binman

Bump. In my opinion Tracc is now a better player than Oliver. And I rate Oliver super highly so tbat is no small statement. Had a much underrated season last year. Addressed his inconsistency. Has addressed his fitness and got his psychology spot on. In 16 minute quarters is now averaging mid 20s for possessions, despite playing forward 30% of the time. Elite. And contested possessions are off the chart. Goal average has gone from 0.9 a game (with 70% of his time forward) to 1.1. In 16 minute quarters this season. Has always been able to do things only a very small handful of players can do.. Is now doing it week in week out. Martin is absolutely an apt comparison and tracc is plsying much better this year. Tracc is a lock for AA. Oliver has leveled off a bit, but still been very good and was terrific last two games. Great to see him kicking more and getting metres gained. If Oliver keeps that form up he is a good chance of a second AA selection, which would put him in a very small group of players who achieved that before their 25th birthday. But try a thought experiment. Imagine you are the coach of the Saints. A team on the rise. And you have the choice of tracc or Oliver to come to your club. Who do you select?

Yep. And lots of families don't want others to know their business.

I hadn't thought about this but I think i sort of agree (is that equivocal enough?). He does seem to be a bit stationary and often defaults to trying to simply out body his direct opponent. Maybe form but to me he has looked too big this year and perhaps even carrying an injury. He is certainly not as mobile and on his bike as he was in 2018. Perhaps i'm being a bit harsh but sometimes i have thought a few times this year that his body language has not been not great if the ball is not kicked to the perfect spot or if not getting a free he deserves. That said i was reflecting on how much more space our forwards had yesterday and how often there were free players inside 50 (eg kozzie, bennell, harmes, tracc). But reckon that sapce is a function of how well me moved the ball. The hawks had a defensive zone set up but when we moved the ball fast from defence it looked like there were holes every where inside our 50. Frost must have been thinking he was back at the dees when he first came to our club. I can recall thinking back in say 2015 when were trying to implement a zone defence that there were holes everywhere and we gave opposition teams acres of space. I guess the question with Tmac is, at the moment is he a help or a hindrance in that quick ball movement from defence to our inside 50. The connection Goody loves to reference. With Jackson's i don't think there is much question he helped. His mobilty and speed creates space and helps him get up and down the ground and he supports connection.

Agree. His ability to kick well with his left foot is a much underappreciated skill and actually quite important one for the dees. Think of how few players in our team are reliable on their non preferred foot. There might beosme other but i can only think of Melksham, Bennell (i assume, just coz he is sublime) Jones (sort off) and Viney (joking - but ironically his best kick inside 50 this year was the one to trac against the suns on his right. At least until his beauty to fritter last game). Being two sided means more options for where he is played and helps with moving the ball forward as he can't be trapped on one side, like say hibbo. A perfect example was the kick to to Fritter that set up the Tracc wonder kick to Weed in the square. Brayshaw won the ball hard on the boundary and if he had to jinck to his right rather than kick on his left he may have been tackled, found it harder to cut the ball back to fritter, or they might have had enough time to get across to Fritter and/or tracc cover them.

Ta j6. Just made that same point about Brayshaw on the what has happened to him thread. It appears the answer is he playing well and pleasing his coach and team mates

Just listened to Maxy on rsn and agrees with you. Sort of. He went further and said he has been one of our best this year and implied not getting the credit he deserves. Said by playing his role allows viney and tracc to get off the chain. I agree with you on his game against the hawks. He was involved in a couple of really important scoring chains and whilst he did butcher it a bit as you said he also had some damaging kicks. A bit like Oscar I reckon his lack of speed impacts on how people see his game as it can make it appear he lacks intensity and effort. Not a chance in haddes he gets dropped.

Gawny on rsn now for 25 mins

Modern footy is a million miles away from the one on one game it was in the 80s and not the 90s. It will never go back there. Deal I just looked at the vision of every involvement for Harmes and could not for the life of me work out who he played on. The best guess was Blake Hardwick. So i looked at his vision and Harmes was nowhere near him for almost all his involvements. So i looked at Smith's vision! And bugger if if could tell who was on him. The player most regularly in screen was Langdon so perhaps they didn't run directly anyone on him? Or at least not a tag. Either way he was useless. Perhaps you need the down the ground vision to really track who is on who. I'll check Jetts and Lockart at some point but i'm going to watch tracc's involvements now. Juts coz

Top post. Agree with the above points. Fitness and attitude are the key.

What. A. Kick.

Fair nuff No argument from me about his talent. One of the most talented players I've seen play

Alannis says hi:

If you asked Slobbo the answer would be one that clearly benefits the bombers

Some key stats that go a long way to explaining our dominance (from this article with a bunch of other stats on the MFC website): Inside 50’s: Melbourne: 54 | Hawthorn: 33 Inside 50’s from centre bounces: Melbourne: 12 | Hawthorn: 6 Marks inside 50: Melbourne: 15 | Hawthorn: 5

I cant do those fancy giphs. Can someone help a fella out with one of that kick. That kick was heaven on a stick.

I 100% agree with the points in this post. I reckon our game plan is very close to Richmonds. But of course not exactly the same, particularly our greater emphasis on winning contested ball. But like the tigers we are forward half team, as you say when on we run in waves and use those players either side of the ball carrier, look to keep the ball moving forward at all costs when attacking (eg with knock ons etc - melk taking it a bit too far i reckon - just grab the footy for god's sake) and inside 50 pressure and tackling are fundamental KPIs (which is why Hannan and Kozi are such important ins) I also agree with an earlier point you about the tiger's plan changing bit to be more considered and less frenetic. We are also trying to make that change. Clubs have to these days to counter the flood and control the tempo and momentum of the game. This is a tactical shift responsible for driving scores down - five years ago, generally the only time teams slowed it down and chipped it around was near the end of quarters or to defend lead at the end of the game. now they do it at various stages though match and for various reasons. This tactic, which is even more effective with 16 minute quarters, is regularly employed in soccer and basketball no doubt other team sports. Control the temp and momentum and control the game. Deny the Opposition the ball and they can't score. A really good example of us doing this well was in the minutes after the hawks kicked a couple of quick goals early in the third quarter (leading one of the peanut commentators to exclaim after the second of those goals something like - 'hawks now only 3 goals down and dees fans are nervous!'). Rather than trying to counter attack - as would have in 2017 and 2018 - we balanced up and got control of the tempo of the game. Meaning they didn't bang on 3-4 quick goals as has been our Achilles heel under Goody. So when Weed scored our first for the quarter the game was effectively over. In some ways we also now share some tactical similarities to the pies - as do the tigers as we now share their emphasis on: all players doing the gut running needed in modern footy, applying the required pressure on that last kick inside 50 forcing opposition sides to go long down the line by denying them the switch and kick to the corridor having a back six that works super well as a unit and is really hard to score against (it is worth noting as bad as were last year and in our losses this year teams have still struggled to score against us and we were rarely flogged)

So can i be clear Nasher. What you are saying is that Goody has stopped listening to his muppet assistants and become an authoritarian. Name your source - or are you just pitting stuff out there to stir up trouble?

More like: 'I reckon the blues will win flag, maybe two before the Hawks even make finals again - Al can i ask a serous question. Be honest. I value 360 degree feedback. I ran the blues into the ground, got sacked and now they are flying. Bloody exciting footy they play too. I came to the hawks the year after they made a semi and we have been on the slide since. Pretty dull game plan too i must say. If i bail will you give me a reference, like the one that landed me the blues gig?''

i find it all but impossible to work out who is playing on watching on TV (with some obvious exceptions - some key forwards, rucks, mids being tagged). Why don't they tell us? Would a graphic be that hard or some analysis be that hard? Anyway i digress. As i mentioned a few times last year and the year before people with the AFL live pass (tesltra customers and i assume AFL subscribers? - not sure how that works) can access AFL stats pro on AFL.com where you can of watch vision every involvement of every player. Fantastic tool. I assume the clubs and players use this vision to reflect on individual player''s games I have used it this year (in 2018 and 2019 i was mostly on Omac watch) but might have look at Harmes' or Smith's involvements because i wondering who was on Smith too. Did bugger all. I''m also curious who Lochart and Jetta played on. And who was on Sicily (or vice versa) i'll have a look tonight and post my findings!

A good point. No doubt we are better structurally with Omac and Weed in the team. And i was really disappointed Harley didn't play against the cats and even more so the tigers. But a big part of coaching is man management and goody may well have decided he was prepared to risk losing the war to win the battle with all three players.

Yep, possibly. But that's a really good thing is it not?

An imposter! or should that be imposter?

Could not agree more. Fantastic game. Blimey he must be fit. I mentioned that handball from Oliver to a mate when talking to him.about how well maxy played. What presence of mind to clear that ball! He would have never thought in a million years oli would give that to him. Why would he? In the 2018 semi I was filthy at the hawks tactics on gawn. They smashed him all day and took every chance to hurt him. Doubt gawny has forgotten. Played like he was on a mission.

No? How many players, moving through traffic (having set up the scoring chain in the center) could hit a player 20 metres away with a handball fired from round his head to set up a gimme goal? And his first goal back though easy will certainly make his end of career highlight reel. (Note: the above sounds a bit argumentative - it wasn't meant to)

Agree on those elements being there in 2018. But what is noticeably different is we are now somtimes playing tempo footy. We actually started doing that last year, out of necessity as anything else I reckon in order to stay in games and stem the losses. But we struggled to play at two speeds. We have tried to implement that two speed footy this year and have struggled until the last two games to make it work. Which explains both why we have struggled to score and sometimes have been easy to score against in patches (though it must be said we have not been smashed this year so the defence has done well, even with smith). To me this a pretty big change, one that would have been hard to implement for a team schooled on run and gun under goody (in 2017 and 2018). On demonland there were lots of comments after the first few games about the players looking confused, not quite gelling as team, not knowing quite what to do and making poor decisions. All valid points. But I have no doubt that is all at least part a function of trying to bed down a changed (albeit not radically) game plan. Something made harder by all the restrictions on training as a result of covid. Credit where it is due for goody, who by the by by has also won the tactical battle the last two weeks against the master and his apprentice.