Lucifers Hero

A young man of integrity: "It is to Boyd's great credit that he has walked away from about $2 million and that he did not haggle or attempt to gouge anything from the club..." Tom Boyd's Unfulfilled Career Not a player that will have 'mercenary' attached to his name forevermore, unlike another #1 pick I can think of. Integrity, match winner, premiership hero is how Boyd will be remembered. At 23 he isn't even at the age where big guys reach their peak. Who knows in a few years of being carefree in football terms and recovered from back injury, he may come back to the game. Worth keeping a watch on. Under AFL rules if he comes back (even as early as next year) he can nominate the club he wants to play with in the eos supplementary draft. While he hasn't fulfilled his career he has fulfilled every football player's dream.

Have really looked forward to The Ginger Ninja playing. Hope he isn't too nervous under the friday night lights. Doesn't need to have a blinder, If he just plays his role all will be happy.

With the retirement of Shaun Grigg and Tom Boyd raises a new recruiting channel, effectively an extra pick. If a player retires at EOS a club gets no additional picks to replace him. But if a play retires before mid season the club gets a new, effectively an extra pick; a pick that can be used on a recent non-drafted player a club had their eyes on who has improved. A good case to hold over retirements until the following year.

He lived the dream. Reached the top. AFL is a tough gig. Better to go out now than wallow miserably in the Reserves out West. Good luck for his future.

Presumably we take 22 players + 2 emergencies. Anyone at Tulla to see who was on the plane! Its always fun to get a bit of advance info...

Having predicted the Hawks and GCS win I'm prepared to stick my neck out again and say we can win this!! In 2017 we went there with injuries to a lot of key players and a few underdone (eg Gawn and Viney). Below is our winning 2017 team showing a replacement for those now missing. Jetta is the one I couldn't find someone to replace him. But moving a few players around and bringing in Wagner or Smith will round up the 22. The point is we can field a very competitive team. And, we are much better than the exhausted team that played in the Prelim! My prediction: A repeat of the 2017 game where we win by 3 pts after a miracle goal from T.Mac in the dying moments of the game. Go Dees!

Using the torp without a licence from the coach during play cost Dunne his career at the dees (kick in after a point). iirc he didn't play for us again. So agree, it would be a brave player to try it in play. A time and place for it and Hunt chose it perfectly. Was very surprised Myers didn't try it vs Swans to win the match last week!

Another $20m promised to Geelong Today ??

I'm guessing Hunt (and most players) have licence to use it only after the siren and when a long way out. Nothing to lose so15% is good odds in the circumstances.

The best was from Hunt after the siren (3qtr time) with the pressure of a real game result to worry about. In case someone needs reminding: It will be a long time before someone beats it in my book.

I agree it is what the coaches want(ed): Oliver has said several times (even a month ago) that his instructions are "see ball, get ball". That is how he was trained from the day he arrived 2016 Interview. And, like all our players he has been trained to play 'ballistic' football and play on, relying on sheer quantity of i50 to win rather than i50 quality. We now see the results of that training/style, especially that all teams have gone super defensive this year. I think it is too late to retrain Jones and maybe even Viney. But I hope that Brayshaw and Oliver are not beyond redemption. As and aside, Harmes is pretty good at picking out targets and delivering the ball low.

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As North play Syd this week and us having difficult games vs WCE and Adel before the draft, it is quite probable we will be 2nd or 3rd bottom in two weeks. Carlton and Sydney also interested in Dunkley (Syd passed on him as F/S but now want him) so we have a good chance of getting Lowson (or the next best). Edit: Just saw this Kyle Dunkley Interest from Sydney, Carlton, Gold Coast and Richmond believed to be keeping tabs on the son of ex-Swan Andrew. As a hard it mid-fielder I can see why we aren't a suitor. So Lowson might slip thru to us.

No wonder the game looks like ping-pong played between the 50m arcs! This highlights how bad our midfield is at kicking forward. They all bomb it into no-man's land. Most teams know that and play an extra defender to intercept or mark it. An interesting stat would be the # of opp marks in our fwd 50. I bet we would be one of the highest (badly) ranked teams. Our fwds don't stand much of a chance. For Oliver, only 1 kick in every 2 games stays i50 That is an indictment on his game. He works very hard for every possession so its such a shame that 41 of 45 are 'wasted'! Just shows that while his stats are great his impact is less so. Most of Oliver's i50 kicks seem to be around the body or at right angles to the fwd 50, he doesn't even try to look so he has no idea where the ball is going. Because they are high lobs it gives defenders too much time to get to the flight of the ball and intercept. Time to slow down a tad and straighten up. Then we will see a real champion.

The Latest: https://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2019-05-14/injury-update-five-dees-to-prove-fitness The list is looking decidedly healthier! The five players listed as 'Test' are expected to be available this week? Pleased that Sam is one of them and has avoided hip surgery?, at least for now. KK is aiming to play a game before the bye. No detail on AvB status.

I saw something similar. Don't have the stats. The explanation was something like: A long, high kick from the backline to the middle gives defending players extra time to read the flight of the ball, run to the drop and set up defensively. They get a stoppage, boundary throw in or a spoil and if their players are front and square they just turn and get it back into their fwd line. If the kick-in team has moved into attacking positions it is easier for the defending team to score. Another unexpected consequence of the new rule.

With less goals there is less time for runners to deliver messages. Teams have to rely more on on-field leaders, something we are lacking. So we have suffered for this, especially in the first month this year. And, quite contrary to expectations fewer goals with fewer center bounces is reducing the importance of tap ruckmen and the flow on effect is to reduce the impact of a dominant inside midfield like ours. Perhaps, it is no coincidence that WCE stopped using 2 ruckman about a month ago. Interestingly, most teams geared up and recruited an extra ruckman on the back of the new rules and how WCE won its way to a premiership. Now, they may not be needed! Clearly, their have been unforeseen impacts of 6-6-6 and some clubs were better positioned with their existing defence oriented game plan (Geelong) or woke up to what was happening very quickly (Adelaide). Interestingly, Clarkson started the game vs GWS with the old tactic of flooding the GWS fwd line for the 1st quarter. 'Defence first' to the extreme. It worked - broke GWS's spirit and run! In the last qtr he went back to controlling the play with kick/mark to kick/mark and they had a trillion uncontested possessions. The 'penny dropped' for Goodwin after the Richmond game and our game plan changed toward 'defence first' and we won the next two games even with a significantly depleted team. Like many other teams we have been playing 'catch-up' and our players are finding it hard to re-learn 'defence first' after 3-4 years of a ballistic style of attack. Our poor defence in the earlier games wasn't only because they didn't 'run both ways'. By mid year most teams will have sorted it out and it will good to watch how strategies pan out. So Geelong and Adelaide may not be as dominant later in the year but they certainly have the early advantage when it comes to making the finals/top 4.

Thanks for finding that. There is some bad deja vu about this. ?

Question for the medico's on this site: Is 'mid-foot' another word for 'Lisfranc'?

The buildings and the oval are @dingmock up of what it would look like if we built our base there.

For every game that is close or low scoring and a good contest there are many more such games that aren't a good contest. eg our game vs GCS: one point on the siren win but both teams played rubbish. Or our win vs Hawks; played by two middle of the road teams. Low scoring, close but awful to watch. A close game does not mean a good game any more than a high scoring game means a good game. I didn't check the stats but I would guess the i50 count this year is well down across the board, so games are being played between the 50m arcs or with lots of shallow i50's so it is like watching ping-pong. The contests stifle player skills. Personally, I would rather watch a skillful game with few contests eg the excitement of a player running, bouncing the ball toward toward goal is the best part of our game ala Hannan in the Geelong final last year.

Just to add to our woes, a poster has reported in the Sam Weideman thread that he needs hip surgery ?

Please don't tell us he has been playing injured this year and in doing so has aggravated the problem...not sure I can cope with yet another player being played while under a serious injury cloud. On a different note, if he has played with hip injuries it is very commendable that he has played at all and helps explain why he hasn't played well.

I saw this article on the 6-6-6 Rule where Don Pyke: "...believes the six-six-six rule, introduced at the beginning of 2019 with the intention of creating flow and boosting scoring, has had the opposite effect..." He highlighted that there have not been many 100+ pt scores this year. So I put together a little Table showing the # of 100+ ptscores over recent years in rnds 1-8 Its no wonder games are harder to watch. This year there has been only one game where both teams scored 100+ pts, coincidentally when we played Ess. Given this (and other rules) came in because the AFL and ch7 thought 'not enough' goals were being scored and wanted to open up the game, the Table would not make them happy. iirc the AFL wanted to outsmart coaches by taking away some of their defensive tactics at centre bounces and kick-ins. Interestingly, Pyke also said: "...Adelaide simply had to adapt to the new trend and cast aside their reputation...for attack before defence". In 2018 we were proudly a fwd half team that relied on the weight of i50 entries to kick winning scores so we were about attack, attack at all costs. Perhaps it is not only our lack of two-way running that caused Goodwin to change and go back to the earlier Paul Roos strategy of 'defence first'. Lower scores are unexpected outcomes of the new rules and as Pyke says: "... I don’t know what the AFL is going to do about it.” I would say the rule changes have backfired! Over to you, Gil!

A bit harsh. Agree with your hunch that he had less mid time to make room for Jones who seems rather limited elsewhere. iirc Gus played wing for a few weeks when he first came back into the side in 2018 and struggled. Was then moved to the middle (I think Tyson made way and Viney was injured) and excelled for the rest of the year and started collecting Brownlow votes regularly. Goodwin is experimenting with player positions, perhaps forced upon him due to the amount of injuries and lack of player flexibility. Perhaps that is all there is to putting him on the wing. But if last year showed Gus does his best work in the middle. Hopefully, he is back there asap!