Demon Dynasty

Finally we have a coach who is telling it how it is and putting the AFL/ umps on notice that we've had enough. Very happy to see SG finally letting it rip in public just as Clarkson does pretty much every other press conference. Especially given we apparantly took it to the AFL behind closed doors earlier but of course, nothing changed. The club needs a strong voice both on and off the field and a united one. No more AFL whipping boy. Keep it up Mr Goodwin ?

Rnd 10, 2020 Adelaide Oval - Crows vs Demons A nice finish over the League's lowest ranked team. A win is a win but important not to get ahead of ourselves. The adjusted team score is still approx 1% off the team's 2019 average and 12% lower than 2018. This team still hasn't 'clicked' as a team as such IMHO bar for one very decent 'team' game against the Hawks, where we had Langdon, May, Clarry, Viney, Big M & Tracc all firing together at somewhere near their best. . IF that happens then we might finally see take off. Imagine if we add a very solid game last night from say Tracc and Harmes also lifts to somewhere near his 2019 best. Quite the game by Clarry. Technically the highest rated statistical output of any player this season, bettering Tracc's 5.675 against the Hawks in Rnd 7 and Viney's 5.625 in Rnd 1 against the Eagles. However there was also Max's stellar game against the Blues in Rnd 2, where he scored an incredible 5.325 (for a ruckman that's off the charts) and that figure does not include his hit outs to advantage. If we add approx 0.70 for that attribute (stab in the dark guess at it's worth) this pushes Maxy's game to potentially being the best for the year so far (statistically). Although this was a great result for Clarry, he has bettered this score on multiple occasions since i've been keeping these tables from 2018, with his best result so far (funnily enough also against the Crows in Rnd 11, 2019) a massive score of 7.35 Yes, Clarry does rack up a fair amount of "junk time" stats as they are often referred to so need to be careful how much we read into them. However, a (massive) score of 7 has only been reached/exceeded on three other occasions since season 2018...by only one player, Mr C Oliver! A lovely game by Jackson, finally finding his feet in his 5th match and a 73% improvement on his season average of 1.038. Let's look at some of those numbers a little. 6 Effectives @ 75% (AFL average approx 73%), 2 contested marks (1 of those inside 50), 3 inside 50s, 5 score involvements, 1 tackle inside 50, 2 goals AND 14 hitouts (i don't have 'to advantage' numbers). Very noice indeed from the young fella. Sparrow following up last week's handy result of 2.000 with a 2.025 Not bad at all from the young mid. Not the greatest returns from ANB and AVB here. Player Score Rank Clayton Oliver 5.925 1 Jack Viney 4.325 2 Christian Petracca 4.175 3 Steven May 2.950 4 Bayley Fritsch 2.850 5 Jake Lever 2.450 6 Angus Brayshaw 2.325 7 Max Gawn # 2.200 8 Christian Salem 2.150 9 Tom Sparrow 2.025 10 Jay Lockhart 1.925 11 Ed Langdon 1.900 12 James Harmes 1.850 13 Luke Jackson # 1.800 14 Sam Weideman 1.700 15 Harley Bennell 1.450 16 Nathan Jones 1.300 17 Adam Tomlinson 1.200 18 Michael Hibberd 1.050 19 Jake Melksham 0.950 20 Alex N-Bullen 0.375 21 Aaron Vandenberg 0.300 22 Team Score 47.175 Top 6 22.675 Bottom 6 5.175 # Hit outs to advantage not captured Stats courtesy of footywire.com

Bare minimum required for absolution ?

Yep that needs to be the starting combo wherever possible unless we need a lock down player coming in for a superstar mid. For mine that's Harmes coming in for Tracc who goes forward for the bulk of time but still rotates with Harmes to spend a smaller chunk of time through the middle in bursts. I'm not sure how or why SG tinkers so much with this winning formula so often. Gus thrives in the middle and pretty much wilts playing anywhere but. Viney is also handy for an Oliver/Tracc rotation, but like we saw in the last quarter last night he offers a tad more when pushing / playing more time forward imv. We need his tackling ferocity and pressure i50 right now which is, too often, badly lacking at ground level. I just don't get how any coach at this level doesn't recognise this as a winning starting set up and runs with it for the majority of the time. Perplexing.

Gus was actually the player that started to steady the horrid mostly 'play on without assessing' from so many early. His kick inside 50 to hit (someone ?) up after marking just forward of the middle in the 3rd was the steadier IMHO.

Tomlinson is ummm ....well

Can someone please tell me roughly where / what role Bennel is playing? Hard to tell from side on viewing. I would play Tomlinson down back to replace Lever. Allow Lever to place the loose role that he loves. Bring Harmes to the Tomlinson wing and rotate him with Bennel. What is ANB bringing to the table, if anything, so far? AVB is also a worry. Jones has to play HF in small bursts off the bench or not at all. His kicking inside 50 or anywhere higher up the field is atrocious. Where do you hide Melk****e? Time to go unless he kicks 2 or 3 in this 2nd half. Tracc into the middle with Clarry & Gus. Gus needs a rocket from SG. Perform or you wont be back for a while, if ever mate. Viney to go forward for Melk rotating with Chunk (off the bench...nowhere else fcs)

Our kicking in general, bar the odd one here and there (mostly to players 20 meters in the clear but even then it's a coin flip) is bloody awful. Even senior players have no ability to finesse and just take a little power off, & pull a kick to a leading player. It's horrid. It's been a problem at this club for 50 years!

Woeful kicking to open players inside 50. What is happening at training? Do we train this at all? Doesn't appear that way. Salem's cost us 2 goals now. 1 dopey push in the back in the middle and one horrid 45 kick straight to a crow forward. He's done a few good kicks, offset by a few horrible acts. So Melbourne

Yes in the 2nd quarter he has. I am watching 10 min behind (when i wrote that lol)

Salem doesn't take the game on enough. Way too conservative with his kicking and decision making.

Is that the goal that sees the Weid hit some serious form i wonder. Needs to play in front more often when we are under pressure out of defence though

We saw some flashes of "unselfish" team first play in 2017 & 2018 LH. However, the tyre received a puncture vs WC in the prelim and has never been properly attended to since imv. Too many seem happy to just get to jog out on to the field in most matches. Deeplorable with a few 'individual' exceptions since that match and an occasional decent win against the lessor lights that the players appear to hang their hat on. Then all to easily drift back to selfish mediocrity shortly thereafter against the rated clubs.

Many would say you are suffering from MFCSS Bin. But that scenario is not a far fetched as some would argue! We do have an uncanny knack of making average footballers and / or rookies look like super stars at times that's for sure. Then there's the "playing teams into form" part. Still waiting for the worm to turn.

Keep an eye out for Harry Schoenberg. Not saying he'll be a world beater this early but did look a likely prospect and smart ball distributor at u18 level. No doubt he's probably a few seasons away from impacting but could be a very nice player at some point.

I sometimes wonder how we would react were we to see a sustained period of success ding. It would all seem very strange indeed. Continue on the plonk maybe?

Well i was trying to stay a bit half glass full Jnr. From here on in i'm probably better off just filling one with two fingers off the top shelf!

I can only figure there's been no response as you pretty much nailed it SNS. My only addition to that is we still don't have enough class coming inside 50 nor a genuine KF. Our 4 biggest weaknesses for mine... A 2nd key tall down back that can handle the opp's 2nd best tallish forward and shut him down PLUS create some run with ball in hand and expend the opponent's energy chasing. We only have Hibb capable of doing this atm. Hoping that Hore will eventually fill Oscar's place here. Or someone. We need a classy tallish marking winger with a bit of dash and clever finesse coming inside 50. Langdon is a great runner but a tad NQR coming inside. Still very handy though and the best we have for one wing. Fritsch 'might' be capable on the other but if not we need to find an option. One classy / speedy outside biased mid with evasive clean ball use needed. A genuine KF needed. Would be throwing a big pile of folding stuff at Cameron. Oh, and depending on how the rest of the season pans out, a clean out of the FD & a new Coach. Is that asking a little too much?

I reckon it's about time to check out to be honest DJ. Most of the players have...

And..... ratings AF. Don't know how we are fairing but can't be great surely. The AFL brains trust will no doubt be watching. Anything that's beyond tenable , or worse, and the jungle drums will be beating, the purse strings loosening.

Road to Finals / GF - Triple Crown Update (to Rnd 9, 2020) Vs the Power Meters Gained Differential (looking for + 200 or more) ? -638 ❌ Marks inside 50 Differential (any positive is a win but the higher the better) ? -4 ❌ Contested Possession Differential (looking for a +10 or greater) ? -12 ❌ Season Averages (the one that counts) Meters Gained Average Differential (looking for an average of + 200 or more) ? -14.5 ❌ From +74.6 last week to this. The top five with current ladder positions in parenthesis below. It is worth noting that only the top four clubs have a +200 (or greater) average here. That's one more club than last week being the Lions. 1. Power (1st) 2. Tigers (5th) 3. Cats (6th) 4. Lions (2nd) 5. Saints (3rd) Marks inside 50 Average Differential (ideally we need to see a top 6 ranking) ? 5th ✔️ Down one place from last week with a +1 average differential but still in the top 6. The top 5... 1. Lions 2. Power 3. Pies 4. Tigers 5. Demons Contested Possession Average Differential (looking for +10 or more) ? +8 ❌ Dropping two places to No.4 from last week and now below the required pass rate. The top 5: 1. Kangas 2. Pies 3. Cats 4. Demons 5. Lions

Weighted Average Scores at the end of Rnd 9, 2020 Wouldn't take much notice of Sparrow's result. Obviously only one match played this season and comparing it to only two matches last season. Pretty dodgy base. Player 2020 Weighted Score 2020 Rank 2019 Weighted Score % Change vs 2019 2019 Rank Change in Rank vs 2019 Christian Petracca 3.644 1 2.616 39.30 10 9 Clayton Oliver 3.425 2 4.643 -26.23 1 -1 Max Gawn # 3.144 3 3.256 -3.44 4 1 Jack Viney 2.781 4 3.068 -9.35 5 1 Steven May 2.497 5 2.446 2.09 14 9 Christian Salem 2.482 6 3.448 -28.02 3 -3 Ed Langdon 2.388 7 - - - - Alex N-Bullen 2.338 8 1.984 17.82 21 13 Michael Hibberd 2.250 9 2.124 5.93 20 11 James Harmes 2.088 10 3.850 -45.77 2 -8 Angus Brayshaw 2.009 11 2.894 -30.58 6 -5 Tom Sparrow * 2.000 12 1.075 86.05 37 25 Jake Lever 1.938 13 2.313 -16.21 17 4 Nathan Jones 1.917 14 2.711 -29.29 8 -6 Harley Bennell 1.875 15 - - - - Oscar McDonald 1.825 16 1.877 -2.77 26 10 Aaron Vandenburg 1.819 17 - - - - Jay Lockhart 1.618 18 1.660 -2.53 31 13 Adam Tomlinson # 1.613 19 - - - - Mitchell Hannan 1.575 20 1.325 18.87 36 16 Tom McDonald # 1.430 21 2.150 -33.49 19 -2 Bayley Fritsch 1.416 22 2.641 -46.38 9 -13 Sam Weideman 1.388 23 1.818 -23.65 23 0 Neville Jetta 1.305 24 2.264 -42.36 18 -6 Joel Smith 1.158 25 - - - - Toby Bedford * 1.150 26 - - - - Jake Melksham 1.150 26 1.931 -40.45 23 -3 Kysaiah Pickett 1.068 28 - - - - Luke Jackson 1.038 29 - - - - Trent Rivers 1.033 30 - - - - Jayden Hunt 0.858 31 1.958 -56.18 22 -9 Mitchell Brown * 0.625 32 - - - - Charlie Spargo * -0.250 33 1.375 -118.18 23 -10 Average Team Score -Top 22 48.072 59.623 -19.37 # Hit outs to advantage not accounted for * Only one match...not an average

Perfect role for Harmes imv. Instead he is shouldering up alongside Rozee in defence. Yep another one of many bizarre match ups / inclusions by SG & Co. No wonder they're all over the shop. What a mess of a football club this is.

Can't argue with that although there would be a few exceptions i'm sure. This group (in general not all) appears to be ok with just putting the boots on, running out and collecting their salary.