old55

I think Taj and Laurie are mids, but they're smaller than JJ.

From @Diamond Jim's post: Here's a good article listing the 202 players by club who are out of contract at season's end. I see it lists Schache who I thought had another year Melbourne (8): Luke Dunstan (unrestricted free agent), Michael Hibberd, James Jordon (unrestricted free agent), Jake Melksham (unrestricted free agent), Andy Moniz-Wakefield, Josh Schache, Deakyn Smith, Kye Turner. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/deal-or-no-deal-naming-the-202-afl-players-who-don-t-have-a-contract-for-2024-20230818-p5dxn7.html @Lucifers Hero when you get back from holiday you could update him in the table, thanks

I think it's probably better for us that McCartin is playing, we're going to be trialing new forward structures with Fritsch back and it's good to do it against the best opposition we can meet, particularly in what is most likely a dead rubber. It's unfortunate that it's at the dinky SCG which is hardly representative of the finals' venues we'll play at.

Wow I didn't realise how severe Eliza's injury and surgery were - spinal fusion: https://www.afl.com.au/aflw/video/1015978/i-had-to-learn-to-walk-again-elizas-road-back-from-spinal-injury Love her playing hope she has made a full recovery and can continue on with her great 2021 form.

The Age is saying Sydney is leading the chase for Ben McKay and their offer may be enough to trigger band one compensation ie pick 2 https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/money-talks-swans-offer-may-net-kangas-top-two-in-draft-20230821-p5dy8z.html

Rubbish. The place where we have a list hole is between Oliver at 26yo and Petty at 23y9m - we have no-one in that bracket and should be looking hard at FAs and pre-FAs to fill it.

Suns are $1.33 and North are $3.37 at Sportsbet according to the AFL site. Suns look surprisingly good value.

Votes are not published for the final two rounds. I think Butters gets votes vs Fremantle but Petracca doesn't against Hawthorn. That probably puts Butters into the lead.

From Titus' knee jerk reactions: "Now they get Damien Hardwick who has to fix the mess that is the Gold Coast Suns. He did fix Richmond, so he’s a chance, but he had Brendon Gale and Peggy O’Neal there and that Dustin Martin guy. Sometimes I think Hardwick left Richmond in a hurry because he knew he had this job sown up and wanted a holiday in between, but that’s just silly. " From the reader comments: "I think you’re wrong about Damian Hardwick - after all he didn’t need a break between Mrs Hardwick and the marketing chick."

Can we get Garry Lyon out there to be at the base?

Look we'll have to agree to disagree. I think that Spargo and Chandler have very similar attributes and play very similar roles, you think that Spargo offers something significantly different that enables him to do something significantly different. I haven’t seen any evidence in kms per game, heatmap or time trial results to verify this. There is tracker evidence that Chandler is quicker. FWIW I think if TMac was currently in the team he'd say that ANB and Chandler are playing those vital roles. There is no concrete evidence that Stafford was referring to only Kossie and Chandler as speed forwards. Let's disagree.

I've also heard the term "speed forwards" used by Stafford. Maybe Spargo is a speed forward like Chandler?

I don't care what you call it, Spargo and Chandler play the same role and ANB plays a different role from both of them. It's evident to my eyes and in their heatmaps.

Who failed to put their body on the line? I didn't see that happen.

No I don't accept that Chandler, Laurie and Spargo play a different role. That is my whole point and there is no evidence that they do in the heatmaps or anywhere else AFAIK. Chandler's heat maps show just as much activity in the densive half as Spargo's or Laurie's. I totally accept your premise that ANB plays a different role and that is apparent in his heatmap. Laurie and Chandler are both in the side at the expense of Spargo.

61 i50s to 39 i50s does not agree that Hawthorn "picked our zone apart for most of the game". And when they did manage to go inside 50 we intercepted - 69 intercepts to 63.

The heat maps for all players for all matches are available on the AFL Mobile App. I compared Spargo's and Chandler's heatmaps across the season and to my eye there is no significant difference. And Laurie's was not significantly different yesterday either.

I found player heat maps are available per match in the AFL mobile app by clicking on the player name in the Player Stats section. It also shows "% in defensive half" and "% in forward half" - I believe this is % possessions not % gametime. It doesn't show kms covered AFAIK. Some interesting information is available there.

I agree, in that top image there is no clear evidence that the ball misses the post. There is clear air between ball and post in the second front on image, but there is no clear air in the image from the side where the ball is behind the post. If you zoom in there is yellow pixelation all the way to the post. The goal umpire should absolutely have called for a review given the state of the game and the closeness of the call, but if those two pictures were the evidence then I could not have over-turned his call.

Look I think there's essentially only one poster who is guilty of that, and they cannot find fault with anything MFC does, so it's best to ignore them.

A someone pointed out earlier, I'm pretty happy that Grundy is not at a flag competitor this year and if he leaves at the end of the year, as seems likely, then I'd prefer for that to continue. To Geelong rather than Sydney for example.

Goldstein and Xerri are the only ruck pair in those 4 sets. Daniher, Thilthorpe and Miller are forward/rucks. Before Jackson? That was in 2019 - 4 years ago - the whole point is Max is 4 years older now. Look I get it - if we win the flag you'll be "we did it in spite of carrying Grundy" and if we don't it'll be "because we carried Grundy"

Very wise not to ignore the water that Max rafted on to full fitness at this time of year compared with last.

I think more likely Blake Howes hopefully.

Bit of early crow there boys? Seems Max is playing fit and well at this time of year compared with this time last year. I think that's got to do with the ruck minutes he's shared with Brodie throughout the year, ruck minutes we wouldn't have been able to confidently put into a third stringer. So there's that contribution from Brodie in the bank. I noticed that Mason Cox came on last night and played with a purpose to put his name in front of the Collingwood selectors for the first final, and we're likely to be their opponent. Are you completely happy for Max to go solo against Cameron and Cox if that's the way it turns out - particularly with Cox's tendency to try to hurt Max? What if we lose and face Carlton in week 2 with Pittonet and TDK vs a beaten up Max, again solo? There's a bit of water to flow under the bridge ...