List Mgmt. Geelong Premiership, why not? Drafting utilities, that's why.

[Vdubs]

The only utility we've dragged that's turned out to be a genuine gun is Mackie.

Bartel?

 

[Jhye Clark 13]

I still have trouble rating Duncan as a true A grader. But that is tough when we have Danger, Selwood and now GAJ. He is just not in that league. And there are so many good mids in the comp from each team that are just ahead of him, imo. But objectively, maybe this year he has reached A grade status.

Duncan has improved statistically every year since his debut barring his injury riddled 2015 season.

He is now elite. There's no doubt about that.

 

[El Dubya]

Bartel?

Genuine mid who became a utility. He was such a beautiful player to watch wherever he played.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Our midfield is close to if not the best in the comp and even when we lose finals its not in the centre.

We lose (see finals this year) because our footskills arent great and we turn the ball over and we lack forward line both in terms of finishing and crumbing ability and we overuse the ball against teams with manic pressure and our lack of pace in the side affects our ability to apply manic pressure, and our gameplan issues. Little if anything to do with the midfield.

 

[Mootsy]

Who is going to provide you what Motlop had??

Are you going for FA??

 

[Ricky Vaughn]

Who is going to provide you what Motlop had??

Are you going for FA??

I'm packing on the kilos as we speak, but I'm not sure I'll get there by the start of pre-season.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Who is going to provide you what Motlop had??

Are you going for FA??

Cockatoo.

 

[El Dubya]

I'm packing on the kilos as we speak, but I'm not sure I'll get there by the start of pre-season.

I'm already well established in squibbing contests and lazily tackling.

 

[Ricky Vaughn]

I'm already well established in squibbing contests and lazily tackling.

Now we just need somebody to be occasionally game breaking and absolutely sublime, and we've got him covered.

I feel like that may be the toughest bit.

 

[Spazz Cat]

Our midfield is close to if not the best in the comp and even when we lose finals its not in the centre.

We lose (see finals this year) because our footskills arent great and we turn the ball over and we lack forward line both in terms of finishing and crumbing ability and we overuse the ball against teams with manic pressure and our lack of pace in the side affects our ability to apply manic pressure, and our gameplan issues. Little if anything to do with the midfield.

It is if your midfield lacks footskills.

 

[El Dubya]

It is if your midfield lacks footskills.

Duncan is an absolute elite kick. Joel is also pretty good. Danger, Scooter and Menegola are all decent, it's just that Danger's shit kicks are really ****ing shit.

 

[00VicWard001]

Biggest myth circulating.

All of Duncan, Dangerfield and Selwood are A-Graders.

And now Ablett. Menegola was 6th in our B&F and Guthrie finished even higher the year before. The midfield is our strength.

Our system was the reason we didn't win the premiership.

We changed our system last pre-season. We applied it in the first few games. Then it fell apart and we went back to what we did last year. This once again didn't quite work in finals. I'd expect the data of why it didn't work to be properly analysed and an improved model come up for 2018.

One of the reasons why it fell apart was that we were positioning our backs closer to the opposition goals. This creates more space in the middle of the ground when turnovers occur for us and one on ones in our 50 and better marking positions for shots at goal. Conversely, when we lose the ball, there is also space for the opposition in the middle of the ground. For this system to work, it relies on significant forward line pressure from us - if we don't have the personnel or they are unable to execute, then we have situations where teams like Essendon and Gold Coast, stream through their defensive 50 with our mids and forwards looking like strolling witches hats.

It worked beautifully in the first few weeks - Hawk and Menz were scoring heavily. Then something went wrong, injuries, whatever. So we had to do what we did last year and just crowd our forward half with our defenders and mids, and in turn the oppositions players too. So we dropped our scoring power increased our defensive power with the sole purpose of winning games and hoping that we'd just win through form by the time finals came by.

Unfortunately, it was the same gameplan as 2016 and it let us down again.

Here's to learning and improving for next year. It worked for Danger (and how he played as team player) and it worked for Duncan (how he learned to position himself and attack). So I can see/hope that it will evolve for the entire team too.

 

[Ricketz]

I still have trouble rating Duncan as a true A grader. But that is tough when we have Danger, Selwood and now GAJ. He is just not in that league. And there are so many good mids in the comp from each team that are just ahead of him, imo. But objectively, maybe this year he has reached A grade status.

Do you think Burgoyne is an A grader? Because I have Duncan above him this year. As an outside player, he was 10th in the league for disposals, 6th in the league for effective disposals, 10th for marks, 12th for Inside 50's, 21st for tackles, 29th for contested possessions and amazingly also 4th for uncontested possessions, 18th for metres gained, and 14th for score involvements.

That is some imposing consistency across a lot of areas of the game. I doubt there would be more than 10 midfielders ahead of him in that role, to be honest.

 

[Ricketz]

Who is going to provide you what Motlop had??

Are you going for FA??

Define what he "had".
Players who can play high half forward: Gaz, Duncan, Guthrie, Menzel, Cocky, Parfitt, McCarthy, Murdoch, but with more consistency.

We should be right.

 

[Spazz Cat]

Duncan is an absolute elite kick. Joel is also pretty good. Danger, Scooter and Menegola are all decent, it's just that Danger's shit kicks are really ******* shit.

I'd say Scooter, Menegola, Blitz are all average kicks at best. Neither really add much run either.
Neither of them are bad at all there's just f***en 3 of em in the one midfield.
Overall I would actually call Danger a really good kick who has some shit ones.

 

[El Dubya]

Do you think Burgoyne is an A grader? Because I have Duncan above him this year. As an outside player, he was 10th in the league for disposals, 6th in the league for effective disposals, 10th for marks, 12th for Inside 50's, 21st for tackles, 29th for contested possessions and amazingly also 4th for uncontested possessions, 18th for metres gained, and 14th for score involvements.

That is some imposing consistency across a lot of areas of the game. I doubt there would be more than 10 midfielders ahead of him in that role, to be honest.

Top ten outside mids, agreed.

 

[El Dubya]

I'd say Scooter, Menegola, Blitz are all average kicks at best. Neither really add much run either.
Neither of them are bad at all there's just f***en 3 of em in the one midfield.
Overall I would actually call Danger a really good kick who has some shit ones.

He has his moments both ways to be honest, I'd love to see his Champion Data ratings.

 

[Spazz Cat]

He has his moments both ways to be honest, I'd love to see his Champion Data ratings.

Yeah it's either awesome or shocking.
At times though he's an amazing kick.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

We overuse the handball. I've said it time and time again but it doesn't stand up under immense pressure.

Take a look at the stats from the Sydney final where we kicked the ball more and were more direct.

Seems to be the fall back under pressure because we lack composure to hit targets by foot whilst pressured. All it leads to is a long bomb and turnover.
No wonder we struggle to score in finals.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

problem is poor structures that dont hold up at the MCG

backline has been too tall for about 5 years
midfield is one dimensional, just inside mids, not enough elite ball users
you cant have crabs like Scooter, Blicavs and Menegola all in the same team
rucks Smith is just an average ruck, we dont have a good mobile ruck/forward either (stanley is a no1 ruck, blicavs is just crap)
forwardline havent had a CHF since pods, lack of good smalls and players who kick clutch goals besides motlop

we have a heap of holes in our list and instead of dropping down and filling them we add more b grade talent and continue with terrible structures

have to look at game theory to provide optimal structures that provide the least amount of exploitation and in turn minimal variance in results

to put that simply - you need to look at how we are exploitable and change things to be less exploitable (game theory optimal)

eg too tall backline

works well at KP because there is no room on the wings for outside players to break away and hit up moving targets (more of a congested style play)

however this is extremely exploitable on bigger grounds as those outside players now have space to move and can hit moving targets who are quicker than our lumbering defenders, offensively the tall defenders cant move the ball on as quickly or as well as smalls so our offensive transitions are poor

to become less exploitable in this area we go back to a traditional 2 KPD, 1 3rd tall (who has pace)3 small defender structure

another example is our midfield, we have too many inside players, they get exploited by high pressure teams (causing a lot of turnovers), we become less exploitable by playing more outside players (who have better skills under pressure)

now either the club is completely ignorant of game theory or they are just happy with the financial success of finishing top 4 (despite having no chance of winning the flag)

****. We're doing well to get top 4 then given we're essentially a basket case list wise.
Did lol at the too tall defence argument though so thanks

 

[Spazz Cat]

****. We're doing well to get top 4 then given we're essentially a basket case list wise.
Did lol at the too tall defence argument though so thanks

Didn't we finally play well in a final against Sydney.
Hmm wonder what we did differently that game?

 

[El Dubya]

I don't think our midfield runs hard enough both ways, which is a cultural issue.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

Didn't we finally play well in a final against Sydney.
Hmm wonder what we did differently that game?

Kicked the football. Cheers
We've been playing the 3 + Mackie for over a decade and it is not why we lose.

We lose big games under pressure when our 2nd tier mids don't stand up and when we butcher the ball going forward, what happens on fast transition going the other way is inconsequential. We'd concede big scores on turnover with a small defence too in those circumstances. That first half v Richmond it was the defence, particularly Lonergan, that kept us in the game, and it happens often where this tall defence some deride are actually saving our bacon in bad games/halves/quarters.

Now, losing Mackie and Lonergan with no replacements seems to suggest we may see a different structure but I do laugh at the constant "we're too tall down back" rhetoric. It's not why we lose, but it has been part of why we win.

 

[Spazz Cat]

Kicked the football. Cheers
We've been playing the 3 + Mackie for over a decade and it is not why we lose.

We lose big games under pressure when our 2nd tier mids don't stand up and when we butcher the ball going forward, what happens on fast transition going the other way is inconsequential. We'd concede big scores on turnover with a small defence too in those circumstances. That first half v Richmond it was the defence, particularly Lonergan, that kept us in the game, and it happens often where this tall defence some deride are actually saving our bacon in bad games/halves/quarters.

Now, losing Mackie and Lonergan with no replacements seems to suggest we may see a different structure but I do laugh at the constant "we're too tall down back" rhetoric. It's not why we lose, but it has been part of why we win.

It's funny how after years of people saying it for a few years (not just here but media commentators too) we actually try it once and it works! Definitely worth laughing it off I guess.
Also in years gone by Scarlett was one of those talls. Definitely not your average tall defender that's for sure. Provided plenty of run.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

It's funny how after years of people saying it for a few years (not just here but media commentators too) we actually try it once and it works! Definitely worth laughing it off I guess.
Also in years gone by Scarlett was one of those talls. Definitely not your average tall defender that's for sure. Provided plenty of run.

I find it to be a shallow analysis.

"we're too slow on turnover hence our defence is too tall" is often muttered or variations of that, it's cause and effect. The cause is the turnovers and the effect is we concede scores. Personally I'd rather fix the cause and not the effect as we may still have these problems if you don't fix the root cause. Ablett should help as he uses the ball well and is accustomed to high pressure football.