binman

7 minutes ago, KoltTheRam said:

I have communication skills written in my resume?

The gig is yours.

51 minutes ago, KoltTheRam said:

Mostly because I'm in year 11 😅 However its a dream of mine in the future to work in a business or law capacity at the club

Are you any good at comms?

46 minutes ago, Gator said:

You've almost nailed my concerns.

Viney is a hack with his skills, but even he occasionally kicks on his right. And many, including Bontempelli are proficient. I've never seen Langford even attempt to use it.

He needs to improve his gound balls.

You got the contested marking right.

Plus, he's not as hard at the footy as I expected. Lindsay is far harder at the ball than Langford.

Cue the nuffies on here.

Yep, fair calls.

On being hard at it, i hadn't really noticed that but i see your point. Perhaps more time as pure mid might help, though if it's not instinctive he'll never be a bull like Viney.

Agree on Lindsay - i watched a few hours of junior vision after we drafted him and his intensity and preparedness to go hard is 100% instinctive. Fearless. And played a bit as a pure in and under mid it seems (which would be ironic if he becomes an inside mid and Langford outside runner)

Linsday barely had a preseason - once he has a couple more preseasons under his belt he will be one tough bugger.

10 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

Bizarre from @Gator , but each to their own.

Langford will be an A grader very quickly IMV.

Sure, he picks and chooses when to go sometimes, like most players these days, as to the question marks around his marking, the last month or so we started to see his aerial work.

No player at 18 or 19 should be the finished product.

And Langford isn't, and irs that upside that makes me so bullish on him. Or should I day bisonish.

12 hours ago, RedLegs23 said:

I hear you Gator, & no doubt he’s got a bit to work on, just as many other 19 y/o’s. But I tend to see it as an exciting part of his development.

I reckon he’ll eventually fill that heart & soul void that’s been missed since Gus. A void that’s become noticeably wider with each passing game.

I add that in additional to heart and soul that void includes leadership too.

And it's a void that was exacerbated by nibbla going.

On field, and i suspecy off field, too much has been left to Maxy and Viney in terms of heart, soul and leadership this season.

Langford seems a natural leader, and has a come with me boys energy.

I think we saw that enegy against the pies - best on ground, his highest rated game of the season in front of 60k fans against the old enemy.

13 hours ago, Gator said:

It's actually 63, not 65.

Perhaps I'm the only one a little disappointed with aspects of his game.

I'll cope.

I wouldn't say disappointed, but I agree he's got some areas to work on.

There's no doubt he lacks a little speed off the mark, which has become so critical in the last 3 years.

Yes, his footy iq helps, and yes he can improve his speed with training, but he'll never be super quick.

His overhead marking hasn't been as impressive as I expected from the vision I saw from his junior footy, though I suspect that's partly a function of not being able to monster opponents in the same way. That might change as he gets stronger.

My other knock on him is, seemingly like most lefties, he can't kick on his right. Melksham, koz and even fritter regularly demonstrate the value of bring able to kick well with both feet.

Langford seems a driven young man and I suspect he is type of player who can improve areaa weaknesses thri work and effort.

@Gator what do you see as his areas for improvement?

18 minutes ago, RedLegs23 said:

Lego Langford rated the 25’ champion data rising star winner via SEN ahead of Reid & Curtin.

Rated #65 in the comp. Best rating by a first year player.

63rd rated player in his first year of AFL footy - wow.

The scary thing is how much more upside he has compared to other ready made midfield guns like Rowell, Wines, Daicos and Harley Reid.

By that I mean those players of course got stronger and fitter after their first season. But not a hell of a lot bigger.

Langford almost has the build of a key position player, and will fill out quite a bit over the next 2-3 years and like most bigs take a while to get to optimal fitness.

As a comparison, Bont, who I've read Harvey based his game on as a junior, is 2 or 3 cms taller but was the same height when drafted as Harvey was drafted.

Give Harvey two more full AFL preseasons and he will be taller and significantly stronger and fitter than he is now.

And we shouldn't sleep on Lindsay as I suspect he'll be every bit as good the bison.

If, as seems to the case, Buckley is really keen on the coaching job, I can only imagine a big part of the attraction is the opportunity to build a team around two generational talents.

1 hour ago, Jaded No More said:

Even the psych got sick of our [censored]

Did his head in.

16 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

Kozzy butchers the footy by foot. He's brilliant around goal, but turns it over a lot further up the field.

It's weird though - perhaps I'm misremerbering but it feels like his field kicking has gone backwards this season, in large because of those strangle little dinky kicks that look too cute by half that he does at least one or twice a game now.

Perhaps it's just that he's playing way more time on the ball but those kicks seem like a new thing.

There's no reason why he shouldn't be an excellent field kick - he has a good technique and evidenced by his goal kicking accuracy.

19 hours ago, old55 said:

Or maybe it unlocks our ability to trade other players.

No surprise you find a negative everywhere.

Indeed.

For example, Tmac staying provides key defensive coverage if we trade out May.

And if we do trade May out having Melksham as forward option means we are better placed to move Petty back to replace May

No Bowser in the squad - that's ridiculous.

5 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

Maybe what you should do is take it with the context.

A good HB should be above 80% efficiency.

A good inside mid should be above 60%

Different expectations for different positions.

It's like basketball, you don't expect a Center to have a high 3pt % but you do expect him to have a high on the rim efficiency.

Yep, that's where it can be of some use, particularly KE.

That said, even then it has limitations - eg statistically what's the meaningful difference between say an 80% or 81% fie say a half back flanker.

Bur like most stats they are often not that useful in isolation, which is how they are often used.

For example comparing a half back flanker whose role is to initiate transition triangulating say KE, score involvements and clangers would give a good sense of their skill set and a foundation for comparison to other like players.

17 hours ago, rjay said:

I wonder if the physical and mental go hand in glove.

Of course they do.

And we all instinctively know it as in out day to day lives few of us make better decisions when tired and/or fatigued.

We make more mistakes at work, we lose concentration when driving, we make sub optimal decisions, we take longer to work out stuff etc etc etc.

6 minutes ago, ElDiablo14 said:

What is wrong with disposal efficiency?

I think that stat, for the most part,shows how skilled you are.

Like raw hitout totals, only useful as a guide, and then not a particulary useful one.

The issue with DE and Kicking Efficiency is they don't differentiate between positions, for example a half back flanker has way more easy sideways chips than an inside mid, whose possessions are alwayss ndet pressure.

Similary if one team us putting on a lot more pressure, lower DE might be a function of that pressure. Or not.

Better measures to get a sense of realise kicking and hanballing skills are turnovers, scores from turnover, goal kicking accuracy and clangers.

57 minutes ago, deegirl said:

Yes. 1987 is a long time ago but my hatred for Hawthorn is still fresh

This is the way.

5 minutes ago, WheeloRatings said:

Here's a rough guide for where Clarry scored his rating points compared to his season average (and last week). This is based on my estimate of rating points which do not account for pressure. The absence of pressure information:

• underestimates the points from ball use if the player disposes of the ball under pressure; and

• ignores the points accumulated from the player applying pressure on the opposition ball carrier.

Notwithstanding, it provides a rough guide for the breakdown of points. Clarry usually accumulates most of his points through contested possessions (which are generally worth quite a bit) - he only had five on Friday (=3rd worst of his career) and only two ground ball gets (equal worst of his career). 26 of his 31 possessions were uncontested and were worth 0 points.

"Ball Use" includes shots at goal and I have calculated his missed shot at approximately -1.5 points.

Clayton Oliver

Category	2025	v Coll	v Haw
Possession	7.06	3.30	7.30
Ball Use	0.87	−0.38	2.94
Tackle	0.15	0.02	0.24
Spoil	0.04	0.00	0.53
Error	−0.11	−1.17	0.00
Free Against	−1.11	−0.90	−0.63
Total	6.90	0.87	10.39

Interesting wheelo - ta.

On pressure, Clarry had one of his lowest ratings fir the season I suspect, accruing only 27 points against a season average of 49.7.

On 22/08/2025 at 23:50, Dr. Gonzo said:

Thank God for Gawn, he is an absolute beast. His ruckwork isn't great but his around the ground work is phenomenal. The effort he puts in should shame some of our other players.

Langford was good.

Rivers had a good second half after looking all at sea in the middle to start with. Imagine if he'd been given a whole season to develop as a mid....

This team is so frustrating to watch, they do so much right but just shoot themselves in the foot again and again. At once stage it seriously felt like we were watching a team of special eds running around out there not professional athletes.

@binman there was a definite change to our ball movement that I noticed tonight (although the execution was diabolical) with the play on mantra, taking the shorter options etc. I'll admit this is one I likely got wrong as it's unlikely they just flicked a switch in the final game and have probably been working on it all season. My confirmation bias was probably noticing the long down the line/around the boundary kicks more than the alternative methods although I think we definitely tried the faster ball movement more frequently tonight. Short of going back and watching games from earlier this season again (which I'd rather stick hot pokers in my eye than do) it would be difficult to analyse so I'll admit Goodwin was trying to implement changes to the ball movement. I don't think that mitigates the other faults Goodwin had but on this one happy to say I was wrong.

As ive noted before, personally I would have stuck fat with goody if the choice were mine.

But, iassuming they have a new coach (*buckley*) 90% locked in, i also see the logic of some of the arguments for going another direction, in particular a reset and the benefit of a new voice.

For me the last quarter highlighted the latter point. One of the challenges of implementing a new method is that method becoming instinctive.

We played good transition footy for big chunks of the match, but under pressure in the last quarter many of our senior players reverted to elements of our previous method, in particular going for territory and kicking it long to a contest, which would have ok if we were winning them bur we weren't.

Conversely, the pies leant into their transtion method.

A reset and a new voice might help players, particularly senior players break that tendency to revert to the down the line, territory-based method when under pressure.

A reset also creates the opportunity for the team, and individual players to change the mindset from what appears to be a fear of losing.

The last quarter also exposed issues we have had all season - poor fitness, poor decision making, poor skills, panicking (the latter 4 impacted by the first) and outside of koz not having a gun who impacts the scoreboard when a clutch goal is needed and/or burst of sustained excellence that creates goals like Ed Richards against us (though, gee Langford wasnt far away from doing so - remarkably, given it was our final game of a long season, was our highest rated player).

On our performance, as entertaining as it was in parts, i rgought it was pretty average - we were very lucky the pies were not accurate in the first quarter. I actually thought our performance was better last week against the Hawks, including in the first quarter.

Both team's pressure was woeful all game and the pies defence, which was pushing up ridiculously high, and all team defence was pathetic.

If, as looks likely, the pies finish top 4 they will be one of the weakest top 4 teams in recent memory.

They'll almost certainly play the crows in Adelaide week one and get hammered and I reckon any team they then meet will be a better team (with the possible exception of freo if by some miracle they, one, make finals and two make the second week of finals)

5 hours ago, binman said:

Yep, same story all year.

And I'll bet Oliver, given his rating, had his fair share of turnovers (the ratings measure scoreboard impact).

Might explain River's rating too given he looked to have a great game.

I just saw that clarry only had 2 turnovers, so his involvements in the game must simply not have been that impactful, for example he only had 2 clearances.

47 minutes ago, At the break of Gawn said:

Shocked with Oliver's rating. Thought he would have been top 5.

Scores from turnover the killer last night.

Yep, same story all year.

And I'll bet Oliver, given his rating, had his fair share of turnovers (the ratings measure scoreboard impact).

Might explain River's rating too given he looked to have a great game.

1 hour ago, Yarra Valley Demon said:

Given that selection is done by a panel, not by the coach on their own (not that we have a full time senior coach yet) then, yep, the club as greater entity is responsible for the decision making.

Yep 100% agree.

Which is why the trenchant criticism goody frequently received for selection criticism often reflected an ignorance about how AFL teams operate (which was the subtext of my comment).

2 hours ago, Yarra Valley Demon said:

The club have given up looking at the selection this week, zero changes after last week's display

Maybe, just maybe, our new coach thinks our effort was OK and was pleased we fought the game out and didn't get blown away, kicking 7 of the last 8 goals against a team that was in red hot form and has a real shot at winning the flag.

By the by I love how posters are now criticising the 'club' for performance and selection decisions not the coach.

21 minutes ago, biggestred said:

Just want to say thanks @Ghostwriter for all your reports this year. And to others who have reported. I think I have read every single one, and it has been very much appreciated.

Hear hear.

7 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

So every time we go long down the line around the boundary, that's shaking things up? Every time we go with the same merry go round of ins/outs? Every time we have the same players with 80%+ CBAs? Every time we go with the same forward setup be that personnel or structure?

It's a myth Goodwin tried to drastically overhaul our setups/structures and ball movement. Yeah he may have tinkered but it was too little, too late.

Nevermind I forgot to add the lack of development of our younger players, none of whom have really come on since the flag year despite debuting with some core strengths to build around.

#Goodwin myths

4 minutes ago, mfcrox said:

Would anyone be against Petracca to Hawthorn, get their draft capital, and then use that to get Jackson back?

I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Jackson heir apparent to Maxy

White heir apparent to Jackson.

That's our ruck position sorted for the next decade and a half.

1 minute ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

refused to make positional changes, structural changes or changes to our ball movement such that watching us play was/is like banging your head against the wall

#Goodwin myths