binman

Usually. It's on tonight because of various scheduling issues. It's going to be funny doing it on a Sunday. Gives me WOS vibes.

Almost nailed it. Danger is an A grader = two b grader hammy. And I'm suspending my assessment of the blues. I mean they were soundly beaten by the cats, with late goals flattering them. A reality check Real contenders don’t give up 20 goals. If i accept the prevailing wisdom on DL that next week is some sort of critical litmus test on our premiership bona fides surely the blues just failed their test?

You can't argue with Clarkson's record, but it's been a long time since he's had success. And dees fans know messiahs don't usually work out so well.

If you have a sytem you only set yourself up for pain if you don’t stick to it.

Not me. Not even at the +30 points line. One of my Golden rules of footy betting is don't gamble on really rubbish teams. You can't trust em. And the roos are truly woeful. If I was forced to have a bet in that match I'd back the under the total match score of 179.5.

Yes, that gastro bout was a shocker. Very embarrassing at the TV week awards. Oh, hold on, misread your post.

I can't remember. Back in the day get woke, go broke was rhyming slang not a silly culture war slogan.

Yes.

Demonland logic: Pre cats game: We are an average side, going nowhere. Beaten no one and a team that would have beaten us by 100 points if they didn't put the cue in the rack just got smashed by the giants. Reality check time. Post cats game. We are an average side, going nowhere. Yes we we won by 4 goals, but the scoreboard flattered us. And we've still beaten no one. Sure the cats were unbeaten, but coming into the game their wins were against teams 9th, 12th, 13th, 15th, 16th and 18th on the ladder. And they also had two less days recovery. Reality check time next week against the blues, who will smash us. Their mids will destroy us, and yes we have a good defence but we can't expect them to rescue us every week. And fair warning, I don't want to hear the predicable excuses trotted out by the pollyannas about the impact of the five day break.

Cmon Billy, if you want to be a trolling hero you have to do much better than that. Or perhaps, Billy, don't be a hero.

A key factor in our ability to defend clearances is having one less at tbe stoppages. The fact we are number 2 for attacking from clearance and dominate in scores from stoppages (bar the lions game) playimg one down at stoppages shows how good our midfield and set ups are.

I agree with all of the above. Contest and pressure is absolutely the foundation of our game. It is fir all clubs. And for the dees the other fundamental is defence. And I'd agree that come finals our game will revert back to a large degree to a forward half, territory game. That's finals footy. But hopefully key elements of the new, transition from back half method will remain in place. And hopefully playing a less contested, coal face game during the home and away series will mean we are not as banged up come finals as we were in 2023 and 2022. I mean think back to those seasons. At the end of 2022 our first pre finals training session looked like an episode of MASH with all the bandages and limping. At the end of last season our forward line was missing so many players that we had to bring in an injured tmac. It is obvious, and clarry said as much, that they want to make the home and way season less physically taxing. And there is hardly a more taxing method than that used by the dees since the start of the 2021 season. It makes perfect sense to implement a less taxing methodin the home and away season and kudos to goody for doing so - particularly given the associated risks, winning fewer games being the obvious one. But in order to change something so fundamental we are going to have to wear some funky stats, some out of character performances and some losses too. Rome wasn't built in a day.

That surprises me TU. I had you pegged as a bit more realistic. But perhaps I've misunderstood your scaling parameter, and it isn't subjective to objective. By the by tmac is an excellent field kick. Which is why he I'd going at 81.8% by foot this year. By way of contrast salo is at 70.6% But salo takes on harder kicks I hear you say. Fair point, though there is still a 11.2% gap between the two.

Meant to include Bowser. Brain fade. Have to see macadam first.

I'm with you col. I have always liked the giants. Almost agree with your daughter too. Second best song.

I did no such thing. For petes sake, a third of the way through the season we are 5-2, 4th on the ladder with the 4th best percentage of any team, having played 3 of our 7 games interstate. 5-2. 4th on the ladder. 4th best percentage. With four of our best 22 to come back in (salo,Bowser, Hunter and melk). And it feels as if we are no good? Man oh man we see the game differently.

That assumes they get through their game against the blues on Saturday injury free. I'm predicting two hammy tweaks and a suspension.

Agree. Though I could see goody wanting to bring hunter in for his experience and grunt. Possibly at the expense of woey or Laurie (if the latter woey sub).

To be honest, it feels as if you are simply searching for proof we are no good. Clearance numbers mean squat. It's about the score from clearances differential. As I noted above we have smashing teams for scores from stoppages. I've no idea what yoy are talking about with our pressure. We had one quarter out of 28 with a pressure rating of 150 and that's evidence our pressure had been off? Apart from the lions game, when blund freddy could see we were gassed, it has been largely fantastic. Go check out the stats file thread. The pressure numbers are there for every game. And even less idea what you are talking about in terms of our last 3-4 weeks. Poor against the lions, but we still only got beaten by 22 points. Poor in the first half last night, we piled on 10 goals to 2 in the second half to win by 43 points (against the same team who rolled the swans a couple of weeks back). We beat the crows. At Adelaide oval off a five day break. And in one of the games of the season, and arguably one of our best games since our flag, we beat Port at Adelaide oval. But we all see what we want to see i guess. You're not a Smiths fan by any chance?

We are 5-2 with a healthy percentage, with the most difficult part of our fixture in yerms of scheduling (eg interstate travel and breaks between games) done and dusted. And we are not playing our best football. The other big factor is we are trying to implement a changed method, which is always a challenge. On that front we are number one for rebound 50s (tigers second, cats third). Laudable given better transition from the back half is the foundation of the new method. You see doom. I see upside. As clarry said in his post match interview, we started hot in previous years and fell away. He said they are focused on setting things up to plsy our best footy come finals.

Indeed. They scored a grand total of one point from centre clearances (to go with their whopping two points from around the ground stoppages). One point. Not much waltzing there. I'm convinced some people see what they want to see - in this case something that didn't happen.

In the stats file thread.

Lots to unpack there. So ill pick just one element - your critisism of the midfield. As goody noted in his post match presser, it's not the number of clearances, it's the quality of clearances. And as he also referenced, we set up at stoppages one player down, making it less likely we will win any given around the ground stoppage. But when we do win a stoppage no team, with the possible exception of the blues, is better at turning that stoppage win into a score. And no team is better at stopping an opponent score from a stoppage when they win it, in large part because we use the spare we create because we bring one (sometimes more) less to the stoppages behind the ball. In other words, it doesn't matter so much how many clearances we win or lose. It matters how much more, or less, we score from them. Quality not quantity - as defined by scoreboard impact. The lions game is an outlier. Smashed in total clearances and scores from stoppages But otherwise we are consistently outscoring teams from stoppages, often by very big margins. Here's our raw clearance totals from last night: Centre Clearances 8 10 -2 Stoppage Clearances 24 15 +9 And here is our score from stoppages: Centre Bounce 1.1.7 0.1.1 +6 Stoppage (Other) 3.1.19 0.2.2 +17 So plus 23 points from stoppages. Impressive by my measure. And a huge factor in the end result. I'd also add that a key part of our midfield, maxy, who came up against two rucks, won the award for BOG. In what world does that equate to our midfield struggling?

That is just so brilliant. And is the sort of analysis that coverage of hamwsso desperately needs. It would be so easy to introduce too. White notes the space viney creates and holds. One thing I noticed about tracc getting tagged by kickett is at centre square stoppages he took kickett away from the drop of the ball. That space often allowed koz to get involved and helped with clean exits. Which is the sort of thing goody us referecing when he talks about how we take advantage of a tag on clarry, tracc or Oliver.

24-12 our way helps to chill the criticism of the umps I reckon. Long may it reign.