Demon Dynasty

There is no need to bring in a defender for the sake of bringing in a defender for O-Mac imo PF. Tomlinson can just as easily cover for O-Mac down back, allowing Lever to keep playing as the assist / 3rd man intercept that he does so well. What we need to get right is the outside run & carry / contested marking on the non-Ed wing as well as the forward / HF side clicking. Tomlinson does provide the marking part when he's there so need to try & cover this off. Possibly Big Maxy, which is not uncommon anyway, but also the obvious for me here is Harmes. Not so shabby overhead and does well as an effective intercept / counter sling shot player running off his man. He's our 6th best intercept player just ahead of Maxy & Salem. But also well ahead of the competition such as Tomlinson, Jones, AVB, Harley, Hannan, Fritta & AVB. Outside of Tomlinson & Salem (who could share this role nicely with Harmes), he's also ahead of his main competitors for this transitional wing/ HF spot for meters gained in Jones, AVB & Harley this season. One area he isn't doing so well in though, pressure, sitting a fair way behind AVB. On another physical pressure measure though, tackles, he isn't far behind Jones & AVB. All up Harmes (sharing the role with Salem + assists in the air from Maxy) would be my selection to replace AVB this week. This allows Tomlinson to move back taking over O-Mac's role (omitted). Solve this other wing and we go a long way towards getting our forward 50 entries up. Then it's just a matter (again) of getting the connection / mix / form right up forward. This also means we can go through either wing from the kick outs and we become dangerous for the opp on either side. Switching to this wing also then becomes a more dangerous option, forcing our opponent to pay a little more respect to that side (ie., more options for us and not as predictable, placing a little more doubt / pressure on the opp to cover the non-Ed side). If we do these two things it improves our overall balance and in theory this should take our scoring and winning % to another level.

That has been the case for many years now H20. It's a dog's breakfast and fully compromised fixture that will always favour/benefit the AFL's favs. Any team sitting outside their bubble (eg., us) will need to have one helluva team and year to win an 'outlier' premiership, a la the Doggies in 2016.

He is still in the best mix (just) but at times we might need a different role player to suit the opposition match ups on the day. He is competing for that last outside player between the arcs / pushing forward with AVB & ANB imv and to a lessor degree Harley. Have to leave these calls up to the FD but....FCS can we at least keep him out of the back half so any turnovers aren't necessarily as damaging / costly and we give the defence a chance to amend / clean up the damage? Would love to see him get to 300, but probably needs to be this year unless he can somehow lighten up a little through the legs over this pre-season to handle the new role and truly believes he has a full season in him and willing to play a fair bit in the McGoos if required for the team's / club's sake.

He's a real footballer's footballer this kid but also has the spring and toe to be something extra. He's averaging 74% efficiency, just above AFL average, and our 5th best intercept player this season behind some significant seniors up top. Looking forward to watching this young fella's career develop.

Any team other than maybe Norf & GC the commentators would have been saying "clear goal". Even the goal line official in the box said "i think he touched it but there's no clear vision, stay with the umpires call" even though to me there was no clear evidence to suggest how he came to that conclusion. The ball gained momentum and was just across the line imv even IF he did manage to get a nail on it at some stage. Everyone's been kicking us for decades not just KC. Some habits are hard to break and people are like sheep & keep falling in to line with the mainstream kicking.

Exactly and by doing so they often clear out space behind them inside 50, 30 plus to 50, for their KFs to lead into. Our smalls def need to learn this and should be instructed / coached post match to do so using some of Melk's work last night and other club's small forward examples to show them the way. It's not always about crumbing the spill inside 30 for a quick snap or assist. Having said that there was one lovely intercept from Kozzy early on last night just outside the arc on the square. More of that hard two way work please just outside the arc. He also needs to work on his timing /positioning aspect. Sometimes you need to hit the contest with speed other times go slow and wait front n square off the contest a little, not so much under their nasal hair. If i was part of the FD i'd be employing the services of Cyril &/or Milne to coach Kozzy & Spargs on the finer points of playing a small forward role. One of the hardest positions on the ground imv and expert coaching would help immensely. Plenty of upside and key to our 'regular' finals / top 4 fortunes going forward.

Agreed but if we are keeping him in he needs to play higher up the ground, looking for intercepts coming out of our 50 (his form of pressure if you like....he wont bring the ground stuff) and using his beautiful left low raking kicks to either hit up the odd lead, chaos ball it off the hands of the pack 20 odd meters out giving our smalls a chance (if one or two of them ever get their crumbing act together) or even mediums like traccc and / or hitting the square on occasions as a last choice bail out like we saw against the Crows at one point from about 50 out on the boundary, which handed the Weid a goal on the line (think it was the Crows anyway).

Your forward line assessment is pretty good in general Macca other than that last para which is still mostly on the money imv. Most of the match (and prior matches, particularly Weid, they play from behind too often when there's a run & carry play coming off HB or the middle under heat. Main forwards need to recognise this earlier and lead up to the carrier more often. We are getting lead to those situations far too often by the opp defenders who often outmark us. And no i'm not referring to their spare. Separately from that type of outcome which is part of the norm. On the highlighted para i think Weid & Brown started to do that in about the last 8 to 10 minutes or so.

Weighted Averages up to and including Rnd 14, 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 3.785 2 2.843 33.13 66.42 9 7 Max Gawn # 3.100 3 3.437 -9.81 12.74 4 1 Jack Viney 3.002 4 3.258 -7.86 15.18 5 1 Christian Salem 2.925 5 3.658 -20.04 -0.05 3 -2 Steven May 2.831 6 2.618 8.14 35.17 14 8 Ed Langdon 2.783 7 - - - - - Angus Brayshaw 2.596 8 3.131 -17.09 3.64 6 -2 Michael Hibberd 2.338 9 2.339 -0.04 24.95 19 10 Jake Lever 2.277 10 2.519 -9.61 12.99 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 Adam Tomlinson # 1.933 13 - - - - - Braydon Preuss # 1.875 14 1.643 14.12 42.65 33 19 Harley Bennell 1.850 15 - - - - - Nathan Jones 1.807 16 2.907 -37.84 -22.30 7 -9 Alex N-Bullen 1.783 17 2.120 -15.90 5.13 22 5 Oscar McDonald 1.733 18 1.956 -11.40 10.75 26 8 Tom McDonald # 1.675 19 2.297 -27.08 -8.85 20 1 Jay Lockhart 1.650 20 1.819 -9.29 13.39 30 10 Bayley Fritsch 1.640 21 2.809 -41.62 -27.02 10 -11 Trent Rivers 1.605 22 - - - - - Sam Weideman 1.600 23 1.895 -15.57 5.54 27 4 Mitchell Hannan 1.506 24 1.433 5.09 31.37 36 12 Luke Jackson # 1.463 25 - - - - - Aaron Vandenburg 1.394 26 - - - - - Charlie Spargo 1.360 27 1.513 -10.11 12.36 35 8 Neville Jetta 1.355 28 2.264 -40.15 -25.19 18 -10 Jake Melksham 1.319 29 2.181 -39.52 -24.40 21 -8 Joel Smith 1.292 30 - - - - - Toby Bedford * 1.250 31 - - - - - Kysaiah Pickett 1.220 32 - - - - - Mitchell Brown 0.913 33 - - - - - Jayden Hunt 0.908 34 2.092 -56.60 -45.75 23 -11 Average Team Score - Top 22 51.746 59.623 -13.21 8.49 # Hit outs to advantage not captured * One match only, not an average Stats courtesy of footywire.com

Harmes and/or Harley a must in for AVB and/or Jones imho. We need some extra run and finish on the outside and the odd goal from either when they push forward. Our defence is rock solid. It's this outside / forward craft area that needs urgent tweaking to take things to another level on the scoreboard. Too much is being left to Tracc and that's not going to get us a winning score or out of jail card much of the time against the better clubs.

Monash was (is?) a great environment from all reports FD. Happy to send the excel file if you're interested in browsing / tinkering. Pretty basic stuff.

Seems like we aren't the only ones worried about Jonesy's turnovers.... ..."Hill i thought was excellent. Also Jones disposal is a massive concern."

Yeh Harley must be a shoe in this week for Hannan. There is no way he plays a worse game than that even if he tried. Viney plays mostly forward for Kozzy. Harmes comes in for Kozzy (managed for a week) and replaces a fair chunk of Viney's mid time but also pushing forward at times.

The Saints Player Score Rank Jack Steele 4.350 1 Bradley Hill 4.150 2 Zak Jones 3.250 3 Ben Long 2.875 4 Jack Sinclair 2.850 5 Sebastian Ross 2.675 6 Rowan Marshall # 2.625 7 Ben Paton 2.525 8 Callum Wilkie 2.450 9 Edward Phillips 2.375 10 Dougal Howard 2.225 11 Daniel Butler 2.075 12 Nicholas Coffield 1.975 13 Patrick Ryder # 1.825 14 Jarryn Geary 1.600 15 Hunter Clark 1.225 16 Tim Membrey 1.200 17 Josh Battle 1.200 18 Nick Hind 1.000 19 Jack Billings 0.950 20 Max King 0.700 21 Dean Kent 0.300 22 Team Score 46.400 Top 6 20.150 Bottom 6 5.350

No worries FD

Rnd 14, 2020 TIO - Demons vs Saints Team score, allowing for this season's 20% less game time, was 6% off the 2019 average and 17% lower than 2018's. Still not sure how we won that. Possibly just the fact we held our structure better than they did and finally managed to even up (or maybe just limited) their stoppage clearances. Even Ed's last kick. If he hangs on to it and eats up his 7 seconds we are a shoe in but he plays on, kicks down the line and it ends up with a Saint and, had we not been able to hem him in they might have had one last foray forward with about 14 seconds left. All is forgiven though as he had a very good day otherwise. May, Tracc daylight then Clarry, Ed and Salem the stand outs for mine. Lovely game from the young rookie Rivers. May's 9th top five finish this season. Player Score Rank Clayton Oliver 4.200 1 Steven May 4.150 2 Christian Salem 3.725 3 Christian Petracca 3.350 4 Ed Langdon 2.800 5 Jack Viney 2.700 6 Jake Lever 2.375 7 Joshua Wagner 2.375 8 Michael Hibberd 2.300 9 Adam Tomlinson 2.250 10 Max Gawn # 2.250 11 Angus Brayshaw 2.050 12 Trent Rivers 1.725 13 Charlie Spargo 1.250 14 Aaron Vandenberg 1.050 15 Mitchell Brown 1.050 16 Sam Weideman 1.000 17 Nathan Jones 0.775 18 Oscar McDonald 0.775 18 Jake Melksham 0.700 20 Kysaiah Pickett 0.600 21 Mitchell Hannan 0.475 22 Team Score 43.925 Top 6 20.925 Bottom 6 4.325 # Hit outs to advantage not captured Stats courtesy of footywire.com

6. May 5. Tracc 4. Ed 3. Clarry 2. Salem 1. Lever Apologies to Rivers. That second half was a beauty from the 5th game rookie.

Tracc is a star....Clarry epic last quarter. I'm not sure how they won as the umps would not pay us a thing in that last quarter but i'll take it.

Hannan just awful tonight. Turnover king. Kozzy & Spargs where are you? Nowhere near the drop of any contests. Always too close to the pack (kozzy) or nowhere to be seen (Spargs)

yep we dont need both... Viney just cant get clear of most inside contests

Surely this is NO-Mac's last game in the red & blue. He's been beaten in the air most of the night and as soon as the ball hits the deck he's cooked and beaten there as well. Thank goodness for May & Lever coming in to assist or we'd be down by a few goals i'd reckon

Hannan has been completely useless tonight...Hibb gone goodnight any run off HB

Hoooray!!! Finally a bit of forward ball and low and behold we get overlap run for the joe-the-goose

All designated forwards are getting absolutely towelled in this. - Talls... fail - Mediums ... fail - Small ... fail Unless it's given to them on a platter. The only dangerous forward isn't effectively a dedicated forward and that's Tracc

Gawn almost looks cooked to me. Too lacks a dazy for mine. He just isnt playing with enough intensity for this level.