binman

7 hours ago, Gawndy the Great said:

.Our dna is contested footy. Our list is built on this. Whilst I said what i said, I highly doubt our contested, forward half game is just being tossed out. That’s the recipe to win finals.
 

Our ball movement and scoring were the areas of concern in past years and moving it faster from back half intercepts is a great source of turnover potential. Also gives our forwards a chance as the old bomb it in and hope for the best doesn’t work. 
 

Clearances and stoppage dominance may not be the honeypot we want but it does give you territory, which is a key part of our dna.
 

I agree with all of the above.

Contest and pressure is absolutely the foundation of our game. It is fir all clubs. And for the dees the other fundamental is defence.

And I'd agree that come finals our game will revert back to a large degree to a forward half, territory game. That's finals footy. 

But hopefully key elements of the new,  transition from back half method will remain in place.

And hopefully playing a less contested, coal face game during the home and away series will mean we are not as banged up come finals as we were in 2023 and 2022.

I mean think back to those seasons.

At the end of 2022 our first pre finals training session looked like an episode of MASH with all the bandages and limping.

At the end of last season our forward line was missing so many players that we had to bring in an injured tmac. 

It is obvious, and clarry said as much, that they want to make the home and way season less physically taxing. And there is hardly a more taxing method than that used by the dees since the start of the 2021 season.

It makes perfect sense to implement a less taxing methodin the home and away season and kudos to goody for doing so - particularly given the associated risks, winning fewer games being the obvious one.

But in order to change something so fundamental we are going to have to wear some funky stats, some out of character performances and some losses too.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

7 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

Once you acknowledge the bolded bit, I'm not quite sure I understand most of the rest of the post.

Yes, we are no longer dominating CPs and clearances like we did in 2021-23. Why are you then rhetorically bemoaning this? We have spent the past two years dominating CPs, clearances and time in forward half only to go 0-4 in finals. Very few people, if any, responded to that with "it's OK, let's just do it all again in 2024".

We have made concerted attempts to lower our reliance on stoppage scoring and increase our reliance on turnover scoring. It's therefore no wonder that we're down in those stats you've mentioned.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not quite at the @binman opposite end of the spectrum. IMO we're conceding too much territory to our opponents and spending too much time in our back half. We're clearly still elite at our back half defence and intercept game, and we're more likely to go all the way if we are reliably good at scoring off turnover than off stoppage. But IMO in our desire to shift the balance away from stoppage and towards turnover (or away from scores from front half and towards scores from back half), we've overbalanced. As has been mentioned so far, it doesn't help that we're down Bowey and Salem (and, from pre-season planning, Brayshaw) and have found ourselves with TMac (a terrible field kick) doing so well in most other parts of the game to warrant a spot in the backline. 

That surprises me TU.

I had you pegged as a bit more realistic.

But perhaps I've misunderstood your scaling parameter, and it isn't subjective to objective.

By the by tmac is an excellent field kick.

Which is why he I'd going at 81.8% by foot this year.

By way of contrast salo is at 70.6%

But salo takes on harder kicks I hear you say.

Fair point, though there is still a 11.2% gap between the two.

7 hours ago, Binmans PA said:

Change Bowser for Hunter and very likely Melk for McAdam and I agree completely.

Meant to include Bowser. Brain fade.

Have to see macadam first.

1 minute ago, Big Col said:

I can't help it but it seems like GWS are my no2 team.
Love jesse and keep wanting him to kick goals.
I always rated Bedford. We didn't give him enough love and he's a regular at GWS now.
Even though Toby G isn't playing tonight, he is a fave of mine too.
Plus my daughter reckons their song is the best.

Maybe it's because I know w****rs who support every other team but I've never met a Giant's fan. I feel dirty. I need a shower.

I'm with you col. I have always liked the giants.

Almost agree with your daughter too. Second best song.

10 hours ago, Gawndy the Great said:

It feels like we are no good, you yourself admitted to as much in the previous post. 

I’ll park it here for now and see how the next two weeks 

I did no such thing.

For petes sake, a third of the way through the season we are 5-2, 4th on the ladder with the 4th best percentage of any team, having played 3 of our 7 games interstate.

5-2. 4th on the ladder. 4th best percentage. With four of our best 22 to come back in (salo,Bowser, Hunter and melk).

And it feels as if we are no good?

Man oh man we see the game differently.

20 minutes ago, Redleg said:

Cats look likely to be at full strength against us.

 

That assumes they get through their game against the blues on Saturday injury free.

I'm predicting two hammy tweaks and a suspension.

6 hours ago, Flower Magic said:

Goody does not change winning teams. So no change.

Agree.

Though I could see goody wanting to bring hunter in for his experience and grunt.

Possibly at the expense of woey or Laurie (if the latter woey sub).

19 minutes ago, Gawndy the Great said:

I think I’m trying to find the stats that help put facts behind feelings. And what I can see is that  we are way off on the game we used to play. I’ll give Goody the benefit in that we have had double straight set exits and he has recognised the need to change.

Our contested and clearance dominance is significantly off and that for a large parts explains what feels like a huge drop off in our stoppage dominance. Is this a lull? A design change ? Who knows but it’s what our list was built on. 

Our pressure numbers are also really poor with another 150 quarter this year which is deplorable.  Top 4 teams are undone largely through pressure and whilst we are only at round 7, you cannot just flick a switch and expect it to come back.

I don’t expect to win every week but the last 3-4 weeks we haven’t played good footy and are lucky walking away with 3-1. I’ll eat my hat if we win even 1 out of our next 2. A lot will need to go right I think. 

To be honest, it feels as if you are simply searching for proof we are no good.

Clearance numbers mean squat. It's about the score from clearances differential. 

As I noted above we have smashing teams for scores from stoppages.

I've no idea what yoy are talking about with our pressure.

We had one quarter out of 28 with a pressure rating of 150 and that's evidence our pressure had been off?

Apart from the lions game, when blund freddy could see we were gassed, it has been largely fantastic.

Go check out the stats file thread. The pressure numbers are there for every game.

And even less idea what you are talking about in terms of our last 3-4 weeks.

Poor against the lions, but we still only got beaten by 22 points.

Poor in the first half last night, we piled on 10 goals to 2 in the second half to win by 43 points (against the same team who rolled the swans a couple of weeks back).

We beat the crows. At Adelaide oval off a five day break.

And in one of the games of the season,  and arguably one of our best games since our flag, we beat Port at Adelaide oval.

But we all see what we want to see i guess.

You're not a Smiths fan by any chance?

16 minutes ago, Gawndy the Great said:

Checking some of the champion data stats pretty much shows what a lot of the doomsdayers on here feel (including me)

- bottom 4 disposal eff 

- below AFL avg contested possessions ( yes that’s right) we are bottom 6 so far

- bottom 4 handball efficiency

- bottom 4 centre clearances ( yes my eyes don’t deceive me)

- below afl avg inside 50s

There’s a bunch of stats and it’s not all bad

- leading intercept matks

- top 2 expected scores 

 

We are 5-2 with a healthy percentage, with the most difficult part of our fixture in yerms of scheduling (eg interstate travel and breaks between games) done and dusted.

And we are not playing our best football.

The other big factor is we are trying to implement a changed method, which is always a challenge.

On that front we are number one for rebound 50s (tigers second, cats third). Laudable given better transition from the back half is the foundation of the new method.

You see doom. I see upside.

As clarry said in his post match interview, we started hot  in previous years and fell away.  He said they are focused on setting things up to plsy our best footy come finals.

3 hours ago, Binmans PA said:

When did we let them waltz it out of the middle? They had maybe 1 or 2 put the front clearances the whole night and so did we...

Indeed.

They scored a grand total of one point from centre clearances (to go with their whopping two points from around the ground stoppages).

One point.

Not much waltzing there.

I'm convinced some people see what they want to see - in this case something that didn't happen.

54 minutes ago, Gawndy the Great said:

Anyone have the pressure numbers from last night? 

In the stats file thread.

20 minutes ago, leave it to deever said:

You didn't mention our handballs which for me were at least just as bad. Players handballed like the pill like it was ticking inside. Honestly looked like many didn't want it or take responsibility with it.

So many handballs just went up in the air and were intercepted or when they did find a player it was usually one in a more precarious position. Often done by a seasoned player too. There were too many instances at times when a player wasn't really looking in the right direction as the he attempted handball.

Yes we are struggling to find a working forward line once again. How Fritta, Petty and Jvr got away with laying a total of 3 tackles between them v the lions. The shining star of last night at least was Turner.

But our midfield is the most pressing issue at the min. It's been flat now for two weeks. Prior to that it was struggling to win clearances. And all of Maxy's great tap work was sharked by the opposition.

Excluding Oliver who has had genuine injuries,( I thought he was ok), Viney wasn't sighted, Tracca only had a couple of cameos and Sparrow was or is rather the proverbial bridesmaid.

Ultimately the sloppiness seemed contagious and begs the question of why. This is a team that just bagged two scalps in Adelaide 

Although the celebrations of those two wins was perhaps a tad too strong because we have clearly lost sight of the big picture since. 

But again there were over a dozen comprehensive flag 21 players on the track last night so it begs the question 

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED.

Im putting this out to all the seasoned and genuine knowledgeable posters of the game because I'm seriously baffled.

And with all due respect please don't say we doubled their score because we were terrible. 

Many of our errant kicks were from no pressure acts by the opposition. Those couple of just poor out of bounds on the full and direct kicks to opposite players standing by their lonesome are evidence of a sub par performance.

A good thing Richmond are just shot. How can we confidently face the cats next week?

Sorry to dump this on you Binners.

But I just want an attempted no nonsense fair critique. I think it's very naive not to be concerned after that in terms of us getting to a top four spot.

To quote a line from that iconic Oz movie .." Tell em their dreaming."

Maybe I should change my moniker to don't make me angrier.

Cheers.

 

 

 

Lots to unpack there.

So ill pick just one element - your critisism of the midfield.

As goody noted in his post match presser, it's not the number of clearances, it's the quality of clearances.

And as he also referenced, we set up at stoppages one player down, making it less likely we will win any given around the ground stoppage.

But when we do win a stoppage no team, with the possible exception of the blues, is better at turning that stoppage win into a score.

And no team is better at stopping an opponent score from a stoppage when they win it, in large part because we use the spare we create because we bring one (sometimes more) less to the stoppages behind the ball. 

In other words, it doesn't matter so much how many clearances we win or lose. It matters how much more, or less, we score from them.

Quality not quantity - as defined by scoreboard impact.

The lions game is an outlier. Smashed in total clearances and scores from stoppages 

But otherwise we are consistently outscoring teams from stoppages, often by very big margins.

Here's our raw clearance totals from last night:

And here is our score from stoppages:

So plus 23 points from stoppages. 

Impressive by my measure.

And a huge factor in the end result.

I'd also add that a key part of our midfield, maxy, who came up against two rucks, won the award for BOG.

In what world does that equate to our midfield struggling?

32 minutes ago, Demonland said:

 

That is just so brilliant.

And is the sort of analysis that coverage of hamwsso desperately needs. It would be so easy to introduce too.

White notes the space viney creates and holds. One thing I noticed about tracc getting tagged by kickett is at centre square stoppages he took kickett away from the drop of the ball. That space often allowed koz to get involved and helped with clean exits.

Which is the sort of thing goody  us referecing when he talks about how we take advantage of a tag on clarry, tracc or Oliver.

1 hour ago, Bimbo said:

Have read through about half post game thread and it is a pleasure not to see any critisism of the umpires.

 

 

It is just possible there may be some comment on the Richmond fan forums.

24-12 our way helps to chill the criticism of the umps I reckon.

Long may it reign.

49 minutes ago, SPC said:

One thing I’m sick of hearing is about undermanned Tigers. We are also missing from our end of year list, Brayshaw, Smith (both done i Know) Bowey, Salem. All best 22 last year. We are also a little light on, considering 3 or possibly 4 of those are defenders. 

And you can add melksham and Hunter too.

And whilst McAdam wasn't with us last season, he is def possible best 22 this year.

42 minutes ago, binman said:

Ah yes, good point.

Though I imagine the away factor wouldn't matter if it was at the g because the sample would have included a huge number of games between teams that share the g as a home ground.

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

It’s an interesting article and no doubt right up your alley, but on the bolded bit I don’t think that is right, Richmond had the bye last week too. Plus at any rate the “away” factor for us wouldn’t apply as much in an MCG game against Richmond. 

Ah yes, good point.

Though I imagine the away factor wouldn't matter if it was at the g because the sample would have included a huge number of games between teams that share the g as a home ground.

9 hours ago, Skuit said:

I get your point. But I'm in full demonstone mode trying to work out where you plucked your example numbers from? 

Sorry, don't follow skuit

The consensus is we played poorly. Yet we still won by 43 points.

People seem to equate high scoring with playing well. As if defending brilliantly and keeping a team to 42 points should not be factored into the assessment.

And that running up a high score is be some sort of evidence of our ability to be competitive with teams that are supposedly the benchmark

So i just picked a random score that would be considered a decent score, but still with a 43 point winning margin.

A result that whilst be sexier and a nice sugar hit for fans, would have been less help to our actual chances of say making top 4 because we would  have got less percentage than we did.

The most effective way to build percentage (which is the goal of h&a games - not to look great on offence) is win by a decent margin (eg 43 points) AND keep the opposition to as low a score as possible. Tick, tick last  night

In case people didn't get the memo, goody is not a believer in his premiership coach's (blight) offence first philosophy of attacking and scoring as much as possible.

Goody's philosophy defence first and keeping the opposition under a benchmark score (each year there is a target score). 

And go from there (which this year had included trying to create space in our forward line to be more 'efficient' - something we did absolutely brilliantly last night).

No coincidence goody emphasised in the post match pressure the score we kept them to.

But, in any case, yes our kicking was woeful in rhe first half but as ive noted we piled on 10 goals in the second half (to their two).

So plenty of sugar hits for the goals is proof of excellence crew.

The game goes for 4 quarters, not two.

Sure knock our performance in the first half, but extrapolating that to the whole game does us a massive disservice.

We haven't kicked 10 or more goals in a second half since July last year, when we kicked 12 second half goals against the tigers.

I didn't go further back than that, but I can't imagine we have kicked 10 or more goals in a half that many times in the last couple of seasons (or plys 8 goals), or at all under Goody for that matter.

And it's not as if we were playing the roos or eagles.

The tigers were undermanned and butchered the ball, but as yze noted (and as evidenced by the stats, eg pressure, cps, tackles) their pressure and contest was excellent all game.

It was no walk over, and implying it was disrespects the tigers performance - and ours by extension.

3 hours ago, Demonland said:

How rest and preparation dictate AFL performance

Terrific stuff.

It's worth noting that the standard 7 day break program as detailed in that article includes two all team sessions (not including the captain's run) - a recovery skills session and a main session

Goody said pre game that after the lions match they gave the players a 4 day break and then did three 'quality' sessions (which i think he said included a match sim). 

We had a 13 day break into the tigers game.

The players had a 4 day break, meaning back on deck Tuesday before last, and the captains run on Tuesday this week.

Meaning they had 3 sessions in a seven day period, with at least a couple of weight sessions too no doubt.

In other words, they did increased training loads in the lead up to the Tigers game (ie more work than they would do in a standard week as per the article).

They could have flipped that and done the increased load in week one of their break and then given the players their break.

That would have meant being fresher against the tigers. 

But i would suggest they did not do so because they are targeting the cats and blues games.

Maxy said post game that they will have just the (standard) two sessions this week.

I assume they then have a very light load in the 5 day break into the blues game.

On weight sessions, it is worth remembering load management involves two elements - aerobic (wrong word I think, but y'all get the drift) and power/strength.

Increased power/strength loads, done away from the prying eyes at training sessions, mean some players (particularly young players, like Windsor for example) will feel the effects (eg jelly legs, sore muscles etc) on game day.

Which will likely negativley impact their skills, for example their kicking. 

11 minutes ago, Jjrogan said:

We'd be on 124.6. So 6.1. 

I reckon we look back and pin point this as the turning point in our forward line structure. Turner can play, he leads up, finds separation, has sticky hands and is faster than JVR or Petty (or so it appears).   Real prospect. 

Ta.

Our percentage is now 126.1.

Some would have been thrilled if we won that game with a score of 113 to 70.

Because if we played like that against (insert some supposedly unbeatable team here) and all that.

But we win 85 to 42 (kicking 10 in the second half mind you) and despite gaining 1.5% more it's somwhow a fail.

Like you get a percentage boost or an extra point for style.

We missed finals by 0.2% in 2017.

I'm terrible at maths. A question for anyone who is not.

We gained 7.6%.

How much percentage would we have gained if we win that match 113 to 70.

Sunday 30 July 2023. Round 20.

Eleven games ago.

That was last time we kicked 10 goals in a  second half.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, thst game was also against the tigers.

4 minutes ago, Binmans PA said:

Carlton beat practically the same side by 5 points and despite only losing one game by less than a kick still have a worse percentage than us.

The crows have won one game.

11 minutes ago, layzie said:

Good luck watching that one again Binman..

I really liked Rivers' game and he's making this level of performance standard. Can we expect to see him push into midfield soon? I really liked what the Bulldogs did last week with Ed Richards and feel this could be similar.

Just started it.