RalphiusMaximus

Do the math. If we assume a 50 point loss to the Roos and a 100 point loss to the Eagles, say 100-50 and 150-50, then we will wind up on around 68%. The Saints are already well below that mark. There is no way close losses will drag them up enough to catch us. Hence my hope that they will have a freak game and win one.

We beat both of those sides. I admit that it's highly unlikely that the Saints will win one, and I also did the math on whether we could slip below them on percentage, but the Saints have pulled off some good wins this year and both Richmond and Adelaide have had some disastrous losses. Furthermore Richmond have a history of choking and missing out on the finals by a narrow margin. As things stand we have to rely on the Saints not trading pick 1 and not taking Petracca themselves. While I have been an advocate of the theory that they will use pick one on a key forward to replace Saint Nick, it has rightly been pointed out that their midfield is also badly in need of more quality and they could very well decide to take the best mid in the draft and snap up whichever tall drops to their second pick given that there are quite a few good quality key forward prospects to pick from. As such, the Saints winning another game is our best and possibly only option to get him to our club. Why should I not point this out and back them to do so?

There are two glaring problems with the team right now that need to be addressed if we're ever going to improve, and it's got nothing to do with running. 1 - We fumble everything: Watch what happens at the stoppages. We get a clean hitout from Big Max directed straight to one of our mids. The mid fumbles his first grab, stalls his momentum while trying to get the ball under control and is tackled. The ball spills, a scrum forms resulting in either a secondary stoppage or an opposition clearance. When the opposing ruck gets the hitout cleanly to one of his mids, they take it cleanly with the first grab, don't break stride and either break cleanly out of traffic or handpass to a teammate with the extra time they have because they didn't fumble. The same applies to our field play. I have never seen a team more likely to fumble a handball receive or when picking up a loose ball. It's exactly the same scenario. The couple of seconds extra they take to get the ball firmly in their hands is a couple of seconds they could have been changing direction, looking for a teammate or giving a quick pass. Instead, they continue running in a nice predictable path because that's where the ball is going and they haven't controlled it yet, giving their opponents an extra few seconds to close on them and make the tackle. While a couple of seconds may not sound like much, bear in mind that the majority of the players on the field have 20m sprint times under three seconds. That means that a player 20m in the clear will almost certainly be caught if they fumble the bouncing loose ball and have to chase it and go for a second grab. 2 - We Miss Targets: Have a look at how we kick to our forwards. I saw one proper pass into our forward 50 today, and it resulted in a goal. That's one out of 45 inside 50's that actually came in at the right height and was placed ahead of the forward on their advantage side so they could run on and take the mark. Amazingly enough, this resulted in one of only three goals for the match. The vast majority of our i50s were high bombs to the pack, the sort of thing we used to do in primary school at recess so the freak kid could take pack marks. We saw repeatedly that the kick would go long to a 2-1 or 3-2 against us and the defenders would happily hold our forwards out of the contest and let the extra man have an uncontested mark. Yes, this situation was made worse by the GWS flood, but the fact remains that our forward entries were almost without fail low percentage bombs that were never going to result in anything other than a rebound 50 for the opposition. Then we can look at our disposal over the rest of the field. I was reminded of that montage of the Saints kicking to Saint Nick that was doing the rounds earlier in the year. How often did the leading player have to stop and wait because the ball was kicked to where they are rather than where they are going? How many passes went 10-15m to the side of the target? How many handballs were at the feet or above the head of the receiver? How many Out on the Full were there today? Some of these issues come from the first point, that having fumbled the player now doesn't have time to get a clean disposal away, but far too often we are seeing players with time simply unable to execute the basic skills. Dawes took a mark on the wing, wheeled around and kicked it straight past the leading Watts to a clump of trailing GWS players. Riley took a free on the HBF and went across the ground to pinpoint a Giant who obliged by kicking the goal. McDonald repeatedly failed to take the first (and sometimes 2nd) option and wound up turning it over when he ran into trouble. You could watch the replay and see almost endless examples. Further to this is of course our inability to kick goals. Again this is a basic skill and something you would expect a professional athlete to be able to execute regularly. Our score today was 3 goals 16. That's converting shots on goal at around 15% (Not counting the ones that didn't result in a score). For the season we have kicked 168 Goals 182 points, or 48%. We have the worst conversion percentage in the league, and there is only one other side below 50%. Today we saw repeatedly our players' inability to convert basic chances. To me, it is these two basic areas more than anything else that need to be addressed. We fumble too often and we miss targets we should hit. Basic skills that most players learn before they hit puberty, and somehow our team have forgotten them.

6. Gawn 5. N. Jones 4. Tyson 3. Jetta 2. Michie 1. Vince

Bear in mind folks that the Saints have two winnable games to come against inconsistent opponents while we have two games that are virtually unwinnable. We could very well end up with pick 1 again. Edit: It's also just been confirmed that Patton has done his ACL.

I think Bailey can be blamed quite a lot actually. It was his plan to renew the list through the draft by dumping our most experienced players and playing kids. He advocated taking slight kids with pace and skills and training them up to be footballers, leading to Strauss, Blease, Bennell, Gysberts, HHMNBN, Lukas Cook (not fast, but fits the profile) and Daniel Nicholson. None of them ever turned into AFL footballers. He also inherited several high draft picks who failed to develop at all during his tenure, and in some cases went backwards. I think the systematic destruction of our list during his tenure is largely to blame for the massive mess we now find ourselves in.

McDonald - Tries too much.

I'm seriously tempted to go out there and see Hogan as a curtain-raiser for the main game at the 'G.

I would love us to grab this guy. Even if he's only a 50-50 shot at making it, that would be better than our usual strike rate with drafting and he has so much potential. Could fill the void Jurrah left.

They make him sound a lot like Dangermouse. He seems to have broken clear to be the highest ranked mid in the draft, and we could certainly use someone with those attributes. Sadly GWS also seem pretty set on him, so it could be difficult. What are the chances of the Saints surprising everyone and taking him instead of a tall forward with fist pick?

Could be a great moment for him. Lots of family coming to the game over there.

Sadly I think you're right. For a guy who has been pretty consistent at Casey playing a position we're weak in you'd think he would be in the senior side if they hadn't already decided to move him on. I was of the opinion that they would bring him into the side for the last few rounds to give him one last chance to prove himself, but at this point it's not looking at all likely. It's a real pity because as I said it's a position we're weak in and we really do need a good attacking HB flanker who can kick a ball well.

The thing I like about Barry is something that was picked up on by the TV Experts during the pre-season. He hit a pack at full speed, picked up the ball with one clean grab and burst out the other side to hit a teammate with the pass. Every single commentator sat up and took notice, and they all agreed that that one play made him someone to work with. Our team has a chronic lack of clean hands and he appears to be one up-and-comer who has this aspect covered. The fact that he is a pretty decent kick and has pace is a bonus.

Pedersen had surgery to fix his face.

The Hoff was also much maligned for yeas before things clicked for him. I do agree with you that Watts would benefit from better teammates. If we had Trav or Yze (or both) in the side he'd regularly be leading out to accurate first time passes instead of making endless leads that get ignored before finding himself in a rolling scrum where he can't use any of his strengths. If we had a HB who had the skill and vision to see him leading out of HF and hit him Watts would be regularly racking up 25+ disposals.

Are they trying to turn Barry into our new tagger? The benchmarks for him this year seem to have all been defensive efforts and they have been giving him defensive roles at Casey all year. I'm really wondering if they want him to be an upgrade on McKenzie, a tagger with good skills, cleaner hands and a bit more pace.

While I agree with most of those, Watts needs to stay in the side. The reason you don't hear his name called has more to do with his teammates inability to spot him up than his inability to get involved. If you attend the game you will see him making lead after lead out of half forward and being totally ignored by teammates who either don't see him or lack the confidence/skills to kick it to him and instead go for riskier and less productive short passes. If we could get a half back or two who are good enough players to see him leading and hit him then his stats and involvement will skyrocket. As he said on TV, the reason he is sometimes seen jogging past the contest is because he's just made six leads, been ignored and is totally stuffed. Yes he still needs to improve his contested work. but his overall workrate is as good as any in the team.

Maybe no club nominated him because they all know where he's going already?

I was at work today, keeping up with it on the AFL website. I watched the mounting figures in the point column with a familiar sense of dread and told myself that the Lions would kick a few quick goals to head us after our succession of misses. No real surprise, it's not like it's the first time this year we've done this. Round one we did exactly the same thing. I somehow doubt I'll bother downloading this game given I've seen it a few times already this season. Failure to execute in the forward half has been one of the big flaws for this side for years, and we're not seeing a real improvement.

I'd prefer us to go Port Adelaide next season.

He's a very naughty boy?

There was an interesting point made on MMM today. They pointed out that the major FA moves (plus Scully) were all agreed to on the quiet a year or more before the deals could be made official. While the FA pickings this year aren't great, there are some decent players up for grabs next year and we should be getting in their ear early and offering them deals on the level of Franklin, Tippett ans Scully to lure them to an underperforming club. We have more than enough room in our cap to offer top dollar to a legitimate star and as we've been shown repeatedly, the AFL will turn a blind eye to us starting negotiations well in advance with the players and their managers.

Like this? It's only fair that they get hit after their deliberate strategy of plundering the youth of the competition. Personally, while I want another quality youngster for us, I would also be very happy to see the Bulldogs get one of them. The doggies were the worst his side from the expansion clubs poaching players and got the worst compensation.

I still think Rawlings is a shot. Keeping him on was a huge vote of confidence and given that most of Roos' former underlings have refused to budge he looms as a real possibility.

I know I should be a better person and forgive and forget and all that, but this brought a smile to my face: Scully out for season.