binman

Great post. Those sprint numbers are crazy for the pies. As you say it needs to because they push up so high, and if they turn it over, have to sprint back to get ahead of the ball. It that scenario we have a player back, but the pies often have noone deep. But whilst the sprint numbers are a great indicator for their running power, it doesn't nessesarily mean they are fitter (not suggesting you are saying that). Don't get me wrong, they are clearly very fit and have better running power than us. But we have more power and grunt. And when on, use it powerfully.

They have played the 2 worst teams in their last two games - and the blues before thst. Good on em for their three scrappy wins. They have a better record. But they are not in MUCH better form than us atm. If they were they would be much shorter odds than their current quote of 1.74.

They've won more games than us. But i'm sorry jaded, suggesting they are I'm much better form than us is not being realistic. It may be your opinion, but objectively it is simply not true. One assumes you wouldn’t have said that after we demolished the hawks. So by much better form, I assuming you mean the last three games. Have you watched their last 3 games? They were scrappy against the blues, lucky to win and the 3 goal margin flattered them with the blues kicking a wasteful 7.15. They were scrappy against the roos,who put six goals past them in the last quarter to go down by 35 points. And as I noted above, they were very average against the Eagles who were two down on the bench, and still outscored them in third and won cp and the inside 50 count.

Agree.

But surely that's a given. In fact I'd argue that will be their challenge, not ours Bring it.

With only two rotations for almost all the second half the Eagles had more inside 50s than the Pies. And got outscored in the third. Now, i'm guessing the Pies flat performance is related to fatigue and expect them to running over the ground against us, but still that game was hardly an example of free-flowing football or rampant Pies team. They also lost contested possessions, which doesn't augur well coming up against one of the best CP teams in the AFL. By way of comparison, we had 29 more contested possessions than the blues, who are number one in the AFL for CP.

On his five points, hard to argue with them, but also agree they are a bit captain obvious. The frontal pressure is absolutely key, particularly in terms of denying their elite kicks time and space. When we are on, i think we are the best in the AFL at pressing up and timing that press. It is real team skill because if say Hunter presses up and doesn't quite get there, a teammate has to press up from behind to cover the player being kicked to and/or stop the tic tac. Pressing up hard and getting in their grill is a key strategy for how we look to limit the impact of players like Daniel and Saad - deny them time and space so they can't play that quarter back role and set up transition and scoring chains. Funnily enough, I was reflecting that i didn't highlight this on the podcast because this is what we will look to do against Dacos and Pendles. For mine though, they key for us to win is pressure. One, because obviously it makes their risky kicks harder to hit Two, we are the turnover kings and it is our most important scoring source. Pressure is key to creating turnovers. But as important is needing to slow them down on transition. Even if we only slow them down a little bit, our defence can get set up behind the ball. And pressure is how to slow them down. If we can't slow them down on transition, they will separate May and Lever and create one on ones up forward which we will struggle to zone off and cover. The other related strategy is blocking up the corridor and daring them to take it on. Again, i think we are the best in the AFL at doing this. If they miss a couple of those kicks early and we punish them on turnover, it will test their nerve as the game goes on.

I really like Sando's analysis. I reckon he hasn't quite got the dees right this season, but he generally makes his case well and has sound arguments so i def consider them and respect his views. One example of not getting it right about us is his insistence that the Pies are 'by far' the fittest team in the AFL - a point i have heard him make a number of times. Maybe he has access to the GPS numbers because otherwise i'm not sure how he has reached that conclusion. I wonder whether he is conflating last year's relative fitness levels, where we def dropped off in the back half of the season. But, by all accounts we had a brilliant preseason in terms of building our fitness foundation as evidenced by running all over the top of the Dogs and then Swans. And he has cited their last quarters as one piece of evidence of the Pies being the fittest side, but we have only lost 2 of 12 last quarters and are number one in the AFL for red time goals.

Speaking of defensive stats, i reckon Isaac Quaynor is the best medium defender in the AFL. And so is a good reference to get sense on how the juddster is traveling given they play a not dissimilar role. There are different stats you could look at, but arguably the most important stat for that role is 'Percentage of defensive one-on-one contests lost'. Quaynor, considered the best one on one medium defender, only loses 8.3% of his defensive one-on-one contests. The juddster does not suffer badly by comparison, losing only 9.1% of his defensive one-on-one contests - the best of all our defenders (Salo has yet to have 10 contests this season, so is not counted, and surprisingly nor has Gus) Here are the Percentage of defensive one-on-one contests lost numbers for some of our other defenders: May 21.4 % Lever 15.4% Bowey 15.4% Rivers 13.3% https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_stats.html

I know there is probably lots of logistical reason why this game couldn't be on the Monday, but it would have been great if it was on at Vic Park, or the Glass House at say 11am so fans could go prior to the AFL game. I def would.

Can't argue with the numbers for our game. It's science. Go dees.

Yeah, that's what i mean - that's exactly what the Lions try to engineer ie the receiver blocking Koz so he can't pressure Rich. But Koz often gets around the shepard and still gets to Rich, one because he is running from a distance at speed so is traveling quick when he gets close to Rich, and two Koz has brilliant closing speed, lateral movement and agility he uses to get around the block/shepard. And as you say if the receiver chooses not to give it back to Rich (or dacios) because of Koz than that's a win.

Yeah, but the same scenario happens in the Rich examples. ie the receiver tries to block Koz getting to Rich. Daicos plays on, short kicks to say Murphy and runs past for the handball receive, Koz sprints to him as soon as Daicos plays on and follows him and tries to disrupt the handball receive, and if he cant put pressure on the next Daicos kick

That makes sense. Ta

Great point. In response to a great observation from DD about why and how they use Daicos as the person kicking out, something that i had not considered or heard anyone in the media talk about. The Lions use Rich in a not dissimilar way - though he doesn't have the speed over the ground, running power or tank of Daicos and so doesn't really track the ball up the ground to create an outnumber and/or a receiving option in the same way Daicos does. But the lions love to have Rich either: kick out short to a player who gives it back to him and then he belts it 60 metres down the line to a contest, meaning the ball is now nearly at the wing and their tall forwards push up the ground to compete for it in the air receive the short kick from the player kicking out, and belts it 60 metres down the line to a contest Goody uses Kozzie in both instances to get across super-fast and really harry Rich, tackle or box him in if possible and put huge pressure on the Rich kick. It is a big part of how we look to disrupt their game plan. He could do exactly the same with Daicos - and has the speed and tank to follow Daicos up the ground. Or perhaps more likely, hand off to Nibbler, who i was thinking this morning would be the perfect player, given his tank and discipline, not so much to hard tag Daicos but more to track him. Nibbler runs up and down the ground all game anyway, so following Daicos, who does much the same thing, albeit from a diff stating point, would not be dissimilar to the role he plays.

Sorry, can you please clarify what this means. Is Oliver not playing but will still train tomorrow?

Shows how little free to air tv i watch - that's the first I've heard about two FCs

Well, you have to give them credit for being leaders in building racist cultures - the Hawks are mere followers.

Maybe if we have a healthy lead with 10 mins to go we can all start chanting: "Colllllllllllllliwobbbbbles!!!!!!"

There's two? Many years ago I watched it religiously. Haven't seen an episode in years.

.....,sheer luxury

Now that's a hard school.

Kids are so soft these days.

I was refering more to not having to travel as much, less short breaks between games and mutiple games at the G (six of our last eleven). But on the difficulty of the run home, we have 11 more games and of teams currently in the top 8, we play the Pies, Lions , Cats away and Saints at Marvel. The other seven games are against teams currently outside the 8, including games against the Crows (who can't win away) at the G, Roos, Hawks, Blues again and the Swans, who are paddling, away in the last round. The Pies are slight favorites with the bookies, the Cats will be favs but at home we will be close to even money against the lions, maybe favs and we'll be short odds against the Saints. So of our last 11 games we will likely start favorite in 8, maybe 9 of them. And no longer than say 2.30 (against the cats) That's not a hard run home, particularly if you compare it to last season. It's very similar to the difficulty of the Cats' run in to the finals last season i reckon.

Round 21 it was and we went down fighting by seven, looking gassed and only scoring 3 goals in the second half. But the thing too remember is we smashed them in the first half. The numbers were all our way They only stayed in it because they kicked everything (five zip in the first) and we were wasteful. It was 10.7 to 8.2 at half time. Seven more scoring shots for only a 17 point lead. From memory, we were something like plus 35 expected score.