Demon Dynasty

I think in a major way (significant change up of style) i would agree LH but i do think a few minor tweaks are possible, depending on the amount of change and the degree of difficulty required. However like any 'way' of playing, the coach would need to show them the how, why along with the manner/techniques... and then they train it. I heard a player or might have been a coach (might have been woosher in the Bomber's draw with GC not sure?) asked a few weeks ago, "do you ever train for that last few minutes scenario coming from behind in a nail biter?" and the response was "Yes we have a drill for it that we act out and train for it at least once during a training session" or something to that effect. It got me thinking if they can train for these scenarios then surely they are capable of training for things like.... > Man on man through the middle and / or front half for X amount of time before reverting back to usual type (eg; rolling zone, diamond zone etc) > Slow play / maintaining possession off and across HB > Lock down / Run with on player X and/or Y (or other) as required by our player A & B until told otherwise Etc. The above separate to say a major positional change up such as May to CHF or something similar if the game is almost gone a la Hooker y'day arvo. While i agree, major changes "in game" would be very difficult to pull off in my mind surely ones that the players know and have been instructed in and trained for can't be impossible? As for on field leadership, i believe your senior leadership and other players / captains can and should be capable of coaching 'method / structure' individually. But imv the coach is the one who decides when/which method of change should be brought in at any particular time. They see more from up high and have a full view of the ground plus more eyes on the entire scene. They also aren't caught up in the heat or role of the moment nor under physical stress / exhaustion which might have an effect on a player's judgement / decision making in game. Among other things, the the coach is there for very good reasons such as these and that's what he gets paid to do and do well imv. Some doing it better than others, including training it onto the playing group till it becomes second nature to most, or at least those that are capable.

This sums us up in a nutshell. Whenever we are favs or slightly better than a 50/50 we usually play like rabbits in the headlights at some point during that match. When the going gets tough too many players go missing instead of stepping up and taking it to another level when challenged (and i'm talking small percentages here, not expecting miracles across the board). Does this mean we should win this week given we will surely be going in as rank underdogs? Unfortunately i reckon we can match speedy skilled teams for about a half as we did last week, winning enough inside contests and clearances to balance the losses on the outside, at least to that point. Once that effort/skill drops away a little (skills usually fairing the worst here) after half time and the game opens up a little with the opp starting to win their fair share of clearances and contested, they're then able to spread and use their better skills on a more regular basis, as well as intercepting more of our awful turnovers, to rip us a new one with multiple unanswered goals. Weight of numbers on the outside overwhelm us once our "inside" intensity, skill levels and ability to run down the opp drops away in the second half (against those clubs who have the speed and skills i mean). It doesn't help that we also don't seem to react to this in the box and try and shut down one or two of the main offenders from the opp. The box also appearing to freeze like a rabbit in the headlights. Ok so maybe we don't have the answers on the day as we just don't have the outside speed / chase down ability to go with the opp. But surely that's by design both at a list level and at the selection table (to various degrees). I can't say i've witnessed us doing much of anything such as... ? Attempting to close down the opp's spread / movement by going man on man for short stints before reverting back to a zone method once/if we get the game back on our terms. And i'm not talking about waiting until the 4th, 5th or 6th goal in a row is kicked either. A good box should be able to recognise we're losing control of the ball / losing control of the match early on into an opp's run on and swing the change ups quickly ; ? Slowing our own ball movement down to bore the opp and let them cool their heels, putting a halt to their run on. ? Down by 5/6 goals or more and time's running out to turn things around? How about throwing some caution to the wind with player positions / roles and giving yourself and the opp a different look / feel. Look at the Bombers match yesterday, swinging Hooker from HB up forward and instructing their blokes to handball on the angle, then kick long to one on ones once they got in the clear. Sure it was only a few minor tweaks but it shows that sometimes a few tweaks (whether it's actually the tweaks themselves having a direct effect and/or the mere psychological effect upstairs, maybe a bit of both) can have a major effect on the outcome of a match, including massive turnarounds on occasions even if history would show your chances of doing so are slim. As per the late John Kennedy's famous cry "Do something, don't just think....DO!"

Might have been handy this week on Hill?

Unless they bring him in for AVB. Not so much for speed of course, more from a form perspective in terms of getting to the right places, getting involved in link up. Chunk can also kick the odd goal occasionally whereas Vanders doesn't. If Bennell had a defensive / intercept side i'd be bringing him straight in for AVB. Might be worth a look for a managed Kozzie? Rivers is a must in for Sparrow so Harmes can go back to his preferred role running with Steele in the middle / and pushing forward for the odd mark/goal & attacking chain work in the forward half which will also help keep the Saints honest. Bringing Harmes into the mid also allows Viney to play more time as a pressure forward which we will need in this match. Something that was sadly missing last week from the smalls inside 50 who were found wanting.

Too funny DD!

Road to Finals / GF - Triple Crown Update (to Rnd 13, 2020) Vs the Bulldogs Meters Gained Differential (looking for + 200 or more) ? -359 ❌ Marks inside 50 Differential (any positive is a win but the higher the better) ? +3 ✔️ Contested Possession Differential (looking for a +10 or greater) ? +2 ❌ Season Averages (the ones that count) Did i say we were finals bound last week!?? Still a bit of work to do! Meters Gained Average Differential (looking for an average of + 200 or more) ? +157 ❌ Down from +204 last week but still holding No.4 spot. Tiger's replacing the Power at No.2 The top five with current ladder positions in parenthesis below. Top five ? 1. Cats 371 (3rd) 2. Tigers 306 (5th) 3. Power 293 (1st) 4. Demons 157 (9th) 5. Bulldogs 148 (8th) Marks inside 50 Average Differential (ideally we need to see a top 6 ranking) ? 3rd ✔️ Holding at 3rd with the same average of +2.5 Top five ? 1. Cats 2. Lions 3. Demons 4. Tigers 5. Power 6. Eagles Contested Possession Average Differential (looking for +10 or more) ? +7.2 ❌ Holding in 3rd place with the average slipping slightly from +7.7 last week. Below the required pass rate but no team has hit the required pass mark yet. The Kangas have slipped out of the top 5 being replaced by the Blues at No.4 & the Power slipping from 4th to 5th. Top five: 1. Cats 2. Pies 3. Demons 4. Blues 4. Power

Weighted Averages up to and including Rnd 13, 2020 Player 2020 Weighted Score 2020 Rank 2019 Weighted Score % Change vs 2019 % Change vs 2019 w/ 20% time adjusted 2019 Rank Change in Rank vs 2019 Clayton Oliver 4.200 1 4.880 -13.93 7.58 1 0 Christian Petracca 3.821 2 2.843 34.40 68.00 9 7 Max Gawn # 3.194 3 3.437 -7.07 16.16 4 1 Jack Viney 3.030 4 3.258 -7.00 16.25 5 1 Christian Salem 2.852 5 3.658 -22.03 -2.54 3 -2 Ed Langdon 2.781 6 - - - - - Steven May 2.721 7 2.618 3.93 29.92 14 7 Angus Brayshaw 2.642 8 3.131 -15.62 5.48 6 -2 Michael Hibberd 2.341 9 2.339 0.09 25.11 19 10 Jake Lever 2.269 10 2.519 -9.92 12.59 16 6 James Harmes 2.208 11 4.039 -45.33 -31.67 2 -9 Tom Sparrow 2.150 12 1.275 68.63 110.78 37 25 Nathan Jones 1.979 13 2.907 -31.92 -14.90 7 -6 Oscar McDonald 1.925 14 1.956 -1.58 23.02 26 12 Adam Tomlinson # 1.894 15 - - - - - Braydon Preuss # 1.875 16 1.643 14.12 42.65 33 17 Harley Bennell 1.850 17 - - - - - Alex N-Bullen 1.783 18 2.120 -15.90 5.13 22 4 Tom McDonald # 1.675 19 2.297 -27.08 -8.85 20 1 Sam Weideman 1.675 19 1.895 -11.61 10.49 27 8 Jay Lockhart 1.650 21 1.819 -9.29 13.39 30 9 Bayley Fritsch 1.640 22 2.809 -41.62 -27.02 10 -12 Mitchell Hannan 1.634 23 1.433 14.03 42.53 36 13 Trent Rivers 1.575 24 - - - - - Luke Jackson # 1.463 25 - - - - - Aaron Vandenburg 1.438 26 - - - - - Charlie Spargo 1.388 27 1.513 -8.26 14.67 35 8 Jake Melksham 1.371 28 2.181 -37.14 -21.42 21 -7 Neville Jetta 1.355 29 2.264 -40.15 -25.19 18 -11 Joel Smith 1.292 30 - - - - - Kysaiah Pickett 1.283 31 - - - - - Toby Bedford * 1.250 32 - - - - - Jayden Hunt 0.908 33 2.092 -56.60 -45.75 23 -10 Mitchell Brown * 0.775 34 - - - - - Average Team Score -Top 22 52.155 59.623 -12.53 9.34 # Hit outs to advantage not captured * One match only, not an average Stats courtesy of footywire.com

Haven't heard that one Dp. I've heard a few such as "rubbish in rubbish out" or "Some individuals use statistics as a drunk man uses lamp-posts — for support rather than for illumination". Sometimes i'm a bit of a boozer!

If only we could find that magic bean SNS. I'm still not sure it lies within the present list.

Would love to see him on board but not sure he would want to return given the past treatment under diamond Joe.

Harmes must be borderline but imv i just think he is being asked to play a role he just doesn't get this late in his career. He's been a run with / part time mid / winger who pushes forward to stretch his opponent and mark/ maybe kick the odd goal in the past. I would reset him this weekend on a shut down (not necessarily heavy lockdown) role on Steele who is presently the Saints most prolific ball winner. This makes complete sense now with Sparrow out imo. Rivers comes in to cover Harmes. The only option i can really see if Fritta is dropped is Bedford and i'm just not sure he will be ready for such a big match. If you are bringing him in for Fritta then i can't see him playing out Fritta's role in the air. On the ground sure. And he probably won't play the entire match out. It's possible but you will need others to drift forward and help out in the air like AVB, Harmes, Tracc and Clarry. As well as on the ground once his tank peaters out probably about 2/3rds of the way through. Maybe let Hannan & AVB share this role early. Once AVB's legs are gone chasing....then bring Bedford in to cover the Saints defensive smalls in the second half with Hannan along with our other two smalls, Kozzy & Spargo. Could even consider dropping AVB for chunk to play that same role in the first half as he appears to be in better form than AVB at the moment (subject to a fitness test of course).

Weighted Average Scores - Rnd 11 through Rnd 13, 2020 There are arguably better Zep songs out there than this.....but none more appropriate for our boy Clarry. Rain, hail or shine, hat's off, this bloke keeps delivering the goods. Ok he's had his dinky handball phase and a few other question marks over his short journey so far. But let's face it, we'd be struggling somewhat in the mid without this bloke's consistency and manic attack on the ball. He's now adding another component to his game on the burst and getting to the outside seemingly with more damaging kicks happening. Let's hope he continues on his merry way and he gets plenty of support from his mates coming in to finals. Gus, Ed and Jake the snake all pushing up as well in this last block of three matches. Yes only one match to go on but not a bad output from the two rookies Trent & LJ at this early stage. Let's hope LJ can make it back firing in time for finals. The team score in this block is off the charts compared to the previous block. Yes there were two easy pickings among these numbers but you don't average 17% higher vs the previous season and approx 25% vs the previous block of three matches (from Rnds 8 to 10) without getting some major lift in form from a significant number of players. We are also tracking the average 2018 team score in this block. While there's no certainty in life and certainly none in footy i would say we are a very good chance, maybe 70% or so, of making finals here. Being the 2nd highest scoring team behind the Cats in the second half of matches this season should help if we can get back on the winner's list this week. Defence looking very solid also. Big game coming up after the disappointment against the Dogs. Player Rnds 11 to 13 Weighted Score Rank 2019 Weighted Score % Change vs 2019 % Change vs 2019 w/ 20% time adjusted 2019 Rank Change in Rank vs 2019 Clayton Oliver (3) 4.875 1 4.880 -0.10 24.87 1 0 Angus Brayshaw (3) 4.033 2 3.131 28.81 61.01 6 4 Ed Langdon (3) 3.592 3 - - - - - Christian Petracca (3) 3.492 4 2.843 22.83 53.53 9 5 Christian Salem (3) 3.450 5 3.658 -5.69 17.89 3 -2 Jake Lever (3) 2.775 6 2.519 10.16 37.70 16 10 Steven May (3) 2.758 7 2.618 5.35 31.68 14 7 Michael Hibberd (3) 2.583 8 2.339 10.43 38.04 19 11 Trent Rivers (1) * 2.550 9 - - - - - Jack Viney (2) 2.275 10 3.258 -30.17 -12.71 5 -5 Luke Jackson (1) * # 2.275 10 - - - - - Adam Tomlinson (3) # 2.250 12 - - - - - Tom Sparrow (2.3) 2.192 13 1.275 71.92 114.90 37 24 James Harmes (3) 2.183 14 4.039 -45.95 -32.44 2 -12 Nathan Jones (2) 2.163 15 2.907 -25.59 -6.99 7 -8 Tom McDonald (3) # 1.917 16 2.297 -16.54 4.32 20 4 Sam Weideman (3) 1.917 16 1.895 1.16 26.45 27 11 Braydon Preuss (2) # 1.875 18 1.643 14.12 42.65 33 15 Charlie Spargo (3) 1.867 19 1.513 23.40 54.25 35 16 Jake Melksham (3) 1.650 20 2.181 -24.35 -5.43 21 1 Mitchell Hannan (2) 1.588 21 1.433 10.82 38.52 36 15 Bayley Fritsch (3) 1.550 22 2.809 -44.82 -31.03 10 -12 Kysaiah Pickett (3) 1.467 23 - - - - - Jay Lockhart (2) 1.325 24 1.819 -27.16 -8.95 30 6 Aaron Vandenburg (3) 1.108 25 - - - - - Average Team Score -Top 22 55.810 59.623 -6.40 17.01 # Hit outs to advantage not captured * Only one match played ie., not an average score Numbers in parentheses = number of games played for this data set Stats courtesy of footywire.com

There is Layzie but it's under Champion Data's copyright so no chance we will ever get stats that drill down to that level. There's a little in the Hun on a Monday such as pressure acts and hit outs to advantage but otherwise nothing publicly available.

Other than some of the newbies to the game that haven't yet been fully retrained eg; the recent addition of Lewis to Fox's special comments team, i'm afraid you are clutching at straws here HBT. The media also have their snouts sniffing and snuffing around the massive AFL swill trough and are doing very nicely skimming the grease off the top of the club's swill. No way they will rock the trough much and i suspect the aim is to avoid too much discussion (review via replay) of anything that is deemed a little or too controversial. You can clearly witness that with the dead silence often greeted after a rare criticism of a controversial umpiring decision on the coverage from those who have been well trained and fully "swill" compliant such as Bruce, BT, Derwayne etc. Even if the replays cleary show something isn't right with a decision or conversely a non-decision, very little is often said to fan any fires of controversy other than the occasional fence sitting "undecided / unlcear" type comments. The present circus is a very sad state of affairs with Gil's tentacles weaving their way throughout the entire system from the HQ, to the clubs themselves and almost everyone involved in the media, with a few minor exceptions / slip ups that slip through camp AFL's retraining / restraining filter.

I would say for as long as we remain part of the AFL circus NSfm. Everyone is on the gravy train. Some getting more of their snout into the trough than others as we are witnessing with theses anomalous tribunal outcomes. I'm pretty sure the AFL have, in a round-a-bout way, put the lessor favoured clubs on notice that it won't be considered 'ideal practice' if we were to rock that train (trough!) too much.

They're not saying that at all DZ. Imv what they ARE saying is... "It may or may not be ok to sling (or apply a dangerous) tackle. However, the outcome / penalty will depend on who you are and which club you play for and WE will decide the outcome arbitrarily and potentially in a discriminatory manner purely at our discretion". END

As we all know, the AFL have their favs both club and player wise. Unfortunately for too long we haven't been one of them and we continually cop the short end of the stick....and seem to accept it more often than not. How does a club that rarely pushes back with appeals or stand up for it's players in glaring examples of injustice such as the ANB one (and there's been others eg ; this from 2010 to an ex R.I.P. https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.theage.com.au/sport/afl/no-charge-after-kennedy-breaks-colin-sylvias-jaw-20100315-q9bw.html ) then expect that its players (in general) will do the opposite and stand up and fight for the jumper? ANB was always going to be outed but to roll over and accept 4 weeks then cop the SHIZENHaus decision without a yelp?

Bedford putting pressure on for one of those spots is very healthy imv. Don't believe we need or should play all three for the sake of a medium. May the best two small forwards keep playing in blocks of 3 to 4 matches. They stay if they can perform to a minimum level. If they don't or one doesn't during that block then Bedford comes in. Rinse repeat till we find out who can really bring it and wants it. What i would do though is bring Harmes off HB to play more mid field time in a run with this week to cover Steele. Effectively replacing Sparrow. Rivers comes in to take over Harmes' role at HB. Viney plays more time forward. Between Viney, Harmes, Tracc, Clarry and AVB, we should be able to cover one of the medium forward roles of either Fritta or Melk. To me this week that's Fritta. Again some pressure needed. Bit of a rocket to let them know their place isn't as secure as they may think and to work on some weaknesses, particularly the pressure side. Also sends Melk a bit of a subtle signal as well that he needs to up the ante pressure wise inside 50.

Agree the article is a nonsense article if it is suggesting Jones in or out is the solution to our forward pressure woes. His inclusion might go some way towards helping (and even the amount here is probably minute given his lack of run down speed...in fact almost everyone who plays forward is ahead of him here including Hannan 3rd, Kozzie 2nd, LJ, Fritta, Harley etc). Even backmen, Tomlinson, Harmes and Ed average more tackles i50 than Jones. To suggest the lack of pressure difference was Hannan v Jones is complete garbage. In fact Hannan (usually) brings a greater level of pressure here than Jones (if his role is to play mostly HF vs say a part time winger). But it does highlight an issue and that is aside from Hunt (ranked 1st for average tackles inside 50 this season and 10th in the AFL overall), Kozzie (2nd & 41st. Not bad for a first year player but a damning outcome on the rest of the seniors up forward imv, particularly Melk and Fritta), Hannan & ANB (both equal 3rd & 49th/AFL) we start to drop away from there. Mind you there are other ways to pressure up forward other than tackling but that's the only statistical indicator we have at present as a recorded gauge other than trolling through a stack of replays to look for pressure acts, spoils & smothers. Let's look at some of those top ranked tacklers i50. Hunt, might be No.1 for us but he's terribly out of form and not getting a game. If he does get one who knows, it might be a role up the ground. In other words he's having zero input at this point. Kozzie at No.2 Great effort from the 1st year rookie but you can't just hang your hat on this as a small forward. Sure he does get involved and does some other good work including bringing others into scoring opportunities but at some stage he also needs to start hitting the scoreboard on a regular basis. I have confidence he will but the question is how far away is that and we shouldn't have to rely solely on a rookie to make the difference. Hannan & AVB. Both can't stay in the team for more than a few weeks and when they do they may bring a degree of forward pressure but both also lack the ability to bring a consistently acceptable level of impact on game day. Some days they'll hit the mark, others they go missing. Let's face it, aside from Kozzie, the crew that presently run through that forward line just don't inspire in terms of worrying the opposition backs with consistent pressure. It's no wonder the dogs waltzed out of our 50 with ease on Saturday. So what's the solution? Honestly i just don't think there's a feasible one in terms of ins/outs on this present list. We can ask for greater efforts from some of our mids like Clarry & Tracc who are already bringing it a little. Then there's Gus who brings only a little. Spargo up and down can surely find something this week. So that's some extra potential oomph from those four. There are three other options, one of which we've used a little but certainly not enough so far imv. Seemed to work against the Pies. Bring Jack into a mostly HF role (not mostly against the Pies but did appear to play more game time forward from what i witnessed vs the Doggies match) which allows Harmes to play a part time mid field role also pushing forward and bringing pressure. Rivers comes in for Harmes for Fritta or Melk (neither of those two pressure much at all up forward, especially Melk). I'm thinking Fritta at this point given Melk at least kicks accurately with his limited opportunities. Brown comes in for T-Mac to see if he can make a difference as a 2nd KF and part time relief ruckman. He might also bring a tad more forward pressure than T-Mac at this point.

There's a whole week to prepare for this one and we have an extra day's rest HF. They are also coming off a much bigger challenge than us imv playing a top of the table team in the Lions. We are presented with a rare opportunity, in the current format. In addition the blue print for smashing them was set by Scott a few weeks ago. While we are certainly not the Cats, i'd be getting hold of as much analysis of the Cats demolition of the Saints as possible. Along with help from Richo (surely some inside player value he can add here), the game day analyst (do we have one anymore?) and line coaches etc, i'd be dissecting that from front to back and every which way. Obviously allowing for our own strengths / tweaks given each player's strengths/weaknesses and points of difference. Opportunity knocks!

He might be on pro $$ but he's far from a pro coach yet imo HFF. Saturday will be the turning point imv as he has no excuses with injuries to save his bacon this season and we are very unlikely to make the eight if we lose that one. It's a must win. When he has us playing finals on a regular basis (ie., say this season and next) then we can call him a pro. At this point he's a fair way off it imv and still learning the ropes as he goes (hopefully). And as for that last bit, by extension you are calling yourself out also. Welcome aboard mate!

It's not forever PJ and it's not every match but when needed, of course he should. Not Tracc, who should be pushing forward for short stints anyway. Viney's your man playing more time forward for Harmes.

I can see the light Norm! Let's hope he gets the opp this week.

Certainly didn't take it as that Buck. Your feedback / input always valued. No harm in posing the questions and having a healthy debate / discussion. I'm also always looking to fine tune regardless, at least where/when i can see a pattern of anomaly arising and i think it was warranted here.

Agreed re Sam having a somewhat better match vs the other two when watching the game. The weighted score does capture this (just) with Kozzie but not with Spargo (just). As pointed out by BN, statistically things can come out slightly differently vs what actually occurs on match day in terms of the importance of a player's disposal / involvement / output and effect on the result. Often it can be little things that don't even get picked up ie., some stats are either dubious or the publicly available ones don't / can't capture all of the nuances that we see take place. Nonetheless, i have to agree with these two assessments and it could (probably was) the weakness of the model itself. Taking a look at the penalty imposed for turnovers that goes in to the final weighted scores. I've backed it off, marginally, and this may be the tonic needed without changing the core basis of the model nor the rest of the pecking order in a significant way. Hey nobody's perfect and there's always room for improvement so thanks for the constructive scrutiny fellas. The new weighted ratings table, including the above minor tweak, below. Player Score Rank Clayton Oliver 3.800 1 Steven May 3.525 2 Angus Brayshaw 3.400 3 Jake Lever 3.250 4 Christian Salem 3.200 5 Adam Tomlinson 3.125 6 Ed Langdon 2.875 7 Christian Petracca 2.600 8 Jack Viney 2.575 9 James Harmes 2.325 10 Michael Hibberd 2.025 11 Jake Melksham 1.650 12 Braydon Preuss # 1.550 13 Sam Weideman 1.500 14 Charlie Spargo 1.375 15 Kysaiah Pickett 1.300 16 Tom McDonald # 1.175 17 Tom Sparrow 1.150 18 Mitchell Hannan 1.100 19 Jay Lockhart 1.075 20 Aaron Vandenberg 0.850 21 Bayley Fritsch 0.775 22 Team Score 46.200 Top 6 20.300 Bottom 6 6.125 # Hit outs to advantage not captured Stats courtesy of footywire.com