Analysis Season 2020 - What should the season look like now?

[Gadzorks]

5 home, 3 away and 4 neutral?

the voice of reason - I’ll have to block you now.

 

[Ironmonger]

So in the final analysis we'll have to play five interstate games in the H&A season. Hawthorn, Geelong, GWS, North and presumably Sydney.

It's a pretty big luxury for a team to play just less than a third of their games interstate. It's probably never happened before.

Except of course for every Victorian club, every other year.

 

[Gadzorks]

It won’t happen, but...

Time to split the midfielders in to two units, and alternate midfields each game.

Neale
Mathieson
Bailey
McCluggage
T.Berry
J.Berry
Smith

Robertson
Lyons
Zorko
Hinge
Robinson
Joyce
Ellis-Yolmen

We can rest and rotate some of our medium and small defenders and forwards on a needs basis, with Witherden, Answerth, Christensen and Cox.

Looks like Archie might get a couple more games, if we rotate our rucks.

Same with Skinner and Payne if we rotate our talls at either end.

It’s got merit. INjuries are going to mount due to reduced recovery. While it can happen anytime, losing Zorko and Neale and McCluggage for the same game is the stuff of nightmares.

I think they’ll have to get extra bench and rotations. Surely.

 

[Flyin Lion]

Even more reason to start getting some games into them now rather than just throw them and expect everything from them immediately.

Hipwood has had 5 seasons and is still developing, these blokes haven’t had 5 minutes. Would think if they had as much time to develop they would be miles ahead of Eric.
Probably have a contested marking, goal kicking, beast by now!


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[BangyBangy]

It’s got merit. INjuries are going to mount due to reduced recovery. While it can happen anytime, losing Zorko and Neale and McCluggage for the same game is the stuff of nightmares.

I think they’ll have to get extra bench and rotations. Surely.

But do we want that? Every team is going to have a condensed few weeks, could be another opportunity for teams with superior medical & conditioning departments to take an advantage. Just saying

 

[FLVanLandingham]

By golly, this will be interesting!

Andrews, Gardiner, Neale and Hipwood are all at >90% time on ground so far this year.

Feasibly, with good management of rotating the 2nd tier players and having more managed time on ground (in which I have trust in the staff) there's no need to have games without Neale/Lyons/Zorko/Andrews/Gardiner/Rich/Cameron/Hipwood/McStay/McCluggage/Berry.

hopefully It will be a great test nonetheless! I'll prob also watch more other games too, to see the depth of different clubs etc. Fun times ahead!

 

[Lions99991]

The AFL did us a favour by playing the Richmond game at Metricon. Richmond play the Gabba very well and would have smashed us there. Especially after a turn-around. This way, we have a slight chance of pulling off an upset

 

[Gadzorks]

This from an abc article explains their logic

 

[Dylan12]

Hipwood has had 5 seasons and is still developing, these blokes haven’t had 5 minutes. Would think if they had as much time to develop they would be miles ahead of Eric.
Probably have a contested marking, goal kicking, beast by now!

Not sure what my post had to do with Hipwood.

 

[Section 5]

No, 2018 Anzac day eve had Melbourne vs Richmond on a Tuesday night.

So Richmond are even hogging the Tuesday night games.
When will this ever end.
Who do i complain to.
Please don't say Dylan12

 

[mpal6]

Bright side - come on in Skinner, Payne, Ballenden, Mathieson, Witherden, Robertson, Bundy and all others who are ready to go !

 

[BangyBangy]

So Richmond are even hogging the Tuesday night games.
When will this ever end.
Who do i complain to.
Please don't say Dylan12

No, Dylan is our Suns complaints liaison officer.

 

[CarterS]

Some people on the board seem to have a victim mentality, constantly saying the AFL have it in for us, draw is unfair, on us, media are unfair on us, etc.

 

[M Malice]

If we can get out this next block of 5 games with 4 wins that would be an amazing result, 3 wins would be a pass mark for me, makes this Sunday nights game v the Demons coming off a normal type break between games extremely important.

Imagine 5 wins, would wrap up a top 4 spot and possibly top 2 with what should be 3-4 more games out of 5 remaining games at the Gabba on the run home.

I didn't attempt to get a ticket for this weeks game as I was not keen on the transport requirements to get there but with the option to drive the whole way and park($10 is a bargain) at the ground I will definitely try to get to one or both of the Bombers and Tigers games.

 

[dlanod]

I'll be campaigning for 11 games in 2021, just to make it up.

They can play a Q-Clash down there.

That's crazy talk.

The entire 2021 season will be split between NZ, Tasmania and WA at this rate...

 

[Dalions]

If we can get out this next block of 5 games with 4 wins that would be an amazing result, 3 wins would be a pass mark for me, makes this Sunday nights game v the Demons coming off a normal type break between games extremely important.

Imagine 5 wins, would wrap up a top 4 spot and possibly top 2 with what should be 3-4 more games out of 5 remaining games at the Gabba on the run home.

I didn't attempt to get a ticket for this weeks game as I was not keen on the transport requirements to get there but with the option to drive the whole way and park($10 is a bargain) at the ground I will definitely try to get to one or both of the Bombers and Tigers games.

The tickets that we got were only $30 too, which I thought was pretty good.

 

[mpal6]

If we can get out this next block of 5 games with 4 wins that would be an amazing result, 3 wins would be a pass mark for me, makes this Sunday nights game v the Demons coming off a normal type break between games extremely important.

Imagine 5 wins, would wrap up a top 4 spot and possibly top 2 with what should be 3-4 more games out of 5 remaining games at the Gabba on the run home.

I didn't attempt to get a ticket for this weeks game as I was not keen on the transport requirements to get there but with the option to drive the whole way and park($10 is a bargain) at the ground I will definitely try to get to one or both of the Bombers and Tigers games.

Yep that's it. Just hard yakka, keep trying to win one after another.
If we get out with 5/5 or 4/5, we're well set for the last phase.

 

[Ironmonger]

That's crazy talk.

The entire 2021 season will be split between NZ, Tasmania and WA at this rate...

Or a purpose built bio-dome.

 

[Lions Flag 2020]

I could get slated for this but I would seriously consider playing all our 2nds in the Richmond game. Try to give our whole team that game off (or 19 of the 22). Keeps the A team in their normal cycle and gives our Bs an AFL game which they will be desperate for. Tell them to go into each contest as physical as possible.

Getting thrashed and losing a lot of percentage would be the risk.

 

[MSB ROYS]

Tom Morris is such a douche, saying Brisbane are the big winners of rounds 9-12 on Fox's OTC.

He obviously highlighted Gold Coast for playing four straight in Queensland, but to actually just throw that line away goes to show how little dick's like him even scrutinise the draw.

And muppets like him are getting paid for this sh*t.

That's like saying Richmond has three games in Geelong and that's an advantage over playing at the MCG...

 

[snooplions]

I could get slated for this but I would seriously consider playing all our 2nds in the Richmond game. Try to give our whole team that game off (or 19 of the 22). Keeps the A team in their normal cycle and gives our Bs an AFL game which they will be desperate for. Tell them to go into each contest as physical as possible.

Getting thrashed and losing a lot of percentage would be the risk.

That sounds like pretty sensible management to me.

 

[briztoon]

I could get slated for this but I would seriously consider playing all our 2nds in the Richmond game. Try to give our whole team that game off (or 19 of the 22). Keeps the A team in their normal cycle and gives our Bs an AFL game which they will be desperate for. Tell them to go into each contest as physical as possible.

Getting thrashed and losing a lot of percentage would be the risk.

It’s quite conceivable that Richmond might do the same thing.

 

[Dalions]

It’s quite conceivable that Richmond might do the same thing.

Have they got more reserves to be able to rest Players?

On a more serious note:
They might get Edwards and Houli back by then if they go into quarantine now?

 

[Ironmonger]

I could get slated for this but I would seriously consider playing all our 2nds in the Richmond game. Try to give our whole team that game off (or 19 of the 22). Keeps the A team in their normal cycle and gives our Bs an AFL game which they will be desperate for. Tell them to go into each contest as physical as possible.

Getting thrashed and losing a lot of percentage would be the risk.

I think we have three options:

1. Try to guts it out and play our full squad four times in fourteen days
2. Rotate players in and out of the squad so no one gets more than three games over that fourteen day period.
3. Pick a game to tank, rest everyone from our first 22 bar a couple who get rested in other games.

They're all terrible, but to me option 3 has the lowest element of risk by far.

My suspicion though is the AFL are fully aware of the possibility of 20 goal blowouts on primetime TV, and are letting clubs know behind the scenes that tanking won't be tolerated, and they'll make life hard for anyone who does it.

Given they have almost a third of the fixture still to schedule they have plenty of options to do that.

 

[Dylan12]

It’s quite conceivable that Richmond might do the same thing.

I would've thought unlikely given they'd have had a six day break.

I'll say it again, its all well and good that the AFL are trying to "get away" as many games as they can, but surely you can't do that when some teams are having a significantly longer break than the others. I honestly think you can say 2-3 days is significantly longer in the context of 4 games in 13 days.

If you look at two of our opponents (Richmond and Bulldogs (I've also thrown in Port as Richmond and the Bulldogs each play them) in that block of four games who also play one another, then you see that we have less days break than those two opponents:

- Bulldogs play on (1) Thurs, 23/7 - (2) Wed, 29/7 (6 day break v Tigers) - (3) Mon 3/8 (5 day break v Port) - (4) Sat 8/8 (5 day break v Lions) - 4 games in 16 days
- Richmond play on (1) Fri, 24/7 - (2) Wed, 29/7 (5 day break v Dogs) - (3) Tues 4/8 (6 day break v Lions) - (4) Sat 8/8 (4 day break v Port) - 4 games in 15 days
- Port play on (1) Sat, 25/7 - (2) Thurs, 30/7 (5 day break v Demons) - (3) Mon 3/8 (4 day break v Bulldogs) - (4) Sat 8/8 (5 day break v Tigers) - 4 games in 14 days
- Brisbane play on (1) Sun, 26/7 - (2) Fri, 31/7 (5 day break v Bombers) - (3) Tues 4/8 (4 day break v Tigers) - (4) Sat 8/8 (4 day break v Dogs) - 4 games in 13 days

As you can see, two of our opponents in this block of games are having extra days and in Richmond's case, 2 extra days throughout this period. I still maintain that we send out a significantly weaker team against Richmond in order to give ourselves the best shot against the Dogs after playing a pretty strong Essendon on the Friday night.