binman

The biggest moment at the Golden Plains festival was the last song of Basement Jaxx - Where's your head at. Crowd went absolutely bananas , and chanted the chorus, which is just perfect for crowd sing a long. Would be an awesome choice for a song after a goal (assumng they played the chorus)

Didn't channel 2 also cover the VFA? Game of the week? But yep, def remember channel 0

To determine the equity points for ball winning at the all team level you aggregate each of that team's players equity points for actions that result in winning the ball. How do you source the individual ball winning equity points - is that data extracted from the CD data?

Swans dud heaps of those sort of taps etc in tonight's game - Hawks too, albeit to a lesser extent. The Swana also used lots of long forward handballs and overlap run. Very similar game plan to ours.

I have to say I was surprised how well he did in the ruck. He created a centre clearance goal and we only scored two. Not that Maxy gave him many opportunities.

And if he Maxy tapped it Koz who goaled without the involvement of a teammate he and Maxy would each get 3 points?

Thanks wheelo, that's a brilliant explanation of the ratings sytem. In your scenario of a goal from a centre bounce where the opposition has no involvement in the chain, the the team scores six points, shared between players involved. How many equity points would a player receive, say Maxy, who took the ball from the ball up, ran forward and goaled without any involvement from a teamate (eg no shepherd)?

Well I did aim for 20 (but might make it 30) and was padded out by Andy's intro and that song after - which will never be heard again

That brings me back to the glory days of the VFL in the 1970s, when it was the VFA and channel 2 covered the games. I barracked for Port Melbourn as kid, because they were red and blue of course, and in the 70s they had the same disco blue as the dees VFL jumper, and still do actually (though it was also nice to support a successful team!). But i also had soft spot for the Dandenong Redlegs, one because i barracked for Norwood Redlegs and two they wore what looked like our old jumper.

That's possible - particularly if those turnovers result in oppo goals. The way the CD player rating is calculated is each involvement a player has (eg kick, handball, pressure act, mark, free kick for and against etc etc) is scored on a system called Next Expected Score, which in simple terms is how that involvement impacts the probability your team scores, or in the case of an error the opponent scores - i think I'm right in saying that each involvement is scored on a scale of negative six to positive six depending on the NES value (@WheeloRatings is that right?). So yes, if Salo took on more high risks on Sunday, and in doing so turned the ball over resulting in a Saints goal he would get wacked for that points wise (eg a clanger goes to an opponent who directly kicks a goal, such as the kick Salo had intercepted inside our 50, Salo would lose 6 points, if the turnover resulted in in a goal but only after say a chain of 3 disposals he might lose 3 points). Conversely though if Salo's high risk kick are part of a scoring chain (which is why such kicks are so valuable when they come off) Salo earns points. If one of those kicks is a goal assist, he scores good points (maybe 6, but 6 might be only for actual goal scorers, im not sure -it's all a bit mysterious). All that said, XL actually had more turnovers (6) than Salo who had 4. But Salo had 6 clangers, one of which did directly result in a goal, two more than HL. So, he lost points to XL there. They both had 4 score involvements and 1 goal assist so close to equal points on that front. A criticism of the CD player rating system is because it focuses on scoreboard impact of each involvement it over indexes goals, goal assists and score involvements and therefore defenders and role players often don't score as well as forwards or mids. That means defenders often rate lower than you think they otherwise might. Which makes XLs 13.4 player rating even more meritorious.

Tis now. Come round 6 or 90 will be the new 80 i reckon Scoring will settle

Agree. And as much as I liked Benny's stuff the current content is higher quality.

100%. I've been very critical of all aspects of the clubs comms, including the fan engagement stuff. All aspects has massively improved, on particular the fan engagement content. This video is a terrific example- I watched it last night. Super entertaining, really well edited, exciting and also fascinating and insightful. I loved the bits with King talking to the team, and the movie clip with Farell going off spliced in afger a reference from King (which to be honest i didnt get - but the players obviously did given their laugter) was genuinely funny. I also loved the edit of the game itself, with included all the goals. Terrific stuff all round. One thing eally jumped out to me from King's half time speech. He said something along the lines that we don't need champions to win the game we need you each to do it. I'm perhaps reading too much into it, but that felt quite a pointed comment and reference about Claz and Tracc.

Can't wait to go this game. I live in the Southwest, so Casey is, pardon the pun, a Westgate bridge too far. So I've penciled in this game, round 8 versus the Pies at Vic Park, and most exciting of all as its even closer than Whitten Oval, round 13 against Willy at Willy.

I respectfully disagree. The Champion Data player ratings are, in my humble, by far the best, most accurate such rating system. In the Saints Dees game the top 7 rated players were (note 20 ratings points is considered an elite AA level performance): Max Hall - 28 points JVR - 25 points Jack Sinclair - 20.2 points Jack Steele - 19.7 points NAS - 16.4 points Sam Flanders - 15.8 points Maxy - 15.7 points This is the coaches votes: 9 Jacob van Rooyen 8 Max Hall 7 Max Gawn 2 Callum Wilkie 2 Jack Sinclair 1 Jack Steele 1 Caleb Windsor Five of the top CD rated players got coaches votes, with the same top two (albeit in different order). The coaches obviously put more stock on intangibles like huge last quarter performances or kicking clutch goals (goals are big point scorers, hence JVRs rating's but there is no differentiation about when, and in what circumstances those golas are scored) that have an outsize influence on the result. Which is why Maxy got 7 coaches vote - he was massive factor in us winning that game with his huge last quarter. Windsor, who had 12.3 player rating points, was super influential in the first half so i can sort understand him getting one coaches vote. That said i would have given Sharp votes. He was our fourth highest rayed player for the game (13.9 points) and had an incredible last quarter - 11.2 rating points for a quarter of footy is unbelievable (a goal, goal assist and score involvements were a big factor in that rating). By way of contrast, Maxy, who was also massive in the last quarter, and super influential on the result, had 6.5 rating points in the last q. Sharp was a big reason we won that game and deserved coaches votes IMHO - well done young fella.

Put it this way, we are currently 3.28 to win and Freo are 1.34 and i reckon that's about right. But hope springs eternal. I actually think in many ways we are better placed to beat them than we were in the last few seasons, in large part because King has built a team with genuine leg speed. Freo has torched us with their fleet of fit, fast runners in the last few years. But with Tracc and Claz gone, and Melk an Tmac not in the ones, we don't have as many slow players in our best 23. And with Koz and Windsor up around the ball, Latrell playing a high half forward role, ditto Chandler, CJ and Howes down back (and XL has pretty good wheels too) and Sharp playing more minutes we are much better placed to match Freo's ability to run, carry and spread. The other positive is we look super fit atm - we won't be in better shape at any pont in the season than we are this week with one game under our belt. A terrific time then to play the hard running Freo side - certainly better than mid-season when fatigue and/or the impact of mid-season loading has been a big factor in them torching us on the outside. For me the key will be whether our defensive system holds up on turnover as Freo will have better forward target than the Saints, are better on transition and have better delivers of the ball inside 50. And they won't turn the ball over nearly as much as the Saints so i don't think we'll beat them in a shootout. A great thing about the win over the Saints is it reduces the anxiety of losing a string of games early doors and we can attack this game without that pressure. It will be the perfect test of where we are at i reckon.

To be fair, Hall had an amazing game. You could easily make the case he was BOG - in fact I reckon he was.

The magnificent goal Latrelle kicked was the perfect example of why King targeted CJ and his role in the team and King's sytem. Maxy won the ball inside the Saints 50 and handballed (look away over his head mind you) to CJ who was boundary side to Max. Instead of going down the line, which was the percentage play, CJ ran and carried laterally to the opposite side (towards the members) and kicked long to Kolt, who had run off Nas. That opened up the Saints, Latrelle gut run into the space created by the switch, Kolt didn't take the short option, instead kicking a perfect 50 metre kick that hit Latrelle, who didn't have to break stride. One of the best, most exciting goals I've seen by a dees player in years. And it doesn't happen without CJ's dare, run and carry and preparedness to take on a high risk, high reward switch kick.

You watch much football?

Thanks wheelo - that's really interesting. Funnily enough i just said on the pod (or after talking to Andy and George - i cant recall which) that for all the talk about us being a long bomb team under Goody, which was true from 2020 to the 2024, but decidedly not true last season, that I'd be willing to bet that under King we will actually kick long for territory more often and that will be reflected in higher average metres gained per kick. Obviously a small sample, but our metres gained per kick yesterday was 27.9 against a season average last season of 26.2 metres gained per kick (we were mid table for that stat last season - the Suns were on top of that table).

Yep, fair point.

Perhaps. Though i think the evidence was clear we were not running out games last year - i'd suggest a happy group of players are more likley to do the work required to get in tip top shape than a bunch of unhappy players. And i'd note that speaking to Lever and Kolt at a player's sponsor function, both, independantly, told me the amount of running they did in the preseason was off the charts and much more intense than in previous seasons. But leaving that aside, Trac was nowhere near as fit last season as he obvioulsly is this seaosn, Claz was miles off optimal AFL level fitness, ditto Steve May. That's three of our starting 18 not at optimal fitness. Those three have been replaced in the starting 18 by much fitter players - that's a big boost to the overall fitness of the side right there.

Yep, fair call