binman

I'm considering lifting my media ban for the next little while to revel in what's sure to be 'what's going on with the pies' tsunami. What goes up, must come down.

There was also a bit of chat about BBB's selection. Fair enough too as it was left field selection given he had surgery only a few weeks ago, had been in rehab before that and he had only one VFL practice game (maybe 2?) under his belt. But it was a good selection. Hore wasn't as left field, but his selection was still somewhat unexpected given he was replacing bowser, with many thinkng Laurie might come in and/or salo goes back. And his selection meant three players new to our baclkine - hore, tmac and howes. So I"s argue tmac was not the only selection questioned.

Totally agree. It is so clear they are not fit enough, that's the story. Yes, the month less preseason has an impact but they look miles off being fit. The cats struggled too last year but didn't look anywhere near a unfit. Culture? The way the game is now played, if teams can't cover the ground they're toast. It's particularly true of the pies because they press up so high that need to be super fit, and quick, to get back on defence when they turn the ball over. The can't atm and are getting walk in goals against them. It's why I picked the saints and the swans.

I thought so, just wasn't sure Fits with the idea they might be managing him? Starting as a sub, or coming off for the sub, would support that theory. Would be smart given he is only playing his third game in his first season of afl footy.

Who got subbed off against the Dogs?

Pies struggling to cover the spread.

I tipped the swans last week, and the saints this week. It's just so crazy it might work.

Like jazz, when you're experimenting , ya gonna hit some bum notes man.

Might be fairer to grade his management after the game. As BDA notes his selections last week, much ridiculed on here, turned out to be very good decisions.

Maybe Goody is going through an experimental phase.

Agree. Brown starts, swaps mid way through the third with Petts. Good management of both players. The risk is if we get a ln injury to a small or a runner, but if petty is fit enough to be a sub he's fit enough to come on when needed. He can play back or forward, so they can shuffle players. And if a medium or tall, at either end, has to come off he's the perfect sub. Good call, worth the risk of being down a runner, to get him up to AFL speed. And goody was good to his word about petts coming back round 2. But, who knows goody might start him and say have windsor as the sub as part of managing his program and making sure we don't burn him out (he's played all of the 4 games thus far).

Yep, I can see what your brother means about a Healy, a good comparison. I was gutted when Healy left, a star who like Windsor was a terrific runner, though Healy was perhaps not as quick. Great kick too. The comparison will be even more apt when Windsor is 24-25 and bigger and stronger.

Great post. Total agreement on all points DD. Agree on the likely impact of the Swans press on our struggles to transition and be clean. I'd add that the SCG would have helped that cause considerably. One of the things written on the message board for the players at the quarte time breaks on Sunday was 'defensive density'. I presume that is reminder to for players to get back and clog up our defensive area - something we did to great effect i thought. But it might also refer to density though the middle of the ground to hinder the dogs' transition. The Swans press, combined with the ridiculous dimensions of the SCG, would have created density further up the ground that made it hard for us to get through. Its worth noting that they also struggled with transition too, with lots of turnovers. The scores were level at three quarter time after all. We looked gassed in tjhe last quarter which would have mad it hard for us to maintain that density and all team defence, which is probably a big factor in why the Swans improved their transition in the last quarter - that and the brilliant kicks they have.

They are playing in Ballarat, where the weather can be diabolical and so game can be a lottery. But i just checked and its looks perfect - 20 degrees, no rain and light winds. The bookies have the dogs 1,64 favorites which i reckon is about right. The dogs couldn't run our the game last week, and i suspect the heat was a big factor as Bevo was surprised they didn't (implying he's happy with their fitness). But they were pretty good i thought and would have been well in the match if not for their inaccuracy when they were on top (though we missed our fair share too). The margin was a bit flattering for us i thought. The difference was our defence was so much better - and is well suited to their three tall set up given how well organsied we are and how well we zone off to impact aerial contests. But as someone else noted their forward line will test a lot teams. Has Hardwick been able to sort the Suns d yet? Maybe, but i'm expecting the dogs to win.

Watching him, Flower didn't really come to mind. Not as elegant or as smooth a mover (robbie is my all time favorite player by so far its not funny, covered the ground beautifully but never looked like he was exerting any energy). And doesn't really have the same way of feinting and avoiding contact that Robbie had where he looked like he wasn't actually moving. But as soon as i saw him play a proper game, Alan Johnson DID come to mind How about Alan Johnson gator?

Agree metres gained isn't in of itself a definite measure of a good game (I don't think any individual stat in isolation, except for perhaps goals kicked, are a good measure to assess overall performance. Triangulating multiple stats provides a much better picture of a players performance). For example, if one player does all the kick outs, as May has done in the previous 3 seasons his metres gained stats are of little value. For example in the 2021, 2023 and 2023 seasons May took 90% of our kicks outs, and most of them were sixty metre bombs to the half back flank. Meaning, given he usually played on, he'd be credited with 75 metres gained for each kick out. (by the by, we started tinkering with our kick out strategies late last year, but this year have moved from tinkering to radical change. I'd be guessing May has only taken something like 30% of kicks outs, with the rest shared by other defenders, the kick outs are no longer always going to the HB and we are not kicking to Maxy very often - which incidentally is great in terms off Maxy not getting smashed as much). And as you suggest, if say a long kick comes straight back because it went straight to an opposition player than those metres gained are of little value either - which is why as Andy suggests Effective Metres Gained data would be useful. So i agree that metres gained in of itself is that not that useful. Which is why i'd love to have access to the Metres Gained Assisted stats as it would address the issue you flag about weighting long kicks over handballs. Metres Gained Assisted is the total metres gained by a teammate that receives an uncontested possession from that players disposal. So, in your example Clarry had 14 handballs. Not much metres gained in those. But if many of those handballs set up good transition and/or helped us gain territory (eg Clarry handballs to Rivers who then runs and carries and kicks it 60 metres), as i suspect they did, his Metres Gained Assisted numbers would be very strong. Clarry had 589 metres gained. Impressive - and second only to Maysie (whose numbers were padded a bit by his kick outs). But if say he also had the most assisted Metres Gained (which wouldn't surprise me) then suddenly his game looks even stronger. And perhaps maysie also had great Metres gained assisted numbers. The coaches of course have access to all of Champion Data's data, and all would drill down on it. Clarry got the most coaches votes for against the dogs with 9 and maysie was second with 8. In all likelihood those votes were informed by an analysis of the full range of Champion Data and internal stats. But I'll bet my bottom dollar may doesn't get a Brownlow vote for this game because i doubt the the umpires drill down on the data at all and so go on what they have seen and perhaps the old school possession numbers. Just on Lever, and my point about using multiple data points to assess a players performance, he only had 170 metres gained (he had almost twice that against the Swans). From memory i highlighted on the pod his 8 score involvements and 17 possessions not his metres gained (though my memory ain't what it was, so i might have muddled that up) as evidence of him having a good game. Lever's score involvements suggest to me that his possessions were effective because to be involved in 8 scoring chains at least half of his possessions helped us move the ball forward and score. But drilling down a bit further, which is really easy to to on @WheeloRatings excellent website, you can triangulate other data to get a fuller picture of Lever's game. His Champion Data player's ratings (which i think is an excellent measure) for the Swan's game was 5.4, but in the dogs game it was 8.9. He had an equal match high 10 intercept possessions (rivers also had 10), which is excellent as intercept possessions are no doubt one of his KPIs (he only had 4 against the Swans). His disposal efficiency in the Dogs game was 82.4, suggesting he didn't miss many targets by foot. But he also had six clangers (an error made by a player resulting in a negative result for his side), the second most behind Clarry, which surprised me but probably not @Damo as those clangers jumped out for him watching the game, whereas i didn't really notice them. (note: clangers are different to 'disposal clangers', which are defined as 'any kick or handball that directly turns the ball over' to an opponent). I cant see what his turnovers were for the game, but in his two games thus far he has averaged 3 turnovers, so unless he had none against the Swans he wasn't too bad for this stat against the dogs. A definite negative was he gave away 9 free kicks - the most by any player on the ground (Harmes and McNeil each away 3 and Salo and chandler gave away 2). That surprised me. He had 9 contested possessions (and weirdly 11 uncontested possessions - i say weird becuase he was only credited with 17 possessions in total) after only having one against the Swans. Perhaps my rating of 'terrific' was too positive given his clangers and frees he gave away but taken together those numbers still add up to a really good game i reckon. https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_match_stats_player.html?ID=2311a9&Season=2024

This is from the champion data glossary. I assume it applys to all stoppages, including centre bounce clearances (there is no definition for cbc) Clearance: Credited to the player who has the first effective disposal in a chain that clears the stoppage area, or an ineffective kick or clanger kick that clears the stoppage area. So, for example wuth our first goal against the Dogs, the one viney kicked, I assumed the clearance would have been credited to tracc. But I checked the replay and maxy actually gets the clearance as he won a contested possession and handballed it out to tracc.

Ah yes, right you are. That's like a weird version of dyslexia - FCD (football coach dyslexia). I hope for Fagan"s sake they have been flogging them on the track because twice now they have come our hard, got a lead and been swamped. By the by, 'm looking forward to seeing how goody matches up tactically against clarkson on Saturday.

Funny you should mention bails. He came to my mind too. I was thinking about the irony of roos saying, after the dees, coached by bails, ran up a cricket score against the swans at the g (iirc, Roos' biggest losing margin as coach?) that we were going to be a power team. I think I'm right in saying that roos sad that game was a factor in his decision to coach us. And roos gave us goody. So we have bails to thank for our flag! Bails was so unlucky to get sacked. I understand the impact of the 164 game, but that was 100% on the players and was a manifestation of our woeful, shambolic governance. And also a manifestation of our toxic culture in the playing group (anyone seriously knocking our culture now only need to think about that period to understand what a poor culture really looks like - and it's corrosive impact). Under bails, when on, we played exciting, attacking footy. Great to watch. But as you suggest the defensive issues (that bails would have addressed if given time) we also got opened up But we still had an outside chance of making finals when bails got sacked. Bails was the classic scapegoat an was treated appallingly by the club. And his players hung him out to dry with their pathetic display agains the cats. Still makes me furious.

Mysterious.

McAdams would be the option if fit. I wonder with bb playing the lead out full forward role if fritter could play a defensive forward role on Sicily. Fritter is a bit out of form and Sicily would take him to the ball. But Sicily wouldn't be able to take too many liberties with fritter either. A danger player to sag off and leave free.

Well, lions will be. They have a bye this week. Things I'd love to see: The saints roll the pies on Thursday night in knock down, physical scrap. And then, tired and sore, go to a hot, steamy gabba a week later and get blown away by the lions who will be fired up and coming of a ten day break. And, exhausted, fly back to Melbourne. Fly out a week or so later to play a HOME GAME at Adelaide oval on the Sunday (at 5pm) against a hawks team that runs them into the ground and beats the pies in a thriller. Meaning the pies, who have a bye in round 5 would winless coming into round six when they face port at the g.

I'm really interested in the approach Mitchell is taking at the Hawks. He is running with a very aggressive, fast ball movement game plan, and seems to be focusing less on sorting his defensive system out. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he is prioritizing offence and ball movement over developing a defensive system. It's a model that genuinely looked different to the way say we or the pies were playing. I heard Mitchel talk about his philosophy and paraphrasing he said rather than copying the model that is successful now he wants to devlep a model that is head of the curve and is successful in five years time. Se the agenda, not follow the leader. Goody had a focus on defence from the get go, whilst still being quite offensive in 2017 and 2018 (i reckon he used 2019 to get his defensive system how he wanted it). Longmuir, who i think is a very similar coach to Goody in style and philosophy, has gone the opposite way to Mitchell and focused on getting their defensive system sorted before moving to getting their offence right (with low scoring as a result). Which is really what Roos did too when he came to the dees. I had forgotten about Knights' tenure at the bombers, but you're right he went with attacking model similar in philosophy to what Mitchell is trying to implement. But Knights is a cautionary tale for Mitchell because as exciting as the occasional high scoring win is, fans quickly lose patience when their team consistently get opened up and lose by big margins. Knights was stiff, getting sacked after only two seasons, and with two seasons left on his contract. Turned out to be quite the decision as he was replaced by Hird. And the rest is history.

Fair enough. And good points well made. Semantics are important So it depends what is meant by tactical, tactics, sytems and strategic. Goody is not a game day tactition, more a developer of sytems and specific strategies that have tactical elements. If that makes sense. The weekend gone is a good example. Goody said they had planned, and no doubt, trained the strategy of controlling possession through lots of marks after analysing the history of early seaon games. As a result we had more uncontested marks than any game Goody has coached. Beveridge, a noted game day tactician, said in his presser they didn't have an effective response to our strategy. I would argue that was an example of tactical nous by Goody, but it is semantics to a degree. It's interesting that the previous most uncontested marks in a game goody had coached was round 2 2017, his second game as senior coach. Goody tried a number of quite radical strategies in his first two seasons. For example, whilst its true our defence was a weak link in 2018 its way too simplistic to suggest personell was the sole reason. A big factor was the really agressive high press and super fast ball movement method Goody employed that year. Once we got rolling we smashed teams below us - it was the teams above us, with their strong defences, that troubled us. He tweaked the method around two thirds into the season (and iirc started using a version of the goal keeper we implemented later) and we stopped leaking so many goals It was a method that didn't look a million miles from that of the pies under mcrae. And it was a method that got us to a prelim - with two of the great win at the g on the way (cats and hawks). I see your point about my use of the word template. Maybe that is overstating things (though id argue he set the bar for aeorobic fitness) But i think its reasonable to suggest hardwick created the templste fir how footy is played now. As much as I hate to say it, hardwick has a case for being the most influential coach of the modern era. His focus on territory, absorbing pressure in the back half, pressure and winning the contest is the template of the modern game.

Yep, good points.