old55

They were boasting that leading up to last year's finals too. Then Pendles broke his leg and the wheels came off.

Err ... Matthew Kreuzer???

Swan's not slow. Ball can replace and exceed O'Bree. Pendlebury is their best player. Ball fits with their contested style - it's like asking what does Jude Bolton add to the Swans. I think Colingwood can win the flag and quite frankly I couldn't give a rat's if they do - I only care about us winning it in a few years time.

Genuine flag threat - they've gained Jolly and Ball, they missed Pendlebury badly last final series, they have a lot of young players who will be better under their excellent coaching system and resources and they've lost virtually nothing - Rocca made no contribution last year. Prepare ye, they're well over the odds at $12 and we may well have to put up with another summer like 1991.

Goodwin (33), McLeod (33), Edwards (33) and Burton (31) are still key members of Adelaide's best 22 and are all on the wrong side of their best. Andy Otten out for the season. Adelaide will keep the machine rolling with their system but they don't have the stars to win the flag. Guaranteed to make the 8 and at $1.33 over 6 months you'll be hard pressed to find a better return anywhere. But wont win the flag.

Fantastic result - congrats to the site team! It opens an old chestnut - advertising. Particularly with the recent struggles with keeping the site alive. With this result we could position ourselves for Ad revenue. It could be split to cover the costs of running the site and what's left back to MFC. Personally a standard leaderboard Ad on every page wouldn't bother me at all if it led to the greater good.

Experienced ruckmen seem to be available for trade every year. Depending on how Jamar, Spencer and Gawn go we could well be in the market in 2012. We'd want someone not older than 29 in 2012 so we get a few years through when we start to peak in 2014. We'd want someone mature enough to make an impact and that is often at 25+ for ruckmen. The candidates will already be in the system and aged 23-27 right now - someone industrious could make a list ...

At least Dappa's initial post was brief, be thankful for small mercies - my scroll wheel gets tired ...

Reasonable analysis - what you're saying is somewhere between 5 and 10 wins.

It's different because there's a resting gap in between his repeat sprints at clearances, as I understand it there's no rest in the beep. If he had an average beep he might make less contests but at the ones he does make his repeat sprint maybe just as effective. I'm not saying that he'd be just as good as he is with a great beep - the ability to make more contests is an advantage - more contests means more opportunity for game breaking clearances, but he still may be able to make those differentiating game breaking clearances, albeit less of them. Maybe the yo-yo test is a better measure because it apperently includes a "rest" interval - I'm not familiar with it. There's also a "repeat sprints" test at the draft camp which may measure Judd's edge better. What I'm really saying is that I'm unconvinced Judd's 3km time or his beep test measure why he's elite. It's a combination of contested ball winning, repeat sprint, and ability to make many contests. If you had to take one of those factors out of his game and retain effectiveness which one would you lose? Take out the repeat sprint and you've got McLean ...

What do the beep and 3km time trial really measure in terms of a football match? They probably measure the players ability to get to more contests through sustained hard running and this is an important advantage. But let's say Judd and McLean have roughly the same results on these tests and therefore can get to the same contests - it's what they do once they are there tthat make the difference - both have contested ball winning capability but it is Judd's explosive acceleration that is his differentiator. I'd go as far as to say that even if his 3km and beep were average he'd still be elite because of this. It's highly likely a tagger would need comparable beep and 3km to make the contests with his elite quarry. The final measure of beep and 3km may be match-long endurance - the ability to go hard late in quarters and in the 4th quarter, particularly when your tagger may be burnt. I'm not sure if the results in the beep and 3km directly correlate to these longer endurance requirements.

thanks for the report. AFAIK there's Josh Mahoney from Port Adelaide - forwards coach Mark Williams from Sandringham - midfield coach along with Scott West Sean Wellmann - defensive coach as mentioned Kelly O'Donnell - development coach

2010 Ladder position and record: 13th - 7 wins and 15 losses B & F Winner: Jamar Most Brownlow Votes: Sylvia Most Rising Star Votes: Scully Most Improved: Watts Our 5 most important players at the end of the season will be: Morton, Grimes, Watts, Scully, Trengove 2010 Premier: Dogs Wooden Spoon: Tigers Brownlow: McLean Coleman: Franklin

The thread title is "Best players by position" ? I agree it's just a discussion and your thread is a good topic for the off-season. Our 22s are quite similar but let's look at the differences: SW: White, Ingerson, Whelan, Yeats, S.Febey Old: P.Moore, Gerard Healey, Wilson, Woewodin, Tingay I'll go with mine thanks - 4 Brownlow medallists and Stephen Tingay. If it was a poker hand I think I'd have you covered. As you say - it's just an opinion ... Keyser - Neita is in my backline.

You need 3 mids on the bench for rotations or you'll get torched. Not sure what a "rover" and a "ruck-rover" are. With Ingerson on the bench I'm assuming your back 6 (from above) is Yeats, White, Whelan, B.Lovett, Hardeman, S.Febey so I'll accept with only 2 talls that you can slot Ingo in there to a free up a midfielder but none of Whelan, Yeats or S.Febey make my 22 as midfielders. If you push Jakovich into that forward line to free a runner then you've got Neitz, Jako, Lyon and Schwarz in the 18 - too top heavy. You've got one too many talls and one too many HBFs.

Great when he played but missed too many finals with injury. Was he diligent enough with his preparation?

I understand your pain with the omissions but in reality you can't run with that interchange of 2KPPs a ruck and an on-baller. It's a cop-out to put your 4 next best players on the bench - it is used positionally too for rotations. Interchange is 1 ruck and 3 onballers or 1 ruck, 2 on-ballers and a versatile tall - Jako and Ingo aren't that versatile, I could buy Lyon for example but he makes everyone's 18, possibly Sean Wight.

Off the top of my head ... at their best, to win the game with a balanced line-up: Tall Backs: Neitz, Hardeman, Wight Small Backs: A. Johnson, B. Lovett, Flower Mids: Alves, Wells, Tingay Rucks: Stynes, Viney, Wilson Tall Forwards: Lyon, Jakovich, Schwarz Small Forwards: Farmer, Gerard Healy, Davey I: P.Moore, G.Lovett, Woewodin, Yze Line-up generally lacking a bit of pace for today's game is my main concern. I'm sure there's good players I've missed. And good players unlucky to miss - e.g. White, Fowler, Rhode, Yeats. Barassi, Dixon etc a bit early for me.

So what's your assessment?

If we give him a 1 year extension now it means we have until mid 2011 to assess his coaching. In reality we're not going to find out if he's premiership coach material until we're actually challenging in 2013 onwards. The only thing we can find out in the meantime is if he can't coach us towards a flag. We're not going to know that by R10 next year but in a year and a half we'll have some solid evidence.

Port are standalone so his role is not going to be messed with by AFL players coming into the side, maybe that's a factor. If he was at Sandy he'd have to move aside when Luke Ball was playing -- oh wait a minute ...

And move to 11 next year?

Hughes already has 38 I believe.

There's 3 sets of rankings: 1. The "Big Footy" pre-draft rankings 2. The paid recruiters actual draft picks 3. The realised talent of the selected players in the AFL The real "Sliders" - players who play above their ranking and the real "Bolters" - players who don't live up to their draft ranking, wont be known for 4-5 years.

slider?