Demon Dynasty

6. The Jones Boy - No tag job in first half and instead Mckenzie/Vince/Cross to Ablett all day and we win this. What a leader and in my opinion he is now a genuine A grader with the occasional "off" disposals that let him down but usually it's under intense pressure so go figure. If his fellow players block more and work a little harder to give him some room to work in, i believe his effectiveness would improve enough to shrug off the doubters. 5. Daniel Cross - Hard and always in and at it. Knows when to possess and when to get it moving quickly. 4. Jack Viney - Awareness and poise needed once in the clear. Learning fast though. Another solid game from the youngster. 3. Jeremy Howe - Swing player trying to fill the gaps, ran hard, tackled ok, disposals mostly on the money. We only had 6 contested marks today and Howe accounted for half of those. A stat that needs massive improvement if we are to win games like this. The sons doubled us around the ground here. 2. Chris Dawes - Great soldier, asset and leader for the club. Fantastic body work/strength and positioning. Lacked finish today. Suspect a little sore from first up game last week. Accuracy and ability to get to more contests should improve as the weeks progress. 1. Matt Jones - Not a great game by any means but he still manages to get involved, runs hard and creates outlet options in congestion.

Jones, Cross and Viney. Jones mostly inneffective wile on Ablett tho (who wouldnt be).I expected us to be down by 4 or 5 at half time as GCS spread and generally run harder to make an option. That can be countered once the sting come out of their legs a little in 2nd half. But to do so we wld need to be putting a lot more pressure on them to get the ball back than we have so far, up the tackle count to wear em down (legs again). Also work harder to get the ball into the hands of guys in our team who can run and break lines (JKH, Bail, M Jones, Jetta, Terlich). Make them chase us (legs again) and bring the game back on our terms. Hard to see where/who thats going to come from tho. Howe to HF for mine. Leave him, Dawesy and JHK one out and go from there. Dunny needs to stop the right flank outlet kicking. Too predictable. One option is Dawesy one out straight down the middle once in a wile. Mix it up. Take risks!!! Dawesy will beat Warnock one out 8 times outta 10! Fingers crossed. Go Demons!!

Some basic junk stats for today's match up for those interested.... Team Averages to Rnd 4 MFC vs GCS % Differentials Contested -21.2% Uncontested +15.4% Effective Disposals +10.1% Effective Disposal % MFC 72.50% GCS 66.3% Clangers -17.5% Contested Marks +5.6% Inside 50s -20.0% Marks i50 32.6% Clearances -38.4% 1 Percenters -19.3% Bounces -85.7% Kicks 3.6% Handballs -1.0% Tackles -1.8% Disposals per Goal MFC 49.9 GCS 34.6 Average Attributes @ Round 4 2014 Gold Coast (Attribute) Melbourne 188.5cm (Height) 187.4cm 86.5kg (Weight) 87.3kg 23yr 3mth (Age) 24yr 4mth 57.3 (Games) 60.5 Total Players By Games to Rnd 4 2014 Gold Coast (Games) Melbourne 12 (Less than 50) 12 7 (50 to 99) 5 1 (100 to 149) 3 2 (150 or more) 2 Stats: Courtesy Footywire

Really hope it works out for Nev. I think he has much upside. I wonder where he fits in a role playing sense though for the team as i just haven't seen enough of him. Wondering how others who may have seen him recently at Casey view his role in the seniors, assuming he gets a call up soon?

Haha...you can say that again MD. Nice work on the comparison. Those stats are in complete contrast to what we've been hearing from some of these so called experts lately.

Grimes is currently ranked 13th in the clanger count. He was ranked 5th overall in the team up to Rnd 17 last season. I didnt bother taking stats after that Rnd. In fact i'm not even sure why i did it that long last year. Must have been delirious with joy. While i'm not suggesting Grimes is amazing with ball use i'd like to propose the following theory. He might still be turning the ball over in a horrible fashion, which stands out like bull's balls when he does, but he just might be doing it less often than last season. And yes, i might be wrong. These are pretty junky statistics and as i've said before many times, they don't tell the full story and are only a rough comparative guide/indicator vs other players/teams progress within that same stat over various points in time. That's correct Titan. It doesn't account for the disposal being either.... A junk one (eg., panick offload handball / kick which still gets to fellow player); A strategic one (eg., switch kick); or An attacking forward thrust type of disposal. Disposals that have a high attacking impact value are the one that we should be most interested in. Roughly 20 years of data scrutiny since Champion introduced this form of stat in 1996 suggests this is one of the KPIs to watch and one that is most damaging in terms of "wins" vs opponents when you see a significant differential ...if only it were publicly available...which of course it isn't. The overall stat without the "attacking" carve out, as you say, is flawed. When Champion data introduced this stat in 1996 it was a reasonably well thought out stat as most teams were encouraged to push the ball forward at all costs by their coaches and players were often berated if they stuffed around with the ball too much (eg., sideways/backwards etc).

That's a good point Al. That's why many of these publicly available junk stats have to be taken with a grain of salt at times. There is one very loose stat they provide us with where you can also see if a player is prone to turnovers (which might/or might not result in a goal etc) and that's clangers. So the 2 are worth looking at in unison. High efficiency and high on the clanger count might indicate something along the lines of what you're suggesting. Only by watching the match live (replay or being there) would you really get a true indication of a player's efficient ball use when the heat is on. Oh, or a feed into the decent stuff from Champion data.... any talented hackers on here!??

Very true Hoges. In fact it's a very small sample for the team overall really and probably too early but had to get started at some point and why not after our first win! The data set will be a little more robust after Rnd 6 to 8 so we'll have a better idea then once some of the new entry players have put in hopefully 5 to 6 games each (at least).

Early days but it's a promising start WJ. I think the media just assume anyone we choose will probably end up being the 2nd best option due to our poor recent record on these matters. Hopefully it's not just the media assuming these things if we are turning it around on the field and off (development). Without wanting to talk him up too much he could well be an A grader for us given a few more pre seasons if all goes well.

Yes it's a pretty good effort from a first year eh. However, there's a good deal of the stuff in the back half that could be considered junk disposals i guess as they chip it around so much these days. Of course some of it could also be very good quality. Champion data has the good oil on more meaningful data that we will obviously never be privy to. It's interesting to look over though.

Just some basic scraps they throw us FWIW. Stats are inclusive of all games to Round 4. Yes it's only 4 rounds of data but i think it's time to take a peek and check out who's doing what. I'll try and do same after Rnd 8, 12 etc. Player Top 5 Rankings Contested (average per game) 1. The Jones Boy (11.5) 2. D Tyson (10.7) 3. D Cross (9.5) 4. B Vince (7.7) 5. J Viney (7.5) Uncontested 1. The Jones Boy (18.5) 2. D Tyson (16.2) 3. J Frawley (15.2) 4. M Jones (14.2) 5. B Vince (14.0) Effective Disposals 1. The Jones Boy (21.2) 2. D Tyson (20.0) 3. J Grimes (18.0) 4. M Jones (17.0) 5. J Toumpas (16.2) Effective Disposal % (Best) 1. A Georgiou (84.6%) 2. J Toumpas (83.7%) 3. M Jones (79.5%) 4. J Grimes (79.5%) 5. D Kent (79.2%) AFL average (70.9%) - Excludes MFC MFC average (70.7%) - All Players to Rnd 4 MFC vs Carlton (74.7%) MFC vs Giants (60.5%) MFC vs Eagles (72.1%) MFC vs Saints (75.9%) Effective Disposal % (Worst) 1. M Evans (31.3%) 2. J Viney (56.5%) 3. B Vince (58.8%) 4. J Kennedy-Harris (64.0%) 5. J Fitzpatrick (64.2%) Clangers 1. D Tyson (4.5) 2. J Viney (4.0) 3. The Jones Boy (3.5) 4. J Kennedy-Harris (3.0) 5. R Bail (2.5) Clearances 1. The Jones Boy (5.7) 2. D Tyson (4.7) 3. D Cross (3.5) 4. J Viney (3.0) 5. B Vince (2.7) Tackles 1. D Cross (8.7) 2. J Viney (6.5) 3. The Jones Boy (6.0) 4. R Bail (5.5) 5. J Spencer (4.5) Stats: Courtesy of Footywire

This has probably already been done to death but i like this part. This guy is really pursuing his life long dream. Small steps but he's on the way. James Harmes: He played inside mid and had a really strong game. He went hard and showed his strength of winning contested football. It was a really strong performance from him and it will put him in contention for Casey seniors next week. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/south-east/lifelong-melbourne-football-club-fan-james-harmes-fulfils-his-demon-dream-through-draft/story-fngnvoeu-1226769698721

That's pretty uncanny. Could you refrain from making any further injury speculation please Jack.... not exactly a great "depth" team atm *_*

It wasn't but it was the start of it IMO. Lead by Jones, Dawesy and Cross. Finally "multiple" leaders standing up and showing the way. Master, "actions" like that of Spencer today speak louder than any words on the field. Sends a signal and message to others in the team that we are not about laying down and taking a backward step and it begins to run through the group that this is what's required if you're playing in this team. Some aggressive attack on the ball and carrier starting to emerge... and not just by the 1 or 2 usual culprits. Positive signs. A little confidence beginning to show, and it's amazing what can happen when that creeps into the group.

This stat is covered tikey. Not individually (not at a public level anyway...possibly champion data might be covering it as an separate one), but in the collective stat "1 percenters". As far as i know this stat covers knock ons, spoils, smothers and shepherds.

Thank you boys... monkey's off the back. Can finally get on with the business of playing real footy under the Roos game style...and working on GCS during the week. And for anyone who may have missed it.... like me at work on a 12 hour bender stuck in Warragul on a broken down coach trying to pick up the call on MMM app on a crap data connection..... YAH FRICKEN HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! P.S. Jones boy & big Dawesy!!

Yeater could play as well as biff. Also, watch the boys fly the flag for Lovell at the 2:45 mark....Hitting in hard and not taking a backward step is what it takes to win big matches, especially finals. Anyone who thinks otherwise should stick to watching netball....

The Northey brigade never took a backward step, went on to win this one and as we all know, played off on the last day in September after beating the Blues in the Prelim the week after...

Yeater stands up. Why i loved this bloke. One of the gutsiest i've seen in the red and blue. Could play as well. Goodwin at least good at a stoush lol.... keogh in there as well... only reserves but we still played with spirit and never took a backward step during this period (first year post swooper)....

I think the boys will be up and about but i still can't see us getting over the line without a fully match fit Dawes (at least 3 weeks away), a 2nd option in Hogan being introduced and Garland slotting in and fully fit. Although, having said that, if everyone plays as a team and puts in 100% over 4 quarters, and assuming Dawes is in for sure....we could finally [censored] victory from a likely defeat here. Not getting too excited but mildly interested in how we perform. Big opportunity to [censored] a win here and possibly a rare one for us this year. I only hope the boys see it the same way as this match will be one between the ears in the 2nd half IMO. Can we finally bury the losing hatchet? Edit: Sn at ch is a bad word? wow

Yep...nicely said. We've been lacking that sort of aggression for decades

I would love to see Tappy come in as our enforcer. Even if he spent 2 to 3 on the sidelines every 3rd or 4th match. We desperately need a heavy hitter in the team. Agree with the line in the sand and i live in hope but i've yet to see it at the Demons since the likes of Balls, Yeater, Wight and Jakovich left other than on one other occasion. The Hawks match where Neita let loose. And Neita match excluded, the late 80s mob was a mighty long time ago. Heck even the Hawks game is going back about 10 years. Love to see it but as Stuie said its been asked for every year for years now. If we can't win games i'd love to see us build a really ferocious team that might be somewhat lacking in amazing skills, but can still transverse the footy quite well and at the same time, literally smash the opposition. Need to at least gain some fear in our opponents somehow as they presently show none when playing us. If we can't worry them on the scoreboard ....well... let's at least hit em hard and make sure they know we aint no pushover by filling the team with mad tough nutz who never shirk a contest and love a stoush It's not the greatest weapon and probably a last resort one, but at this point we have no weapons at all. And for those wondering, no i'm not advocating 80s elbows or king hits behind play. Just ferocity at the ball and ball carrier. And if the carrier is there to be hit.... we hit.

A somewhat maligned player by some under Neeld's reign i think OD. His disposal effectiveness percentage is much higher than most team mates', 2nd overall up to about Round 15 last year (4 matches) as was his tackle count (8th overall). Just doesn't seem to get enough possessions though (30th vs team mates' average) but that might improve with another pre season now under his belt and now some further development at Casey. Could this low possession count also be a case of team mates not really looking for him and instead targeting the usual's like Watts, Howe, Sylvia and Davey last season? Might pick up if this changes. Your review above is some indication that he appears to be heading in the right direction (pardens to Renee Geyer). Might be worth the elevation when possible as some are suggesting mate.

Enjoyed his presence and amazing efforts on the park. Thought he was our great white hope up forward. But alas, another MFC hope dashed yet again. All the best to Mitch and family. I hope life is better whatever and wherever you head from here big fella.

I agree Col. Also i don't think we can afford to carry slow across the ground players any more. There's enough of them in the team already IMO. Adding Toumpas and Trengove (as well as possibly McKenzie?) would turn an already tortoise paced team back into a lead footed one. I'm not sure Blease is the answer but i'd be giving him a few weeks, as well as Clisby and Strauss, before looking again at either Toump or Trengove. Toump is very efficient by foot but both him and Trengove are too slow with their decision making and disposal at this stage. IMO Clisby, if given enough senior game time and faith, should offer more than Strauss, Blease, Bail, Evans, Byrnes, Grimes or Terlich. Although i'm not as negative on Terlich as many here. I think he's a work in progress that still has significant upside if given a fair chance to develop and improve his disposal and decision making at Casey for at least a significant part of this season anyway and another look towards the end in the seniors. He does have a good burst of speed and takes the game on, but... the clangers..and the poise... ughhh. Edit: One thing Clisby would need to have improved on though is his clangers. He was equal clanger king with Terlich last season, followed close behind by Viney, Spencer and Pedo.