Little Goffy

Layers of language difference I guess. What American football calls a turnover or tennis calls an unforced error, we might call a clanger. What we call a turnover, tennis would call a forced error and American football would call "aw geez that's too hard let's take a five minute break and have another go with everyone back at their favourite spots, after a bit of a cheer routine and maybe a marching band, a group hug and a prayer circle". I believe with Disposal Efficiency there are some caveats, especially with long kicks. A long kick to the advantage of a teammate is good enough to be counted 'effective' even if possession isn't retained, recognising that it was the other guy who stuffed it up, not the kicker.

google -> image search -> Mark Neeld+upset

So, in summary, we lack kicking skills, outside run, inside grunt, ability to spread from a contest, ability to offer leads up forward, ability to spot leads that are offered, and lets not forget our defence has gaping holes all day.

$3k per face-punch, seems about right. Suddenly I'm motivated to get rich.

They'll be going as a mob of anti-capitalism protesters.

Brittle, brittle, brittle. Puts a dampener on the draft and trade period in a way - we all know that the only thin really missing is a mental edge. Then again, knowing that fact, knowing that no great new player or exciting kid is going to be what turns us around, might just focus a few minds on the task at hand.

'High-intensity' football does not necessarily involve significantly higher gross levels of physical activity over the course of a game, so much as it requires significantly higher levels of repeat efforts at strenuous intervals. While this certainly takes an additional physical toll on players by interrupting recovery cycles, the psychological impact of repeatedly pushing through pain is even greater. Therefore, it is to be expected that young players with limited experience of the psychological fatigue of AFL-level football would mentally tire during a game and over a season. Symptoms of this fatigue include periods where the effort begins to falter, and where general concentration and alertness slips resulting in other mistakes, moments of panic, and failures to hold discipline or to follow 'team rules'. Given the psychological nature of these lapses, it is to be expected that a cascading effect may take hold of a team wherein a few visible lapses by some players, a damaging 50m penalty, or a couple of too-easy goals to the opposition, may result in a short-term general failure of psychological intensity as effort appears to be going unrewarded. The same principle applies across a season as it does within each game. In particular, players are likely to begin nurturing a desire or hope that they will be able to take a rest, the proverbial 'one quiet night'. The practical result of this may be that against opponents seen as weak and where a victory is 'expected', the team may feel they have an opportunity to avoid some of the weekly pain by playing a slightly less rigorous level of football. Similarly, approaching the end of the season and with a vague belief that 'we will be ok now, we're into the finals' lingering in their minds, a relaxation of standards can creep in on the assumption that 'we can lift again later when we really need to'. The inversion of this is that against opponents which offer a serious challenge will prompt the players to collectively set their minds to the task, knowing full well that the pain is necessary and cannot be minimised. The overall result of this would be a team that appears to over-perform against strong opponents and underperform against weak opponents. If players have a sense that many of their teammates are not 'pulling their weight' to maintain the intensity, then the remaining players take on an additional stress burden of feeling that they are not only carrying a load for others, but also doing so in futility because the overall reward of wins, finals, and premiership opportunities becomes distant and unrealistic. Taken from season to season to season, this erodes the motivation required to maintain the levels of excellence and professionalism required to perform at truly elite level. The most 'rewarding' option then is to play, train, and 'live' at the level of talent they have, without feeling a great need to push through the pain barriers, or to accept the lifestyle self-denials, required for any chance of premiership success. New players coming into a club can witness this attitude and the behaviours being modeled by senior players, and come to the same conclusions almost inevitable. Thus, the 'losing culture' can be transmitted from generation to generation indefinitely until such time as a circuit-breaker enters the system. Such a circuit breaker would need to be 1. of great standing in themselves, 2. skilled at identifying and motivating players who are willing to be the first to 'step up' to the new standard, 3. bring in new staff and leaders who understand and are dedicated to the standards required, and 4. be prepared to punish or even move on players and staff not willing to make the commitment. Apologies, I went a little over the word limit, but hey, first draft no editing blahblah.

Wow, this is actually a really hard call. In a way, both players bring the same thing - adding a truly outstanding level of quality currently lacking from the relevant areas of our team. I'd argue our defense is in more need of a star, with it mostly being honest toilers who warrant more respect than they are usually given, but aren't top-notch players. Lever wins because of his ability to read the play and intercept mark or to get to the right spot and really END a contest, instead of just having the ball come to ground or get flicked around dangerously close to goal. On the other hand, our midfield also works hard and is an overall high standard, but as I've been moaning about for seems like a couple of years now, it lacks the element of 'danger'. We don't have much in there that can suddenly change a situation into dynamic attack. It is all very grinding 1+1+1+1+1... until we handball once to often and it is back to zero again. A player like Kelly can just go +5 and get us out of the tangle. Hmm... I'm still leaning towards Lever. You don't need to have an all-round star midfielder like Kelly in order to add some more dynamism to your midfield mix. Just a couple more quality players of different types. Motlop, for instance, would do it. The best of Kent could do it! (but the worst sure couldn't) Ok, Lever wins because he can do things that just can't be 'developed' into a player. Our midfield can become colelctively more potent, but the ability to completely ruin opposition inside-50s and make their whole midfield hesitate and overthink when going inside 50, that is priceless.

A draw would still guarantee our finals spot while also sending Collingwood into mental breakdown with indecision.

Maybe a bit of hypnotherapy might help, ask Angus' mum, she knows a good one.

Well, I didn't realise he was given the nickname 'Chimp' at Collingwood. Say what you like about Lumumba being a bit pretentious and precious, but that is f'n awful. I mean this is pretty basic stuff, not complicated. Even Collingwood people should be able to get that far.

Spectacular! Now I can picture a time when I can go all-out and watch four Demon games in a single weekend.

I'm Tom Wills. Or was. I haven't been feeling well lately. Anyway, probably the only person of any profession at all who could come on here and feel good about themselves is Jess Trengove. But that would just be because nobody has been able find anything to criticise her about, since she is actually flawless.

You've got to feel for Neville Jetta. Last year Dane Rampe, this year Rory Laird, and always the selectors think 'ok we've got a small defender so don't need another one'. Here's the question - would you have two Neville Jettas in your team at once? For me, I'd say hell yes. Given how well he performs when out of position, outsized, isolated and outnumbered, he's much more than just a one-trick 'lock down the opponent's goalsneak' defender. Hibberd just keeps doing his job at least as well as anyone else in the position and must surely be on the shortlist and I can't think of two players I'd rather have on the half-back flank. Garlett it'll depend on his final couple of games and whether they can erase the memory of the recent form slump.. Kick six against Brisbane then a match-winning four against Collingwood, he'd be in.

11 wins is our best season for games won since 2006. Here's an extract from the relevant 'afltables.com' page.

50k or more, I'd guess. Season on the line for both clubs, plus the targeted giveaway, plus the easily planned for / family friendly sunday timeslot, and good weather.

Dogs big loss puts the whole situation in perspective. Five teams now- Essendon, Dogs, St Kilda, West Coast, and the might unstoppable heroic ad worthy Demons. In effect they are all on the same starting line and whichever two have the best results of their remaining games, they will be in finals. As for the structure of the 8, it wouldn't be so bad to play a wobbly Port, then come home for a semi-final against Richmond at the 'G. Of course, that's assuming Richmond don't implode when it counts, as they so love to do. In which case we'd be a shot to play a magical elimination final in an effort to make it 4 from 4 lost elimination finals under Hardwick.

I'm trying to picture that and if he can do it I'll be impressed.

I would guess that concussion, aside from the period of generally feeling really awful for multiple days, doesn't actually limit ability to train, maintain fitness and so on. If so, then he might even be our freshest and fittest player going into the final rounds and finals round. Does anyone know what his training load has been like?

Kind of my point too, about North. Funny that this year we've beaten Carlton only to replace them with another bottom-of-table bogey team. And I'm not just referring to Carlton last year. You can go back quite a way and keep on finding Carlton messing up our season. I think it was 2004, maybe 2006 where Carlton had 4.5 wins for the season and two of them were against us, costing us a top-4 spot. However, I disagree that we've played 'a few good quarters' this year. We've actually won a lot of quarters and been going strong for 'most games, most of the time', but it has been frequent catastrophic lapses of 20 minutes or so which have cost us about 5 extra wins. I'd argue that, for the most part this year, we have been playing high-intensity football as a team but not able to sustain it with full consistency. That said... the last couple of games haven't felt like especially 'high-intensity', have they. If we don't get that back in time to hand out a couple of scoreboard whacks in these last three games at the 'G, then it is another season of fading out late. So, there's another way to measure our season - can we correct our two most serious problems - the deep in-game lapses, and the late-season fadeout.

How ridiculous is this season? Here's the rub from my digging around - We would still be a real chance to play finals even if we only won one game from our set of 3 in a row at the MCG to finish the season. Win two games and it is a borderline certainty, even if the loss is to St Kilda, because we would only need one out of Essendon or Footscray to slip up. Win all three and we're still a chance at top 4. HA! But, here's the thing. If you told me 'We will define whether this season is a success or not by whether the club can beat the wooden spoon club as well as either one of the two clubs directly below us on the ladder, with every game played at our home ground", the yeah, I'd take that as a fair measure. If we don't make the finals it will be because we failed when it mattered against inferior opposition.

What a mess. Got to wonder how they can dig themselves out of it. Eade was handed a bucket of [inevitable failure] to eat almost as big as the one Pagan was passed at Carlton in 2002. In both cases, something in the players' culture is clearly wrong. That Gold Coast had a collection of high picks on their list just brought pressure without much real talent being displayed. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Ablett now. IF Ablett greatly disliked Eade and his superstardom status was dividing the player group against Eade, then maybe the change will be transformative and Ablett stays, the club unites, and there is huge improvement. OR the club recognises that it needs to rebuild with new talent and that Ablett is no great help, and becomes inclined to accept a more limited offer from Geelong, just to get his salary off the books and remove the divisive influence. Also, "We are the mighty Gold Coast Suns, we something something can't remember..."

Difficult thing to assess when we've got quite a few 'right fit' players out of form or off the field at the moment. Watts, Garlett, Hogan, VanDenBerg, Brayshaw. There's a whole lot of attacking roles filled, but right now it isn't quite there. Got one week to reinvigorate those who are on the field and replace those who aren't. Gotta admit, I think a fully fit and ready Brayshaw would be as valuable to us as almost any young player you care to name from any list. Hard work defensively, vision and alertness when attacking, physically and psychologically solid.

Ha, the new Ian Ridley! Wouldn't complain.

Yeah, if any of our players are still anxious about individual awards they can focus on the Norm Smith Medal instead. Bring Norm Home!