binman

Finding common ground on any topic requires respectful debate. I'm well up for robust, respectful debate and whilst I can sometimes be guilty of being overly sarcastic and/or dismissive that is the exception not the rule Adding a laugh emjoji to my previous post, which was a genuine good faith attempt at respectful dialogue and debate, is your prerogative. However, given I didn’t make any gags, laughing at my attempt fo engage and debate respectfully is obviously not going to foster respectful debate or us finding common ground. Given a respectful debate seems unlikely, we wont find common ground and further debate will just be a source of annoyance to us both. Life's too short for that sort of palaver. So lets put a pin in it, agree to disagree and move on.

With respect ATBOG i think you are using out of date metrics to assess performance - certainly different metrics to those i use, and at the risk of coming across like a know it all, different metrics than what footy clubs use to asses performance in the modern era. In 2024 the metrics coaches use to assess individual performance would include a whole bunch of information we as fans do not have access to. The most important of these is playing their assigned role. Another is adherence to structures, systems and team rules - particularly those relating to the all system defensive system we employ. Another is work rate as measured by heir GPS numbers, including their total kms run, top speed, kms run at striding pace, sprint kms, defensive running, offensive running etc etc. I know for fact that each player gets these numbers for every game AND every training session so they know if they have hit their targets. A key one is the KPIs for their line, in this case the mid group. Coaches are interested in what individuals do as part of their specific line and any individual KPIs are directly informed by whatr that group is tryting achive and what the indicators of success. Others are pre and post clearance uncontested contested possessions and there are no doubt many more that I'm not aware of Then there are the numbers that are publicly available, including things like pressure, contested possessions, score involvements, goal assists, one percenters, contested marks, intercepts, spoils uncontested marks etc etc. Each player would have a group of stats and indicators specific to their role in the team. That's to say not all stats are relevant for each player. I doubt coaches use disposal numbers in of themselves at all, or if they do only for specific players because in specific circumstances (eg they have been asked to get more involved). Coaches are interested in impact and disposal numbers are absolutely useless as a measure of impact. Take Billings. Posters have been confidently predicting and/or calling for him to be dropped for weeks and it seems to me that is largely based on his low disposal numbers and seemingly low hurt factor. But as i argued on the podcast if he is a fixture in the side we can be certain he is meeting his individual KPIs, in particular playing his role and doing what he needs to do from a systems and structure perspective. Which is why i was so confident he would not be dropped this week (and it wasn't because we didn't have alternatives - Hunter, Laurie, Woey all could have come in for him). So given we don't have access to the critical information to say that you can 'absolutely guarantee you that Goody would not be happy with our midfield to date' is, to be frank, patent nonsense. A couple of other random comments: Viney has been quieter for the last 3-4 weeks but was brilliant in our first 4 games Oliver's numbers are crazy good given his limited preseason and playing with a broken hand for 3 games, sore ribs for at least one (the tiger game) and recovering from surgery in the last game Petracca is struggling with a tag? Really? Would have struggled to get 20 possessions if he didn't go forward? You are judging him on a scenario that didn't happen based on your predictive power? C'mon. Our mission are 'posting records low numbers'? I didn't 'blame the defenders' for giving up 5 goals from the centre In fact i explicitly acknowledged the mids are a factor in the ream giving scores from center clearances, noting the 'mids are only one factor in influencing whether an opponent scores a goal from a centre clearance' By the by, do me a favor and try to avoid misrepresenting my comments Yes i said the defenders were one of the factor, because Goody made clear in his presser, they were Clearances are no longer as important an indicator for most teams, certainly not for us - so whilst they are still important they are not nearly as important as they were say 10 years ago (turnover related stats are way more significant now) Take the Cats - before we played them they were unbeaten but were 17th for stoppage clearances won You seem to be under valuing the importance of the pressure stats - the clubs don't On pressure, there is a contradiction in your post above - you note how important it is mids don't allow their opponents out the front. How do you think they do that? Spoiler alert- by applying pressure

I agree with the above except the last paragraph. Sort off. I agree they didn't change their method much according to the conditions. But they definitely changed their method close to finals and during the finals. Whilst sill lookimg for scores from turnover, which we were too, they basically adopted our forward half game. I take the point you made in another thread that they played a slingshot shot game against us in the final. But not in the first quarter and after that it was a function of how utterly dominant we were. We smashed them for territory and inside 50s but butchered ours chance. They were forced to rely on rebound goals but would have lost that game if not for their accuracy and our innacracy.

Yes, no doubt. But frankly that's just silly. For one thing we scored 2 goals ourselves from centre bounces, so the difference was only 3 goals. But of most significance, the mids are only one factor in influencing whether an opponent scores a goal from a centre clearance. And a pretty small one at that. The coaches, particularly the mid coach (McQualter for us) develops the plan, system and structures for each match. The players follow that plan. Both teams had very aggressive sets up, hence 7 goals in total from centre clearances (I doubt there will be many matches all season with so many cc goals). By way of contrast the tigers had 10 centre clearances against us and the cats 8. And both teams only scored one point from those clearances. Once the ball leaves the centre it's on the defenders to stop the opponents scoring. No coincidence when asked what happened in the presser (the first question he got) a frustrated goody noted our defence and kicks inside 50 were poor in the first - and did not mention the mids. And goody was spot on. We gave up some marks we rarely allow, the defenders looked a little confused at times and tmac and may were both off early. To be fair to the defenders, the blues were getting high quality centre clearances, their marking was brilliant early and perhaps the match ups weren't quite right. And the blues took every chance. On average, even with the clean exits and good looks, they kick 2.3 or 3.2 not 5 straight from their centre clearances (the blues were plus 22.5 on x score - brilliant, but anomalous, kicking for goal). But our back 7 would be the first to put their hand up and agree they were poor In the first half. And let's not let the forwards off the hook. We were forced to play our most in form and damaging mid for big chunks of time as a forward, which obviously impacted our ability to stop the blues winning centre clearances or doing so ourselves. The mids did a good job on the night, as they have all season.

Cost me money. Wanted to vack port but I assumed it 7:40 @#$%*@ AFL.

Not sure why our mids are copping it so bad. The top rated player from either team was tracc. Yes he played forward too, but still played through the middle. Crazy metres gained. Our next highest rated was jack (3rd behind cirpps). Nibbla, who had some time on bsll, next (4th for us and both teams) Clarry, who was terrific in the first half, but faded was still our 8th highest rated player. And Max was 6th. The blues are the best clearance team in the AFL. They only had 2 more clearances in total. And only scored 5 more points from clearances (-18 from centre bounces and +13 from around the ground stoppages). All while Max had his lowest rating in a match since being sick with the flu in the OR.

Agree with all comments. An interesting factor re: their centre clearance goals in the first is how aggressive we were with our set up. We seemed to roll the dice to try and win some clean centre clearances. If so, we lost that particular craps game.

Personnel helps that's for sure. But I agree with hoyne their system is flawed. I mean they gave up 17 scoring shots in the second half (by way of contrast the cats only had 14 in their second half in their high scoring win over the blues). They had a 38 point lead halfway through the third quarter and on a slippery night almost got run down. And a big factor in that was they were all over the place marking tracc. I was sitting at the punt road end (the end we were kickimg to in the last q) and had blues fans around me screaming at them in the last to man tracc up and stop leaving him all alone so often. It was bizarre. Their structure was all over the place. Blokes on fire and they were frequently letting him to sit out the back free. And we got ot to him multiple times. Almost cost them the game.

I have to check on the replay, but I think we might have evened up at stoppages after half time. Can anyone confirm or refute that?

So when the rain arrived we adapted.

#Demon myths

Fair call. Kicking 5 straight is certainly a good start.

Voss noted on his presser that they were really focused on a fast start to try and exploit the 5 day break factor. Fatigue may have impacted some individual players more than others (fritter is usually much better one on one for example) but I think the impact was more mental than physical. Not switched on early and we paid the price. Wevl had clearly planned to be ready and the way we dominated the last quarter and a half, and crazy good pressure numbers tells me fatigue wasn't an issue. In fact it appeared to be more of an issue for the blues, who were paddling in the last. We had set ourselves for a win and you could tell from goodys presser he was very frustrated we didn't get the job done.

By the by, I've been critical of the blues defence this season. But credit where it is due - they were excellent defensively last night, particularly in the first half, won some critical one on one battles and were a huge factor in the win - perhaps the biggest.

Goody DID adapt our game plan for the wet weather. Goody gets bagged all the time for not 'adapting' to the conditions when it rains. Wet weather footy is traditionally territory first, get it forward and deep inside 50. Which is exactly what we did. So, on this occasion we did adapt (though we did keep trying high risk quick handballs, many of which came unstuck). The numbers reflected that, winning the inside 50 count and the territory battle as evidenced by the anomalous (this season) time in forward half numbers: Quarter For Against 1 53% 47% 2 50% 50% 3 51% 49% 4 76% 24% Match 59% 41% And there's the rub. A key reason goody doesn't like to make big changes to method week to week is we are a system based team. It' no small thing to suddenly use another method- even if it is one that was previously our primary method, particularly given we are trying to implement and bed down a new system this season. Another factor was the forecast was for no rain. I doubt they would have planned for it to be so wet, and likely not trained for it. I was shocked when it started raining at the ground an hour before the game. So they may have had to change their tactics on game day (after possibly training for a different method during the week). It dried out considerably after half time - there was no rain, or at least not in the last. And we bounced off half back and spread the ground much more and reverted to the style we have been using tgis season - one more suited to dry weather.

Yeah, of course. I wasn't suggesting that he only would have focused on the x score and given them a pass. He would make clear what they were doing wrong and what they need to address. But the days of a coach tearing strip's off players and only focusing on what the team had done poorly are well and truly history. So he would have made clear what they are doing poorly, identified issues (eg kicks inside 50, defensive issues - i tgought tmac had his worst game this season and Martin worried us early) and provided solutions (something goody has said is what game day coaching is about). AND he would have pointed out what we are doing right, using the x score (and other metrics) as evidence of that - and that the gap between the two performances wasn't as big as the scoreboard suggested. He would have also pointed out our efforts wasn't miles off in the first - 186 to 200 in the first quarter and after getting smashed early for cp we turned it around. We were def on our back foot early in the contest- down 10 cp after 15 mins, but after that we were +2 for cps for the rest of the match. So they fought back. And we were up in tackles, and other key metrics, eg inside 50s. And he would have pointed out at half time, boys you are still in tgis. Keep grinding. And he was proven correct. This was the pressure ratings for the match, suggesting we doubled down and really got to work: Quarter For Against 1 186 200 2 189 163 3 217 209 4 221 201 Match 202 194 Improve what needs to be improved. Stick to your roles, keep the contest and pressure up. Trust the system You're in this. The wheel will turn. And it did. I have heard maxy say that is precisely what goody's message was at quarter and half time of the pies final. You could visibly see the blues wilting, and us wresting the momentum. I said as much to my mate at the game - predicting even after we went 38 points down we were still a chance to win. I think a key factor in the loss was when we did start wresting momentum they got a couple of goals straight after a goal from us. Those sort of goals really hurt. But ultimately, as goody said straight up in his presser, the game was lost going 6 goals down. I'd be guessing in the history of footy it would be no better than i in 30 for teams winning after being 6 goals down at any point in a game.

Fair play to I think cotteral. That was great defensive pressure.

Of course. Particularly the point in the match those misses occurred. Petty's miss wa a heartbreaker. But players miss a high percentage of such shots. Against that, we kicked some clutch goals. Tracc was unbelievable, discos nailed a long set sho on an angle and maxys long range bomb, after barely taking any time, was elite.

This is where x score is useful. I have zero doubt goody would have used it at quarter and half time to reinforce that the scoreboard didn't reflect the relative performance levels, and certainly not the effort levels. It shows their kicking for goal, particularly early was brilliant- but anomalous. Their set shots from say 40 are 50-50 chances. Credit to them for kicking them, but once kicking for goal there's nothing we can do about their chances of kicking the goal. In most circumstances they are something like 3.2 or 2.3 at quarter time and the game looks very different. And our accuracy was bang on average. Like the lions game, it wasn't a game we threw away because of innacracy. The lions and blues won because of their accuracy Yes, we could point to bad misses, Petty comes to mind. But take that miss. On average that goal is still only kicked perhaps 70-75% of the time. For me the issue in terms of our kicking was the last kick inside 50, for most of the match, but particularly the first. The game was actually pretty evenly balanced performance wise in the first 10 mins, but we butchered the ball going inside 50 - and credit to their defence, they were excellent- so had nothing to show for our efforts. A couple of decent inside 50s and we get an early goal or two and the game looks different.

No change.

In the pre match thread I said I was not bullish about the match because of a huge number of variables, including: - what, if any, impact will the umpires have on the game?

Um. Really? Best tell pies to give their flag back

Too right. I could not be prouder of the players and my club.

A player is going to get seriously hurt doing exactly that.

Light misty rain here at the g.