binman

Disagree. My take is, much like the Pies match, this is a target game for us. Meaning we will have freshened up, and even with a six day break, will be running over the ground better than we have since the Pies game. There are only three other contenders, the Lions are one of them. Beat them on the g to create more doubt in their heads about their chances come finals And on top of that there is real enmity between the two teams. I don't think this group of dees players will ever forgive or forget the sledging of Petty by Zorko. And then there is the fact they beat us in the finals last year. We will be looking to make a statement. I'm predicting it will be high scoring game, with us doing most of it. And unlike the Pies game, i think we will be looking to push the pace, go fast on transition from the back half, and be more daring with our ball movement, with more use of the corridor and aggressive lane changes. Against the Pies it made perfect sense to play slow, protect the corridor and force them down the line because doing so blunted their advantages over us - their leg speed and kicking skills. But we match up much better against the Lions because their strengths are contested ball and stoppages, and we more than match them in both areas. In fact we smash them in contested possessions. We are AFL #1 for CP (just ahead of the Saints)and they are mid table (AFL #10), barely above league average. The last thing we want is a low scoring maul because that plays into the Lions' strengths and mitigates their key weakness. Very much opposite to the Pies, the Lions' biggest weakness is their lack of leg speed, which i think is the reason they struggle at the G. I think we will look to exploit that weakness with fast ball movement, keeping the ball in motion and if sufficiently fresh, running in waves to create free plays ahead of the ball and inside 50. I suspect one of the drivers of brodie's (who is not quick at the best of times and looked like he had concrete in his boots against the saints) omission is looking to inject more speed and run. Last year's round 15 mauling of the Lions (37 scoring shots to 18!) will be the template. A key will be stopping Andrews intercepting as he is as important to them as May and Lever in terms of connecting defence and offence. The other key will limiting the impact of their medium forwards - Cameron, McCarthy, Raynor, and when he pushes forward Bailey. Dunkley is not at Oliver's level, but a case could be made for Dunkley being at least as important to the Lions as Oliver is to us. So i think Dunkley not getting up is massive. Dees by 43 points. By the by, contradicting my confidence, the Lions have continued to shorten in the betting and the game is now close to a 50 50 toss up betting wise (we are 1.85 and they are 1.92).

It's the gift that keeps giving - every second match has some bearing on the ride! Like the freo circle of death

Go get goulden dees.

Blimey, how good is the bont.

So I guess he gets a good rest then.

Fair call. Ever was over the top.

Fair point MB. It's true to say my starting point is to defend the players. But perhaps you're right and i was too dismissive of the concerns about Kozzie's form. Four possessions is a pretty poor output regardless of his role. I find how they're managing him quite interesting. He has struggled mid season every year so far, and to my eye look like he needs a chop out this year in the same way other young players like Chandler, JVR, Bowey and Spargo clearly did. But unlike those players they haven't sent him back to Casey. He has played high time on ground in this period - i think it was 95% against the Giants, so perhaps playing senior footy is better for Koz in terms of getting the required load into him. The other thing i factor in is i don't think there is any debate that Goody's number one priority is to win the flag and that all his selection decisions are informed by that goal. And there is little debate Goody places a huge emphasis on players carrying out instructions and playing their assigned role. Goody is not going to select any player who is not performing their assigned role over multiple weeks, so the fact he continues to select Koz suggests to me he is ok with how he is travelling.

All good points. But with the pies, why the confidence they will continue their form till the end if the season (I'm assuming you mean to the gf?)? Tbey didn't ladt year, losing two of their three finals and bowing out in the prelim

That's almost exactly what Scott said last year- tgough he said they were prepared to miss the 8 to give the cats the best chance of winning the flag. The big change to last year's program is replicating the cats squad approach and managing mutiple best 22 players like jvr, bowey, bb, Hibbo, chandler, grundy and spargo (something we didn't do hardly at all last year)

Ok. But essentially that is exactly what Selwyn Griffiths said in the DL interview podcast way back in March that i have referenced multiple times.

I'm not doing that all luci. I could not agree more that there are a myriad of other possibilities behind individual club decisions/team performance. I have not ONCE argued otherwise. And to be frank, I'm wholly sick of the inference that i have (not you, generally). And please, the idea I subscribe to some loading 'dogma' or 'reverse engineer' to fit my narrative is both inaccurate and insulting. And this is good case in point. Sure, you and others might be right and they are trialing a single ruck set up. But what is the evidence that supports that opinion? My opinion is he is being managed becuase he is fatigued (for whatever reason) and needs a break, just as has been the case for other best 22 players in Hibbo, Chanlder, Spargo and JVR. And there is plenty of evidence that supports that supposition: The club has publicly said it will take time for brodie to get back to optimal fitness. He is clearly struggling at the moment - he looks tired. The club has flagged via the media as much and implied, but not yet said (i don't think) he is being managed - are they lying if they come and out and say he is being managed? Goody publicly stated he would take more a squad mentality this season. And he has done so. Resting Brodie fits with that approach As far as i am aware there has not been one comment from the club suggesting any movement away from the two ruck set up being the optimal set up - on the contrary there are multiple recent examples of the club affirming the two ruck model It is not dogma. It is logic. Apply Occams razor to he set of facts at hand and Brodie being managed becuase he needs a chop out is the most probable scenario.

Not sure about more important than Oliver (though you could certainly argue Neale is) - but Dunkley has been a critical player for them this season in terms of his ability to connect the inside ball winner's with outside runners (like Oliver and Neale, he does both thing super well) and therefore their ability to transition the ball and create scoring chains. And whilst he doesn't have eclectic speed, he is quick enough and certainly not a plodder in the Rich mold - which helps mitigate their pace issue (which, in my opinion, is the main reason why they struggle at the G) An excellent trade. I really hope he is not playing.

Ok. But i still don't understand the relevance of the fact the Cats won whilst managing players and we haven't? Or the relevance of your supposition that the Cats would not have rested anyone prior to a top 4 clash had they needed to win to keep a buffer on their top 4 spot I mean, i assume you accept the fact the Cats took a squad mentality, and true to his word preseason, Goody is doing the same this season. Are you arguing that Grundy is not being managed?

And your point is?

Spot on.

I would characterize it as it being fatigued, not unfit. Posters were screaming this time last last year for Goody to take a squad mentality and freshen up players when needed. And that is exactly what Goody is doing this season - not that he is getting much credit for doing so. It is important to remember that fitness is iterative - Grundy missed a huge part of the 2022 season. And as as the club said preseason, has work to do to get back to his optimal aerobic levels. With Maxy's injury, Grundy has done a power of work this season, and probably more work than they had planned for when designing his individual program. So it makes perfect sense that he might need a chop out right about now. If he does need a chop out (just as was the case for Hibbo a few week back, and JVR, Chandler and Spargs more recently),it is smart by the club to manage Grundy. In my opinion, there is zero chance Grundy is not in our best 22 and if not in this week, will be back in soon enough and 100% will be in our finals team. Book mark it.

Again, fascinating on a number of levels The pattern of aggregated player across the 2021, 2022 and this season certainly supports my hypothesis that the arc of a season can be thought of as three acts or phases. And that those phases are related to fatigue (ie logic suggests the performance of players is strongly correlated with fatigue). It is interesting you should post this data actually. In 2021, around this middle part of the season i was trying to make the case that loading, and therefore fatigue was a significant factor in our drop off in form. One of the things i pointed to as evidence was exactly this (well not exactly, i did not have the brilliant charts) - a significant drop off in the collective player rankings (there was some article about this - like always pointing the symptom not the diagnosis - that's to say making the argument that our drop off in form was because our players ratings had fell away BUT not trying to explore why that might be the case. Cause and effect and all that). I also recall using that same data to support my argument for how critical nibbler was (and remains for that matter) to the team. In that middle phase of the season, the ONLY two best 22 dees players whose player ratings didn't drop below their average were Nibbler and Hunt. I say critical because our game is based around all team defense, which is 100% reliant on ALL players working super hard to block outlets, cover oppo players, spread and get up and down the ground all match. Fatigue makes that very difficult, hence we get opened up more. And lose games we otherwise would win. So any player who can continue to cover the ground close to their optimal level is gold. I suspect nibblers ratings didn't drop below his average last year or this year either, or if it did, only marginally. Terrific evidence of nibblers incredible fitness, leadership and work ethic. This season we have clearly tried to use tempo again (which we didn't really last year after about round 12) - and also a higher zone press (which is new)- to mitigate the impact of fatigue on our all team defence. The last quarter against the saints was the perfect example of this strategy.

Brilliant stuff DD - welcome aboard. That's really interesting on a few levels. One is that our accuracy in the early rounds meant our winning margin was significantly higher than the expected score in several cases, in particular the Swans and Roos wins (we won both by 5 plus goal more than the expected score). My understanding is weather is not one of the (many) data points specifically factored in to arrive at the expected score. All of those games were played in perfect conditions. But from the ESPN podcast wheelo suggested (ta - really interesting though i could have done without revisiting 186!) my understanding is the historical data they use goes back to 2013, so weather should in theory be factored in in totality (ie the aggregated data of the 1000s of games played), if that makes sense. But i doubt the point in the season the game is played in is factored in. My contention is that in footy now, teams are at their fittest in the first say 8-9 rounds, drop off say rounds 11- 18 and on the back of increased loads through those middle rounds HOPEFULLY the fitness (as defined by running power - aerobic and pace) gets back to the in the early season levels. Another way of looking at that pattern is players are are their least fatigued rounds 1-8, most fatigued rounds 11-18 and if their program has worked and they don't have too many injuries, fatigue levels from rounds 18-19 are similar to rounds 1-8. I suspect this has only become a league wide phenomena in the last 1-2 seasons so it is not yet apparent in the modelling to arrive at expected score. Taking our example, less fatigue means much faster ball movement and less fatigue related skill errors (handball, ball handling, hitting targets by foot and accuracy for goal). Which correlates to higher scores because the fast ball movement means we run in waves and create more free options, one on ones and space inside 50 AND we turn it over less frequently so fewer scoring chains break down. And because our skills are less impacted by fatigue we can take more risks with our kicking, for example more changing lanes and use of the corridor. I texted a question for Daniel Hoyne from Champion data's slot on SEN asking what data could be used to get a sense of the relative fitness for each team. I meant publicly available data, but his answer was the GPS numbers, which CD doesn't have access to and is completely locked up by the clubs. The expected scores might be one data point to at least explore that issue - at least in terms of assessing say one teams fatigue levels over the course of the season. Looking at the chart, there seems to be less anomalous results in the middle part of the season than the first third of the season. I'll be interested to see if we see an uptick in higher real scores than expected scores for the dees as the season progresses. if we do, that might be an indicator our fitness levels are retuning to optinal levelks. (on the above, my gut feeling is last season we would have not had as many anomalous results in the first third of the season, but still above water to so to speak, and then a similar drop of in the middle part of the year. But i doubt there was an uptick for higher real scores than expected scores for the dees because we clearly never got back to the fitness levels of the first third of the season).

Chandler will come back in soon enough. Good management of a young player- something many posters were crying out for last year.

Bowey will not play forward. Ever.

We clearly have a different definition of 'underdogs'. Current betting odds for win: Melbourne 1.75 Brisbane 2.10

If i had of listened to that clip before the show, as I should have, I would have been more prepared to rebut Buckley with something other that flabbergasted exasperation. And I would have pointed out he should put his house on the lions if he is that confident they'll win and that we are do poor. Why? Because we are 1.75 favorites for pete's sake. And the lions are $2.10 outsiders. Go figure. I also would have pointed out that we beat a team only one spot below us on the ladder by 4 goals. Whereas the pies played a team six spots below them on the ladder and almost blew a healthy lead, achieved with one decent quarter of footy, to win by just 12 points.

Only if they get much fitter.

Continues to amaze me. I wrote him off as far back as 2021. I reckon he just about played his best footy this season. And he seems to have recovered his pace. I won't be writing him off any time soon