Adam The God

Collingwood have had to come back from deficits in pretty much every game. That would suggest, no, they, like everyone else, are struggling to maintain their intensity for 4 quarters....

It's interesting. It did feel like Port's pressure dropped in the third. And here is the point you're making, it's very hard to sustain that sort of pressure for a whole match, let alone a whole season. This is why modern footy is such a game of momentum.

I was using points against, yeah. And fair enough, more complex than that. It was a slightly crude evaluation, but suggests we're doing a lot right defensively. As I just mentioned in the stats thread, we're 4th for ground ball gets and we're 4th for defensive tackles inside 50. I can't seem to find the 'defending inside 50s' stat that you're referring to, but given we're top 4 for ground ball gets and defensive tackles inside 50, I'm not sure how the 'defending inside 50s' stat is calculated. Given our around the ground stoppage work isn't as strong (we're 17th), perhaps this is where/why our 'defending inside 50s' percentage is suffering, but the around the ground stoppage percentage doesn't outline whether we're losing the majority of these clearances, say in the forward half, or the back half. That would be interesting to know. You wouldn't happen to have a break down of which part of the ground stoppage clearances are won and lost would you, @WheeloRatings? But even if we are losing more stoppages in the back half / inside defensive 50, that may be the trade off we make to score more (commit less players to block space, enabling swifter exits when we do win the ball ourselves), or it may simply be a factor of rolling different personnel through the around the ground stoppages. As the season progresses and our elite players spend more time in there, that stat could naturally improve itself. I guess it's a bit of a wait and see, because there are a few variables in those scenarios.

I was just looking through https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_stats_team.html GROUND BALL GETS I'm very surprised to find us 4th for ground ball gets (97.3). That's much better than I gave us credit for. Although our game doesn't flow unless we win ground ball, I didn't realise we'd be well above the AFL average (93.0). This stat will be a really interesting watch over the next 3 matches minus Clarry, as he is our leading GBG player and 3rd in the competition for GBGs. Luckily, Trac is equal 4th and ahead of Cripps and Serong as the only real threats in the next two weeks in this area. Freo are 18th for GBGs and Carlton are 14th. We're 4th for GBGs and Collingwood are 9th. Collingwood however have 5 players in the top 40 GBG players in the league. Most of them are nowhere near the quality of Trac and Clarry in this area, but Clarry's absence in GBGs will definitely be felt against Collingwood. COLLINGWOOD Here are some other interesting stats given everyone seems to think they're the yard stick. * they are 1st for kick in play on percentage - 97.2% * they're 18th for defensive 1v1s (we're 2nd) Otherwise, we're either pretty much even or we lead them in more categories. Essentially, if we come to play against them, our game is in better shape than theirs statistically. Given their draw has included Hawthorn, GWS, Richmond and less travel, they're really not very far ahead of us. They just happen to have won two extra games, having limped over the line twice. At this point, Brisbane looked a completely different side when they play in Brisbane vs away. And Port similar. You could argue similar for us, except the GF is played on our home ground...

Unless Woey is sub. Calm down, AF. Be patient.

Well, I look like a bit of a goose. What happened @Dannyz? 😭

I agree with this wholeheartedly. There seems a disconnect with our rucks (particularly Max) and our stoppage set up at times in D50. Perhaps, this is partly personnel, partly because we're trying to be super aggressive off half back, so we deliberately open up space in D50, rather than do what many teams do and clog it up?

And old mate @Dannyz has spoken, so Taj will debut this week. Never gets them wrong.

Did David King compare Melbourne to last year's premiership Geelong at the same stage? Or did he just go with the easy dopey analysis?

Goodwin has mentioned him in multiple press conferences. As I've said previously, I don't rate Smith, but let's see what happens.

Bleeding in the back half? Really? FMD, righto.

King is precisely like many Demonlanders. He flip flops from week to week and jumps between negative narratives of each football club to drive viewers, clicks and subscriptions. Our season thus far is no different from Geelong's last year. The next 4 weeks will tell us more. If we go 2-2 or even 3-1, we'll be in a strong spot. If we don't, then these narratives hold some water.

I'd like to keep JJ, but I accept that he is on the fringes of the 22 (and should be IMO), so if he wants more regular starting games, he's more likely to get them elsewhere. That said, you never know. If he can put together a strong block of form in the second half of the season, he might he able to nail down a 22 starting position in front of someone else.

Sure. So all we've got to go by so far is that we're top 4 for scores from all the major routes (stoppages, turnovers and kick outs), we're the highest scoring team in the comp and the 4th best defensive side. And we've been throwing the magnets around all over the place to test combinations forward, back and through the midfield. ie experimenting. This will not happen when we get closer to finals, and I think ideally they'd have wanted to reduce some of the experimentation after Round 10 (with 5 interstate trips in 10 games now expired), but that experimentation, will have to continue (at least into Round 11) due to Oliver, Hunter and Petty being out.

Would you have believed Geelong were a contender this time last year? As I just posted in the Podcast thread, our 2023 form line is incredibly similar to Geelong's 2022 form line. Geelong were 2-3 against top 8 sides to Round 10, not drastically different from us this year. They beat Collingwood by 13 points and Brisbane by 10 points (at Geelong). They lost to Sydney by 30 points (in Sydney), they lost to Fremantle by 3 points (at Geelong) and they lost to St Kilda (who were in the 8 at the time) by 10 points. Meantime, they 'beat up' on easy beats Essendon by 66 points, North by 60 points and GWS by 53 points, and lost to lowly Hawthorn by 12 points. I wonder if Geelong supporters were saying the same thing about their team last year at this stage? Geelong's soft draw in the second half of 2022, is also comparable with our soft draw in the second half of 2023.

And Positive Binners also asked what was Geelong's record against top 8 sides at this stage last year. Well, they were 2-3 against top 8 sides to Round 10, not drastically different from us this year. They beat Collingwood by 13 points and Brisbane by 10 points (at Geelong). They lost to Sydney by 30 points (in Sydney), they lost to Fremantle by 3 points (at Geelong) and they lost to St Kilda (who were in the 8 at the time) by 10 points. Meantime, they 'beat up' on easy beats Essendon by 66 points, North by 60 points and GWS by 53 points, and lost to lowly Hawthorn by 12 points. I wonder if Geelong supporters were saying the same thing about their team last year at this stage? As I've said on a few occasions now, Geelong's 2022 form line is remarkably similar to our 2023 form line. And Geelong's soft draw in the second half of 2022, is comparable with our soft draw in the second half of 2023.

JVR may get a rest though. The cupboard is pretty bare though, because I wouldn't be playing TMac ideally... Derps, probably Schache for TMac and I wouldn't be against Smith replacing JVR for the one week. I doubt they'll want to replace both KPFs in the one week.

It's very likely we will not continue experimenting with our mids though and that these numbers that everyone seems so worried about, will continue (ie we'll still be top 4 for scores from stoppages). I don't mind too much if we're losing the stoppage count, but winning the scores from stoppages. Particularly, as given our strength this year is scores from turnover, if the opposition is winning stoppages and kicking it straight to us and we're scoring on turnover, we have the game looking like we want it. Surely, you'd agree with this? And naturally, we're going to be judged by our next month or so of footy.

Just listening to last night's podcast. @binman mentioned he heard on the radio we added an extra to the stoppage during a week we were without Max. I just wonder if that was the Essendon game in the rain. And it should be noted that we don't always go -1 at every stoppage. We often go 1v1.

Righto mate. It's really not a big deal. And again, not the point I was making.

I mentioned Oliver because he was out, but May and Petty going off cost us those games (Petty missed the third quarter three weeks in a row, where the opposition got ahold of us). But again, not the point I was making. The point I was making is we've improved our second halves, which were crucial to us not making a prelim or GF last year. So there's plenty to be optimistic about.

Criticise or to point out that saying 'we turn up to certain games asleep like last year' was factually incorrect? Interesting framing, given I'm the one sticking up for the club...

After winning 10 straight, it went something like this: Round 11 - we led Freo 6.8 to 2.7 at half time. Lost by 38 points. Round 13 - we led Collingwood 5.4 to 3.8 at half time. Lost by 26 points. Round 17 - we trailed Geelong 5.4 to 5.8 at half time. Lost by 28 points. Round 19 - we led Bulldogs 11.5 to 9.2 at half time. Lost by 10 points. Round 21 - we led Collingwood 10.7 to 8.2 at half time. Lost by 7 points. First Qualifying Final - we trailed Sydney 5.4 to 6.4 at half time. Lost by 22 points. Semi Final - we led Brisbane 6.8 to 3.4 at half time. Lost by 13 points. It certainly helps if your best players are on the park as well. Missing May, Petty and Oliver last year was huge. We weren't far off last year to be honest. Our second halves in the second half of the season cost us at least 8 wins. This year, we've only lost one 4th quarter - against Port.

That wasn't the trend at all last year. The trend was in the second half of the year, we'd run out of steam in second halves. Whereas, in our premiership year we'd run over teams usually (exception basically being GWS and Collingwood that year). That is literally how you beat every team in the competition, because moving the ball quickly off half back is the way to beat the modern zone that we'd perfected in 2021. I agree that the way to beat the modern zone is to move the ball quickly and use short chips off half back to break the zone and then kick over the top of it. Even better if you can use a chip and then a handball receive to break more lines. However, when teams have done it to us, our half forwards have been off and when they tried it (say against Sydney), we shut them down by not allowing the handball receive. I do think the modern zone requires a tweak and I've banged on about this for a few weeks now, because I think we were trialling something in our Richmond game. That is, go 1v1 from the stationary kick out and then zone behind it. But again, you don't necessarily want to show all your cards at this stage of the season. This is an adjustment we could make in season IMO. The system is about trusting your players to play their roles and get the job done. This was Clarkson's philosophy during the threepeat era as well...

They can't even get the weather right a few hours out. At this stage, they're just as likely to get it completely wrong this far out.