Everything posted by bing181
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Oliver Trade Rumours
It doesn't work like that. In fact, the longer the season goes, the more players like Oliver (and Petty) will struggle. "Players were divided into three equal training load groups based on total distance accumulated during pre-season. Results: Players in the high training load (HTL) group performed more relative total and high-speed distance in matches compared with the moderate and low training load groups, with the differences becoming greater as the season progressed." https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326856433_The_influence_of_pre-season_training_loads_on_in-season_match_activities_in_professional_Australian_football_players
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Oliver Trade Rumours
Then he needs a full pre-season. He can get through matches and his natural ability will get him enough disposals to justify his inclusion, but he doesn't have the depth of fitness to do more. He was never going to be the Clayton of old this year. He wasn't even the Clayton of old last year post-injury, he'd missed too much footy. Fingers crossed it comes together this off-season.
- POSTGAME: Rd 18 vs Essendon
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The Run Home
Would be great going forward for the youngsters to get a taste of finals footy. On the other hand, part of me is all for finishing a gallant 10th so we have a better run at the draft. Also, if it's clear that we won't make finals they might be more willing to give players like Jefferson a game or two.
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The Run Home
In 22 we were cooked after the efforts that 21 took, and in 23 we had the injury run from hell leading into the end of the season. Just losing Melksham was enough for the wheels to come off up forward.
- POSTGAME: Rd 18 vs Essendon
- PREGAME: Rd 18 vs Essendon
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Jake Melksham returning
And that's one of the main reasons we fell out of the finals last year. No Melksham.
- Are we fit enough?
- PREGAME: Rd 16 vs Brisbane
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Are we witnessing a re-build by stealth
Whose leadership and experience we won't be replacing in the short term at least ...
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POSTGAME: Rd 15 vs North Melbourne
Especially the case with Petty. We have BB, Jefferson, Schache and arguably Fullarton all as KPF's , not sure how we even fit Petty into that group without compromising the others. Not to mention, Casey aren't exactly racking up enough I50's to give Petty a decent look at it. Unless they wanted to play him down back, but that's a different discussion.
- PREGAME: Rd 16 vs Brisbane
- POSTGAME: Rd 15 vs North Melbourne
- POSTGAME: Rd 15 vs North Melbourne
- POSTGAME: Rd 15 vs North Melbourne
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PREGAME: Rd 15 vs North Melbourne
Re Petty: No-one's saying the situation is ideal, but he keeps getting a game because we have no other options. Why is that so hard to grasp? He had a serious foot injury which meant that not only did he miss a lot of football/preseason, he's probably working through building confidence in his body again. Perhaps he'd be better off doing that at Casey, but then which big-bodied forward with a bit of aggression comes in? Crickets. No point, moving him down back either, who does he replace? In spite of everything, Tom Mac has been doing (very) well down there, and you start robbing Peter to pay Paul. But beyond all that and getting into the favourite Demonland pastime of speculating without any solid information to go on, I wonder if they don't keep playing him because they understand that if we are to have a realistic chance of going deep in finals we have to have an effective big-bodied forward alongside JVR. Petty isn't that guy at the moment, but he's the only person on the list who could be.
- PREGAME: Rd 15 vs North Melbourne
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The midfield numbers behind staggering drop-off
Injuries or equivalent. I know you get bonus points on Demonland for far-flung conjecture, but in the vast majority of cases the obvious reason is the reason. As they apparently tell medical students "when you hear the sound of hooves, think horses not zebras". This coupled with the fact that injuries/lack of preseason etc are random events over which we have no control. Trouble is, our species deals very badly with randomness, we need order and control. So we look for patterns where none exist, but at least it reassures us by giving us a sense of agency, of being able to "do something". Even the question here, "who's responsible?" underscores this as it presupposes that someone is indeed responsible, when that's far from necessarily being the case. And I'm not even going to start on how bad we are at distinguishing causations from correlation. It's injuries, loss of players, etc. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
- PREGAME: Rd 15 vs North Melbourne
- PREGAME: Rd 15 vs North Melbourne
- PREGAME: Rd 15 vs North Melbourne
- PREGAME: Rd 15 vs North Melbourne
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Realistic hopes for 2024
Or not. Plenty of obvious reasons as to why we're struggling at the moment.
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Time for a Change….Don’t wait another 2 years…
Changing the way the forwards play will do nothing if the mids can't deliver to them.