BigMacjnr

I think a bit of an anomaly that the 7th worst last qtr team handedly outrun and outplayed the best 4th qtr team in the AFL this season. Lot of tired bodies out there and lines up well with Selwyn's designated loading period. Sometimes you need to put yourself at a disadvantaged situation for games for the chance to win it all and this seems to be one of those occasions. Main concern is Viney, was it the same shoulder? Hoping Oliver can come back in next week and possible look to manage Viney so he can heal. He is incredibly important to our finals chances but won't be very effective if he has a serious injury he is carrying each week from now on. I think even more than the missed shots at goal, I was disappointed at the lack of focus and concentration 80-50m from goal. There were a number of Geelong smoothers that where the Dees player telegraphed the handball/kick, and didn't have the same running zip and polish they had back earlier in the season. You could see the disappointment on the key forwards allowing easy marks to Geelong, some were from giving up front position but a lot were because of illegal holding and blocking from Geelong's defensive unit. Don't get me started on the holding of Petracca...

I am not a draft expert, that said, It appears to me that this draft is excellent pool. I remember hearing in the past that if there are a mix of types, talls and mids throughout the draft that was a good sign. The other was that if VIC Metro and Country made up the bulk of the top selections then it was a weak draft. Early days with lots of junior footy to go, but with a strong Allies Team, strong SA team and a few high-end and other great prospects in WA, we have a really strong draft in terms of number of prospects that should go through. Gold Coast can't pre-list talent which is a plus, but there seems to be 3-6 potential father sons/academy prospects in the first round, three of which are for the Gold Coast Academy. The benefit being the Gold Coast have to actual bid on their academy players so they can't double dip like previous years.

Yep, and adding the 'expected score' of 20 point difference, which when added to scoring shots gives a good indication of what the scoring should have been like. Actually surprised it was only 20 points.

Really agree with all you noted. And points well made on red time and last qtrs. The only general public information and discrepancy that you can see the running power of the Pies is in their total Sprints. Looking round 1 to 12 we have covered on average 1.33 kms more per match in our matches than the Pies. But the Pies average an extra 13.67 'sprints per game'. They quite regularly on differential outmatch their opponents other than against the cats (surprisingly) and the Crows. Issac Quaynor surprisingly is their king sprinter as the top 'sprints' per game regularly in a type of Langdon esque league of his own. All their wings/half backs - crisp and n.daicos/j.daicos are also high sprinting showing their game style with a larger demand on their wings and backs. Will be interesting to see how this meshes with our high workrate from our forwards and wingers. Trying to them make the 'running power make sense', the Pies don't blow the other team away in average speed in combined in attack/defence, but their speed back in defence is much sharper showing the demands their system requires of them...looks much like our numbers to be honest. Wish there was a better wealth of statistics available to the public beyond what WheeloRatings and others provide.

I wonder what list concessions will be given over for teams 19 and 20. Last time Suns came in 2011 then GWS followed in 2012. Suns went for the fantasy footy style approach 'guns and rookies', where GWS went all rookies and a sprinkling of valuable veterans. We can all agree that neither worked. GWS was more successful but ran into a list building recurrent nightmare where they had too many players in the same age bracket which was a cap nightmare. I wonder if the AFL look to reduce list sizes by 4 players across the competition (from 42 not including cat b rookie to 38), equivalent to 72 players off 18 clubs (fills 72 of the required 76 spots). Allow each of the new clubs take up to a combined 4 players per original clubs total without trading (original clubs get comp picks), ideally players who are 22+ or their list balance will be off targeting 18-21 year olds. Hopefully they also don't monopolise the draft, ideally they would have one selection early the year preceding their start, and mid first, early second instead. Would be good to give them the ability to pre-list players in the 2nd tier comps and give them regional zones for a period like they did the Gold Coast Suns to stock them with talent. What we don't want are two teams that are 'easy beats' each week, nor do we want to penalise teams who happen to be at the wrong end of the ladder at the wrong time....aka us when Gold Coast and GWS came in. Can we also get to a clean 19 game season (each team plays once and flips home and away each year). With an NBA style play-in tournament for 10-7 seeded teams and finals series It will be only be 6 games less than what is played this season. If we need 20 games season for the in-equitable gather round which is not a home game for majority of the comp and actually increase the total games (revenue), schedule it later in the season and have teams in similar brackets on the ladder play each other.

Great topic 640MD, I agree it deserves its own thread

Outside of certain Demandlanders Australian football has a dearth of high-level analysis. In the NBA they use the stat: 'value over replacement player and win shares amongst others. There are a bunch of advanced statistics as well as the 'eye test' to see the value of star players. Clearly a lot easier in a sport where there are only 5 players on the court for each team. The commentary about allocating value by position is only one element, it is also the value of each players relative to their competition. If Grundy is expected to get back to close to his AA best, where he was arguably a top 20 player in the AFL, vs. an average starting level tall forward...it is not so cut and dry. If Grundy helps augment the value of our other star players in the midfield, in defence providing better defensive pressure on mids and in attack with better overlap run...This is a perfect fit for Melbourne. Collingwood are looking for a run and gun, overlapping handball game where they counterattack heavily. This requires high aerobic capacity and good athletes and skills across the ground. While they would love to improve their key forwards, their model is actually built around having forwards like Fritsch who are highly interchangeable and mobile as we saw in 2022 to great success. I would actually say Collingwood made a mistake. Their forwardline was not their issue, but their midfield was beaten convincingly every week in clearances...if they had better exits from the midfield they would have even better attack and their backline would be in an even better position to create repeat entries. I would argue a top 3 ruckman, in the top tier of ruckman is much better than an average starter level key forward. Especially in a Collingwood system that doesn't use their key forwards in the way that Carton for example do.

If you buy the digital kayo membership, how do you get access?

I get the feeling the Eagles are targeting two of: Ginbey, Busslinger and Allen. With Essendon apparently leaning to taking Phillipou, Ginbey is a greater chance of getting to their pick. But I don't think Busslinger gets past both the Blues and Western Bulldogs, and multiple clubs looking at Allen starting with the Cats, so there is a reasonable chance that Jefferson will be their highest preference with pick 12. This would suggest the Eagles value Jefferson ahead of Hewett, but just the go-home risk factor of a long term forward prospect to weigh up.

Haven't red the article but does it discuss why Elijah Hewitt is missing? Cal Twomey had him as the 2nd highest ranked WA player less than a month ago, yet doesn't seem to be in the HS top 25? Interesting as we get closer and starting to get whispers...

https://www.afl.com.au/trade/key-dates

Are SA Forwards Tom Scully and Harry Lemmey meant to be available around this pick? Both at some point were ranked as top end talent in this draft. Does anyone with draft knowledge know if they will be around this pick and if they are any good?

If recruiters think picks 8-20 are in the same bracket then its just the value on paper. More important is who we have on our board and where our preference is ranked on other boards.

Give me duursma, georgiatis and sinn; that will get Tim Lamb on the phone. Hanging up ok that offer.

It could be: melb in: Pick 5, pick 14, Grundy pick 26; out Jackson, wce: in jackson, out picks 2, 26 Adelaide: in rankin, out pick 5, f2nd gcs: in pick 2, F2nd; out 7, rankin sydney: in pick 7; out 14, pick 17 collingwood: in pick 17; out Grundy + $350k per year of his contract

No change 🤷‍♂️

I would have facepalmed myself don’t worry

Outs: Sparrow, Spargo, jordan in: Harmes, bedford, bowey Edit: subbing myself off. Hunt was brilliant on reflection.

I was buoyed by this game. Frustration comes from us being the better team and kicking ourselves in the foot with poor execution and leaking easy goals. I rewatched the Pies goals and I don't think us at 100% effort we allow many of them. Would be great if you could please go through three areas in particular: our back half stoppages to get your feedback on why we were lacking pressure and allowing uncontested exits from Pies on several occasions. There were several from our back 50, very unlike us, where we allowed a kick down the centre from kickout and From back flank where there was a Pies set play kicking to the side of the square and they beat us to the fall of the ball Also good to understand why you think the Pies were outnumbering us at the fall of the ball, particularly in the 2nd half. Other was why in the 2nd half (assuming Pies brought extra to the contest?) we over hand-balled and didn't make some obvious ball movement strategy tweaks to kick it out to either contest or set up players in space like we generally do when we are on. Are they practicing the handballing part of our game so it is switched on come finals when we are making strategic changes to beat opposition? All in all, even despite the mishaps if we kick AFL average in front of goal and don't have a couple of turnovers where we out for easy goals...we should have still won by 3-5 goals despite the above breakdowns. Definitely not panic stations nor were Pies the better team, they won but played 100 times we probably win this game 95 times.

Probably worked out for the best, we picked up JvR and Howes, when otherwise would have had to use the point to match GC early bid. This year has many more talls in the top 30, so if Luke Jackson can get us 2-3 picks in that range we might be better off hunting for a long term replacement this year than last.

Hi Team, love the pod each week. I wasn't able to go to the game in person so would be great to get your analysis on where and how our system broke down to produce: 0 tackles inside 50 to 9 (partially our efficiency inside 50 but still stark number), 18-32 stoppage differential, 47.5% efficiency i50 for Dogs, very unMelbourne like Can you talk to Gawn's/Goodwin's postmatch comments mentioning the dogs winning the territory battle and played in their style post game...how did the Bulldogs force us into a shootout and is there anything structurally or in our system we can tweak outside of 'the curse' to help correct these breakdowns in the lead-up to finals. Goodwin seemed to know what the problem was but be good if you could do a reverse Goodwin and lay out what you think the structural issues were and possible fixes as you do so well each week. The other game's we have lost we have played our style for the first half and gotten run over, this seemed the first match of the season where it wasn't played in our style and our system was well off. I for one am pretty happy that despite being outplayed and the game played in the Dog's style, we still probably should have won the match. Speaks to us being well off our game but on pure talent still so strong we can match it with anyone even when we are off.

I think they will trade out Lobb and Logue who are both worth early 2nd round picks to move up to Bulldogs 1st pick or another clubs pick in that range, then trade 1st this year, 1st next year and Meek. So 10, 15, F1st and Meek for Jackson and our late 2nd (right now pick 35). Would have Jackson as pick 1 in value Plus Lloyd Meek.

Couldn't agree more. If what the talk out of Freo is true that is coming through over the equivalent of 3 first round picks for Jackson, then they are going to need to send through 16 (with AFL approval to trade this), F1st and the compensation for Lobb and Logue (both mid 2nd round picks?) to cover Jackson. that would be the equivalent after comp picks to be roughly pick 1 plus early 3rd rounder in draft points value. We would have the cap space to sign Brayshaw directly/match and I don't believe pick 19 is enough for Angus, so I would have them trade exciting young talent(s) as compensation or he stays. If Freo want one or either they are going to be a worse team depth wise in the short term (our premiership window).

Agree. There is no like for like replacement. This current draft has a few really good tall prospects, admittedly not an expert and don't seem to be of the same quality as the similar players are not projected currently to be in the top 5, but I think if we lose Jackson we would want a back of top 10 pick and a pick around 15 and a future 1st to pick up 2 prospects, one being a potential B.Brown replacement and another for Luke Jackson. F1st to help keep adding to our list and give us trade ammunition to add to our core. Talls like Ben Brown and Jackson don't grow on trees are aren't usually available on the open market.

you are right, to fit him in and remunerate him far in excess of the dees they lose most of these players and they lose their depth and their talent on field for the next 3-5 years takes a significant hit all to bring in Jackson, while making us potentially stronger in the next 2-4 years...agree stranger things have happened. Lot of pressure for Jackson to be a top 10 player in the future if they do that.