binman

I'm a gambling man and i'd seriously recommend NEVER putting everting you have on the dees to win ANY game!

Leaving aside all the fugazi - and also the leadership Steele brings to the club (not even Claz'z biggest fans would argue he added anything at all in that space) and how Claz has performed so far this year (id argue he played pretty well for us last year too) there is zero doubt in my mind Steele is adding way more from playing perspective than Clazz did since before he did his hammy. Huge credit must go to the club for getting Steele in. Let's see how it plays out this season, but on the small sample thus far i reckon Steel could well become one of the best trades in the last 25 years, particularly considering we got him for basically nothing. By the by, i reckon Lever, May and Langdon are the three best trades we've made this century.

We were until a few hours before game time - they Blues actually started favs (just) in the end. But blimey, i can't recall the lasts time we started as short as we are against the Bombers - ATM we're 1.24 to win this game, and the bombers are 4.10 (from memory we were very short against the Roos early last season, but I'm pretty sure we weren't as short as 1.24)

He'll probably still kick 6 against us this week

Absolutely, i agree (though less about the tackles inside 50 -we have long been good at that, though not so much last year which was big factor in our 'inefficiency' - ie unlike this year were not failing to trap it inside 50 when the ball hit the deck inside 50)

According to this 2023 article, at the 2020 draft combine Sharp's 2km time trial time was 5:28 seconds - 20 secoinds faster than the next best result (it's not clear if that means all time or in the 2020 combine). That's serious time for 17 year old.

As i note above - we are bombing it to our forwards (medium and tall) more this year than last season. Don't believe me? Watch the all the goals video from the Suns game. Of the 16 goals we kicked, only five involved hitting up a target inside 50 (and one of them was a shank kick by Sharp to Melky): Koz out of the centre square spotting up Melksham Lever's beautiful pass to Langford Checkers hitting Sharp wit his left foot after inexplicably being called to play on Latrelle nailing a beautiful pass to Roo (the only pure goal we got from a leading forward that got free of their defender - Langford's lead and mark was under huge pressure) Sharp hitting Melksham with a shank kick With the exception of the 50 to XL, the rest all involved either long bombs or shanks (eg Steele's scratchy kick from a centre clearance that checkers read best and marked) that were either marked (Checkers x 2, Maxy and Melk's screamer) or we won the resulting ground ball (eg our first goal - Salo's snap, Melksham's gather and handpass to Koz and Latrelle's goal after the cleaver kick off the ground by Koz) RD 4 | All the Goals

Agree with above. However, on the last point our game plan last year involved much less bombing it long inside 50 than in previous seasons - i would posit we are kicking long to a contest inside 50 more this season than last. In fact, unless there is clear, free target or one on one contest ahead of the ball (which is created by fast ball movement) most teams, particularly from centre clearances (because there's rarely a free player or one on one contests) are bombing it long inside 50 this season. Territory is still king. In fact, one of the key reasons why Oliver, and particularly Tracc (who i think was dead last for retention of kicks in inside 50 last season) were so woeful going inside 50 last year was we trying to bomb it in less but neither have the skill to hit those 20-30 metre kicks to a leading or free player or weight a kick to the forwards advantage. The other relevant aspect of the retention of kicks inside 50 and marks from kicks, is of course it's partly related to the quality of the forwards, particularly key forwards who can take pack marks, the quality of the crumbers and things like structure and system. And course forward 50 pressure is a big factor in terms of retention inside 50. Jessie Hogan is struggling this season and not clunking his marks like he was in 2024. And atm they don't really have any other decent marking options up forward. That's no doubt a big factor in Callaghan and Claz's low % of kicks inside 50 being marked. Which is not to say both are not poor kicks - Claz certainly is. Last season, we really only had JVR as a pack marking option inside 50 and he struggled all season. This season we have Checkers and Roo, and on the weekend, they moved Petts forward to put another tall making option down there. Think of that terrific pack mark Checkers took at the top of the goal square on Sunday. I forget who kicked it in, but it was a bog-standard kick it long to the top of the goal square kick - the very type of kick people bemoaned us doing under Goody. Checkers marked it and the player kicking it inside 50 would have been credited with both the kick being retained and marked. We don't mark that kick last season. All that said, i agree we are not missing Tracc and Claz' kicking skills - or their dire lack of foot speed.

Everything moves so fast these days. Forget the 24-hour news cycle, it's now measured in minutes. Perhasp that's why Sharpie has gone thru the four stages of Nibbla so quickly: Cautious optimism player x will be decent addition to the list Loss of confidence player x will be decent addition to the list Grudging acceptance player x has been a decent addition to the list Player x is critical element of the team

I always check the tracker on the AFL app as it's the only publicly available GPS data I can find, or any data for that matter, that gives me any sense of our running power and fitness (though i reckon pressure ratings are a reasonable proxy - ours, like Calton's this year routinely was our lowest in the last quarter last season, which i think reflected out lack of fitness). We had the top 5 players for average speed in defence against the suns (confusing name - defence in this context means when the opponent has the ball, not in the defensive half). That's a great indication of our all team defensive gut running and spread - critical for defending turnover generally, and in this match of how we denied them space and put pressure on players receiving handballs. Nor surprisingly Langers had the highest average speed when the Suns had the ball (8.7 kms per hour) and Sharp equal second (8.5 kms per hour). But I have to say i was super suprised who was equal second - Harvey. By the by, the xext two were Kolt (8.4) and Laurie (8.3)

Not bad stemster, not bad at all On first blush, I'm not sure about the mega pump up at the start (self aggrandisement is not really my style - id probaly go with a bit more self depreciation vibe). I like how you've mixed in Andy's voice. Let me sit with it for a few days and have a few listens and I'll provide some more considered feedback. Big thanks for the work and effort

I muddled up my stats shows - the comment about sharp was on the espn footy pod (which is pretty good)

I'm a Petty fan and thought he was serviceable and played a role in the weekend - a thankless one at that. And I can't see him being dropped any time soon, in large part because in the absence of May, and Tmac not being great one on one, Pettys's strength in marking contests and ability to take the oppo big key forward (and his ability to go forward) make him an important player. But jeez, there's some serious gilding of the lily going on about his performance against the Suns. Yes, not everybody thinks the Champion Data player rating points is much chop, and yes, it disadvantages defenders (though Petts played forward and rucked in the second half and both roles are advantaged under the CD player ratings system). But be that as it may, bottom line, 22 demon players had a higher rating than Petts against the Suns - or put another way, Petty our lowest rated player. Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Match TOG Ball Win. Ball Use Harrison Petty −1.0 −0.3 3.4 −0.4 1.6 82% 4.8

Agree with all of the above He's an excellent kick, which i have to say has surprised me a bit this season

My only must listen footy media is Danile Hoyne's (from Champion Data) weekly slot on SEN (Tuesday at 6:30 pm, or perhaps 6pm? - i usually listen on Spotify the next day) On this week's show he said that based on Champion Data's player ratings Hary Sharp was third most improved player in the AFL (number one? - Christian Petracca by a mile - though he didn't note the obvious caveat that that is based on only 2.5 games)

I don't think so. Ultimately i think Heath will replace Maxy, with Kalani supporting Heath (and eventually replacing him).

I've learned my lesson making definitive statements about selections when i posted ahead of the Suns game that there was zero chance Melksham would get selected for that game That said, there is zero chance Culley gets dropped. He's a very important part of King's game plan: super fit, he can do the defensive and offensive running the game plan demands the game play requires players who can play multiple roles and positions - Culley can play, and has this season, wing, tall marking option up forward, mid and even pinch hit in the ruck Culley has shown this season he has the discipline to play a specific role or task, an important attribute all game plans demand King wants every player to be involved in creating scoring opportunities - whilst Culley has only kicked one goal this season he is averaging five score involvements a game And leaving aside that stuff he's playing terrific footy this season, as evidenced by his Champion Data player rating this season of 9.55. By way of contrast, Windsor, who has been terrific has a player rating this season thus far of 7.36. And Langford, who is playing almost an identical role to Culley has a player rating this season thus far of 8.88

Only four in fact. I discussed that on the pod actually. We had 11 against freo, so massive difference - surely tactical.

This fantastic post from @WheeloRatings provides a detailed explanation, with examples, of how player earn and lose rating points (equity points) that aggregated up over a game gives them their player rating (or equity points for sub elements like ball winning and ball losing) The shorter version is player ratings are a measurement of the direct impact each player has on a game through their actions that affect either the ball or ball-carrier, expressed as scoreboard impact. To get this measurement three factors are considered for each action: The location of the ball on the ground before and after the action The situation before and after the action The difference in Next Expected Score (NES) value before and after each action Actions that increase a player's team's chances of scoring next (e.g., taking possession, moving the ball forward) give positive ratings and actions that decrease those chances (e.g., turning it over, missing shots at goal) give negative ratings. The PR each player gets at the end of a game is the sum of these ratings. The two most significant categories of points players can earn are: Ball Winning: points from winning possession of the ball. Ball Use: points from disposal, including shots at goal, and carrying the ball I'm not sure how similar the Champion Data player ratings system is to that used in the NBA - from memory the NBA has a basic measure of how impactful a player is measured by how many more points their team scores than their opposition when they are on court (or less as the case may be). If i'm right the NBA version is much simpler as it doesn't measure each individual action a player has in game (eg kick, mark, goal point, tackle, one percenter, shepherd, tap on, free for, free against, clanger etc etc - the post i link above has all the ay a player can earn or lose rating points)

In the jungle. Jokes The process for recording the show, which normally goes out live, is a bit complex and above George and my pay grade - Andy records and mixes the show with a combo of recording software and analog mixing desk, with George and i joining via video link. Whilst Andy is away, I'm recording a basic sound file, which i send to Andy who adds the intro and outro and then uploads to the various platforms. Two more games and the DL pod will be back to normal.

I'll cover that question in next week's podcast

Yep, agree. Its all semantics - I mean we all might define rebuild differently. I guess I would define it as bottoming out and stocking up on high draft picks like the tigers and roos have done. And that's not our scenario. Perhaps a reset, refresh or rebuild on the run? We actually started the rebuild on the run/reftesh/reset a couple of seasons back. Goody deserves credit for that as not only did he encourage us to trade futures to land first round draft picks in Windsor, Kolt Langford and XL, he got them into the senior team early and then played them even when their form didn't nessesarily warrant it. That was particularly the case with Langford, Kolt, XL and even Windsor last season. Given his tenure was at risk if we haf a poor season, doing so was laudable and very MFC first. That game experience is super important, and we're reaping the benefit this year.

That's right - we're not young side like say the Tigers that stocked up on a bunch of young players in the draft. Which is one reason why i was confident preseason that we'd be a genuine chance to make finals this season- ie a good mix of senior players (maxy noted post-game that we have 10 premiership players on our list who are all desperate top get another), players around that key 50-80 game mark and young guns. This is part of what i wrote about our chances this season in this post back in January this year: As for Melbourne, I think it's great that the consensus seems to be that 12th is our ceiling as it means the team can go out about its business without the weight of expectation and fans will enjoy the wins more and be less likely to jump on the club after losses. As I've noted before, there are too many variables this season (eg new senior coach, tweaked game plan, impact of Claz and Trac going, new players, new CEO, new Prez etc etc) to make an informed prediction of how we might go. That said i'd be very surprised if the club did not think the finals were a realistic goal - and i will not be surprised in the least if we do make finals. I think we have a very underrated list, even among dees fans, with some serious talent under 25 years old. In Koz, Bowser, Roo, The Duke, The Bison, XL, XT, Latrelle, Jeffo and the Kolt we have ten players under the age of 25 who were first round draft selections. And I'd argue that Riv (24 - and taken at pick 32) and Disco (23 - mid-season rookie draftee) both would've been worthy first round draft picks. The jury is still well and truly out on Jeffo and the Kolt, and of course Latrelle and XT are yet to debut, but still, that is some serious young talent spread between 19 and 24 years old. We have obviously lost some top end talent with the loss of Claz and Tracc, and it's not unreasonable to argue we are a bit thin for talent in the 25 years and older bracket. But we have the best ruck in the competition, in Fritter one of the most consistently productive forward in the AFL and if Lever, who is still only 29, can stay injury free he is a top line defender (i'd love to say ditto for Steve May, but I'm not convinced he'll get back to his best). We didn't have great first half of the preseason in terms of the number of players in rehab. But against that most players in rehab have had relatively minor injuries and have been able to continue build their aerobic base. Bowser's injury is no good, but he is the only long-term injury we've had thus far. If we have decent Jan and Feb i think we will be in pretty good shape, pardon the pun, come the season in terms of our collective fitness. The other factor is, as i have argued previously, i just don't think the competition is particularly strong outside the Lions and perhaps the Crows. There isn't much separating 10-12 teams IMO, and i think there's a chance we will beat some teams that at this stage pundits have us well ahead of us (eg the Dogs, Freo, Pies and Hawks)

Thanks go dees for letting us now Just checked Spotify, there’s an issue there too - show goes another 10 mins (or should). Not sure what happened but I've let the boss (@Demonland) know. He'll probably blame the new intern