Demon Dynasty

My understanding was Macca missed last week's Casey game due to a latent ankle issue from a week or so before. Doubt he would've gotten up? Haven't seen anywhere in this last week that BBB has had a comtinuation of a slight niggle about two weeks ago (i think). If he's right to play Casey this week then he'd be straight in surely

BBB is a chance i thought?

Didn't listen to much 60s pop Mr Leg? (apologies to McQueen et al in advance...back to topic promise!!)

Some comfort food after that door-in the-face rejection WCW. Hopefully this helps you to forget & move on with your next banner build! ...

SPC bit of respect when responding to Jordy pls

Agreed but you might want to say that to a stack of other posts as well Steve that aren't on topic

Below is a season v season comparison of Sparrow's averages on a few metrics. It should be noted that these are publicly available stats only and many, as mentioned above, are flawed to various degrees of severity. Take no notice of some of the massive percentage gains, such as marks inside 50, which are just mathematical outcomes due to a very low figure from 2022. Also contested marks et al. If anyone needs a legend i can post that separately but hopefully the abbreviations should be mostly self explanatory. Looking at some of those numbers, it would seem Tom might be being asked to play more of an outside-mid role (less clearances, less contested, more uncontested)? And possibly being asked to run back a little more often to support (rebounds up somewhat, inside 50s down a tad)? His average game time is up a fair amount but off a fairly low figure in 2022. #32 T Sparrow 2022 2023 % Change CP 6.62 5.00 -24.5 UP 10.00 12.56 25.6 ED* 12.10 13.22 9.3 DE% 74.99 76.12 1.1 CM* 0.14 0.11 -22.2 Mi50* 0.14 0.56 288.9 1%* 1.43 1.67 16.7 CL* 2.62 1.56 -40.6 R50* 0.86 1.78 107.4 i50* 3.10 2.56 -17.4 T* 3.48 3.89 11.9 Si* 3.90 4.22 8.1 MG 238.76 290.44 21.7 TO* 3.43 3.00 -12.5 ITC* 1.86 2.00 7.7 T5* 0.43 0.67 55.6 TOG% 68.33 74.33 6.0 G* 0.29 0.56 94.4 DD's Player Rating 2.66 3.01 13.1 * Indicates metric is used for Player Rating

It's not an ideal indicator Jimmy for sure. I would say probably a VERY rough guide between players you're comparing like with like in terms of position / role being played but to be taken with a grain of salt if not. However even then, who nowadays plays a role/position that is super similar to another player? Maybe the ruck, FB, FF and the two wingers? That is debatable also. As you mentioned it also doesn't take into account the degree of difficulty and pressure factors so you have to be super careful when comparing two players with this one. The best metric going about is the 'Kick Rating' from Champion data which does take into account pressure, degree of difficulty using their 'Expected Hit Rate' (EHR) as well as the type of kick being made (short vs long). Unfortunately, we have no access to that. Here's their explanation as well as the EHR that feeds into that rating... Kick Rating: The difference between a player’s expected hit rate and actual hit rate. A negative kick rating indicates a player is not executing the kicks as well as the competition average and a positive kick rating shows a player is hitting the target more often than the competition average. Expected Hit Rate: Used the calculate the difficulty of a kick by looking at how often, on average, any player in the competition managed to hit their target when attempting a type of kick. Kick types are determined by combining the intent, distance and direction of the kick, along with how much pressure the player was under at the time. The one stat we do have access to though is AFL's kicking efficiency % which i assume is just the % of effective vs non-effective garnered from the stat below... Effective Kick: The sum of effective short kicks, effective long kicks and effective ground kicks. Effective Long Kick: A kick of more than 40 metres to a 50/50 contest or better for the team. Effective Short Kick: A kick of less than 40 metres that results in the intended target retaining possession. At this point in time Sparrow in 2023 is travelling at 65.8% (kicking efficiency) vs 62.4% in 2022. However, this still doesn't break down the short vs long components. We also don't have the AFL averages by position which you would need in order to see where he is at vs other players playing a similar role in the comp trying to pull off similar kicks under similar pressure. Again we are stymied by not being able to drill down and see this data to truly know these things. We are left to judge by the eyes only and hence differences of opinion occur as they are mostly subjective judgements. Some more accurate than others but no real way of telling either way in many cases due to the above restrictions for us punters. Obviously the clubs have access to all the juicy bits and will have a much better idea of how the boys are travelling.

So am i correct in saying an umpire didn't report him for this in game?

Pretty much sums up the interpretation of most rules now. The AFL has created its own version of chooklotto.

Mathematically the more time we put into Grundy in the middle the less in game practice is happening between Maxy and the core group yes? Does this have the potential to break down the cohesion and reads off the tap/taps to advantage between the better Max option (only my opp) little by little? I should point out only IF we take it too far. Some should be fine if Grundy plays his part and some cohesion starts happening under pressure. But is it starting to gel? And is it gelling enough to hold up against rated mid set ups? Im still not convinced it is...so far. That could change of course as the season progresses. The end result (and a potential danger as a whole) might be that both options become a B rated version of the former (ie; mostly Max) which was up there as our 1 wood in 2021. Most likely i am wrong on this but it has crossed my mind. In particular afrer watching the 3rd quarter (twice) against the Hawks. The Grundy version was pantsed from the get go, pretty much the entire time during his stint and the rot set in. We only started to arrest and turn it back our way once Max was switched in later in the third. If anyone has any doubts on this do yourself a favour and watch the third quarter 666s again. It was like switching off a tap and slowly turning it back on again (pre/post Max)

...."Wherever thou art wherever thou be, always let thy wind go free. For the holding of the wind was the death of me"...

Johnson to kick two for my multi ...get him back near the goals FCS!

Great hands Hogan. No more pls or my multi's done

Best call of the Round ... push in the back there. Congrats ump!!!

Flynn's a big lump of a lad (always wanted to say that)

Kinsgley after seeing that pressure rating...

I still think Bedford will be a very handy small forward given another pre-season and a decent go at this level. Would've tried to hang on to him for another season or two if it was poss

My multi & line bets are looking good here! 🥳

Adds nothing to the game Red. And takes alot more away imv You're supposed to stay in line with the mark or its play on yet here we are watching some players going back behind the mark 1 to 3 meters off the line. Why? Because the ump hasn't bothered to move them over. They can see it but do nothing About 8 out of 10 times anyway... the odd ump will pull them around but it's rare and usually only when player is taking a shot at goal or kicking in from an OOTF free. We also more often see players running through the lateral protected zone now (not minding anyone) well after the mark is taken and no penalty / 50. They get warned sometimes but even the original strict enforcement here has slacked off. If you aren't going to adjudicate the mark/stand rules & protected zone 95% of the time (according to the rules) then why have these particular rules? It's no longer doing what it was introduced for. Just scrap it!

Yes thought they were getting somewhere with the "hands-in-the- back" rule Brownie but renegged on it and now they appear to have done a 360. Alot of this comes back to interpretation and enforcement. A fair proportion is also the high degree of difficulty umpiring this game in general. However with the addition of an extra umpire they are supposed to be using him/her in a rolling diamond with one sitting inside 50 most of the time in an attempt to capture more infringements. I'm not sure it's helped much at all to this point. Something to do with introducing a batch of umpires that have very little experience and tend to make poor calls and non-calls? And/or just the general AFL directive to 'keep the game moving/scoreboard ticking over"?? This last part is the base virus that's killing the game. If you pay the frees that are generally there, and do so quickly. Or alternatively blow the whistle very quickly for the ball up...instead of sweating, sweating & more sweating hoping the ball will pop out.... you will actually see the ball moving as quickly and more quickly in some cases. Especially with frees as the free kick recipient clears the congestion and/or hits the scoreboard. Umpires super reluctant to stop play by calling a HTB/other frees as a result of this directive and a fear they might be dropped? Players are getting caught after having obvious prior, spun around 360 (sometimes more than that!) and STILL no whistle. This sometimes results in sling tackle... head trauma... crys for harsher penalties. But...the cause (imv) lays with the umpires and their reluctance to blow the whistle and blow it quickly when HTB/incorrect disposal and insufficient attempt occurs. Young umpires scared to pay a free against a big club at home in front of a big crowd as well? However this has been an issue infinitum and in many sports. After watching some of the non-MFC games this weekend, ive seen some very obvious frees (from the TV) not callled inside 50 and alternatively some super soft ones given. Nothing has changed with the addition of the extra ump and if anything things have regressed for the worse this season. Possibly to the worst level i've seen in my many decades of watching. I'm also totally convinced now that the Stand rule needs to be scrapped. It's turned the game into a giant mess of inequitable outcomes with the umpires having slacked off their early enforcement following its introduction where it appeared to have some potential. They are so lackadaisical / inconsistent with the stand rule/protected zone now it's original raison d'etre is now defunct and is now a meaningless mess that is too skewed in favour of the team with the ball.

Champion Data's Top 10 players after round 8... https://www.sen.com.au/news/2023/05/09/champion-datas-top-10-rated-players-in-the-afl-after-round-8/

Wasn't that ye olde polly waffle?