Its Time Again

Looking at the last three years from this week to the end of the membership period memberships have gone up 9,000 to 10,000 so as our current membership is just over 52,000 looks like our total this year will be around a bit over 62,000. Hopefully with the team starting to play exciting footy and fingers crossed a few unexpected wins against fancied teams it will climb a bit higher than that.

To my eye another reason for the more accurate kicking is the leading patterns are into areas creating shots from much better positions. For some seasons Goody was training them to lead out to the boundary in case the opposition got the ball so it was harder for them to rebound from the boundary. Whereas now the philosophy seems to be lets put ourselves in a better position to score and with quick ball movement and separation we don't have to worry about the opposition getting the ball and clearing too easily.

I'm guessing that what he is actually doing is dodging in towards the corridor to be more directly in front of goals and reduce the angle to create a higher percentage shot on goal.

Thanks so much for this update. Makes really interesting reading. Standout is the metres gained from handballs compared to last year and the retention i50. One other suggestion on formatting would be to switch the 2026 and 2025 stats so the 2026 ones are right next to the other current stats and the 2025 ones come after just as a comparison if you want that.

Hey @WheeloRatings thanks again for this awesome work. I am wondering if it would be possible to add in last year's averages to some of the stats so we can get a gauge of the change with the new regime and game style. Many thanks in advance.

Based on the fact that we were told there would be a significant announcement at the AGM which was 3 months ago and it didn't happen and Steven Smith's comment at the AGM that the club people involved were learning a lot about politics, joining the dots there seems to be a pretty serious glitch going on in the chance of this happening. Based on past comments the Caulfield stakeholders seem to be onboard so I'd be guessing the bankrupt Victorian State Govt don't want to contribute. Possibly there are other stakeholders as well that aren't contributing. First time in this process I've begun to wonder if this is actually going to happen.

French

Only 10 months to go. He's almost here. 🫣

Thanks Hardtrack but @WheeloRatings deserves all the credit for that post.

Hmmm!!!! Are you talking about the Petracca who had 98 kicks i50 excluding shots on goal of which "9" were marked which was ranked 374th in the entire league. 37 were retained which ranked him 331st in the entire league. It also far more relevantly ranked him 18th within the MFC for percentage of i50 kicks retained. And he had 30 i50 kicks than anyone else in the team. Stop and have a think about that. 18th. Keep in mind at least 6 are backmen and almost never kicking i50. How about his goal scoring. 18 goals 24 behinds and approx 15 out on the fall. So 18 goals 39 misses. Don't get me wrong. I loved Trac and think he is the most dynamic player I have ever seen play for MFC and I choke on my weeties to say this but including Robbie who I saw play his first and last games and most inbetween. Robbie was pure poetry in motion but he wasn't an explosive contested beast with so many tricks and Trac will always have one of the greatest GF performances of all time. However Trac won't go down as one of the most elite players of all time because of his lack of effectiveness. Think Robert Harvey. I'm guessing he will end up with another Premiership and if he starts hitting targets i50 and kicking goals accurately I'll agree with you. But he hasn't done that for us for 5 years. Not to mention the off field issues. Someone else is going to take his place in the team and I am very confident at the end of the year they will have delivered more i50 kicks marked and retained than the star they are replacing. Same goes for Steele replacing Clarry. Have a look at Langford's retention stats i50 they are incredible. His percentage retention was 42.9% compared to Trac's 37.8%. Wheelo supplied an interesting stat on average equity gained from kick i50 which is more nuanced because it includes things like . how the kicker won possession (i.e. proxy for pressure); the location where the kick was taken; the location where the kick ended up; and who took next possession and how. Langford ranked first in the team, Petracca ranked 17th. I'm sure Langford will play more in the guts but there are plenty of candidates for that kick i50 who I am sure will do better than Petracca. I couldn't watch a lot of games last season mainly because of how Petracca and Oliver were delivering the ball i50. Our key issue. We're not going to be worse for their departures we're going to be better. Virtually no one in the fourth estate has worked this out. Thank you to Wheelo for all these great stats. If you want to see them in more detail go over to the Stats Files. He compiled a list of them on Petracca and Oliver and how they compare to other MFC players and other players in the league. It would have been sobering reading if they were still here. Onwards and Upwards Go Dees

Good point. I revisited the Tholstrup draft and if you look at the players that came after him we didn't miss anyone except for Logan Morris at 31. I love how our drafting and list management team have managed the draft picks the past few years. It's all about what you end up with not what picks are worth. If there aren't players you rate then the value of picks alters. The points scores are irrelevant if you give up a lot of picks to move up but weren't going to use the later picks because you didn't rate who was there. We actually moved back to get Kossie but picked someone like Latrelle and Tholstrup because obviously the players after them weren't rated as highly by our guru. I think people have gone too early on Tholstrup he hasn't had a consistent chance to get his act together. Let's hold off having that conversation till the end of this season.

Sorry I don't get Leb. How does Windsor end up as Leb.

No culture problems at that Club. Only ours.

It can't be that hard.

Wonder if Gawny requested Matthews be his ruck opponent. Good confidence booster which as we all know Maxy desperately needs in the ruck, .