layzie

Who's watched this video tape before?

Bad kicking is bad football. So when we kick 9.16 today let's not talk about how well we moved the ball and breated chances.

And this is why I had some questions about the Kozzie contract (despite the fact that he's probably the first that you would give this contract to right now). We've given out some mega deals lately and that extends to players like Jack Viney who needed needed a solid deal to commit. I felt that people looked at this with the belief that our list was set and ready to go again for years to come. I don't believe it is. We have a reasonable nucleus and many areas covered but we have some glaring holes and some areas covered for now but no succession plan at all. It's not like 4 or 5 years ago when keeping the gang together was all we needed to focus on, we need space there to be ready to throw at any out of contract player that can possibly help us, especially with compromised drafts coming up in future years. Big calls need to be made now and this is what happens when you back yourself into a corner with big contracts.

Asked this in the stats thread. Is it just speed of ball movement that this measures or does metres gained and effectiveness of chains come into it?

I know you're a fan of more games BBP and I wouldn't mind something to liven up the season for the lower clubs but there's still something just a bit off about this. Wish there was a way to trial it out other than the real thing.

Isn't this a bit like getting annoyed when Port drafted Dom Barry?

Stupid article. In other news crystal balls are $4.95 at Dimmys.

Talk about rewarding mediocrity. We've beaten two sides that will be in the 8 this year and we'd still be a shot.

Hearing a lot about ball movement stats lately and how we are ranking pretty high. Does this just measure speed or does distance and effectiveness come into play?

I left out that this was in 2021 but I don't think there's one person here that didn't know what I was talking about 😉

Absolutely, but it has to be both. The forward movement is one thing and it really astounds me that this is the same every week. However this year the one problem we haven't had is a supply of fresh meat produce because he have some A-grade butchers distributing from the middle. Binman really hit the nail on the podcast when he mentioned that these guys looked like above average or even decent kicks in 21-23 because the gameplan at the time allowed them accelerate away from the contest and launch it in where guys like T-mac and co would get it to ground for the mosquito fleet to get to work. Now these guys are being asked to hit guys on the chest with much more regularity and surprise it isn't working. I do agree though, too many of our forwards like to lead back to goal. It almost the forward structure version of the 'bees to the honeypot' issue that the midfield had.

I still want to see Viney played as a pressure forward and I hope it's not abandoned. Just because he had to go into the middle and helped us a lot when he did doesn't mean the experiment was a failure. 1 quarter is a useless sample size.

Mentioned this recently, but it saddens me that some winning streaks over teams were broken this year. North, Hawthorn St Kilda. These were ironically long term losing streaks that we needed to break to develop as a team that was genuinely going forward back around 2017/18. The last streak that I'm proud of isn't really a long one, but that Rd 10 game at Adelaide oval against the Crows was up there with one of the best I've watched. This game will forever be Clayton Oliver's finest hour for me. I am still absolutely awe shocked every time I think about the game he played that day. His acceleration out of the contest, the ball would always bounce directly up to him he literally had it on a string. And I just remember being so, so angry about losing this game. I like to think that this one point loss was the catalyst for our side binding together and going on to win the flag but I hated this loss so much that I personally swore that we wouldn't lose to Adelaide again ala Paul Chapman against the Hawks. Ok, in modern day AFL I'd take a 5-7 year stretch of beating them. Sadly this does not look to be. It would be nice to get a surprise but it's a tall order that would need to be a birthday and Christmas present. I'd rather get the new runners I've been putting off...

I was strong on fitness being a big factor in our first 5 losses this season. It's much more complex than that now. It's all of what you've said: personnel, holes in the list, poor coaching, psychology, decision making, execution of fundamental skills and yes probably still some fitness issues. It's a tangled web and I sure as hell am not going to try and fix it.

It really is a write off season now. No big calls will be made with an acting pres, CEO that starts later this year and a coach that probably won't know his future until the above get sorted. Put yourself in carbonite and set the timer to unfreeze in 6 months.

Yeah this. Missed a month of pre season or so.

I don't watch a lot of VFL these days but I'm wondering if some regulars here know much about the defensive structure that Casey plays? Do they work with zones like the seniors or is it more man on man based due to the nature of the side changing so much and being difficult to form the cohesion necessary for zoning. Lever being dropped last week got me thinking about this. Could the structure have been different to what he was used to?

First quarters matter. How often do you win when down 4 or 5 goals at QT? It happens but it's a low percentage. Carlton is an outlier altogether, for whatever reason they don't have the fitness or mentality to sustain their efforts.

I'm undecided as well. I'm also willing to admit that I don't have to love whatever decision is made for it to be the correct one, the people closest will have the best info. We can't be pointing to one thing, it quite complex the situation we have gotten ourselves into. Whether it's coaching, list management, fitness, culture I don't think any of these areas have been functioning at the elite level. Time will tell, I just hope we can get a few wins and show some kind of development in the game style.

Basketball backgrounds have worked really well for us lately. But sure why not give the guy a chance.

Who can be sure of anything with these things now? A good job creation opportunity for the AFL would be to employ people to do umpiring transcripts. What was paid, what was said, what happened after etc. It would be a mix of Champion Data stats research and interrogation.

What service offers this though? I reckon I'd happily look into something like a subscription service during the season for premium stats. For now we're lucky to have The work of Wheel O Ratings which helps a lot. I stand behind my crazy conspiracy theory though. Premium stats are kept for the network mouthpieces so you have to listen to them, down the ground footage is kept for the brains trust on the Murdoch based footy shows during the week so we're forced to watch them. We really are through the looking glass people...

It really has become an extra bargaining chip layer at the trade table. "We'll pay a bit more if we can extract a bit more draft juice out of you." Works in some cases but I do wonder if clubs offer this a bit willy nilly. I don't know what the right way is these days but I'm also a bit old school and would prefer we rip it up, take a fair trade and start fresh.

After the smoke settled and I studied the pressure ratings with eyes that were blind but now can see, I was drawn to our 2nd quarter 213 pressure rating. After the Tigers game, it's our best pressure quarter this season and I think it was reflected in the eyeball test. The commentators did their annoying thing of pumping up the team 5 goals down and saying they were still in it but I think they were right. The intent was there but we just couldn't make the in-roads we needed to. There were moments where we would force a great turnover like Trac at half back when he intercepted and then kicked 3 metres into the man in front of him, if he kicks it over the top we easily get a run and a chance at goal. Then there was Salem finding Melksham in the pocket with a kick that may have just been a tiny bit high which Jake bobbled marking. I'd argue if our skill level was 10% better in that quarter we would have gone into half time a couple of goals down at most.

They should make that stat available, but of course they need to lock some away so the experts can look like experts god bless 'em.