binman

Another gold standard first post. Just one comment sport - transfers happen in soccer. We do trades.

First post. Nice. Might want to work on your timing though sport.

Yep. Spot on. To the easy oppo goals you can add all the blown scoring opportunities when players miss easy clear targets in the forward 50 and/or not kicking it the forwards advantage.

No it doesn't. If saints had played tigers yesterday both teams would have been coming off a six day break. Which is fair. We were coming off a six day break and pies a seven day break. Which is totally unfair given they had a viable alternative. And making it worse in terms of favoring the tigers and saints with that decision we have been very harshly treated in terms of six day breaks this season and neither the saints or tigers have

No. But that was not my point

Thanks praha - some good points. That said i can't see why Tigers could not have played Saturday. It was an arvo game in perth and they were been back in town by 10pm on Sunday night. They could have played the tigers saints game sat night (and the gws - cats game sat arvo) and there is your 6 day break.

Ill preface this comment by saying im not in any way excusing yesterdays performance. We were woeful, partic in that first quarter. But it was completely unnessary for the afl to give us a six day break. And unfair given the likely stakes they were aware of when deciding the schedule that our opponent had 7 days. And inequitable given how many 6 day breaks they had already given us.

Absolutely. So unfair. Pies have a 7 day break and have nothing but pride on the line. Lets say viney could have got up with one more day? Not the case probably but that is an example of the possiblw impact of a 6 day break. Ill twll you why we got 6 days. Ill bet london to a brick it is in case they want to play us in the thursday finals game thwy have committed to

Is that a haiku?

Are the dogs one of those sides with better KDPs than us?

Not sure how you come to that conclusion. Unless you know him. Seems a pretty team orientated bloke to me. But i dont know him

I like rather than love statistics. But i get really frustrated with how hard it is to get access to decent stats. The AFL love to compare footy here to sports in the US but our media and our access to decent stats are a complete joke in comparison. It is overwhelming how much publicly available stats there is about the NBA baseball and NFL. And no doubt NHL. ATM, as i understand it only the clubs and some media outlets get all Champion data stats - because they pay for it. The AFL should buy the stats off Champion data and make it publicly available. I would love a thread on DL with up to date decent stats, particularly those about the MFC. For example individual player stats that are more detailed than that on AFL.com or free sites like footywire (which is a terrific site). Do any DL posters have aaccess to champion data stats? if so can they be shared - perhaps not all but at least some more detailed stuff? A thread a analyzing that sort of data would be really interesting.

well pre season was also a highlight of the season

Yes, but bang for buck was not one of the parameters. The parameters were: Who would you take if you had the choice between Jake Lever and Josh Kelly? Take into account our current team and our needs. Therein lies the problem with many polls. What are the parameters? What is actually being asked? Confusion about these things make results in many polls large and small difficult to trust. Creating confusion about what is being asked is a common strategy with many polls by people seeking to influence the outcome (to be clear i do not mean this poll - there is a much bigger one happening in our country soon).

A mark of where we are with the timing of this thread. Four years ago this thread would have begun after round 3.

If only taking into account current team and our needs, Kelly. No question. Leaving aside the obvious that every club would die for a player of his obvious ability, outside midfield run and precision disposal are our two biggest deficit areas. And Kelly, whilst also providing outside run, has the Goody standard inside grunt and intensity. Also in reality premiership sides need at least 2 or 3 AA standard mids complementing 6-8 really good ones. We have the 6-8 really good ones. And in Oliver one definite AA mid. Outside of Oliver, Viney and Jones are close and Brayshaw might get there. So really we are one AA mid short. Kelly would fix that. But as i said in the kelly thread the money is a factor in so far as how much would have to pay to get him. Not so much in terms of salary cap but more in terms of the potential damage to the 'brotherhood', team first culture roos and goody have built and are building. Is paying him $1.5 million going to damage that culture. What about $1.2 million? Against the predictions of many it hasn't seemed to have hurt the swans buddy coming in and being paid a fortune but if i recall there were rumored problems early days when Buddy moved there. An the 'bloods' culture was well established where our is in its infancy.

Dunn goes to the pies (under sufferance) full of hope and happiness at the prospect of joining a successful club. Howe goes to the Pies because he hates playing in the backline and proceeds to be reinvented by the genius Buckley as a defender. My kids talk about opposite day. This must have been opposite year.

Absolutely. Might be the best player in the afl full stop within 2 years. Not far away now. Truly a once in a generation plsyer. Not a single club would take lever over kelly if they were given the choice and money was not a factor. But money is a factor for us. Not so much in terms of salary cap but more in terms of the potential damage to the 'brotherhood', team first culture roos and goody have built. That said - and against the predictions of many - it hasnt seemed to have hurt the swans buddy coming in and being paid a fortune

Steve your credibility tank ia almost empty. By the way im still looking forward to your promised analysis of every one of tmacs younger brother's involvements from a game few weeks back.

Yep. But one thing they def want/need is reaaly goos kicks. Lever, no 28, salem, hibberd and jetts all have twrrific de which is important in a defensive unit

Goody had this to say about Jack today: "Clearly there's a lot of hysteria around Jack and how he's performing, (but) he's improving," Goodwin said on Thursday. "His two games at VFL level show he's progressing and he's performing now to the level that we think is really appropriate. "We're really hopeful that Jack is continuing to improve and we're looking forward to seeing him play his best football shortly. "I've said this a bit and I'll say it again, because it's clearly something that's not getting through, Jack will be treated like every other player on the list." As someone said about him being dropped there is n mystery. he was out of form. Got dropped and now is back. He would have to play a howler not to get selected for the finals. But if he does have a howler i have little doubt he will be dropped. So perhaps from the perspective of being at risk of missing finals you are right and it is is his biggest game. but i can't agree that it is therefore a career game. So how about i amend my comment to partially mistaken.

I think you are mistaken in saying there's never been a bigger game for Jack Watts and that this is a career game.

Sorry, i think you have made a mistake

I am really confident he will.

What hobby horse? Stating facts?