Its Time Again

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, .

Hope that million dollars isn't in coins or we won't be seeing any of them any time soon. They'll be, as they say, swimming with the fish.

This is amazing. Thank you so much. Reinforces my view that the departure of Petracca and Oliver are highly overrated by 4th Estate experts outside the club. Some surprising results there within our team and sobering results compared to the wider comp. Surprised to see that Rivers kicks i50 have been so poor and Melk's are such a standout. Will be very interested to hear from track watchers if they pick up on any work which is obviously been done to improve this.

Hi Andrew, thanks for all your work all season. The departures of Petracca and Oliver have pretty much universally in the press been seen to be having a significant negative impact on how the team goes going forward. Personally I'm not so sure. If we'd had just 6 better kicks i50 that resulted in goals we would have been 6 wins better and 6 better kicks in another three games and we would have been 9 wins better which would have put us in equal 6th. To get an idea of how much we are going to miss them I thought it would be great to know who were the top 5 or top 10 players who delivered the ball i50 for us this year and how many of their i50's were retained. I remember seeing a stat at one stage that Trac had delivered the ball 40 times and only 3 of those entries were retained. It would also be interesting to see the same stats for say the top 10 in this stat in the league. And anything else around these stats that you think are relevant. Many thanks in anticipation.

JT mentioned in describing Taylor before the draft that he's not the centre forward player they are also searching for, that midfielder that can go forward, but he turns defence into offence. So obviously best available at the pick not needs based.

I'm hoping that the work Goody put in on the transition game isn't wasted and they will pick it up quicker than if that work had never been done. Of course there will be differences but fingers crossed. And I'm also hoping that the new players bring greater skills which will help decrease the turnovers already. I'm not even thinking when we'll be contenders again. I'm just hoping for some significant improvements in style of play so at least I can stomach watching them again.

Must say this is my one worry for next season. A fast transition gameplan depends on kicks hitting their targets if they don't the turnovers will kill you. Goody started the transition gameplan over the past two preseasons but the turnovers killed us until he gave up on it mid season 2024 and suffered through it this season where it started to show signs of getting better. Hopefully with a couple of the chief culprits out of the team and a few new skilled players in we will be pleasantly surprised next season but if they don't fix missing targets I fear it will be another grim year.

Reminds me of Robert "Bones" McGhie the Richmond '73&'74 Premiership player. Had tats when tats weren't popular. Tough as nails, agile and very skilled. Famous for having a smoke on the ground during the breaks. Like Crackers Keenan and many others in that era. He looks the goods.

@old dee I wouldn't get too worked up about him going through to the rookie list. I would say after we used pick 30 every club knew if they tried to pick him we'd use up a late pick for him so there was no point after that pick. Irrespective of that plenty of great players have come from the rookie list including Judd McVee who we just got pick 24 for. Here's some Geelong Premiership players from 2022 who came from the rookie list. Blicavs, Atkins, Close, Zac Guthrie, Henry Stengle, Tom Stewart would have if not injured, Jack Henry, Tyson Stengle, Max Rooke in 2011. I'd take another Blicavs and I can see that potential in him except he's probably a better footballer than Blicavs when he started.

Really don't think you have to justify your great relationship with the players on here Ghosty. We are just glad you spread the love and pass it on here.

That's the most exciting quote I've read all pre season. As you say One Can Dream. I'll join that dream of yours if you don't mind.

I know highlights are tricky to form a opinion on but based on his I'm really surprised he didn't go top 30. I guess we see what we want to see but I thought his kicking was excellent. He does what I was taught a hundred years ago which is to stab pass short passes that stay low. Most of his kicks in the highlights hit targets. Whereas my one concern about Taylor's highlights is that he has one of those nasty kicks where the ball pops up high like Langdon. He appears to have that special burst of speed breaking out of packs that's gold. I guess we've seen plenty of players over the journey with highlight packages like this who don't have the necessary mongrel to get in and get the ball and stay involved for a full game. Tholstrup has started like this, he's just missing the will to charge in and get the ball. Hopefully it's coming in 2026. Perhaps that's the knock. We'll know soon enough. But on those highlights he looks like a top 10 pick not a rookie.

The draft rule is any player nominated as an FS and not taken in the draft can be automatically drafted as a rookie by the nominating team prior to the commencement of the rookie draft.

@Ghostwriter or anyone else. Does anyone know why CJ is on a modified program. I assume he's injured or his pre preseason wasn't good enough to start with the players. Any idea anyone. Thanks in advance

Got to say I find this really significant. Over the years I have read that many new coaches have a common fault of wanting to control everything from the beginning and they end up coming unstuck in many different ways because of it. I think this shows a great level of maturity and self confidence to let his assistants take control straight off on his first training day. It's a great sign. Apparently Scott gave his assistants a lot of trust and corresponding independence. I have heard that it was known in the coaching fraternity that Goody never did. I think it's fair to say we mostly don't have a clue how things work within the inner sanctum of the coaches and the club more widely. It's a complex dynamic nowadays and very important to find someone with the self confidence to manage it in the best way.

Hmmmm. I assume DH is your partner. Hope DH doesn't stand for D@ck Head! Might be something I get called at home from time to time by my significant other. Usually when losing my sh@t watching my beloved team ripping my heart out. Our dog always knew when I was watching the footy and would wait when she thought I wasn't looking and bolt as far away as possible. But anyway. I digress. Go Dees. Best day of the year.

I thank Tom Scully. He taught me a valuable football lesson. I was apoplectic at the time when I first heard the news our no. 1 pick could walk out on us after just two seasons. But life moves on. The sun came up the next day and 22 players walked out on the field the following season. He became Hogan. Hogan became May. May became an integral Premiership hero. Scully had 1 to 2 good seasons and otherwise was a very ordinary pick1. No players who walk out on our club are worth getting worked up about. We'll get replacements and move on. Thanks for the lesson Mr Scully.

I live in eternal optimism that if you throw enough darts at the board you will hit it eventually. Surely on the law of averages we are due for a hit. Smith finally cracked a best 23 spot just before he destroyed his career but I'm hoping for more from Berry. Earlier and better. We can but dream.

@red and blue forever thanks so much for all the work you put into this. I really appreciate it. I often refer to it. It's a great resource. 11 outs this year. More than any other team. I can see a potential for another 9 or 10 next season. As bing181 says potentially nearly half the team in two years. The the new coach is stamping his authority before he's done a minute of coaching. Now for the on ground results. Reminiscent of the clean out under Roosy. Who would have thought at the end of 2021 that was going to happen. Is it already only 12 left from the Premiership team.

I have to confess I have hardly watched him but remember some nasty turnovers in Hawks late games this year so I was super unhappy about this but based on the suggestion on here I just watched rd9 this year v Hawks. I have to say having watched that I get this. What stood out for me in that game was how well he set up off the ball and kept presenting for outlets in chains running the ball out of defence. The single thing that has stood out to me about the Cats is how well they set up behind and in front of the ball. I expect to see that as an early standout under King’s coaching and CJ did it very well in that game. He looks made for it. His disposal was fine in that game. Now I get it. He’s not top 10 but he’s solid and I reckon is made for how we are going to play under King.