binman

Where melk might have an edge is his ability to play as a defensive forward and negate key oppo intercept defenders like Moore/Murphy or even Quaynor (who is so important for the pies) at the pies, Andrews at the lions and Alir at Port. That intercepting defender role has never been more important. So you're right melk must have a shot. If goody does go with melk, I reckon spargs will be the unlucky one as we need a small, crumbing forward who can apply good pressure and kick goals. And on that front, Chandler has spargs covered.

Completey different roles. But if they want melk in, and spargs is the out they could rejig things to cover off elements of spargs role - for example use the utility types like sparrow to help cover the defensive, up and down the ground clicks spargo has to cover.

Assuming a full squad to pick from, and no inury concerns, this is my best guess at the team Goody will run with come finals (as opposed to what i think should be the lineup): FB Lever May McVee HB Rivers Petty Salem Centre Hunter Oliver Langdon HFF Neale-Bullen Brown Spargo FF Pickett Fritsch Chandler FOLL Gawn Viney Petracca INT Grundy Bowey Sparrow Brayshaw SUB Smith The obvious players missing out in that line up are Hibbo and JVR. Hibbo is an interesting one. On one hand his toughness, work rate and leadership would be super important in finals. But his short kicking to a target is a weakness, and turnovers in the back half are killers. May is a lock, but with him in the side we already have one sketchy short kicker - can we have two? And if Hibbo is selected, who comes out of the 23 listed above? I reckon Hibbo is competing with Mcvee for the lock down defender on the oppo's best medium forward. Mcvee has hibbo covered for kicking skills. Hibbo has Mcvee covered for strength, experience and leadership. I put a lot of stock in the importance of kicking skills, particularly in the back half. Perhaps it will come down to who we are playing and the likely match up. It would be a big call not to play JVR, but atm, for all the excitement he brings, he is not impacting games enough and he's still a fair way off being able to hold down a key tall forward role in the heat of, say, a prelim final. Which by the way is perfectly fine - he has only just turned 20 and he is at least 3 or 4 seasons away from being the finished product. If Brown isn't where he needs to be come finals in terms of fitness, strength etc then JVR comes in.

I have never been a draft pick watcher. Until this year. Freo's pick four, plus our own first rounder?

To illustrate this point, after round 19 last year we were in second position on the ladder. After round 19 this season, we are fourth on the ladder. In simple terms you might argue were were therefore traveling better last season at the corresponding point in the season. Second is better than fourth right? Well, leaving aside the fact we were beaten in round 19 last year by the Dogs (interestingly, like this years round 19 game it was also a high scoring game - 110 to 100), whilst we were in second, we were only 2 points clear of Freo in fifth spot and only 4 points clear of the blues in 7th spot!. This season we are fourth after round 19. But we are 8 points clear of the Dogs in fifth spot. Which position would Goody rather be in after round 19 - this year where a top 4 is all but certain or last year where it most certainly wasn't?

We have one, maybe two more byes (if Casey finish top six we get a bye the week of the VFL pre finals wild card round)

Yes Freo have fallen in a hole since they beat us, but were travelling pretty well at that point (David King famously predicted they would take our spot in the top 4 after they beat us - peanut). And the Giants, who are currently seventh only 2 games behind us, have not lost a game since beating us, including overcoming a three goal deficit at three quarter time and wining by 14 points against the Crows at Adelaide Oval the week before the Crows pushed us right to the line. No team will beat GWS easily or the rest of this season.

There is often such a funny dynamic, from both the media and fans, around such results. Yes, we lost both games, but played pretty well in both games and really should have won both as evidenced by winning on expected scores. But we lost both and for some the losses are evidence of us not being a genuine contender ('contenders don't lose to Freo and the Giants!'). And we get no credit for actually playing well. Just brick bats for losing (which of course also undervalues the performance of Freo and the Giants) But then we win close games like our wins over the Lions and the Crows, and the narrative from some is those teams blew their chances because of inncaruacy and despite winning those games, the win is devalued and we still don't get credit for playing well (from some). I listened to this weeks ESPN Champion data footy podcast, and there was a classic example of this phenomena. When talking about the top 8 order, one of the hosts (who said there was a clear top 3 - the Pies, Port and Lions - and then the rest) said we were lucky to win our last two games and if we had lost them would be back with the pack fighting for a top 8 finish. The latter point is true. But the fella making that point, or the other hosts, failed to point out the fact that we have also lost multiple games by very small margins where we won on Champion data's expected scores - like the Freo and GWS games (and the Port game too for that matter). It is clear the clubs, or at least the dees, put a fair bit of weight on the value of expected scores as the expected score is on the boards they show players at the quarter breaks in both the AFL and VFL. It makes sense because whilst of course you don't get four points for winning on expected scores, it gives a very good objective snapshot of the relative quality of the performance.

My worry is it is a foot injury - Fritters second this season. We saw with Tmac last year how difficult such injuries are to return from. I think I'm right in saying that like Tmac last year, friitter has had a plate put into his foot. The timing of the injuries are almost exactly the same, with, IIRC, Tmac really pushing hard and playing in the pre finals bye round at Casey to make a case for selection against the Lions. Again, IIRC, Tmac injured his foot again in that game and that was that. Well, almost - Tmac reported early this season the foot was still giving him problems in terms of pain management and was stiff etc after training and games. To my eye, it seemed to impact his mobility and performance level when he was playing (of course there could be other causes). I have full confidence in the medical team, but i hope Fritter does not push too hard. No point risking a similar scenario to Tmac where the foot injury impacts his prep for the 2024 season. We had no other realistic option for a second tall last season, other than perhaps JVR and we desperately needed a second tall, so very understandable they really pushed to have Tmac available for our first final, the Lions match. Yesterday's injury report had fritter at 4-5 weeks. The first final is in aprox five and a half weeks. So very much touch and go. Whilst not having Fritter available for the first week of finals (which would of course be a blow), Melk, in his current form, is not bad cover. The prelim is aprox seven and half weeks from today, which might be a better goal for Fritter's return. Let's say we win week one of finals and go straight into a prelim. We would have a weeks break ahead of the prelim. We would likely use that break to play a full scale match sim, which would give Fritter a chance to push for selection and test his foot. And of course, if the prelim was the target return game for fritter, he would perhaps have the opportunity to retune via Casey, assuming we are still in the hunt for the VFL flag. The Casey finals schedule presents an interesting curve ball. The VFL are having a wild card round this season - 7th v 10th, and 8th v 9th - on the weekend of 26 August (which is also the last round of the AFL season). It is possible we might slip to 7th or 8th (we are 5th) and have to play that weekend as we play 3 top 8 teams in Willy, the lions and the blues - and ridiculously we have another bye! But is some ways that would be no bad thing, because if we don't play the the VFL wildcard round Casey will have yet another bye, which would mean no opportunity for Fritter (or Tmac for that matter) to play for Casey that weekend, in the event he is available to do so. The VFL finals series starts the weekend of 2 September, so if we make finals Fritter and Tmac could possibly suit up for Casey that weekend. This years' VFL grand final is 24 September - same weekend as the AFL prelims. The VFL prelims are the previous week

Fair point. Have deleted very. That said, I think we will go 5-0. And I think there is a very good chance the pies beat the lions at marvel. If the lions win their other 4, which I expect they will, and we win our last last 5, we will be on equal points. In that scenario we would need to make up 6.3% - which at this stage of the season is a challenge. That said we play the roos and hawks. If the crows beat port, which would be a huge upset, but one I think is very much on the cards, particularly given it is a crows home game, I think there is a reasonable chance we finish on level points with them as next week they play cats at kp. If port drop the next two, we win all five and lions go 4-1, all three teams finish on 68 points. Port are 10 percentage points behind us now, so would finish fourth in that scenario. And the dees and lions would be scrapping for 2nd. By the by I calculated the odds of us winning our last six games, using the bookies odds for the first two games and my estimate for the remainder (coz the bookies only have a market for the next 2 games). I arrived at aprox 9-1 for winning our final 6 games. Using that same method, the approximate odds of us winning our last 5 games are 5-1. So our odds of winning our remaining games has almost halved from before the crows game. (note: for context, the bookies have us @ 1.50 this week and 1.14 next week and I have priced our blues game @ 1.70, hawks game @ 1.20 and swans game @ 1.70) By the by, the crows were 3.35 to beat port prior to their game against us. Despite the crows playing super well against us, with ports super performance against the benchmark team in the pies and the crows losing two key players in rankine and Murray you might think those odds would remain much the same. They haven't - the crows are into 2.92.

I reckon this is a good point; "We're ****ed against the Dees next week if we don't find another tall in a hurry to keep Lever and May occupied.' Nullifying oppo intercept marking in the back half has become critical in footy now. And we will need to put work into vlastun (melk might get him) and broad. And limit riolis bounce of hb.

There is also a good chance we won't finish 4th.

X

Such a weird coincidence. Was just about to post almost exactly the same explanation.

Just to be clear. Titan_uranus did not say YOU were insane. Titan_uranus said, and I quote 'I really find this view point insane.' I trust you understand the difference.

Second.

In breaking news, dockers fans showing signs of fatigue. Conversely dees fans get a pep in their step with every game freo lose.

I found it helpful to watch that video at 2x speed. Clarry looks ready to roll.

Too right. How good is it to only have an academic interest in the whole wild card round discussion.

This is genuinely funny post. Comedy Gold. Serious question - obviously an effort to troll, but were you going for laughs or more trying to wind people up? If the former, well played. If the latter, well rita panhini you ain't.

In isolation maybe. But if part of the bigger picture in terms of managing bb's fitness program and readiness for finals then perhaps not. It's about winning the war, not the battles (and it's worth noting in that context that despite that loss, with 5 games to go we are 2 games and percentage clear of 5th and a top 4 lock, so the loss was not a big deal in the scheme of things).

Mmm, i wondered about that. But you're right, if I include fritter, Lever and kiz as A graders, viney is def one too. But if you use AA selection as the metric for A graders, only May, Gawn, Tracc, Lever and Oliver make the list

And i'd add that, even if you argue our CURRENT list is the best in the AFL (and some would no doubt disagree with that assessment), it's not like he's had a list chock a block with A grade talent all his coaching career (unlike say Scott who inherited a flag winning team at the Cats). When goody took over from Roos as senior coach in 2017, this was the team that ran out in round one of that season (from the backline): Alex Neal-Bullen, Oscar McDonald, Billy Stretch Jayden Hunt, Tom McDonald, Jake Melksham Clayton Oliver, Nathan Jones, Bernie Vince Christian Petracca, Joel Smith, Sam Weideman Mitch Hannan, Jesse Hogan, Jeff Garlett Max Gawn, Jordan Lewis, Jack Viney Christian Salem, Jack Watts, Angus Brayshaw, Neville Jetta If you include Salo as an A grader (as i do), the players in that team who are A grade NOW are Salo, Gawn, Tracc, and Oliver. But not one of those four players were A grade in 2017 (or 2018 either for that matter). Gawn was at least a couple of seasons away from being close to the force he is now. Tracc was in his second season, after his first was wiped out by an ACL. Oliver was in his second season, and whilst obviously very good still had a way to go before he could be considered elite. Salo was probably the closest to being an A grader, given it was his fourth season, but his first few seasons were impacted by his thyroid issues so he was a fair way off what his level is now. I think in our current team you could also argue Lever, May, Koz and Fritter are also A graders. But Lever didn't join the dees until 2018. Fritter started his career in 2018, and of course took a few seasons to become the gun he is now. May joined the dees in 2019 (and had a big part of that season wiped out with his hammy issues) And Koz didn't debut until the 2020 season. Maybe if we don't win another flag in the next in five years time you could argue Goody hasn't got the most out our current list, but given the list at his disposal over the seven years he has coached us in TOTALITY, his record is phenomenal.

It never ceases to amaze me the subjective assessment of some dees 'fans' about where we sit relative to other teams is so wildly different to objective fact. By any objective measure we are the strongest, best, most successful team of the last three seasons, inclusive of this season. Assuming the cats don't wn the flag, that will remain true even if we don't win the flag this season (if the lions win it this year they might have a case). Facts are facts. This team is the most successful dees team since the 1955-60 unit. So, the most successful dees team in most dees fan's lifetime We will end this home and away season in the top 4. That will be the third season in a row we have finished top 4 (the last time that happened for the dees was 1957-60). We have been in the top 4, if not every week since the start of the 2021 season, it can't be more than one or two weeks not top 4. Three full seasons of being in the top 4 every week is a phenomenal record, one probably only port and the lions come anywhere near matching - and it's worth noting both enjoy a huge home ground advantage. Finished top of the ladder in 2021 and second in 2022. We will finish at least 4th, but possibly as high as 2nd, in 2023. A flag in 2021. Finals in 2022, albeit it out in straight sets. Finals in 2023. I mean c'mon, there isn't another club that comes close to matching our record in the last 3 years. And of course that includes Collingwood, who have a great home and away record for one and a half seasons. And that's it. Yet for some, we are an average team (a good team doesn’t get beaten by - insert any team outside the top 6 here - !), full of fatal flaws with a coach that infuriates them (he plays favorites!, he is so stubborn!) and a team full of bog ordinary players. Beggars belief. The 'what did the Romans ever do for us' skit in Life of Brian comes to mind.

So much easier draw than 2021 and 2022 - particularly 2022