Demon Dynasty

Why would you want to bring in a rookie who will miss his first pre-season when there seems to be plenty of other fit "as talented" options? Would want to be an outstanding talent.

His manager said he is going away for a break (few weeks?) to think things over and a couple of offers were on the table. My gut feel he would stay looking less likely. More than likely the Hawks unless the offer from our end is too good to refuse. Would be a great addition if body holds up. Potential offer to Frosty held back pending this?

Gut feel is Eddie will more than likely find "some way" of keeping him for a few more years (assuming no cronic injury concerns still overhanging).

Problem with highlight reels is they generally only show the best bits with team / player having possession or the parts where they are getting free for the easy receive etc. You usually don't see their off the ball work or what's happening when the opp gets the ball. A dangerous lure. With that caveat and also not having witnessed any of these blokes first hand and missing many like Flanders and Green etc, Ash & Stephens look like handy players. Particularly Stephens from a "what we need" on the outside/silk point of view but Ash is a cracker in this regard running off HB also. Stephens looks like he would be closer to outside mid drifting medium HF type. His burst break away speed is impressive. A tad short maybe but finish/skills/smarts seem to be solid (albeit this is a mile off AFL obviously but same can be said of all rookie vision).

Green not bad. Bruce was a terrible kick...mostly floaters. Carey by a long way for mine.

We are not even on their radar CYB. If it happens we would say nothing anyway. The club is presently irrelevant and leaderless.

Oscar was gifted the opportunity of two pre-seaaons and still couldn't improve Macca. Him and Weid are both busts and there is no way T-Mac is a week in week out genuine No.1 Key forward. Need to find another and pronto or we'll just dead cat bounce to somewhere between 9th and bottom. Get serious MFC ffs.

It wont be Oscar filling that role Older. The bloke couldn't fill a cup cake. Marty Hore is a mile ahead of Oscar in his first season even though he plays smaller and technically a tad small if the opp's going in with three tallish forwards. For as long as we see the likes of Oscar on our senior list and Goody & the FD continuing to take him seriously and gift him senior games, we are going nowhere as a club. If he plays mostly at Casey with the odd emergency call up to cover an injury out from Lever, May, Hore, Tomlinson (if he's coming and possibly Petty as a pinch hit defender to cover....should be played as the 3rd string tall forward competing with Joel), fair enough, but even then there has to be up to 50 better options floating around somewhere in football land.

So we lose about 7 out of every 10 games! Where do i sign ...

Under normal circumstances that seems about right but we will be lucky to get a packet of crisps from the Hawks and probably a half eaten stale packet at that

I certainly wouldn't have signed him for another three years SW. The first half of 2020 will tell the tale as will the opening game. Three year extension on a coach that's new to the game is the AFL / team sport equivalent definition of pure insanity. Only the MFC.

Fair enough Mack. Very happy to agree to disagree on those two passages of play.

Crikey. So we're thinking of bringing in damaged goods (psychologically)? Not exactly the best mind set to start off at a new club.

See above 39... the Hawks have been dishing this rubbish up for a good decade or longer and mostly getting away with it. All power to anyone in the red & blue who has caught on, pushing the envelope and getting away with it most of the time, helping to clear congestion more often vs getting caught and pinged for dragging ball in or another stoppage closer to opp's goal giving them a chance to clear and score.

Part of achieving that or getting there W4 might include lightening up his frame a tad in order to try and quicken up aspects of agility. Assist in evading and burning off opponents more often vs heavier frame = more emphasis on bullocking / grunt work. Helps a tad with outside game also? Might also help with his forward mobility a little and moving into space to receive more often. Much of it probably depends on what sort of role Goody & Co have in mind for 2020? Likely more mid field time but mostly inside? or a balance between inside/outside? Then there's the pushing forward aspect and getting back to defend.

If every one of the 22 play out of their skin and come into 2020 in VG condition then we will hopefully see Tracc take it to another level. He isn't Dusty but in his own way he could be a very solid player that occasionaly puts in a blinder and turns a match. Above and beyond that who knows. I guess that level is in his hands and in many ways that of the current playing group and the recruiting dept.

You are a harsh critic Mach. As Garry said in the commentary, "courage" to put himself in a position to intercept. Took possession, baulked two or three Hawks, used pace to run into space and lowered vision to hit up Lockhart. Not too shabby for a tall gangly giraffe i reckon. 2nd bit of desperation play did involve an amount of luck with a loose ball but that's often the case with the random oval. Can go in any direction. He dived to trap it and yes threw the ball but tried to make it look a tad legit (poorly i guess but who cares...umpire blind sided as often they are and got away with it). The Hawks, Eagles and others (eg., Doggies especially in their 2016 premiership year) have been tossing / throwing / chucking the ball out of congestion for decades (Hawks / Essendrug and Eagles the original experts imv) and escaping congestion quicker than many other teams (prior to those teams catching on) giving them a huge advantage vs others that mostly tended not to and tried to use traditional more correct methods most of the time (ie., we were one!). We finally start to catch on and utilise the same tactics and you want to kill it off / criticise it? Lordy lordy. Each to their own i guess.

A good point DP. I wouldn't call that table analysis though it's just a very rough / loose guide and needs to be kept in context and viewed warily. But getting back to your question... 1. See response to Redleg a few posts up please if you can be bothered. Bottom line is i would completely ignore his comparative part of the table as Stretch's 2018 sample is too small and, on reflection, should really have been kept in-house and not made public. 2. With regard to this season - There is much more data to go on and his 2019 looks quite solid in isolation and also when compared to others. However, i've also covered this season somewhat in the response to Red. The only other issues i would add here are... He might have just had enough at his end and wants a fresh change elsewhere? With Langdon coming in the FD feels Langdon is a better fit to play a Stretch / Hannon type role and with Hannon effectively back in 2020 (fingers crossed) they feel having the two (Langdon & Hannon) covers off one side of the ground on the outside ie., Stretch is superfluous to their needs. Other factor/s i am completely unaware of (the more likely reason!). 3. As you are probably already aware ... all data and comparisons using such data should only be used as a very rough / loose form guide. Caveat emptor if you like. I don't like to use data in isolation for any sort of absolute call on a player unless i've actually sat and watched a decent amount of footy that matches very closely with the time line of the data set in question. Too much happens on field that most of the publicly available data (but not all there are a few rare nuggets) will ever capture and is missed unless observing closely. There is also context to some performances as well like players asked to carry out a lock down role resulting in them getting a poor weighted score but might be close to BOG in terms of completing task at hand. Player coming back from serious injury needing two to three matches to find some form / match fitness etc. Having said that i find that this table has been a reasonably decent snap shot to determine rough / general form of a player (and team as a whole....top 22), with a few ordinary exceptions. Stretch being one of those as discussed. Far from perfect but it is what it is.

I'm not taking too much notice of the Stretch improvement vs 2018 Mr Leg. Last year's score was a very poor data set based on only two matches. If i was being a perfectionist the comparison should probably have been left out. Still a good result for this year in isolation but the other side is it's what he's doing with those disposals and how well he's performing re internal FD KPIs for role/ tasks being set eg; pressure acts & spoils/uncontested ground balls, keeping opponent output / impact to a required level etc? Only my view of course and a very amature one at that. Frost is the interesting one and looks like there might be a bit of a log jam between the two parties on $ and / or other factors coming into play. Hopefully an Elliot one? P.S. the other issue is so many players had a poor year it does make some selective results look better than they might have been in an ok year or better.

7 also had Norf jumping in on the act.

There's a little bit of "Co Captain" internal bias there maybe Rjay. Personally i don't think he was that far off either i just didn't have him down as a 3rd place getter vs say Harmes in particular. Even though Viney had a stronger second half than his first, i thought Harmes was more consistent and a clear 3rd in comparison. The Stats i keep support this a little with Viney coming in a close 5th for the year behind Harmes and Salem. I think what some are seeing here in terms of the amount of surprise with his result (at coming 3rd) is that he appeared to have a pretty poor year vs 2018. But we need to keep in mind his 2018 was at a very high base, so even coming off that quite a bit he was also surrounded by others that did the same which meant he was still performing at a decent level in comparison. When looking at the Max ranking below i usually add about 0.80 to 1.00 to his score to allow for a very rough approximation effect of his hit outs to advantage (not captured in the score). That still puts him slightly below Clarry statistically in 2nd place so the Bluey result didn't surprise me in terms of closeness but i still thought Maxy would win as stats for mids can tend to overate many of the mad flip around disposals at times that don't necessarily achieve anything and i just thought Maxy's general influence/impact and work rate (for a ruckman) throughout much of the year was massive. The biggest surprise in the top 10 for mine was Hunt, who i personally felt was no where near that this season even though he lifted his performance significantly from the poor season he had in 2018.

An internal award and wouldn't be the first anomaly Rjay. Oh well. Thought Clarry was very close all year but wasn't expecting a tie as such. Just a very close contest. Something different anyways and well done to both.

Viney 3rd.... knock me over with a feather!

So he would fit right in then D11?