warnock..................9.............4............15..........-10.............18 2. Jones.......................-4...........-4...........10...........4................6 3. Bartram...................4.............8............-1............14..............25 6. Bate........................4.............0.............14...........0...............18 8. Frawley...................4.............-4............4.............-4..............0 9. Trengove................10...........-1.............10...........-8.............11 13. McKenzie..............0.............0...............12..........6...............18 14. Dunn....................2..............0..............-8.............11...........5 15. Petterd................9..............6...............-8.............6.............13 16. Grimes.................20............16.............-4.............28...........60 18. Green..................8..............0...............6...............30...........44 22. Moloney..............-1.............24.............24..............3............50 23. McDonald............20............20.............27..............1............68 29. Newton...............2..............6...............-4...............0............4 31. Scully..................0..............-9..............8................0.............-1 32. Bruce..................-2.............8...............16..............10...........32 36. Davey.................13............12.............20..............26...........71 40. Jamar..................-13..........0................24.............16...........27 42. Spencer..............0..............0................4................6............10 43. Bennell...............-6.............0................9................8............11 44. Bail.....................11............-4...............8................12..........27 47. Strauss..............0..............12...............6................6............24 OVERALL RANKINGS (BEST TO WORST) 36. Davey (71) 23. McDonald (68) 16. Grimes (60) 22. Moloney (50) 18. Green (44) 32. Bruce (32) 40. Jamar / 44. Bail (27) 3. Bartram (25) 47. Strauss (24) 1. Warnock / 6. Bate / 13. McKenzie (18) 15. Petterd (13) 9. Trengove / 43. Bennell (11) 42. Spencer (10) 2. Jones (6) 14. Dunn (5) 29. Newton (4) 8. Frawley (0) 31. Scully (-1)

During the Collingwood match on Seven TWO this morning, I noticed a comment by Leigh Matthews on Travis Johnstone (the only player from that game still playing in the AFL today) that was interesting. Leigh said, after a much more cleanly-shaven Trav kicked a nice goal, something along the lines of "well, he was taken with the first overall pick in the Draft last year, so obviously he's rated as the best player available in the country," as if that was actually something that would be news to people. This just suggests to me that in the twelve years since, the Draft - and the entire competition's focus upon it - has absolutely sky-rocketed. Nowadays, every man and his dog knows about the Draft and who was taken when. In fact, there is almost this link between players not taken when people thought they should have been and the players that were taken instead (Judd/Hodge, Tambling/Franklin, Watts/Naitanui, to name a few) that I can guarantee wouldn't have meant a thing back in the late '90s. So I'm sure that this disparity between '98 and 2010 is also present, to a lesser degree, between '06 and now.

I was watching some rugby early this morning (I mean really early) while waiting for the Collingwood Melbourne Footy Flashback and thought that a bit of rugby might help Bruce and a few other of our low-contact players to get used to physical pressure. The thing about rugby that I'd like Brucey to master is the idea that sometimes, physical contact is inevitable. One of Bruce's problems seems to be his "handball so they don't tackle me approach." I think that there is merit, as long as it's not going to cause a holding the ball decision against him, in sometimes taking a hit rather than handballing when no other option is available. Because often Bruce will create an "option" with his handball "skills" that really isn't an option at all, but rather a fobbing off of the hit that he is going to take onto another player who might be even less ready for contact than Bruce is. Just a thought I had in my sleep-deprived mind last night.

One game made a massive difference last year and we all know it. There is no benefit to switching players around willy-nilly this year other than to find out more about where a player is suited to. I would argue that there should be only very few players on our list whose best position is still not known by Bailey. I'd like him to conduct a survey of his players and find out what they think, if he doesn't know by now. Putting someone in a position that they are comfortable in and in which they think they play their best footy can really empower them to "own" that position. I'm certainly not saying "stick everyone in a position and leave them there come hell or high water," though.

Holy crap, you'll never guess what! I just witnessed Melbourne win a game of footy.

Exactly. Every single passage of play in that package included at least one player not playing today.

Amnesia according to WYL. Apparently, at the start of each year, they forget how utterly hopeless they were the year before.