Review Geelong exorcise the Demons by 15 points.

[StonedCat]

No idea what you are talking about!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Mr Meow]

I thought the same about Duncan for the 2nd and 3rd quarters, but all players redeemed themselves in that awesome last quarter.

Duncan compared to Smith seemed to have an execution error forward of centre - just with his usually precise kicks. Same issue against Port but he's smoothing out the edges I feel because these mistakes aren't coming from him being caught, or slow to react. 19 kicks, 600 metres plus gained on a wet territory style night, 8 tackles - he was all action and then found fluency the longer the match went on.

Smith genuinely did look gassed and borderline not competitive at times. Didn't feel his running power, positioning or disposals did us much good. He's had a good season but this just happens from time to time in the senior years. Our two ageless wingman remain vital to our chances this season, that's for sure.

 

[catempire]

Few replies like this, so now that its the weekend and our teams have played, I'll expand/explain in case anyone is interested in recruitment, became bit more of an essay than I intended.

Moneyball: the use analytics in baseball recruitment to identify under valued players relative to their cost.

In sports like Baseball or European Soccer, there is often a wide gap in financial terms between the top team. Oakland A's spending 39 Million USD on wages competing with the richer teams spending 130 million USD on wages. Or Leicester City winning the Premier League team, some games they'd play matches were their starting 11 cost around 33 million pounds to buy their players against Manchester City that spent cost of 500 million pounds to buy theirs. Since those teams can't compete in raw talent, they have to be creative in how they recruit and be more open to player development.

I don't know about if analytics side fits in well for AFL, but for me the more useful part is the concept of identifying under valued players, rather than purely chasing the "best players" possible.

AFL has a tight salary cap, so spending isn't a measure of a teams ability to recruit raw talent. Historically, draft pick has been considered the leagues only "currency". If you are a poor performing team, you go to the bottom of the ladder, get a few priority picks, then slingshot up with a group of a players lead by those recruited with high value draft picks.

Regardless on how you value picks, eg average games or the AFL's Draft Value Index, almost anything related to talent pool starts looks like the edge of a bell curve. That as you move to the extremes of talent the number of players decreases faster than the increases in output.

In (hopefully) more plain terms there on average there is a larger gap in talent between the 1st player drafted and 50th players drafted, than there is between the last player drafted, and the 50th best player who was overlooked.

Understanding this, clubs try to through what ever they have into bringing in talent, however it is easy to overspend relative to the advantage gained.

Compare the match up for Petracca vs Atkins, Petracca is a much better player than Atkins by any measure, but he cost Melbourne pick 2 and Atkins cost us a rookie spot which is essentially free, Petracca could be on a 800k contract p.a, Atkins is probably on less than an average wage. AFL player rating system valued Petracca's game at 19.6 points in 84 gametime vs Atkins game valued at 14.8 points in 76 game time. From this perspective Petracca's output was roughly 20% higher than Atkins. But Petracca cost significantly more than the benefit they received in that match up.

Since 2011 we have constantly bled talented players, while still finishing close to the top of the ladder which restricted our access to top end draft picks. The few top picks we had mostly flopped, the ones that didn't were traded away for players like Dangerfield, Cameron, Henderson. Geelong was really head of the curve of the changing recruitment meta brought on by free agency, future trading and then increased acceptability of mature age recruiting (Menegola/Stewart/Close/Kelly/Atkins/Stengle) and Category B rookies (Blicavs/O'Connor). Which gave us a big advantage in our player recruitment and kept us competing despite our diminishing resources.

So how can we value players? It is a bit arbitrary, each list management team would have their own system. At its simplest, it isn't too far different from supercoach, were you aim to maximise Supercoach points within a salary cap with minimal trades available. In AFL list management, clubs have three main restrictions, Salary cap, tradeable assets (draft picks/current players) and list spots and a trying to maximise their chances for winning football games.

The arbitrary parts are

How you quantify "maximise their chances for winning football games", I used AFL player rating to compare Atkins and Petracca, as a post game point of value. But honestly there areas many valid systems as on can conceptualise. It is why you can have people disagree on how good Z.Guthrie played last week with his 20+ disposals. This is also where the efficiency of recruitment starts to matter. Spending too much to recruit can put you in a worse place.

How do you quantify "tradeable assets (draft picks/current players)". I'm sure that there be at a least few accountants, on the board.

Clubs are starting to get a lot more "sophisticated", they can now consider some players at net liabilities separate from their playing output eg Bowes and Grundy due to their contract terms. The treatment of pre-agents is not dissimilar to European Soccer. Where they're willing to consider trading players out a year early for picks then let them walk 12 months later under FA. Club aren't under any requirement to have a consistent valuation method of their players, they can jump from Market Value (what are we being offered, what did similar players cost) to Purchase price less depreciation (yes, this is a thing in European Soccer, divide the purchase price by the length of the contract) at their convenience. The clubs that value their players more accurately than the others are likely to get better deals from their trades) What seems like a fair deal from one method of player valuation could be lopsided in another.

Given that we can choose any player valuation method, I chose DVI or Draft Value Index as our stand in for "spending". it isn't the best method but it is easy to calculate.

DVI is a regression based off average player wages at the different draft picks calculated back in 2015. https://s.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL Tenant/Training/biddingsystemfeedback.pdf

Each player on a list has an acquisition event, where they are drafted, traded or listed. These events can all be described in terms of a draft picks.

Drafted: The draft pick
Traded: The draft pick used to acquire a player, or if it is a player trade, then the cost the other club used to acquire said (I'm ignoring depreciation for convenience)
Listed: Regardless if it is FA, or Rookie, Cat B, SPP, it cost no draft picks

That's the background done.

Why was Thursday such a crazy win. From a cost perspective. They outspent us almost 3 to 1, with their most expensive players still being in their prime.

On the Thursday, we were without Dangerfield and then Cameron got knocked out in the first quarter. They are our two most expensive players to recruit. Those two alone cost around 3500 DVI. Just an aside they were both absolute bargains.

Without them, the team we fielded had a total DVI of 6639, the equivalent to two pick 1s and a pick 30

Their team fielded a total DVI of 19118, the equivalent to six pick 1s and a pick 15

10 of our players were recruited without incurring a DVI cost. As in those 10 players were effectively free for us to recruit. And in more than one case we were actually paid us to take them (Net spend, as in player purchases less player sales, is bigger concept in premier league football)

Our most expensive players was De koning, who cost us pick 19. They had 7 players that cost pick 19 or less. Their 4 most expensive players cost more than our entire team.

Yet despite the uneven playing field we still won, which is a huge credit to the players, coaches, recruitment team and other staff that made it happen.

Magnificent post. Everyone read this.

 

[BlakeyNoFlakey]

What a great moment. The tackling here is fierce. Brad Close and Gary Rohan

23

Gary Rohan

Age

32

Ht

189cm

Wt

92kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

9.6

2star

K

6.6

3star

HB

3.0

3star

M

3.3

3star

T

2.5

4star

G

1.0

4star

D

8.8

2star

K

6.0

2star

HB

2.8

2star

M

3.4

3star

T

2.3

3star

G

1.0

4star

D

9.8

3star

K

6.8

3star

HB

3.0

3star

M

2.2

3star

T

4.2

5star

G

1.2

4star

at their best.

 

[Mr Meow]

Magnificent post. Everyone read this.

I already did (and loved it) but now I feel annoyed because you were going to force me to.

 

[catempire]

What a great moment. The tackling here is fierce. Brad Close at his best.

That’s our team goal of the year. I was delirious after that.

 

[catempire]

I already did (and loved it) but now I feel annoyed because you were going to force me to.

Read it again. Now.

 

[Mr Meow]

What a great moment. The tackling here is fierce. Brad Close at his best.

Best moment of the year.

Speed kills when tied with ferocity and synergy across a group of players. Atkins was back to never say die mode, Close played like it was the last game of his life and Holmes/Rohan's jet-like missions simply overpowered the Demons. If Holmes didn't commit to that run just like Close, we couldn't have kept that forward surge.

I haven't seen a Geelong player this season other than Dangerfield win so many vital "moments" - disabling tackles, knock ons, soccers, release handpasses, kicks to advantage, blocking opposition exits - as Close on Thursday. That speed of thought and clever decision making is just what gets our game going, it almost wakes everyone up and starts chains of possession opposition can't deal with.

Also a moment for Atkins and those chases. In fact a lot of those defensive 50 harrying missions, the scramble defence that has been absent for so much of this season - it was back. Desperate stuff and team-based swarming, pushing back to help the defenders who then felt assured in what decision to make. "Guarding grass" - nope. It was back to "let's win the bloody ball back and release it quickly to runners".

 

[Mr Meow]

That’s our team goal of the year. I was delirious after that.

I was on my feet from the second Atkins got a boot on it cause I could see our runners. After the way Close had attacked things all night, when I saw him sprinting at Hunter I knew he'd demolish him. Likewise the Rohan/May showdown - "keep it in front, you'll burn him!". Such a satisfying goal.

 

[And_ROOS]

Our backline this week will likely be someone like J. Henry or Kolo rested, and Sav coming in. Will be up to him to push one of them out come the pointy end. My money is on Henry at this stage, as it's not been his best year, and he's really in no man's land when it comes to his role in the team. Sav is a taller interceptor and better one on one, and guys like Zuth are better rebounders.

We could always omit O'Connor who is 6'3 as well, and back in Henry given his immense talent, but we'll have to see what the MC does moving forward. I've said it all year though, rightly or wrongly, when Sav is fit - he will be selected.

Doubt we rest any of them, the likelihood is that we see JHenry forward in the Cameron role, and Esava into defense. We had the bye the other week, I doubt we rest anyone that is under 30 til the end of the season.

Stanley was huge. Much more influential than the vision suggests. He did allot after half time with these little toe pokes to advantage.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

This was a game where I have seen people just look at raw stats to pot players and not realise that it was wet weather footy and things that weren't getting stats (OHenry constantly knocking the ball on, etc) were influential.

 

[catempire]

I was on my feet from the second Atkins got a boot on it cause I could see our runners. After the way Close had attacked things all night, when I saw him sprinting at Hunter I knew he'd demolish him. Likewise the Rohan/May showdown - "keep it in front, you'll burn him!". Such a satisfying goal.

I might have screamed “KILL HIM” (Hunter)

 

[BORIS332]

Few replies like this, so now that its the weekend and our teams have played, I'll expand/explain in case anyone is interested in recruitment, became bit more of an essay than I intended.

Moneyball: the use analytics in baseball recruitment to identify under valued players relative to their cost.

In sports like Baseball or European Soccer, there is often a wide gap in financial terms between the top team. Oakland A's spending 39 Million USD on wages competing with the richer teams spending 130 million USD on wages. Or Leicester City winning the Premier League team, some games they'd play matches were their starting 11 cost around 33 million pounds to buy their players against Manchester City that spent cost of 500 million pounds to buy theirs. Since those teams can't compete in raw talent, they have to be creative in how they recruit and be more open to player development.

I don't know about if analytics side fits in well for AFL, but for me the more useful part is the concept of identifying under valued players, rather than purely chasing the "best players" possible.

AFL has a tight salary cap, so spending isn't a measure of a teams ability to recruit raw talent. Historically, draft pick has been considered the leagues only "currency". If you are a poor performing team, you go to the bottom of the ladder, get a few priority picks, then slingshot up with a group of a players lead by those recruited with high value draft picks.

Regardless on how you value picks, eg average games or the AFL's Draft Value Index, almost anything related to talent pool starts looks like the edge of a bell curve. That as you move to the extremes of talent the number of players decreases faster than the increases in output.

In (hopefully) more plain terms there on average there is a larger gap in talent between the 1st player drafted and 50th players drafted, than there is between the last player drafted, and the 50th best player who was overlooked.

Understanding this, clubs try to through what ever they have into bringing in talent, however it is easy to overspend relative to the advantage gained.

Compare the match up for Petracca vs Atkins, Petracca is a much better player than Atkins by any measure, but he cost Melbourne pick 2 and Atkins cost us a rookie spot which is essentially free, Petracca could be on a 800k contract p.a, Atkins is probably on less than an average wage. AFL player rating system valued Petracca's game at 19.6 points in 84 gametime vs Atkins game valued at 14.8 points in 76 game time. From this perspective Petracca's output was roughly 20% higher than Atkins. But Petracca cost significantly more than the benefit they received in that match up.

Since 2011 we have constantly bled talented players, while still finishing close to the top of the ladder which restricted our access to top end draft picks. The few top picks we had mostly flopped, the ones that didn't were traded away for players like Dangerfield, Cameron, Henderson. Geelong was really head of the curve of the changing recruitment meta brought on by free agency, future trading and then increased acceptability of mature age recruiting (Menegola/Stewart/Close/Kelly/Atkins/Stengle) and Category B rookies (Blicavs/O'Connor). Which gave us a big advantage in our player recruitment and kept us competing despite our diminishing resources.

So how can we value players? It is a bit arbitrary, each list management team would have their own system. At its simplest, it isn't too far different from supercoach, were you aim to maximise Supercoach points within a salary cap with minimal trades available. In AFL list management, clubs have three main restrictions, Salary cap, tradeable assets (draft picks/current players) and list spots and a trying to maximise their chances for winning football games.

The arbitrary parts are

How you quantify "maximise their chances for winning football games", I used AFL player rating to compare Atkins and Petracca, as a post game point of value. But honestly there areas many valid systems as on can conceptualise. It is why you can have people disagree on how good Z.Guthrie played last week with his 20+ disposals. This is also where the efficiency of recruitment starts to matter. Spending too much to recruit can put you in a worse place.

How do you quantify "tradeable assets (draft picks/current players)". I'm sure that there be at a least few accountants, on the board.

Clubs are starting to get a lot more "sophisticated", they can now consider some players at net liabilities separate from their playing output eg Bowes and Grundy due to their contract terms. The treatment of pre-agents is not dissimilar to European Soccer. Where they're willing to consider trading players out a year early for picks then let them walk 12 months later under FA. Club aren't under any requirement to have a consistent valuation method of their players, they can jump from Market Value (what are we being offered, what did similar players cost) to Purchase price less depreciation (yes, this is a thing in European Soccer, divide the purchase price by the length of the contract) at their convenience. The clubs that value their players more accurately than the others are likely to get better deals from their trades) What seems like a fair deal from one method of player valuation could be lopsided in another.

Given that we can choose any player valuation method, I chose DVI or Draft Value Index as our stand in for "spending". it isn't the best method but it is easy to calculate.

DVI is a regression based off average player wages at the different draft picks calculated back in 2015. https://s.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL Tenant/Training/biddingsystemfeedback.pdf

Each player on a list has an acquisition event, where they are drafted, traded or listed. These events can all be described in terms of a draft picks.

Drafted: The draft pick
Traded: The draft pick used to acquire a player, or if it is a player trade, then the cost the other club used to acquire said (I'm ignoring depreciation for convenience)
Listed: Regardless if it is FA, or Rookie, Cat B, SPP, it cost no draft picks

That's the background done.

Why was Thursday such a crazy win. From a cost perspective. They outspent us almost 3 to 1, with their most expensive players still being in their prime.

On the Thursday, we were without Dangerfield and then Cameron got knocked out in the first quarter. They are our two most expensive players to recruit. Those two alone cost around 3500 DVI. Just an aside they were both absolute bargains.

Without them, the team we fielded had a total DVI of 6639, the equivalent to two pick 1s and a pick 30

Their team fielded a total DVI of 19118, the equivalent to six pick 1s and a pick 15

10 of our players were recruited without incurring a DVI cost. As in those 10 players were effectively free for us to recruit. And in more than one case we were actually paid us to take them (Net spend, as in player purchases less player sales, is bigger concept in premier league football)

Our most expensive players was De koning, who cost us pick 19. They had 7 players that cost pick 19 or less. Their 4 most expensive players cost more than our entire team.

Yet despite the uneven playing field we still won, which is a huge credit to the players, coaches, recruitment team and other staff that made it happen.

 

[Footy Smarts]

I might have screamed “KILL HIM” (Hunter)

Hunter became the hunted!

 

[Romeoh1]

I was on my feet from the second Atkins got a boot on it cause I could see our runners. After the way Close had attacked things all night, when I saw him sprinting at Hunter I knew he'd demolish him. Likewise the Rohan/May showdown - "keep it in front, you'll burn him!". Such a satisfying goal.

Yep I jumped off the couch when Atkins got it. Gee it was fun.

 

[BORIS332]

Best moment of the year.

Speed kills when tied with ferocity and synergy across a group of players. Atkins was back to never say die mode, Close played like it was the last game of his life and Holmes/Rohan's jet-like missions simply overpowered the Demons. If Holmes didn't commit to that run just like Close, we couldn't have kept that forward surge.

I haven't seen a Geelong player this season other than Dangerfield win so many vital "moments" - disabling tackles, knock ons, soccers, release handpasses, kicks to advantage, blocking opposition exits - as Close on Thursday. That speed of thought and clever decision making is just what gets our game going, it almost wakes everyone up and starts chains of possession opposition can't deal with.

Also a moment for Atkins and those chases. In fact a lot of those defensive 50 harrying missions, the scramble defence that has been absent for so much of this season - it was back. Desperate stuff and team-based swarming, pushing back to help the defenders who then felt assured in what decision to make. "Guarding grass" - nope. It was back to "let's win the bloody ball back and release it quickly to runners".

Agree and makes me wonder where Close sits in the ranking of most underrated players in the AFL.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Duncan compared to Smith seemed to have an execution error forward of centre - just with his usually precise kicks. Same issue against Port but he's smoothing out the edges I feel because these mistakes aren't coming from him being caught, or slow to react. 19 kicks, 600 metres plus gained on a wet territory style night, 8 tackles - he was all action and then found fluency the longer the match went on.

Smith genuinely did look gassed and borderline not competitive at times. Didn't feel his running power, positioning or disposals did us much good. He's had a good season but this just happens from time to time in the senior years. Our two ageless wingman remain vital to our chances this season, that's for sure.

To be fair i can understand the issue in both cases duncans had a limited pre season then a month out so he doesnt have the football touch. His effort was still immense but his disposal was very hit and miss.

Smith was awesome early in the year but we would have planned to rest over the last couple of weeks but we couldnt due to our long injury list. After a week or two of a break i think he will be fine.

 

[catstragic]

Wow Kolodjashnij gets forgiven a multitude of sins including regularly turning the ball over by hand and by foot, but Sav who takes multiple intercept marks and kills off forward thrusts by getting a fist to the ball is dismissed because his disposal is not up to par. I guarantee Sav will come into the team as soon as he is fit and one of the so called back 6 will make way. You saw what Port Adelaide's tall and mobile forwards did to Geelong's backline. Zach Guthrie was busting his guts to get to contests because the rest of the back 6 were not doing it. Guthrie had 26 disposals, 612m gained and 13 pressure acts. Kolo had 10, 118m gained and 5 pressure acts, JHenry had 10, 169m gained and 8 pressure acts.

Does Sav have any reliable disposal options outside dumping it long down the line or handing it off to a runner? Jk/bews aint the cleanest kicks but they both usually hit their 20-30m chip passes, and Sav just doesnt have that toolset which makes him a liability when he gets possesion down back. I think Sav is a horses for courses option against tall attacks, or KPD cover for JK and SDK. SAV is probably our best contested interceptor but outside of that specific role he falls short compared to the other defenders.

 

[Catman]

I look back at that goal and I think that May was in position to bump Chuckie out of the contest and win the ball, but he appeared more concerned/terrified by Chuckie's speed and that was his only thought - he knew he was going to get absolutely torched (which happened so beautifully I must say) in a speed battle. It's further proof how Rohan's speed scares the hell out of defenders, forcing them to panic and make bad decisions, with and without the ball.

 

[Jumping Jack]

Stanley was huge. Much more influential than the vision suggests. He did allot after half time with these little toe pokes to advantage.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Haven’t lost many games in the last 2 seasons when Stanley and Blicavs play together.

Just saying


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[CabWesty]

What a great moment. The tackling here is fierce. Brad Close at his best.

And Close gets a boot in the head before he gets on his bike to make that tackle on the wing.

 

[CabWesty]

How Gary Rohan

23

Gary Rohan

Age

32

Ht

189cm

Wt

92kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

9.6

2star

K

6.6

3star

HB

3.0

3star

M

3.3

3star

T

2.5

4star

G

1.0

4star

D

8.8

2star

K

6.0

2star

HB

2.8

2star

M

3.4

3star

T

2.3

3star

G

1.0

4star

D

9.8

3star

K

6.8

3star

HB

3.0

3star

M

2.2

3star

T

4.2

5star

G

1.2

4star

began putting the fear of God into defenders.

 

[Vdubs]

You what?

2-time premiership GREAT

One of my favourite ever players and GF memories

 

[Generalissimo]

Even Hawkins was closing in on Hunter pretty quickly. Sure he ended up abandoning the chase, but I don't mind because it was obvious that Close and Holmes would get there first, and lurking about near the center square as an option for a quick handball was the smart play though unnecessary in the end.

I look back at that goal and I think that May was in position to bump Chuckie out of the contest and win the ball

It almost looked like he tried to give Chuckie a nudge with his hands just as he was getting overtaken, but stuffed it up.

 

[Catman]

Even Hawkins was closing in on Hunter pretty quickly. Sure he ended up abandoning the chase, but I don't mind because it was obvious that Close and Holmes would get there first, and lurking about near the center square as an option for a quick handball was the smart play though unnecessary in the end.


It almost looked like he tried to give Chuckie a nudge with his hands just as he was getting overtaken, but stuffed it up.

I'll need to watch it back, but if he did, it once again proves how Rohan's speed causes panic, where players are either terrified or caught in two minds what to do.

We are infinitely better with him in our side. I couldn't stand him at Sydney, but I unapologetically say he has become one of my favourites here.

 

[goyoucatters]

And Close gets a boot in the head before he gets on his bike to make that tackle on the wing.

Great pick-up. Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. And despite the ecstasy of how it ends, I have to admit that almost my favourite moment in the entire glorious sequence is Hunter's despairing glance towards the umpire in search of a thoroughly undeserved free kick. It's as if he knows how badly the play is going to go for the Dees from there if the ump doesn't blow his whistle.

And he was right.



#goyoucats