binman

Goody has track record of some left field selection of young, unheralded players. Bowser and Mcveee being two such examples (none other immediately come to mind, but i feel like i'm missing some). So, Sestan will know that if he does the work he has shot. And personally i think a good one because we could really do with his kicking skills an general smarts. Probably not really left field but i reckon Howes and Woey are both massive chances to be in the round one team.

I reckon he could. Sestan has some real x factor about him and like Mcvee, who is another Taylor special, his point of different is his foot skills. But like Mcvee needs an AFL tank and body - which he looks like he is working on. Sestan has the ability to kick those across the body on the 45 kicks that players like Daniel, Miers, Guthrie, Crisp and Nick Daicos are so good at hitting. With all teams employing zones and and all team defence having players with that skill has become increasingly important to cut through congestion and find free players.

Fair call. The Crows would be the obvious team that could make that jump.

I'm not sure May is one of our three most important players as we have players, for example Disco, Petty and Tmac, who could, to some degree, cover his role. But i could easily be persuaded. Def a super, super important player for us. We have no such player to cover maxy who i think is out most important player by a mile. In fact i think maxy is more important to our premiership chances than other player in the AFL to their team premiership chances. To be honest our reliance on Maxy has always worried me from the perspective of risk management - ie we lose him we are xx%%#&&. Agree tracc is next - in large part because his combination of power, skill, raw ability and positional flexibility cannot be covered.

Ta. In punting parlance, on my assessment $3 for the dees to to make the top 4 is overs. And $3 for the blues to make top 4 is unders. And on my assessment $9 for the dees to win the flag is well and truly overs. I would have us as second favorites, behind the Pies, to the the win the flag at $6.50. By the by i think we will win the flag.

100% agree. Goody has said from the get go that the aim is to build a team that is contention for a flag for many many years. And that is exactly what they have done. To be objective as possible I apply a racing punters lens to the question of how we'll go next season. In punting the key data point is of course form - of each individual horse in isolation, and more importantly how the form of each horse compares with its competitors. In doing form, (good) punters look at historical form and recent form. Applying a similar lens to the next afl season then these are the pertinent facts (im conceptualising the 2024 season as a Group one WFA classic like say a cox plate). Using the last three seasons as a reference point for historical form to assess the chances of the dees finishing top 4: - the dees have finished top 4 three times - the dees have won one flag - that is the best 'form' of any team over that period - the pies are next best with two top 4 finishes and one flag - next best is the lions with 3 top 4 finishes and one GF appearance - swans and port can argue over next best So, over three seasons the best three teams based on their records are in order, the dees, pies and lions. In horse racing parlance they are top 3 rated teams Looking at recent form (last season): - after very strong win loss records in the regular season the pies won the flag and the lions made the gf. They were the two best teams in 2023. - against the two best teams in the 2023 the dees went 50 50 against both, including a narrow loss against the premiers in the QF - so if for instance you really rate the pies, on form it is logically inconsistent not to also rate the dees What about up and comers? In racing there's of course always the possibility of a new star coming along and usurping the current class horses. Are there any such contenders in the AFL? The historical evidence (another important data point in horse racing) is that it is relatively rare for a team to come from outside the 8 and make top 4 the next season. Not impossible but rare. That knocks 10 teams out of being a top 4 contender Of course more common for teams who made the 8 to take the next step and make the top 4. Can one of the blues, swans, giants or saints make the top 4? Absolutely. And port can stay in the top 4 too of course (and I think will). But applying my form equation none of those teams' record over the last three season makes for a compelling argument. And looking at last season's form only the blues and giants make a strong case for taking the next step and finishing top 4. On the dees key competitors I largely agree with Little Goffy's excellent assessment. I really rate the giants and hard to argue with the blues form. So both a chance for a top 4 finish. I can't see swans or saints making it Port finished top 4 and I think if Hinkley can implement a modern defensive system will do so again. Another factor to consider is class. In both horse racing and footy class is more subjective than form (on form the record is the record(. Personally i would argue we have the best list in the AFL (lions, port, pies, giants next). And i also think we have the most balanced list of say the top 10 teams in terms of the balance and spread of age and experience (pies, port, giants next). So in totality what does that mean from a punters form perspective? The dees are very likely to make the top 4, as are the lions and pies. The dees are very unlikely to miss the 8. I haven't looked at the current betting markets for top 4 and top 8 They would have nothing in the pools and futures betting is a mug's game (they may not even have them up yet). But they would be the most accurate assessment as the prices are set by the professional analysts bookmakers employ and are yet to be influenced by the market (ie punters betting). If I was to set a market/price for the dees it would be: Top 4 finish: $2.50 Top 8 finish: $1.40 (winx says hello)

Don't look at the player bios on the MFC website then. I wanted to see how many games sparrow had played and so as logic would suggest went to the MFC website player info section. Couldn't believe it - the bio for all players except newbies is as per the end of the 2021 season (i'm not sure about the stats). I mean that is is amateur hour stuff. Surely up to date info about all players is the minimum fan might expect from an AFL club.

Me too. As i noted before there are two, maybe three, aspects to comms - fan engagement (eg social media, content etc), media engagement (eg interviews, pressers etc) and issue/crisis management. But just focusing on fan engagement, like you i love videos and info on how they train and prepare. I'm not on social media, unless you count Demonland, but from what i have seen from clips etc posted on DL, the information and videos MFC put out on the socials often seems pretty brief and fluffy (lots of clunkily edited video put to god awful soundtracks). Popcorn. I understand people love that stuff, and that's great and know I'm probably in the minority but i prefer more depth and detail. The super positive response on here for the brilliant photos from 666 and fantastic track reports (thanks all) suggest i'm not alone in that. I get that doco style videos like the the Hell and Back series are expensive and that in a resource constrained environment perhaps the cost outweighs the benefits - perhaps being the operative word. Plenty on here rubbished that series - less talk, more action and all that. But for me it gave me a reason to actually visit the MFC website, the online front door to the club. Which in turn meant engaging with other information and content about the club. It is part of the value proposition for members and sponsors. I watched that series of videos at least twice (once after winning the flag - which was fascinating because you could see the genesis of how we got there) and thought they were brilliant because they gave me a real insight into how they train and prepare and what goes into being AFL ready. For example, the footage and interviews with Vanderburgh about the incredible ongoing rehab program (for his feet issues) he had to endure just to train and play amazed me. Crazy stuff. But in this day and age clubs don't need to spend a fortune on high end productions to produce content that is engaging and interesting to people like myself. As an example, Freo, who i think do really good comms, have these videos on their website which i found really interesting from a technical point of view and getting a sense of how AFL teams prepare and develop systems - and I'm not even a Freo fan (by the by, for any Omac fans like myself check out 3:11 to 3:38 in the second video - text book):

All good points. To be honest i was in shock after the QF game and Gus incident - in large part because it was the worst, most awful, febrile environment i have experienced at any sporting event. Because of that, and becuase he had been quiet for the preceding few weeks, the JVR suspension washed over me and i didn't really factor it in when thinking ahead to the blues game. But to a large degree, as you imply, JVR missing that game was the straw that broke the back. Even if he had another game he would have had his chances and with his accuracy most likely taken them. And JVR strikes me as a big game player and so there is every chance he would have risen to the occasion and had a big impact. And Smith and JVR would have been a hard combo for the blues to cover. I reckon there is one factor that the impact of which consistently gets underplayed by fans and the media (and me too) - luck. People seem to hate suggesting luck is a factor - i suspect because it feels like making excuses and/or perhasp it so ephemeral. But however anyone assesses our performance, its hard to argue that once again we had our (un)fair share of bad luck.

I feel your pain. Jokes aside, as long term dees fan our outlook looking forward for say the next 10 years or so looks a hell of a lot more positive than say it did in 1980, 1990, 2000 and certainly 2010. That said, a positive forecast is no guarantee of flags and i am in furious agreement with you that we left a flag on this table this year.

This time x 1000. Pay peanuts get monkeys. They clearly have made a decision not to invest in comms to the level i would expect of any professional sporting club in an elite competition. Personally i think it is short sighted as fan engagement is critical in terms of continuing to grow the fan base and membership But its more than just fan facing content and engagement. Good comms is critical in terms of managing potentially fraught issues, not to mention responding to any crisis or serious incident and/or damage control. Look at last season. The Grundy demotion to the VFL to 'work on his forward craft' was a shocker from a comms perspective and the best you could say about the messaging around the clarry injury and related palaver is that they did a good job of keeping things in house. But they let Goody twist in the wind with the weekly updates he had to give. I don't blame Richo or Goody for those comms snafus - particularly goody who is not a natural media performer like say Mcrae. Getting such messaging right is the responsibility of the comms team. Bottom line is Demonland is much better source of information and content for dees fans than the MFC which should not be the case. And speaking of Demonland, from a comms perspective the club are wasting an opportunity for basically free comms and promotion. Instead of locking out fans from Casey training they should be encouraging people like Picket Fence to get downs there and report to their hearts content. Even give them special access (get some players or club official to chat to them). Then cross promote on the MFC socials. Free content and great engagement. Simples. Oh and they could hire 666 to take photos.

Too bad you picked the dees to support then. Failure is part of the deal. Not sure how long you have been a dees fan, but as someone who has been supporting the dees for half a century the current model of failure sure beats the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s model.

Fair enough. But whilst i take your point that prior to the Gus incident (which occurred at the 8 minute mark of the first quarter) we weren't as switched on as we should have been, surely you concede that for the rest of that quarter we were understandably in la la land psychologically and emotionally and that had a direct impact on our effort and performance level in the first. Basically the first quarter was a write off. Which left 3 quarters to put in maximum effort. Which they did. Are you not impressed that after quarter time they rallied and put maximum effort in right up to the final siren? I mean plenty of teams, including plenty of other dees teams over the years, would have turned up their toes after the first quarter (how many finals end up in a blow out after one team is jumped in the first quarter). We didn't and whilst I understand your point about how we started the game i think the team deserves a lot of credit for their fight in the last 3 quarters.

A serious question, ie I'm not being facetious. For the sake of argument lets say you are right and the 'way we started the QF was nothing short of abysmal, bordering on pathetic' and we 'weren't ready to play football right from the start'. And for the sake of argument let's say we agree that losing Gus had a massive impact on the game. For the sake of argument, let's leave the obvious, and completely understandable, emotional impact of Gus being poleaxed just a few minutes into the game out of the equation. But let's agree that from a purely footy perspective losing Gus for almost an entire game had a significant impact on our chances of winning the game. I meant to say, we lost one of our best players and leaders, a starting midfielder, had to cover all the kms Gus runs in a game, lost his defensive smarts and had to bring our sub on early, robbing us of the chance to bring a fresh player on late in the third or early in the last quarter. And finally, for the sake of argument, lets agree that inaccuracy cost us the game and that we were clearly the better, stronger team in the last quarter. So to the question. Given we started poorly, lost one our best players only a few minutes into the game and were down 20 points at the end of the first quarter, were you impressed with our mental strength to fight our way back into the contest and be in a position to beat the team who finished top of the ladder and went on to win the flag?

Collins dictionary definition of supporter: Supporters are people who support someone or something, for example a political leader or a sports team. Collins dictionary definition of support: verb: if you support someone or their ideas or aims, you agree with them, and perhaps help them because you want them to succeed. noun: If you give support to someone during a difficult or unhappy time, you are kind to them and help them. Collins dictionary definition of troll: noun: In Scandinavian mythology, trolls are creatures who look like ugly people. They live in caves or on mountains and steal children verb: If you troll someone, you deliberately try to upset them or start an argument with them, especially by posting offensive or unkind things on the internet.

So terribly predictable, both the timing and the [censored] covering.

Interesting clip in terms of highlighting good and bad kicking technique. I cant make out who has the first kick to Trac, but good technique with the ball drop close to his foot and hits a stationary Tracc. The last kick is by brown, and again good technique with the ball drop close to his foot and hits a leading Farris White. The odd man out is tracc. Ball drop nowhere near his foot. Terrible technique. It's actually a nice kick in terms of putting it in space for i think Farell to run onto which keep the ball in motion - a kick that Tracc is good at, in large part because there is bigger margin for error than say spotting up a stationary target or kicking for goal.

I should have been a Geelong fan. No one in my family was into football at all, with one exception - my grandfather who was my hero. My dad nominally supported the tigers, but was never a really a fan and wasn't even really a football fan (i went with him to two games - the 1978 Grand Final. I sat right behind Mike Willisee. And the tigers game, I think against the Hawks where Roach took that pack mark screamer). Mum couldn't stand football, or sport for that matter, as much of her youth involved waiting for her dad to finish cricket or football training. My grandfather was a gun footballer. Right before WWII he trained with the Bombers. The war skuppered his VFL career in the short term, but he played representative football in the Army and by all accounts that was a super strong team. After the war there was some VFL interest but he ended up signing for Camberwell in the VFA as they offered him more money than he would have got in the VFL. I'm not sure why he picked the Cats as his team but he wasn't a huge fan of them or the VFL in general. He lived on the Peninsula and never went to the footy, in large part because he played footy well into his 40s so there was no time. We were close, but he never tried to get me on the Cats train. But that might have been because he missed his chance as i became a demon on my 5th birthday. Family friends of ours were huge dees fans. They were the only people we knew who were football crazy like i am now. We went over there for dinner one day sometime around my 5th birthday. For my birthday they gave me a puppy (Patch, coz it had a patch on its eye). But there was strings attached. They also gave me a dees jumper. And the unspoken agreement was that i had to support the dees. I've been a dees tragic ever since. Fair to say the timing wasn't great seeing i got Patch in 1972.

I've heard from a reliable source that they didn't bring schache on in the semi so as not to impact his preseason.

Agree that hunter is not that quick. From my perspective that is only an issue if there aren't enough quick players accross the team to balance it out. But we didn't last season and it is no coincidence the two draftees are apparently good athletes who can cover the ground at speed. And as you suggest woey and Howes both have good toe. Such players should help hunter as opposed to being a threat for his role (which in time they no doubt will be). It's a bit like kicking skills. I've long been of the view we haven't had enough elite kicks. And that hurt us last year. But teams don't need more than say 5-6 elite kicks and 5-6 above average kicks. If they do they can carry some butchers. The issue comes when there aren't enough elite and above average kicks as the turnover merchants, that every team have, have an outsize impact. There was a lot of talk about our accuracy in our losses in big games, and fair enough too. In large part accuracy is a function of skill (sure ability to handle pressure is a factor but the stronger the technique the better mitigation of pressure). But our turnovers on transition were just as big a factor, particularly in our last two losses against the blues. The impact of turnovers on transition often get overlooked I reckon. Sure it's obvious when a turnover directly results in an oppo goal (and in our losses to the blues their score from turnover was almost double our season average - and ultimately cost us the semi with vineys turnover to weitering with 90 seconds to go). But it's the opportunity cost from turnovers on transition that really hurt, whether the oppo score or not. That's to say a turnover breaks a potential scoring chain for us and costs us a scoring opportunity. Again, no coincidence that Taylor targeted players with good kicking skills. On the DL podcast Taylor said they went best available, but I don't really believe that (though he did equivocate a bit to be fair). I think they drafted more for need - specificlly speed, athletisim and foot skills.

1. Agree. Personally i think bowser has struggled to have the same impact as 2021 because since then Salo has either not been in the side or not been at his best. This has forced Bowser to pick up elements of Salo's role, in particular balancing responsibility for a direct opponent and being aggressive on transition (it's worth remembering that Bowser was not a defender as a junior and isn't a natural defender). If Salo can get back to his best Bowser can better utilise his strengths and be more aggressive in terms of his offensive positioning, running off his man, getting higher up the ground and taking on high risk kicks (with the impact of any turnover mitigated by an in form Salo) 2. Agree. See above

IT. WAS. A. JOKE. JOYCE.

IT.WAS.A. JOKE. JOYCE.

He's def ahead of schedule but given 12 months is the standard recovery period for an ACL, which would be near the end of the 2024 home and away season. Let's say he makes it back in 10 months he could play his first game back not too long after the bye, say aprox round 15.