Vipercrunch

Apologies if there is a thread for this already, but is anyone else really concerned where the game is going after the 3 week suspensions dished out tonight for Sicily and Mansell?  I don’t like Mansell and am pretty ambivalent about Sicily, but I think both are incredibly stiff to get any punishment at all for those incidents.  Mansell made a self preservation action at the very last moment to protect himself, and there is no way Sicily should be held responsible for that tackle.  Accidents happen and the game seems to be getting itself lost trying to eliminate them.

It looked like Trac was pointing to the area of the ground that Cox stood over McVee giving him a mouthful after taking a mark in the 2nd quarter, so maybe Trac was reminding him of that ordinary moment.

Not sure why, perhaps it’s the last time we had a 10 day break and really needed a statement win, but I’m hoping for a similar performance to that of round 15 last season when we smashed the Lions at the G.  It was one of our best performances of the year (up there with round 20 against Freo and round 23 again against the Lions) but unfortunately it was far better than the form we showed in the finals.  Now, as we are passed the half way mark of the season, things really gets interesting and we get to see if we truly have learned the lessons from last season and can correctly get everything peaking when it matters. So I hope tomorrow is a statement game, but only a hint of what’s to come.

Expected scores currently is 72.5 to 61.6.  Interesting.

Just now, Demonland said:

Another free directly in front of goal.

The last 10 minutes has been appalling.  It’s almost crisis time for the AFL.

Horrible quarter of footy this.  Very poor skills. 

2 minutes ago, YearOfTheDees said:

That looks like a free but isn't a free, it's just guessing.

If the headband didn’t come off it wouldn’t have been a free.

Another team playing poorly after a bye.  Defies logic really but the numbers are really stacking up now.

Was it just my son and I that thought the Freo player threw himself at the ground to win the sling tackle free?

40 minutes ago, hemingway said:

I can’t help be reminded of the old saying, “lies, damned lies and statistics.” 

This new data is interesting but I am not sure whether we can come to any strong conclusions 

Does it have any real meaning? 

I suppose we are often surprised to watch a live game and then look at game day statistics. The game day stats provide relevant information that can be a reality check on what we have observed with our own eyes but rarely provide definitive meaning or conclusions. 

They do provide useful information when reviewing the team or individual performance but only as part of a broader review that takes account of context and other factors. 

The good thing about stats is that they are unbiased.  So many supporters make up their mind about a player very quickly and nothing will change their mind after that. They will forever view that player through the lens of that early prognosis.

I once new a Collingwood supporter who told me he refused to go to games against Richmond because their supporters were feral.  I laughed and laughed. 

This guys had the perfect description for the Collingwood Football Club.  A cancerous polyp on the anus of humanity.

1 hour ago, Brownie said:

DeGoey will be loading extra HAARD for the next three weeks

  This sort of loading perhaps?

On 6/5/2023 at 6:36 PM, Fanatique Demon said:

😀 Just as long as you remember the loading theory ought also to apply to other teams we play. Looking forward to tomorrow’s episode. Cheers, Binman

It will only apply to some other teams we play.  There is no way Carlton is in a loading phase right now.  Very slight chance Freo was when we played them.  Collingwood will be definitely loading, perhaps even harder than we are right now given our respective records.  I will be hoping for a win this week, but will take very little away from the result as far as a form line for what may occur later in the year.

2 hours ago, Bystander said:

No White, Munro, Grey, Buntine, Steele.

Are you saying they wouldn't make the Casey team or you are just putting listed players in their best spots ?

I'm with you Bystander.  Depending on team balance, I think at least 3 of those Casey listed players would get in ahead of some MFC listed players.

I think the number of talls we play in our backline for any given game depends on the style of forward entries we suspect our opponents will use.  Most teams have been preferring to prioritizse getting the ball to ground to negate our intercept marking, so more often than not this year we have only played 2 tall backs (typically May and Lever when both available). 

Carlton, with Curnow and McKay, were always going to try the aerial route which is why we went with 3 talls.  I suspect Collingwood will be more inclined to be happy with messy entries and getting them to ground, so I think it will be back to just May and Lever.  So for mine it will Tomlinson going out, replaced by Hibberd and with Gus and Rivers playing more minutes back than they have been recently to cover for Bowey.  Our backline will contain 7 (May, Lever, Hibbo, Gus, Rivers, Salem and McVee) which is back to our premiership backline size.

In:  Oliver, Hibbo

Out: Bowey, Tomlinson

15 minutes ago, DubDee said:

So, only 6 days to go (!!).  What are the changes?

In Hibberd and Oliver

Out Bowey (if concussed) and .... Sparrow?

possibility of Schache/BB coming in for Smith

Them losing Sidebottom and De Goey is huge. The team with the most senior composed players will win imo. On the big stage, who turns it over, who holds their nerve

I reckon we'll win this!!

You're kidding right?  Sparrow has been fantastic since returning from his week suspension.  No way he misses.

Chandler, Spargo or Tomlinson are names off the top of my head that will miss before Sparrow does.

3 minutes ago, Sydney_Demon said:

@WheeloRatings has premiership odds for each ladder position as:



Assuming no home ground advantage, each team has equal ability, etc. etc. (i.e. a 50/50 chance for each game) the odds are 18.75% for positions 1-4, 6.25% for positions 5-8. I know Western Bulldogs came from 7th in 2016, but for 22 of the past 23 years (basically the current finals system) the winner has come from the top 3. Whichever way you look at it it's indisputable that there's a huge difference between 4th & 5th. I know there's been a lot of rubbish written over the past 2 years that Richmond can win from anywhere and the same thinking this year for Geelong. Maybe they're exceptional teams but any team from outside the Top 4 has the odds stacked against it.

I would love to know why any useful analysis of chances of sucsess would make those assumptions.  We spend an entire season to put the teams in order, so why do this sort of analysis with them as equal?  1st playing 4th at home clearly has a better than 50:50 chance of winning, as does 5th playing 8th.

AFL.com only have records going back to 2012, but in 7 of those 11 seasons (64%), at least one team outside the top 4 has made the PF, so ladder position after the H&A is clearly not the be all and end all.  Last year we finsihed 2nd but our fitness and form was way off and we went out in straight sets.

25 minutes ago, binman said:

Well, you wouldn't necessarily get accountants and physiotherapists - except for the nonprofessional roles (realistically three full time professional per game may not be financially viable, so you'd still need the highly skilled amateurs - who by the way i think get paid pretty well for every game they officiate).

But accountants and physiotherapists aren't the only people with the skills set to be excellent umpires.

My son was pretty handy junior basketballer. But was never going to make it at the elite level. So, he went down the refereeing path and jumped up through the grades pretty quickly.

He had a mentor from Basketball Australia, who invest significant resources into this area, who had been a FIBA ref at the Olympics and world championships and really encouraged him to think about the opportunities refereeing provided (international travel, NBL and the big one - professional NBL ref). 

My son ultimately decided to stop reffing, which was unfortunate as he became an excellent ref, in large part because of the training and pathways BA provided.

Anyone who has been at high stakes basketball game at any decent level knows how crazy and intense the pressure is. The best refs thrive in this environment - but only with the right support and training.

My son is never going to be an accountant or physiotherapist, but if he stayed the course, he would have become an excellent ref. If there was a path to become full time professional AFL umpire he may well have pursued that option.

As would many young people - if you love sport and want to be involved at the highest level why not make umpiring a career? 

I see this as a reason to invest more heavily into the support structures around umpires and the pathways, not in making the umpires themselves full-time.  Perhaps having more full time umpire coaches/mentors and analysts is the way to go.  

I'm almost certainly alone with this, but I think a team with a talented list like ours can win the flag from outside the top 4 if they get their preparation right.  I actually think with the current finals structure, there is very little difference finishing 4th to finishing 5th and 6th.  Nailing the preparation fitness wise, being in form and having the right players available is more important than ladder position.  I certainly won't be giving up hope of a flag if we don't make top 4.

Another way to improving umpiring standards would be to rip off the band-aid and finally get rid of the centre bounce.  It really won’t be missed, I promise.  It will no longer be a reason some umpires can’t umpire at the highest level.  It will no longer cause anxiety for umpires who mess a few up.  It will allow them to keep their heads up to see what’s going on.  Reduce the radius of the centre circle by a metre or two and just throw the thing up.

17 minutes ago, old55 said:

It's not "like any organisation" because umpires have a limited career span and there's only one employer world wide

The umpires themsleves have said plenty of times that they don't want to go professional and they don't see how full time hours could be filled and can't see how it would actually improve things.

The best thing to imrpove the quality of umpiring is make rule changes to reduce the ambiguity of decisions.  The pushing in the back in marking contests is currently a mess and is incredibly hard to umpire.  It wasn't that way when the hand in the back rule was in existience.  

When the rules commitee come to look at possible rule changes, one of the main things they should consider is whether it would make the game easier or harder to umpire.

And also, start properly punishing players who stage for frees!!!

Ugly win, but we were by far the better side.   I have been increasingly worried that some of our wins earlier in the season came more from moments of individual brilliance rather than our system, so I was particular pleased to see a system based win.  We now have to work on our polish otherwise we won't get past Collingwood on Monday.

Good chance it's been posted already, but expected scores had us winning very easily.

11 hours ago, dees189227 said:

So hang on he hasn't told the players yet but Tom Morris announced it. 

Who leaked the info to him. 

I'm guessing there are some phone calls going on tonight 

You'd reckon Hardwick would be absolutely filthy this got out.  He didn't want his players to find out this way and to have someone close to him run to Tom Morris of all people, must be particularly galling.

What Port did required a response, but "flying the flag" is a notion from a bygone era.  All it does if give away feekicks, possible reports and definetely distracts us from what actually counts, which is winning the contested ball or applying immense pressure on them if they have it.  Leave the umpires to sort out these [censored] tactics (which they did to a certain extent), play harder within the rules and win the game.  Then those nonsense tactics will stop.

Best guess to where Petty will be playing @kev martin?