List Mgmt. 2014 list discussion - drafts, free agents, trades, retirees, delistings and more

Doctor Gero

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Did I say that?

What I said (before the game) was that the MC picked the wrong combination, and nothing I saw in the game has made me change my mind.
my argument would be the only time we consistently won hitouts/clearances this year was when simpson was in the side... agree?
When simpson was out of the side we consistently lost hitouts/clearances regardless of who was in vardy/blicavs/west and yet were only beaten by 16 points in Qf with no hawkins, podsiadly well held and enright gone early, besides were only a kick from grand final.
i am of the belief that west has had more than enough time and is only a 'plodder' and while vardy/blicavs probably havent proven themselves and established a permanent spot in the side i see the upside for those two to be greater, vardy has had some awful injuries and needs to get some continuity before he can begin to have greater impact in games and blicavs had only played a handful of games before being drafted and hardly played last year.
 

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Cursed_Cat

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the problem with these sorts of debates is they have to be based on statistics, as otherwise all we hear is 'well i watched the game and thought this' etc. you can't make an argument based on your thoughts and feelings, you can state an opinion, but not persist to argue the point as it isn't based on evidence, only your memory and feelings.

so to put the details in front of us clearly the av stats in 2013;
player: Blitz Vardy West Walker Simpson
Kicks: 4.4 4.5 5.8 4.7 3.7
hand: 6.5 4.3 3.9 3.7 6.2
marks: 2.9 2.9 1.8 2.7 3.5
hitouts: 10.8 11.3 21.4 2.3 29.8


so as long as the above table displays ok... it is clear people are pumping up vardy and blitz around the ground value ahead of west, because the stats don't support it at all. in fact all our rucks average only around 10 touches a game, the only difference is west and simpson actually win hitous the other 3 dont.

now to say 'well i think west never hits to advantage but blitz and vardy do' needs to be backed up with data people. i dont know where to get that from, so if someone can show it that would be great.

based on the above, clearly the best option for finals would have been west and vardy.
Statistically :

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/...1=1637&tid2=10&pid2=3748&type=A&fid1=S&fid2=S

West is behind Blicavs in disposals (marginally as you point out - but when factoring in West's clangers per match, the gap widens slightly more in Blicavs favour), marks, contested marks and tackles.
Admittedly the differences are pretty narrow, but they are in Blicavs favour, and West has 7 extra pre-seasons and 32 extra games under his belt. That's pretty damning on West.
West of course does hold a pretty healthy lead in hit-outs, 21-to-10 for the year (on average).
I haven't been able to find statistics on hitouts to advantage though (I'm at work and people rudely keep expecting me to do some work).

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/...1=1637&tid2=10&pid2=3353&type=A&fid1=S&fid2=S

West shades Vardy in disposals, but Vardy is ahead in tackles, marks and contested marks. Vardy also hits the scoreboard more often than either West or Blicavs.
Hit-outs go 21-11 in West's favour.

So, West is behind both Blicavs and Vardy in most statistical categories despite being far and away the most experienced of the three players. Except hit-outs, which is the only thing even keeping him in the minds of supporters at all. But we've all seen his ruckwork, haven't we ? It's no better than Vardy's or Blicavs, all three are ordinary-to-rubbish in the ruck contests.
 

Cursed_Cat

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Agree, it won't be.

If they can keep Simpson in a bubble from now until March that's fine with me. Going to be fascinating to see what they do with Vardy. I just hope wherever they play him they let him develop in one role.
Most seem to like Vardy as a forward, I have my doubts over his agility, and his ability to apply pressure when he doesn't have the ball (to be fair we havent seen him settled up forward for any length of time at AFL level). I do like him as a 2nd-string ruckman.

But Simpson is The Man going forward, on that we most definitely agree !
 

Cursed_Cat

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it's going to make it interesting next season isn't it, we should have both Simpson and McIntosh fit and ready so what happens to Blitz then is something they'll be working on over the summer break.

Maybe get him to live with Taylor all pre season and learn everything there is to know about being a key defender?
For sure Bobby (welcome back btw; I 'liked' a post of yours last night to serve as a 'hello' until we crossed paths); if he's not going to be used as a back-up ruckman then we have to find a spot for him quickly or else he becomes a bit of a list clogger. I like your idea of grooming him as a KD, I also don't mind the idea others have floated with regards to playing him as a tall wingman.
 

bulletproof

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Not West again.....

Anyhow, to summarise, here is my view.

  • West was very unlucky to be dropped and had better overall form than Vardy and Blicavs over the course of the season.
  • West was not at his best by the end of the season, partly as a result of a knee complaint and partly as a result of a loss of confidence. His game against North was a real stinker, for example.
  • West was excellent as Ottens back up in 2011.
  • The only ruck who would have saved us in September was Simpson. West would not have turned the game in our favour.
  • Vardy has immeasurably more talent than West and is arguably one of the brightest key position/ruck prospects in the league.
  • Blicavs was one of the better performed first year rucks across the whole competition.
  • Blicavs and Vardy performed above expectations in the two knock out finals, but admittedly were terrible in the final that probably cost us a Grand Final spot against Freo.

So there it is, not much of a story, we had three rucks, all of whom were probably not up to the job through a combination of lack of height, injury, inexperience or sheer ability.

Can we move on now?
 

hbk_aus

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My mistake. ;)

We can argue about this till blue in the face I guess, the fact is, as you pointed out, that people have their favourites and non favourites and nothing will change their minds.

Blicavs won't be criticised under any circumstances by most posters, Varcoe the same, yet West is a liability who costs us games, even the ones he doesn't participate in apparently.
Its all subjective though isnt it? We all have opinions and favourites, including you and Partridge, and others could say the same things about you. Why not just agree to disagree without having a dig at those who disagree?
 
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Its all subjective though isnt it? We all have opinions and favourites, including you and Partridge, and others could say the same things about you. Why not just agree to disagree without having a dig at those who disagree?
No, no. Only those who think West wouldn't have made a difference are playing favourites/wearing blinkers/head in sand/etc. Didn't you know that?? ;)
 

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Partridge

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yeah, but not if you wanna compare them to West, in which case they would come out quite favourably.
West had a crap game cuz he only got 6 touches in his last game ? He only averaged 6 effective disposals per game for the season!
But in that case, it's only fair to ask how many average disposals per game did Vardy and Blicavs get? How did their figures compare? They should be much better, as their hitouts statistics are far worse.
 

Partridge

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my argument would be the only time we consistently won hitouts/clearances this year was when simpson was in the side... agree?
When simpson was out of the side we consistently lost hitouts/clearances regardless of who was in vardy/blicavs/west and yet were only beaten by 16 points in Qf with no hawkins, podsiadly well held and enright gone early, besides were only a kick from grand final.
i am of the belief that west has had more than enough time and is only a 'plodder' and while vardy/blicavs probably havent proven themselves and established a permanent spot in the side i see the upside for those two to be greater, vardy has had some awful injuries and needs to get some continuity before he can begin to have greater impact in games and blicavs had only played a handful of games before being drafted and hardly played last year.
Unfortunately the stats rather surprisingly don't support that.

Of the 6 games Simpson played, we only won the clearances twice, drew once (v Hawthorn), and lost them 3 times. So he didn't actually make much difference amazingly enough. We did fare better clearly in the centre clearances - winning 4 times and losing twice - versus Hawthorn (we got pummelled 15-4 even with Simpson), and Adelaide.
 

Footy Smarts

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I think sometimes people like criticising the club. Maybe West would've made a difference, maybe not. I think it's hard to argue it would be a massive difference since West has never shown himself to be more than an honest worker.

For those people who are criticising the decision to leave out West, what is your opinion on the McIntosh trade? That's another thing people have been criticising the club for. But if a good ruckman is so important surely giving up a 2nd rounder for a potential premiership winning ruckman is great business.

Try to think of things from the club's point of view. Between West and Vardy there isn't that much difference. Without inside knowledge it's very hard to be critical of the decision.
 

Partridge

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do you have access to champion data by any chance?

Be interesting to see what Simpson's hitout's to advantage were in those brief games he featured in.
Seems as though we were winning clearances consistently with the big fella in there
See my other post; we weren't. We did win centre clearances more with him (4-2 our way in 6 games), but in overall clearances we only won twice with him.
 

Partridge

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I think sometimes people like criticising the club. Maybe West would've made a difference, maybe not. I think it's hard to argue it would be a massive difference since West has never shown himself to be more than an honest worker.

For those people who are criticising the decision to leave out West, what is your opinion on the McIntosh trade? That's another thing people have been criticising the club for. But if a good ruckman is so important surely giving up a 2nd rounder for a potential premiership winning ruckman is great business.

Try to think of things from the club's point of view. Between West and Vardy there isn't that much difference. Without inside knowledge it's very hard to be critical of the decision.
That's easy. A complete disaster and total waste of money.
 

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No, no. Only those who think West wouldn't have made a difference are playing favourites/wearing blinkers/head in sand/etc. Didn't you know that?? ;)
Nope, not even close to being correct, I place myself in the same category when it comes to preferring some ahead of others, what I don't do (hopefully) is form such a dislike for a particular player that I'll state he would have made "bugger all" difference in a match, something we have no way of knowing one way or the other, that to me is "wearing blinkers/head in sand" taken to the ultimate degree.
 

Cursed_Cat

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But in that case, it's only fair to ask how many average disposals per game did Vardy and Blicavs get? How did their figures compare? They should be much better, as their hitouts statistics are far worse.
I posted links to fairly in-depth comparisons on post #2880 (page 116), Partridge.

results were inconclusive ;).

seriously though; Vardy and Blicavs are already (moderately) ahead of West statistically - and a 10 hit out differential isn't that huge either (would love to see some hit-outs to advantage stats on all of our ruckman though).
 

Partridge

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Sandilands was pretty unbelievable in the finals though, as a few have already stated in here, West would not have made a difference because just look at how easily Sandilands beat both Hale and Bailey and those blokes are 6ft'8, over 100kg's.
That's not the point though. The statement was made that West only averages 6 effective disposals per game. That's fine, but you can't put that up then completely fecking ignore it when I ask what they were for Vardy and Blicavs. You can't have one without having all three.

Anyway I looked it up - 6.2 for West, 6.7 for Vardy, and 8.5 for Blicavs. Blicavs in that particular stat is clearly ahead, and not much between the other two.
 
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Nope, not even close to being correct, I place myself in the same category when it comes to preferring some ahead of others, what I don't do (hopefully) is form such a dislike for a particular player that I'll state he would have made "bugger all" difference in a match, something we have no way of knowing one way or the other, that to me is "wearing blinkers/head in sand" taken to the ultimate degree.
This would be a fair criticism if I had nothing on which to base the claim. If you haven't been wearing blinkers or you didn't have your head in the sand, I'm sure you've seen it. :)
 

Cursed_Cat

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That's not the point though. The statement was made that West only averages 6 effective disposals per game. That's fine, but you can't put that up then completely fecking ignore it when I ask what they were for Vardy and Blicavs. You can't have one without having all three.

Anyway I looked it up - 6.2 for West, 6.7 for Vardy, and 8.5 for Blicavs. Blicavs in that particular stat is clearly ahead, and not much between the other two.
I posted that stat, and I did not 'completely fecking ignore' anything, I posted a link to comparisons between all three players.

West is behind in effective disposals, marks, contested marks and tackles. Vardy is a goal ahead per game too. West is ahead in hit-outs. Effective hit-outs; couldn't find the stats (didnt look that hard though to be honest).
West is also ahead in age, games played and years at the club.
 
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Sandilands was pretty unbelievable in the finals though, as a few have already stated in here, West would not have made a difference because just look at how easily Sandilands beat both Hale and Bailey and those blokes are 6ft'8, over 100kg's.
Absolutely spot on and at the heart of the issue. Sandilands and Clarke destroyed everyone this finals series, including ruckmen who are on any objective measure far better than Trent West.

Our midfield let us down badly against Freo. It's plain for all to see.

freo ruck final.JPG
 

Footy Smarts

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That's easy. A complete disaster and total waste of money.
I strongly disagree. I think it was a very good move with the potential to be the difference between winning a premiership and not. Giving up a pick in the 30s for that is absolutely fine. Unfortunately we've got unlucky and he hasn't got on the field. But if he was fit for the finals, and let's be harsh and assume that was only a 50% chance when we recruited him, then I think there's a good chance we win the premiership.

We could never know he wouldn't get on the field all year. Judging the trade based on the worst possible outcome, which we've had, is illogical. Sure it's not worked out but the decision at the time was a sound one considering how poor our ruck stocks were, how good he can be and how close we were to the ultimate success.
 
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