Adam The God

I feel like this is because he's often doing it at speed. If he can model his game on Jetta and slow things down a bit before he kicks, he can tidy that up.

Yep, they could well end up playing Jackson further up the ground, and if they do, it's why I dislike McDonald in the team with Weideman and Jackson. Anyway, we'll see.

Which ideas? The run and gun? I don't think we ever had the defensive transition or set ups that Geelong had. We were one way runners.

I didn't say I agree with the changes. In fact, I've said I believe McDonald throws out our forward mix, but this is what I think we'll go with. It'll be interesting to see how we go with three talls. McDonald doesn't lay tackles, Jones is too slow and Fritsch couldn't stop a paper bag from running away from him, so it worries me that the opposition may waltz out of defence, but let's hope the midfield pressure is up. As for Sparrow I'd like to see how his attributes go in defence. He's not going to get a look in through our midfield mix, so he needs to find another go.

Sparrow plays between half back and back pocket (ie Jetta's spot) and McDonald plays at half forward and forward pocket (ie Bennell's spot), plus a wing rotation.

I think Ben is just head of the video content now. Unusual in that just about every industry in this country, you have to be 55+ to get a leg up, whereas it's the complete opposite in the US or Europe.

That went well the last two times that happened (ie Carlton and Brisbane). I'd much prefer Max having someone he's got to try and beat, rather than the opposition shark off all his taps.

This is so homoerotic and unDemonland it's hilarious. The second one is a cracker. I don't mind these Port supporters haha.

Disagree anything much needs to be said. Just drop him if he's not meeting KPIs, as per any other player.

There isn't a conspiracy behind every single door mate. It may well turn out that we're managing him through something, but what's the point of speculating? I certainly wouldn't want Goodwin telling opposition clubs why he's on reduced minutes. That's bloody stupid IMO.

It does say the police are investigating. I think if it turns out that they have made a false declaration and the virus spreads to the community in QLD and people die, well... jail is definitely the path I'd be going down.

Rubbish. His job is to coach the Melbourne Football Club. In this instance, he's protecting his player.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/coronavirus/2020/07/29/queensland-teenagers-virus/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=PM Extra - 20200729 Two Queenslanders have spent 8 days in south Brisbane without quarantining having returned from Melbourne, via NSW and subsequently testing positive for COVID 19. Could be a second wave coming to Queensland now.

Even better that we go back to back at the Adelaide Oval. I think we've been done a favour by this one. Thanks Peter Gutwein. For a Lib, he goes alright that bloke.

We play very well on the Adelaide Oval. It suits our zone... and is a very quick deck, which suits our ball movement too.

By a long way in my books. I'd say 30 years.

I think it started earlier. I think modern zoning and defensive philosophy from the international sporting domain was first imported when Paul Roos returned from the US in 2002 and became an assistant coach at Sydney under Rodney Eade. When Eade was sacked, Roos was appointed, despite the Swans courting Terry Wallace for much of the year. Almost as soon as Roos took over the reigns, he transformed the team and the culture and by 2004, his old mate Ross Lyon had joined him as midfield coach from Carlton, having worked under Parkin and Pagan (the latter being more innovative than most in the 1990s). With Lyon's help, Roos revolutionised the sport with his defensive flooding, which lead to low scoring and was widely panned, even by then AFL boss Andrew Demetriou. However, the Swans' style became the vogue for 2005-2006 and saw them make consecutive grand finals. The interesting crossover between this period was a young midfield coach at Port Adelaide, who oversaw Mark Williams' premiership-winning midfield in 2004 and was appointed by Hawthorn the next year as head coach, in Alastair Clarkson. Throughout the 2005 season, he was tasked with 'rebuilding' the Hawthorn list, something he went hard at across 2005-2007. Meanwhile, by 2007, Sydney had played in two consecutive grand finals, winning one and losing the second in 2006. And by the start of 2007, Roos' philosophy had migrated to St Kilda when his former midfield coach Ross Lyon took the reigns of St Kilda. The Lyon gameplan very much focused on the contest and heavy flooding, perhaps even more so than Roos' side at Sydney. In that same year, Clarkson first implemented his cluster and by 2008, it had won him a flag at Hawthorn. Yes, they got lucky against Geelong in that grand final, but teams really struggled to break down the cluster. Over the next 5 years, between 2009-2013, the top teams played three major styles. The run and gun of Geelong, best emulated at times by Collingwood under Malthouse. The possession game of Hawthorn. The flooding game of Lyon at St Kilda and then Fremantle. I could go on, but I reckon you're right in that the AFL's press and zoning has changed a lot, in a very short period of time. Perhaps my statement that it's nowhere near as technical as soccer is incorrect? I'm always fascinated by trends in the AFL and it'll be fascinating to see where the game takes us over the next 5 years. I hope our club is at the forefront of it, because with innovation, usually comes success.

As Burgo says that's not how the club will measure it. They'll be looking at how we defend and attack across all quarters (within reason). If our defence remains as solid, I think that'll be a reasonable indicator.

I'm not sure you know soccer that well then. Playing midfield in soccer is incredibly physically demanding, particularly with the pressing game in vogue. Since Burgess left Arsenal, they've been very ordinary tracking back into defence. Yes, they're different sports, but I wouldn't underestimate the amount of running done on the majority of a soccer pitch. It may be a smaller pitch, but that doesn't mean there's not just as much, if not more, running.

I'd say he improved his kick to handball ratio last year. This year he's working on being more damaging with those kicks. I think the added fitness of our group is enabling our mids to run better both ways. I think Oliver has been one of our better mids at defending, even last year, but I guess that's just me. It is certainly great seeing him cover so many kms.

I wouldn't say Oliver's slow. I'd say Cameron is fast and Oliver's leg speed is decent enough, but he's quickest when he's entering a stoppage. I know this isn't you, Doctor, but bloody hell the Oliver bashing is getting tiresome.

Great article. Thanks for sharing mate. I got a lot out of it. This is probably too tangential but this is great also: https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2020/feb/01/pioneering-reds-the-reds-jurgen-klopp-liverpool-pressing-unlikely-origin It's not something I'd thought of but it makes complete sense. That the ideas of a structural engineer could be used to break down defenses and create attacks in a sporting context is fascinating to me. It lives in a similar world to the Rand Corporation's beliefs surrounding game theory and how technocrats have applied this to form much of neoliberal thought. I find it all fascinating and modern tactics in the EPL I get swept up in and it's why I loved Clarkson's initial innovation of the clusters and then the keepings off game. That sort of ingenuity deserves reward IMO and similarly, our so called Diamond Defence was another really interesting progression on the modern AFL zone. I feel like the tactics of football/soccer are a mile ahead of the AFL/footy though, but perhaps this is partly because there is only one country playing our game and less ideas floating around. We have a different game of course, but the presss and zoning in the AFL is still particularly simple. I wonder whether with reduced list sizes, coupled with a strain on the draft pool post COVID, whether a new tactician will come to the fore. As for the Burgo interview, I really liked it. Seems calm, switched on and a great asset to our football club.

Fair enough. $600k is $500k in the old (pre inflation world) mind you, but I guess it's a lot. But he's still a guy playing every week. I think given the fact if one injury was to occur he'd be straight back in and the fact we don't know what his current KPIs are, it's difficult to assess whether he's worth that or not at the moment.

It's funny because when you and I agreed on this, I was worried about Jack's ability to still impact on the midfield contest. He's put that fear to bed, so I'm less likely to advocate too much shuffling through our midfield, but maybe that's what we have to do? Viney, Oliver and Petracca all playing minutes outside of the midfield, with Viney and Oliver playing forward and Gus off half back or on a wing. My feeling is though we should be playing two genuine wingmen. I'd be sliding Harmes through there too, so that gives us: Oliver, Viney, Petracca, Brayshaw, Harmes and maybe AVB when fit.

Do we know they're on very good coin? And I think sometimes that happens. You'll have players that were front and centre of what you did two years ago, who then become 'spares' as you put it. I don't have a problem with it.