Preview 2023 Goodbye (To 2024) New; Preseason Discussion

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The new buzz word for this season, is Marginal Gains.

Heard Ken use it twice on snippets played on the radio yesterday. Looks like he started using it a week ago.

www.afl.com.au

Hinkley on desire, the future and where Port went wrong in 2023

Ken Hinkley tells Cal Twomey why he's never been more motivated after last year's straight-sets finals exit
www.afl.com.au www.afl.com.au
Port coach Ken Hinkley said there were some signs internally that his side wasn't hitting the finals in perfect shape.

"A little," he told AFL.com.au. "You had the information weekly about what was going on and where we were at. But we weren't going to use anything as an excuse for the way we went about our September action."
.....
"Our focuses this pre-season have been about small margin improvement, which is what we're chasing. We use the term 'marginal gains' which we're trying to improve on and that's what we're set out to do," he said.

Aggregation of Marginal Gains was another bold bloke's theory. David Brailsford lead the revival of UK cycling post his 1997 appointment as head of high performance, then went on to be head of high performance at cycling team Team SKY that had Froome and Wiggins win Tour De France and other grand tours and week long tours and single day classics.

When SKY departed and it became Team INEOS he stayed on as head of high performance, and recently Jim Ratcliffe owner and Chairman of chemical company INEOS buying 25 per cent of Manchester United, his INEOS Sport company took over control of football operations and Braislford was given a key high performance role at MU. The yank Glazers who bought 100% of MU 20 odd years ago remain as majority shareholders but have taken a back seat.



 
Marginal Gains ... MG ... see where this is heading?

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RussellEbertHandball said:
The new buzz word for this season, is Marginal Gains.

Heard Ken use it twice on snippets played on the radio yesterday. Looks like he started using it a week ago.

www.afl.com.au

Hinkley on desire, the future and where Port went wrong in 2023

Ken Hinkley tells Cal Twomey why he's never been more motivated after last year's straight-sets finals exit
www.afl.com.au www.afl.com.au
Port coach Ken Hinkley said there were some signs internally that his side wasn't hitting the finals in perfect shape.

"A little," he told AFL.com.au. "You had the information weekly about what was going on and where we were at. But we weren't going to use anything as an excuse for the way we went about our September action."
.....
"Our focuses this pre-season have been about small margin improvement, which is what we're chasing. We use the term 'marginal gains' which we're trying to improve on and that's what we're set out to do," he said.

Aggregation of Marginal Gains was another bold bloke's theory. David Brailsford lead the revival of UK cycling post his 1997 appointment as head of high performance, then went on to be head of high performance at cycling team Team SKY that had Froome and Wiggins win Tour De France and other grand tours and week long tours and single day classics.

When SKY departed and it became Team INEOS he stayed on as head of high performance, and recently Jim Ratcliffe owner and Chairman of chemical company INEOS buying 25 per cent of Manchester United, his INEOS Sport company took over control of football operations and Braislford was given a key high performance role at MU. The yank Glazers who bought 100% of MU 20 odd years ago remain as majority shareholders but have taken a back seat.



Click to expand...


Aim bigger ffs, small margin… pffft


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Pretty funny that they think they are marginal gains away from a premiership.

In reality, the whole organisation requires a cultural and leadership paradigm shift to get anywhere near it.
 
On paper I'd say our list is the most balanced it has ever been under Ken in terms of depth and options, but as we've seen before, the on-paper-talent does not always equate to a strong team in practice (Especially 2015 & 2018)

All the major trades we picked up are risk-reward types as well:

- Ivan Soldo has looked alright in the preseason so far, but still doesn't strike me as a massive improvement over Lycett. Obviously both of them are premiership rucks, but both of them were ALSO co-rucks and didn't win their flags as the number 1, but rather by sharing the load (Lycett with Vardy, & Soldo with Nankervis) When Lycett was ACTUALLY made the number 1 ruck for us, he got monstered in both our prelims by the forementioned Nankervis and then by Stefan Martin of all bloody people the following year. I'm not saying that Lycett was completely useless for us, he occasionally put together some match winning performances, but this was an exception to the rule. Overall I'd say he underachieved as our number 1 ruck.

- Jordan Sweet looks like the exact same type of player that Sam Hayes was for us, who the coaches on our team notoriously never wanted to give games to anyway. His tap works looks alright but his general football skills and versatility across the ground are already a concern. Probably just going to be list depth for us at this point, and Dante Visentini is ahead of him anyway.

- Esava Ratugolea is NOT a 1v1 tall defender despite the fact that the team wants him to be. I don't know why Chris Scott got so defensive over trading him. At best he could maybe play an intercept role and help to crunch packs up the ground too, which would still give a chop out for our other key position players, but he will get slaughtered if we try to make him the number 1 KPD. I honestly think that Allir would be better in 1v1 contests alongside BZT and playing Esava as the 3rd interceptor, because I'm not confident in his physicality.

- Brandon Zerk-Thatcher has also been an unsuccessful AFL story thus far, but to be fair he's only ever played for Essendon who have consistently been a bottom 10 defensive outfit during his time there. Not to mention he was taken with an extremely low draft pick so the fact that he's still in the AFL system shows that he might still have more to give. Obviously he's not suited as the number 1 KPD based on his track record, but give him some more time and I think he'll surprise most people, obviously this is still another risk-reward trade though.

And that's just for the traded players, which isn't even accounting for the other players facing substantial career dropoffs nor accounting for players potentially not living up to their expected improvements (Which happens a lot with us)
 
Progressive Aggresion said:
On paper I'd say our list is the most balanced it has ever been under Ken in terms of depth and options, but as we've seen before, the on-paper-talent does not always equate to a strong team in practice (Especially 2015 & 2018)

All the major trades we picked up are risk-reward types as well:

- Ivan Soldo has looked alright in the preseason so far, but still doesn't strike me as a massive improvement over Lycett. Obviously both of them are premiership rucks, but both of them were ALSO co-rucks and didn't win their flags as the number 1, but rather by sharing the load (Lycett with Vardy, & Soldo with Nankervis) When Lycett was ACTUALLY made the number 1 ruck for us, he got monstered in both our prelims by the forementioned Nankervis and then by Stefan Martin of all bloody people the following year. I'm not saying that Lycett was completely useless for us, he occasionally put together some match winning performances, but this was an exception to the rule. Overall I'd say he underachieved as our number 1 ruck.

- Jordan Sweet looks like the exact same type of player that Sam Hayes was for us, who the coaches on our team notoriously never wanted to give games to anyway. His tap works looks alright but his general football skills and versatility across the ground are already a concern. Probably just going to be list depth for us at this point, and Dante Visentini is ahead of him anyway.

- Esava Ratugolea is NOT a 1v1 tall defender despite the fact that the team wants him to be. I don't know why Chris Scott got so defensive over trading him. At best he could maybe play an intercept role and help to crunch packs up the ground too, which would still give a chop out for our other key position players, but he will get slaughtered if we try to make him the number 1 KPD. I honestly think that Allir would be better in 1v1 contests alongside BZT and playing Esava as the 3rd interceptor, because I'm not confident in his physicality.

- Brandon Zerk-Thatcher has also been an unsuccessful AFL story thus far, but to be fair he's only ever played for Essendon who have consistently been a bottom 10 defensive outfit during his time there. Not to mention he was taken with an extremely low draft pick so the fact that he's still in the AFL system shows that he might still have more to give. Obviously he's not suited as the number 1 KPD based on his track record, but give him some more time and I think he'll surprise most people, obviously this is still another risk-reward trade though.

And that's just for the traded players, which isn't even accounting for the other players facing substantial career dropoffs nor accounting for players potentially not living up to their expected improvements (Which happens a lot with us)
Click to expand...
Who are the players facing substantial career drop offs.

i keep seeing us as one of the more likely teams to regress from last years top 8, but i can't really make sense of it because of all the top 8 teams we relied on our older players the least. Many would argue that all our players near 30 or over in Boak, Dixon, Mckenzie and Clurey are not in our best 23 or borderline at best. And the players that retired last year were beyond cooked and liabilities when they played last year in Jonas and Lycett. So when the vast majority of your best 23 is in their prime years and or approaching their prime i like to think that improvement will be natural, even with the same dopey coach.
 
Every list has holes.

Coaching/Game Management is about covering those holes with tactics and ideas.

Hence we are ****ed!
 
Willsy10 said:
Who are the players facing substantial career drop offs.

i keep seeing us as one of the more likely teams to regress from last years top 8, but i can't really make sense of it because of all the top 8 teams we relied on our older players the least. Many would argue that all our players near 30 or over in Boak, Dixon, Mckenzie and Clurey are not in our best 23 or borderline at best. And the players that retired last year were beyond cooked and liabilities when they played last year in Jonas and Lycett. So when the vast majority of your best 23 is in their prime years and or approaching their prime i like to think that improvement will be natural, even with the same dopey coach.
Click to expand...
I agree that we aren't as dependent on our older guys as much as the other top 8 teams, but unfortunately not every career dropoff coincides with ageing.

The only obvious ones with age are the four that you mentioned. Dixon is cooked and shouldn't have been given another year, but the coaches will still probably force him into the 22 as much as they can. Almost similar to the way that Essendon treat Jake Stringer as a player who gets free games even when he's carrying injury and not fully fit.

Mckenzie tries his heart out but his 1v1 closing speed is fading. At least we have the depth to cover for him now and allow him to finish his career in the SANFL. Trying out Boak on a wing is a risk-reward attempt to salvage what's left of his career but time will be the judge of that one. Clurey on a wing was such a short lived idea we haven't even tried it. Not sure what happens to him, at least they won't force him into the side like the others.

However those aren't the only career dropoffs i'm fearful of. Ollie Wines has had a strong preseason based on what everyone at the club has been saying, but I simply just don't think he's going to ever recover his brownlow form in the new-look midfield structure that Josh Carr has introduced. I can't see both him and Willem Drew working in the same center square anymore, so one of them might drop off.

DBJ was only serviceable at best as a defensive forward, and doesn't look like improving the position this year even with a full preseason dedicated to it. If he can prove me wrong and have a 30+ goal season then I'd be glad, but I just don't see it. I don't think I've ever seen an AA player from yesteryears drop off as badly as he already has, and I'm expecting his plumet to get worse.

Finlayson was AA squad worthy in the first half of last year, but completely dropped dead in the last 2 months of the year. He never put together consecutive quality seasons at GWS and at his current age would you really expect him to get any better and have a 50+ goal year?

I also have additional worries for some other miscellaneous defenders (Jones, Burgoyne & Burton) over whether or not they can fix their turnovers / brain fades but at least those would be easier to cover for.
 
TeeKray said:
Pretty funny that they think they are marginal gains away from a premiership.

In reality, the whole organisation requires a cultural and leadership paradigm shift to get anywhere near it.
Click to expand...
They are though.

I like using points scored per inside 50 vs points conceded per opposition inside 50 as a good measure of performance.

Collingwood went the entire year at 1.72 points per inside 50 and conceded 1.46 points per opposition inside 50. A difference of 0.26 points over a +74 differential between the two. In other words, over the course of their premiership run of 26 games, Collingwood were exactly 19.24 points better than the rest of the competition.

Port went at 1.62 points per inside 50 and conceded 1.65 points per opposition 50. A difference of -0.03 points over a +129 differential between the two. We were -3.87 points for the season, or 23.11 points behind Collingwood.

However, if you make a marginal gain of conceding 1.5 points per opposition inside 50 (literally conceding one less goal for every 40 opposition inside 50 entries), and score one more goal for every 60 inside 50s to match Collingwood's scoring output, then you're looking at a scoring differential of 0.22...which when you add it to the inside 50 differential of 129 gives us a score of 28.38 over 25 games.

TL;DR - the marginal difference between Collingwood and Port Adelaide over the 2023 season was scoring an extra 6 points per every 60 inside 50s, and not conceding an extra 6 points per ever 40 opposition inside 50s.

So the main question is - are our recruits good enough to make up this difference? I think they will easily.
 
Janus said:
They are though.

I like using points scored per inside 50 vs points conceded per opposition inside 50 as a good measure of performance.

Collingwood went the entire year at 1.72 points per inside 50 and conceded 1.46 points per opposition inside 50. A difference of 0.26 points over a +74 differential between the two. In other words, over the course of their premiership run of 26 games, Collingwood were exactly 19.24 points better than the rest of the competition.

Port went at 1.62 points per inside 50 and conceded 1.65 points per opposition 50. A difference of -0.03 points over a +129 differential between the two. We were -3.87 points for the season, or 23.11 points behind Collingwood.

However, if you make a marginal gain of conceding 1.5 points per opposition inside 50 (literally conceding one less goal for every 40 opposition inside 50 entries), and score one more goal for every 60 inside 50s to match Collingwood's scoring output, then you're looking at a scoring differential of 0.22...which when you add it to the inside 50 differential of 129 gives us a score of 28.38 over 25 games.

TL;DR - the marginal difference between Collingwood and Port Adelaide over the 2023 season was scoring an extra 6 points per every 60 inside 50s, and not conceding an extra 6, points per ever 40 opposition inside 50s.

So the main question is - are our recruits good enough to make up this difference? I think they will easily.
Click to expand...

Thats all cool, but port can't beat top 4 teams(.1% lower then saint kilda from 2013 to 2023) , lose to crap crows teams yearly and haven't won a knock out final In a decade and the coach ,ceo and president can't handle pressure or expectations 🤔
 

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Janus said:
They are though.

I like using points scored per inside 50 vs points conceded per opposition inside 50 as a good measure of performance.

Collingwood went the entire year at 1.72 points per inside 50 and conceded 1.46 points per opposition inside 50. A difference of 0.26 points over a +74 differential between the two. In other words, over the course of their premiership run of 26 games, Collingwood were exactly 19.24 points better than the rest of the competition.

Port went at 1.62 points per inside 50 and conceded 1.65 points per opposition 50. A difference of -0.03 points over a +129 differential between the two. We were -3.87 points for the season, or 23.11 points behind Collingwood.

However, if you make a marginal gain of conceding 1.5 points per opposition inside 50 (literally conceding one less goal for every 40 opposition inside 50 entries), and score one more goal for every 60 inside 50s to match Collingwood's scoring output, then you're looking at a scoring differential of 0.22...which when you add it to the inside 50 differential of 129 gives us a score of 28.38 over 25 games.

TL;DR - the marginal difference between Collingwood and Port Adelaide over the 2023 season was scoring an extra 6 points per every 60 inside 50s, and not conceding an extra 6 points per ever 40 opposition inside 50s.

So the main question is - are our recruits good enough to make up this difference? I think they will easily.
Click to expand...
So you're saying we should kick more goals and concede less. Sounds easy.

The major problem being that in attack at least our major problem is system, not personnel.

At first glance this season it seems we have made no effort to rectify the patently stupid inside 50 entries that have plagued is for the better part of a decade.

On SM-G975F using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
Last year we were the second highest scoring team in the 8 over the minor round, but our defence was more on par with teams that finished 12-14th.

Take away a couple of hundred points worth of 'Score against' - and with a couple of new tall defenders and competitive ruckmen you would hope that will go a long way to correcting that imbalance - and we look much better as a genuinely competitive top 4 team.

Oh well, have to wait and see I guess.
 
Progressive Aggresion said:
On paper I'd say our list is the most balanced it has ever been under Ken in terms of depth and options, but as we've seen before, the on-paper-talent does not always equate to a strong team in practice (Especially 2015 & 2018)

All the major trades we picked up are risk-reward types as well:

- Ivan Soldo has looked alright in the preseason so far, but still doesn't strike me as a massive improvement over Lycett. Obviously both of them are premiership rucks, but both of them were ALSO co-rucks and didn't win their flags as the number 1, but rather by sharing the load (Lycett with Vardy, & Soldo with Nankervis) When Lycett was ACTUALLY made the number 1 ruck for us, he got monstered in both our prelims by the forementioned Nankervis and then by Stefan Martin of all bloody people the following year. I'm not saying that Lycett was completely useless for us, he occasionally put together some match winning performances, but this was an exception to the rule. Overall I'd say he underachieved as our number 1 ruck.

- Jordan Sweet looks like the exact same type of player that Sam Hayes was for us, who the coaches on our team notoriously never wanted to give games to anyway. His tap works looks alright but his general football skills and versatility across the ground are already a concern. Probably just going to be list depth for us at this point, and Dante Visentini is ahead of him anyway.

- Esava Ratugolea is NOT a 1v1 tall defender despite the fact that the team wants him to be. I don't know why Chris Scott got so defensive over trading him. At best he could maybe play an intercept role and help to crunch packs up the ground too, which would still give a chop out for our other key position players, but he will get slaughtered if we try to make him the number 1 KPD. I honestly think that Allir would be better in 1v1 contests alongside BZT and playing Esava as the 3rd interceptor, because I'm not confident in his physicality.

- Brandon Zerk-Thatcher has also been an unsuccessful AFL story thus far, but to be fair he's only ever played for Essendon who have consistently been a bottom 10 defensive outfit during his time there. Not to mention he was taken with an extremely low draft pick so the fact that he's still in the AFL system shows that he might still have more to give. Obviously he's not suited as the number 1 KPD based on his track record, but give him some more time and I think he'll surprise most people, obviously this is still another risk-reward trade though.

And that's just for the traded players, which isn't even accounting for the other players facing substantial career dropoffs nor accounting for players potentially not living up to their expected improvements (Which happens a lot with us)
Click to expand...
I reckon Soldo will ruck for the first 2/3rds of the season until we realise Visentini has now become the best ruck option, Sweet will play seconds, Ratugolea will be a bust, and BZT will be OK.

Not sure this will be worth the draft capital expended, particularly since Ratugolea and BZT were out of contract and we still paid over the odds.
 
Janus said:
They are though.

I like using points scored per inside 50 vs points conceded per opposition inside 50 as a good measure of performance.

Collingwood went the entire year at 1.72 points per inside 50 and conceded 1.46 points per opposition inside 50. A difference of 0.26 points over a +74 differential between the two. In other words, over the course of their premiership run of 26 games, Collingwood were exactly 19.24 points better than the rest of the competition.

Port went at 1.62 points per inside 50 and conceded 1.65 points per opposition 50. A difference of -0.03 points over a +129 differential between the two. We were -3.87 points for the season, or 23.11 points behind Collingwood.

However, if you make a marginal gain of conceding 1.5 points per opposition inside 50 (literally conceding one less goal for every 40 opposition inside 50 entries), and score one more goal for every 60 inside 50s to match Collingwood's scoring output, then you're looking at a scoring differential of 0.22...which when you add it to the inside 50 differential of 129 gives us a score of 28.38 over 25 games.

TL;DR - the marginal difference between Collingwood and Port Adelaide over the 2023 season was scoring an extra 6 points per every 60 inside 50s, and not conceding an extra 6 points per ever 40 opposition inside 50s.

So the main question is - are our recruits good enough to make up this difference? I think they will easily.
Click to expand...
Marginal losses are just as probable as marginal gains. If you applied them to last season we would've missed the 8.
 
Janus said:
They are though.

I like using points scored per inside 50 vs points conceded per opposition inside 50 as a good measure of performance.

Collingwood went the entire year at 1.72 points per inside 50 and conceded 1.46 points per opposition inside 50. A difference of 0.26 points over a +74 differential between the two. In other words, over the course of their premiership run of 26 games, Collingwood were exactly 19.24 points better than the rest of the competition.

Port went at 1.62 points per inside 50 and conceded 1.65 points per opposition 50. A difference of -0.03 points over a +129 differential between the two. We were -3.87 points for the season, or 23.11 points behind Collingwood.

However, if you make a marginal gain of conceding 1.5 points per opposition inside 50 (literally conceding one less goal for every 40 opposition inside 50 entries), and score one more goal for every 60 inside 50s to match Collingwood's scoring output, then you're looking at a scoring differential of 0.22...which when you add it to the inside 50 differential of 129 gives us a score of 28.38 over 25 games.

TL;DR - the marginal difference between Collingwood and Port Adelaide over the 2023 season was scoring an extra 6 points per every 60 inside 50s, and not conceding an extra 6 points per ever 40 opposition inside 50s.

So the main question is - are our recruits good enough to make up this difference? I think they will easily.
Click to expand...
No No No No No No No nice numbers by the way.

My analysis of this is different. The fact that we concede more points than score per inside 50 is due to following things.

1. Inefficiency moving the ball into the forward 50. Kicking to a pack, down the line classic Hinkleyball.
2. We concede more due to the high line we play in defence and if it goes over the back of that line opposition score.

What you are going to say next is but Collingwood only scored slightly more than us and the reason is they have exactly the same issue in attack. Difference is they have a coach that is able to overcome the deficiency. How do you think a Hinkley team would score with Mihochek as our target forward

Has nothing to do with personnel.
 
Last edited:
Duck Farmer said:
I reckon Soldo will ruck for the first 2/3rds of the season until we realise Visentini has now become the best ruck option, Sweet will play seconds, Ratugolea will be a bust, and BZT will be OK.

Not sure this will be worth the draft capital expended, particularly since Ratugolea and BZT were out of contract and we still paid over the odds.
Click to expand...
Definitely a glass half empty way at looking at things, when they haven't play a single proper game for us yet.
 
afl2004 said:
Thats all cool, but port can't beat top 4 teams(.1% lower then saint kilda from 2013 to 2023) , lose to crap crows teams yearly and haven't won a knock out final In a decade and the coach ,ceo and president can't handle pressure or expectations 🤔
Click to expand...
All good to average those numbers out over the year.
We'd need to average a lot more scores per inside 50 and similar in defence against top 8 sides compared with how we fare against the low hanging fruit. Extra scoring efficiency against North and WCE doesn't help in finals.

Even still, the team has shown it's mentally weak and can't hold on or get up in games that matter, top 4, showdowns and finals despite being in with a shot at the late stages of many of those games (not finals of course). Above the shoulders and a reliable game plan is the real place that would make a difference when it matters. Shame the thing that might fix that it is still around for the next 2 years
 
Duck Farmer said:
Marginal losses are just as probable as marginal gains. If you applied them to last season we would've missed the 8.
Click to expand...
Collingwood’s entire premiership was based on marginal gains.

Won vs St Kilda @ AO by 6
Won vs Adelaide @ AO by 1
Won vs Adelaide @ MCG by 2
Won vs Port Adelaide @ AO by 2
Won vs GWS @ MCG by 1
Won vs Brisbane @ MCG by 4
 
Janus said:
Collingwood’s entire premiership was based on marginal gains.

Won vs St Kilda @ AO by 6
Won vs Adelaide @ AO by 1
Won vs Adelaide @ MCG by 2
Won vs Port Adelaide @ AO by 2
Won vs GWS @ MCG by 1
Won vs Brisbane @ MCG by 4
Click to expand...
You mean a coach that specifically practices last quarter red time scenarios regularly won a host of close games?

It may look like marginal gains however I'd say it's smart coaching getting the rewards.
 
Janus said:
Collingwood’s entire premiership was based on marginal gains.

Won vs St Kilda @ AO by 6
Won vs Adelaide @ AO by 1
Won vs Adelaide @ MCG by 2
Won vs Port Adelaide @ AO by 2
Won vs GWS @ MCG by 1
Won vs Brisbane @ MCG by 4
Click to expand...
I'm going to put a large part of their success on Craig McRae.

The phrase marginal gains is just another piece of propaganda by the club.
 
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