sue

This has struck me too. It requires great foot skills and someone being in the right spot to receive. I doubt any other team has the foot skills.

Interesting idea LittleG. I wonder how complicated it would be to fold in that with all the other constraints on the fixture. Some constraints would probably have to go (like QBday and its ilk).

Come off it. In 2000 we made the GF with a young and apparently upcoming team. Now you are desperately dredging up other years to bolster your argument. How did those TV schedulers know that we would not go on to be a great team 'over multiple years' at the end of 2000. I should have consulted them for betting advice in 2001 apparently. You may be correct about this issue more broadly (I don't personally think so) but you are on a loser trying to shoot down Chris's particular counter point to your position.

In your enthusiasm to again say it is all our fault you have missed the point entirely. The TV scheduling for 2001 was done BEFORE we 'lost too many games' and 'weren't mentally tough enough'. As a grand-finalist in 2000 and an apparently young and improving team, as Chris said we should have had better exposure. Why didn't we?

Logon to demonland and see posters saying how it was the worst game they have ever watched.

Carlton may well get less Friday night games next year, but why did they get so many this year and not some other club which seemed more clearly to be on the rise? If you think the AFL doesn't favour the clubs where money to be made as their short term policy you are fooling yourself. The only exception is their long-term policy re NSW and QLD. They have decided that the competition could compete well with other codes with fewer Victorian clubs. This sadly is probably true. No amount of pointing to how clubs may have averted disasters in previous decades by their own efforts means that that is doable today.

http://thenewdaily.com.au/sport/2015/07/16/grant-thomas-afl-killing-poorer-clubs/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20150722%20The%20New%20Daily%20%281%29&utm_content=&spMailingID=23095716&spUserID=MTAyNjUwMzI2MzU2S0&spJobID=602046013&spReportId=NjAyMDQ2MDEzS0

I was thinking the same.

The umps this weekend seemed a lot tougher on throws, so it would be just our luck to perfect the "quick handpass" for next season and find it becomes the latest target of the interpretation circus.

yeah, I went away disgusted from that one.

Those 2 paras appear to contradict each other. If we hadn't changed the way we played and had won by 15 goals, would you still be saying our game plan is crud?

re holding the ball: It's true that any player who doesn't pretend to make an effort to get rid of the ball or throw himself into pretend spasms if his arms are completely pinned should be blasted by the coach for giving the umpires the option to award a free kick after tossing his coin. However it is frankly a bad look for the game to see such B-grade acting week after week. The AFL needs to have a little think. re a good team would have beaten us: um, yes. Generally a good team beats a weaker team. We won. They were at full strength after some good performances. We kicked as badly as them. They may not have even had a sniff if not for their dubious/wrong goal gifts from the umps. re if we were a better team we would have buried them: sure. If we were even better we'd win the flag. One step at a time. A win is a win and a darned sight better than some of the gloomy predictions posted on this forum. re it was the worst game /skills"I've ever watched": You haven't been watching enough games recently.

I agree but it's not confined to 'always against us'. It's one of the many inconsistencies in the umpiring. Sometimes forgetting to make a fake attempt to punch away an immovable ball or neglecting to go into fake spasms will get you pinged, sometimes not. That 50m 'penalty' was just the sort of momentum changer that previously would have caused us to crumble.

Probably speeds up financial offers in trade week.

I don't think anyone has said that. But have a look at some of the posts that led to that 'overreaction' - you'd think we'd been slaughtered by the worst team in the league (except we are the worst apparently).

While we'd all love a 10goal win full of flawless footy, considering that many posters either had this game down as a loss or were doing the usual nail-biting about being favorites etc, I don't get those who focus on all the bad. As for a bad game to watch, it was better than some of the trash I've seen on TV the last couple of weeks.

Because at Essendon for many players there will be no tomorrow post-WADA.

These commentators are making me much happier about our performance last week. Apparently Essendon's performance was superb against us. Given how close it was, we must have been just a little short of superb.

A statement perhaps, but a presser, NO. Half you blokes would be using software to see if his eyes narrowed when he said he was staying at MFC or looking for negative body language when he responded to the obvious sort of questions that would be asked.

I can't see how you can equate a win at Geelong with beating Adelaide. Hardly anyone has beaten Geelong at Geelong for yonks. Sure, Geelong are not what they were but if you are determined to see gloom I guess this is one fact you have to counter somehow.

This is worth a read: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/jul/15/understanding-afl-tactics-russell-jackson

No it is not a gap of 11% on the rest of the league. It is a gap of 11% on the average of all the other teams, including some which are a lot better and hopefully some which are worse than us. Without knowing the actual distribution of the UPs for each team, this tells us nothing other than we are below average. Which is not surprising news.

Some are saying 'we always find new ways to lose' - that's an improvement on never being in a position to win in the first case.

It is hard to believe that a large team of coaches hasn't noticed what posters on Demonland have, and have no idea what to do about it. Must be more to it.

If we played about 500 games a year these stats, in the absence of other information, might really mean something rather than just provide entertaining conjectures.