binman

opinion or fact?

C'mon doc now you are just being silly. Surely as a doctor you are not so naive as to equate his public persona to how he is with his players? He has never been a good media performer, he clearly hates it. He often appears on edge. It is not his go, like say Paul 'Hollywood Roos. In fact it is more than possible that part of his challenge in his media work is keeping his emotions, particularly frustration, in check. You see it all the time in work settings and people doing media (eg politicians) - fighting to hide emotions (anger, frustration, sadness, disdain etc etc). The skilled performers hide it well. The not so skilled performers either lose their composure and their emotion is clear or find other strategies to hide it. Like going the other way and showing little emotion.

All really good points deanox. Those stats for this season are impressive. Love that he is kicking more As you say he is an elite extractor, a skill that perhaps can be underrated and is certainly less flashy and obvious than say brilliant kicking. I've noticed too that this year he often goes to the opposition's best mid at stoppages, as he did with Cripps. Doesn't mind getting into them either. In 2018 I backed him to win the brownlow (after the home and away season ) as his numbers were crazy good. Couldn't believe how few votes he got (or conversely how many Gus got). I concluded he doesn't get votes because umpires miss his key skill - that ability to extract and they don't like that he is lippy and likes to scrap. It is a joke award

I have been super impressed with club's comms and media this year. Just terrific. And Ben Gibson has been a key part of that. Love how invested he is in the club. Has settled, got his confidence and is now a good performer behind the camera. Knows his stuff, players etc respect and like him.and he asks good questions. Though for me he missed the obvious one. What made him angry in that ladt quarter?

And in fact that is exactly what the club did. Not only news not fragmented, fans not worried ('a broken face - he'll be our till next year!), story quiet and actually good news as 2 weeks us fine. This from article posted last night 6pm (at the same time as the club interview with goody that his quote is from): MELBOURNE will be without Aaron vandenBerg for its next two matches, after the midfielder underwent surgery on Tuesday evening. vandenBerg suffered a fractured cheekbone during his side’s 43-point victory over the Hawks in Round 7, and is already on the mend. While it’s an unfortunate setback for the 27-year-old, who has played just 39 career games due to ongoing foot troubles, Simon Goodwin says he should make a quick recovery. “He got a pretty heavy knock in the first quarter and fractured a cheekbone,” Goodwin said on this week’s episode of The Talking Points.

Neale is key. A total A Grader. Harmes seems the obvious go to option.

Kicked 12 in 2018. Four last year. None so far this year.

May played on him last year I think and i would not be shocked if he does so again. If they can shut down the space he can lead into, may can negate his marking strength, which a small can struggle to do.

I'm not sure fair comes into the equation. If the question is who is the better player, the answer depends on your metrics. For me tracc is a better at this point of time because he is more damaging and has more impact. But impact is my chosen metric. Others will have different metrics and therefore a different answer. But dont get me wrong Oliver is a star.And unlike say a Ollie wines has not hit his ceiling. Loved how he played on Sunday. Had reak impact because he was getting the ball forward and kicking more. Id love to see him kick some goals. That would add anorher element to his game.

I thought the same actually. Nearly 60 years ago.

Some distance from the match in guessing. People have watched the replays so not looking for how it happened. The footy shows have done their reviews and not focused on his or his injury. Only keen dee fans follow injury reports and it wouldn't register with other clubs fans a low profile player like avb got hurt. Noise managed

Thanks. That makes a lot of sense.

Why is that?

Because it can serve a purpose. I'm struggling to see what the benefit here was. Maybe goody not wanting to bring the vibe down. But burgess?

I have no doubts that is true. Given that why do you think goody said no injury problems in his post match presser as did burgess yesterday?

Top work goodwindees. Two weeks would best case scenario you'd think given. Negatives: will really miss his aggression, tackling and perhaps most of all the perceived pressure he creates. All will be missed against two very good, but pretty young teams. And both games are super important. Positives: can still do aerobic work, so can continue to build fitness. Wont have to travel and can help look after the kids back at the hub. Not his foot. Won't miss his woeful kicking in the last few games. Will be fresh When He comes back.

I deocoded your message. Good work. It did make me wonder if Petracca was too long

Good point.He's in the same conversation for sure. Stringer was too at one point i guess. At least for a short time. Not now though.

Good question. I meant now actually and personally, like you id take tracc - though by some margin. At 18? Not so sure. The percentage call would be Oliver. And perhaps i should cool my jets a bit with tracc given i've still got the post Hawks game glow on. It would depend a bit of course of what the needs of my hypothetical list was but i'd like to think i'd still pick Tracc because of his unique combination of power, size and skills. And a unique combination of power, size and skills is exactly why i loved the selection of Jackson. He was not the percentage pick. The percentage pick would have been an outside mid or winger with elite foot skills as that is what we sorely lack (and the sort of i think we should target next draft by the by) not ruck given we have gawn and recruited Preuss as back up. But Jackson has got what few do. In addition to his rare physical attributes he, like Tracc, has the X factor gene. There were some curious things about Tracc's draft. One was Brayshaw and Trac are good examples of a gun mid and a player with x factor. The discussion pre draft was that Tracc was a very good chance at going at number 1 and i don't recall gus being in that conversation. In the end it didn't matter because we had picks 2 and 3, and perhaps i'm reading too much into it but it was instructive i think they chose trac at 2 and Brayshaw at 3. The other thing curious thing (and ultimately sad) thing that the Saints ended up taking McMartin because really good big forwards are rare as hens teeth in the draft, they needed one and even though he had unique attributes tracc would never be key forward. The only winners were us really. (McMartin - such terrible luck. I really hope he can play again, if he wants to)

Even right now? It would be an interesting question to ask all 17 other coaches. I suspect most, bit not ll would take tracc. right now. Two years ago probably Oliver as Tracc would have been more of a gamble and din't have the same commitment to training But how good is it we have both!

All really good points. And accurate too. Nice debate to have - who is the better player of two absolute guns In terms of my thought experiment if i was the coach of the Saints and could take one of those tow players i would choose Tracc every day of the week. I 100% agree Oliver is star. Have always thought so. But as good as he is there are maybe 15 - 20 elite mids in the AFL. And every top 10 of the draft has 4-5 more elite level mids. Just look at last yeas draft - Rowel, Anderson and Green are all likely to be elite mids and there are no doubt 4 or 5 others. Very few players like Tracc however (though i like the look of green). How many players are there with traccs combination of power, strength, talent, skill, goal kicking power but most all ability to impact a game the way he did on Sunday? Martin and Dangerfield would be the only others at them moment. When is the last player we have had like him? Tracc is a difference maker. Ans yes it has taken until this year to really start showing that but that is understandable given his physique. Mids can start impacting in their first season, as Oliver did. A better analogy for Tracc would be a big as it is not until he reaches his full physical power that he is going to reach his full potential.

That's why my jokes are so simple!

No it not. Its nothing like that all. Ill ask again. If you were coach of the Saints, taking into account all the information you know about Oliver and Tracc (eg historic form, current foem, style, potential, impact, your opinion of their relative ceiling etc etc) which of those players would you choose if you could only have one? It is a simple question with a binary answer.

Yep, i thought he had a good game. One turnover i recall (a kick to Oliver?) but kicking was pretty good. Took a couple of really nice intercept marks too.

It is all about recovery isn't it Webber. In normal seasons i'm guessing they spend most of their week recovering and maybe only have the one tough training session (and some players wouldn't even have that). With short breaks they will just miss that big session. And i'm thinking that with the players all in in the hub they have unique opportunity to support (control?) the player's recovery - no late nights bingeing on netflix and corn chips. I was critical of the decision by the AFL to go to 16 minute quarters but credit where it is due - 20% less game time across the board will help a lot with recovery in this period. I think another big factor is that all teams, dees included, are, at least to some degree, playing tempo footy with lots of slow, patient ball movement, holding it for 15 odd seconds after a mark and chipping it around the back line. Look at how few inside 50s GWS have had. They are barely moving it forward. This means the games are generally slower, less ballistic, not as physically taxing and players get a rest on the ground during games. Clubs might look to play more of this style in this block of games, particularly if they get say 3-4 goals lead, to help keep their players fresher (for footy punters might be good period to back unders on the total match point). And we don't get close to using all of our rotations i don't think and some players, like Gawn barely come off. We can use all of our rotations and give players like Gawn more of rest to help manage loads