Changes Round 5 vs Hawks

[Golden_6]

Could be exciting for Sanders. He’s played all his junior footy as an extractor. I’d be taking the opportunity to give him a lot of mid exposure to see how he steps up.

Well it's one thing we'll certainly find out. This is a sink or swim moment for him and will prove whether he can handle a full time midfield role. He had 34 touches on Sunday night but I didn't think he was overly effective.

He's going to get at least the next 2 matches to show what sort of ability he has. It's entirely up to him now.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

So overall agreed the fixture is a joke but that’s not how Gather Round actually works. There is no designated home team insofar as it then determines the home/away of a second game between those two teams.

For us last year and this year it has turned out that way, but if you look at 2023 Richmond was the “home” team in Gather Round against Sydney and then hosted them again at the MCG later in the year.

Yep,

Though if it's a neutral game, and we can't count it, it just adds to the fact that Hawthorn is another team that when we play either home or away against them once, we are playing away, not at home.

Play once, at home: Collingwood, Essendon, GWS, North Melbourne, Richmond, West Coast
Play once, away: Brisbane, Geelong, Gold Coast, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, St Kilda

The ranking of those teams using Wheelo's ratings of the team in a neutral setting:

Current AFL Team Ratings

www.wheeloratings.com

Home: 10th, 16th, 9th, 14th, 18th, 17th
Away: 5th, 7th, 4th, 2nd, 13th, 12th

We get to play Collingwood and GWS (10th and 9th) at home, rather than away. Whoop de do - Collingwood actually bring a lot of away fans to not make that a great HGA advantage (even if this is good for finances) and GWS actually have a very weak HGA because there are so few fans in their finals, so avoiding that away game is not some sort of huge benefit. Instead of that, we get to play Port (13th) and St Kilda (12th, our home ground too) away. Whoop de do.

Mathematically, to explain how critical this is, let me show you the numbers on just one pairing

Should we have played GC at home and WC away, assuming both teams have the same HGA:

Zero change to the Dogs overall percentage (final margins just differ by same amount across all games).

AFL Tipping

www.wheeloratings.com

Typical interstate HGA is around 10-12 points.

Current win probability in West Coast in Melbourne: 95.1% (equivalent to expected 57.6 point win).
Expected win probability if game was in Perth vs West Coast: 81% (equivalent to expected ~34 point win)

-14% win prob = 0.14 fewer wins.

Current win probability against GC in GC - 54.4% (3.9 point expected win)
Expected win probability if game was in Melbourne - ~73.4% (~24 point expected win)
+19% win prob = +0.19 wins

To be clear, this isn't my belief of the probabilities of our win, but just the leading mathematical tipping model so far this season's view of the future, so at least it's a guidance of the probabilities.

Overall net result: If we swapped WC and GC home/away around, we'd have 0.05 more wins (or a 5% chance at one more win, however you frame it).

This is despite our overall margin, percentage and quality of how we play being no different - in both cases we have played as well across the two games, and our overall percentage on the ladder at the end of the season would be identical. We just might have one more win, for the ladder position.

Keep in mind that 0.05 of a win, or 5% win probability, is the difference between having or not having about your 8th-10th best player on the park with an injury - e.g. Tom Liberatore being injured or not.

And this is just for one pairing - hosting 17th at home, playing 4th away. Obviously, the other 5 pairings is less extreme, and the advantage/disadvantage swing of the Hawks is less (because there is no travel involved), but you get the idea how this fixturing effect can cost us 0.1-0.15 wins a season or whatever, and when compared to GC last year (who had the same benefit in the opposite direction), meant that we were 0.2-0.3 wins worse off than GC beating us to a finals spot.

I feel like this isn't understood well enough by fans and I think it needs to be explained better.

 

[Cudi]

I'm not sure about playing Lobb as a ruck purely because it disrupts another line.

With English and Richards out that depletes the mids but also moving Lobb we then upset our backline. I think I'd rather just keep the backline and forward line settled and just bring in Emmett/Smith. I wouldn't be against bringing them both in at the expense of Croft. Any option we choose we are going to be up against it in the ruck.

 

[bresker]

Bev has shown throughout his coaching tenure that he's quite happy to give up the ruck battle, rather than mess with structure . He trusts our mids to get it down at the clearance, no matter which ruck gets the tap.

We've been playing with English as a fire-fighter in defence & midfield rather than forward thus year. That's why I think he'll go with Emmet. He has the skill set .

I'd like to see Smith get a go, but I doubt he will.

 

[glenashley]

Club just posted a generic Instagram from the airport lounge. Didn't show mush in terms of selection other than English still going over probably to sit in the coaches box?

 

[Dog 36]

Club just posted a generic Instagram from the airport lounge. Didn't show mush in terms of selection other than English still going over probably to sit in the coaches box?

Interesting that English may go over.

You would think staying in Melbourne for rehab would be a better option?

Anyway lets wait and see.

 

[Mojorisin]

Interesting that English may go over.

You would think staying in Melbourne for rehab would be a better option?

Anyway lets wait and see.

Arty went aswell.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Interesting that English may go over.

You would think staying in Melbourne for rehab would be a better option?

Anyway lets wait and see.

Honestly just depends on the type of injury.

I would imagine the act of flying and the importance of bloodflow in recovery etc. would be different for ligament damage (that English has) when compared to tissue/muscle/tendon damage (that Libba, Richards, Jones have), though I am not a physio or doctor and this should not be medical advice.

 

[cecil]

Honestly just depends on the type of injury.

I would imagine the act of flying and the importance of bloodflow in recovery etc. would be different for ligament damage (that English has) when compared to tissue/muscle/tendon damage (that Libba, Richards, Jones have), though I am not a physio or doctor and this should not be medical advice.

Richards was there too. With the VFL bye maybe the whole group is going.

 

[Dogsfan1]

The video is from when we went to adelaide in round 2

 

[darklake]

Saw Bont get a good hitout in a ruck contest against Essendon, so I assume we'll go with him as number 1 ruck this week

Bring back Coons for a one match special.

 

[TylerDurden]

Could you bring in 2 rucks?
We'll run both Reeves (210cm) and Meek as 50/50 rotations.

 

[Bald Headed Flog]

Could you bring in 2 rucks?
We'll run both Reeves (210cm) and Meek as 50/50 rotations.

Bit of speculation we might bring in 2 talls to replace English and Arty. Those talls being two of Emmet, Busslinger and Lewis.

Would allow some combination of Lobb, Emmett, Croft and Lewis as a makeshift ruck group. Not ideal but the last thing we’d want is to have Khamis moving into the ruck like he did last season.

 

[JTCWBFC]

It won’t happen but I’ve always been curious to see how baker would go in a proper on ball position and at centre bounces.

Dude can run all day, tackles like a maniac and has serious pace. Disposal can be scrappy at times but could probably be hidden a bit at the contest.

Would love to see him go to Newcombe and pester the shit out of him all day, again, won’t happen.

 

[BigFloppa]

Could you bring in 2 rucks?
We'll run both Reeves (210cm) and Meek as 50/50 rotations.

No. You'll have an advantage in the ruck regardless, so we are better off trying to get more run.

 

[MYOB]

Could you bring in 2 rucks?
We'll run both Reeves (210cm) and Meek as 50/50 rotations.

Bevo doesn't rate rucks. There's no way he's playing 2

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Could you bring in 2 rucks?
We'll run both Reeves (210cm) and Meek as 50/50 rotations.

There is no particular benefit to us consigning some combination of Louis Emmett, Lachie Smith and Jordan Croft to a combined 120% time on the bench or whatever.

We may as well not pick one of those three players, lose the flexibility that the player that we dropped may be a better ruck and player than the other two (which is unlikely, as we chose to drop them, and they're all inexperienced players), and give ourselves another option with a smaller player that can play more than 60% time on ground, giving other smalls more rest.

 

[MYOB]

I can't comment on any changes but I can tell you we are wearing blue jumper and socks and white shorts

 

[RedWhite&Blue]

Imagine if they brought in Emmett and Carmichael! Double debutants.
CarMichael onto a wing and Williams into the middle

 

[Doggy]

Imagine if they brought in Emmett and Carmichael! Double debutants.
CarMichael onto a wing and Williams into the middle

They would have announced a debutant by now surely

 

[Mojorisin]

They would have announced a debutant by now surely

Would normally not be until tomorrow.