Its Time Again

His methodology is to rank Mids, Backs, Forwards & rucks. Top ranked gets 18 points worst gets 1. Add the all up to get overall ranking. His rankings for us Mids 8th Backs 13th Forwards 14th. Ruck 2nd. Add them up and get 39pts equal with Dogs at 7th, Fun exercise to do our own rankings. Our midfield ranked 8th for clearances and 5th for i50's this season. We know how many were effected by bad preseasons. Add a newly fit Petracca, AVB Langdon & Tomlinson to that midfield. I rank it 4th. Am I overrating a May & Lever led backline. I don't think so. I expect our backline to be right up there next year. My rank 4th. Forwards remain a worry. Don’t know what ranking was in 2018 when they were fit but we scored the most points for the comp. With the rest of the team firing and a fully fit forward line and remembering it was the highest scoring forward line in 2018 maybe 6-8 with good delivery. Ruck 2nd. Says Gawny better tap ruckmand but Grundy gets first because does more around the ground. My rankings add up to 60 which ranks us 4th.

Absolutely loving the journey this thread is going on. I've never ever resorted to Dr Google so many times in a 2 page thread.

They truly will be golden calves if they fully recover.

May the God of Calves smile on him and us.

Can’t believe it. I was coming down to see Friday’s session. Probably the only one I’ll be able to see this summer.

Maxy should try something really risque and do the opposite to what he's got. Get that cut for the chin and leave his head with a mop. Time to change it up.

You might be right. I might be right. Your prerogative to call BS. It's that time of the year. Your opinion's no less BS than mine. He might be getting specialist calf treatment for all I know. Or he might not. Who knows.

Hardtrack. I put up my hand. I have just done the biggest derailment of a thread I've ever been involved with. Yay!

Don't know why we didn't think of that before. Last year's venue at the Entertainment Quarter would have been perfect. There's no games up here in 2020 so hopefully 2021. Will pass the idea on to Sally T.

I will definitely make it to one of your gigs but not this weekend. I'm on crutches. Having a final Op next week which ends 3months of being virtually house bound. Old footy injury gave up the ghost. I'm heading to Old Melbourne town the same day and will be down there just in time to make it to the final training session in Melbourne next Friday. Will be there with a Jack Trengove type kneeling scooter. Hoping to take Saty on for a few laps of Goschs. Had a quick look at some of your YouTube clicks. Love your work!! Mate we need you to get the band together at our pre game NSW Demons events. Alas no games in 2020. Hopefully 2021.

I doubt the AFL would dictate what the training comprises. I'm sure the players that went away would have been doing some training around whatever else they were doing. Club might have decided full time training was more important at this point. On a sidenote HT are you getting the smoke I'm getting. I'm in the East near the coast. My backyard's full of billowing smoke. Never seen anything like it before. I can hear the boats on the harbour are having to use fog horns so must be so thick there they can't see through it. Wow, just had a look at a webcam. The harbour is completely blanketed. If anyone's interested here's a live webcam. You can barely see the Sydney Harbour bridge. https://webcamsydney.com/

MFC article on Club site said Tomlinson Langdon & Brown were there too.

If that's the case it gives you an idea of how tough his position is this summer. Allowed to train with us but treated as an outsider and not part of the team. Then on 6 March, if he makes it he's suddenly part of the team he's been treated as an outsider to. Seems very short sighted and culturally backwards. Wouldn't you want to give him the best possible chance of success on and off the field. I would have thought being made to feel a part of the Club was more likely to do that than being made to feel that you're not part of the Club.

Amazing how people can look at the same player and see such utterly different things. I’ll never forget that break out game at the Cats lair when at a critical stage he out ran his opponents and bobbed up in the forward line and kicked two match winning goals. That was good ANB. Unfortunately he’s become my most frustrating player. He has a technique for picking up loose balls especially in the forward line where he slides in and falls over and gets caught every time. If he doesn’t do that and snaps on goal he almost inevitably misses usually after ignoring someone in a better position. Or he passes in general play and turns it over. Oh for the original ANB. In 2018 he improved his kicking. This year it was back to its worst. Unfortunately he has not come on. He’s gone backwards badly. Personally as much as I hope he turns it around I can’t see it happening. How many years do you give him living in hope.

Thanks for that. Still not great news that his back is still an issue. Being a long term back sufferer I know how debilitating they can be

Bad news. This killed most of his pre season last year and apparently hampered him throughout most of this season. I couldn't understand why they wouldn't have rested him in this dud season to make sure he was over it. Maybe rest doesn't help. Sounds like training and playing doesn't either.

I've seen billboards advertising a cure for that problem.

I would hazard to guess this also reflects game plans. Bulldogs not a high marking team so have a game plan based more around keeping control of the ball with short passes to close targets where they can retain control of the ball. Whereas to a lesser extent Tigers kick longer and we kick longer kaos balls to contests. GWS are more of short kicking team as well. Not sure it's accurate they were top 3 worst kicking teams. Stats are only ever as useful as how people choose to use them.

Swans did OK in 2012 winning a Premiership. They went out straight after it and got a biomechanics specialist purely to work on the squads kicking skills. He was using all sorts of far out methods. He was filming everything they did and each part of their kicking techniques and working on improving them. They recruited a bloke a year later who was going OK. He'd won a couple of premierships. He had a weird kicking action when he arrived where he went right out on an arc. They retrained his kicking style after he arrived. He's going OK. He's now 7th on the all time goals list and about to pass 1000. His name is Lance Franklin. In theory you're right that you might expect 18 year olds to arrive with perfect kicking skills. But that's a fantasy. At least they have finally appointed a resource to focus on kicking technique. It's awesome he's gone out there to find whatever it takes to get the improvement. Instead of being upset about it you should be wrapped the Club's doing something about it. In 2018 we were the best converters inside 50. We're not miles away. Cheer up. Look on the bright side of life. Things are being done.

The term "kill the fatted calves" comes to mind. Calves to the slaughter.

For anyone like me who is just wondering a bit about him being 171cm. Anthony McDonald Tipungwuti is also 171cm. He seems to go alright. Just in case you, like me, incorrectly thought Kozzie should be categorized as a "small" forward just because he is only 171cm. Here's an interesting quote by Jay Clark on 171cm AMT, in his article today about Brown being selected. "Essendon’s forward line is already stacked with gun mid-sized goal kickers including Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti.........."

There's no restriction anymore. They can play whenever and as often as you want them to.

Out of interest can anyone explain why we didn't pick him in the Rookie draft where we had several picks and didn't use them and then just a few days later pick him through the SSP as a rookie. On the face of it a bit strange. I thought the point of the SSP was to have players train through the whole summer so you could make a decision on them on 6 March.

Haven’t changed my favourite players on here for a few years. Just did an addition. I’m having visions of Cyril in attack and Byron in defence. Excuse me for a moment. I’ll be back in a little while.

Seriously hope you’ll still be giggling in 4 years time and we’re all very happy campers.