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I'm sorry, but that argument is pathetic. It is the argument of those who have nothing left to argue. All SANFL clubs contributed to the development, growth, success and assets of the SANFL from 1877. Like any sporting comp, the SANFL was/is an ongoing asset, where goodwill and brand (i.e. the...

Depends what you mean by 'want'. Want them to exist and be sustainable in the AFL? Or want them to ride roughshod over everyone and everything so that every little whim gets granted, regardless of the rules, common sense, or the best interests of SA footy as a whole?

Speaking of 'class above'—Mitch(ell) Carter is a big forward who was amazing for Norwood in the U/18 Norwood v North preliminary final (was streamed on YouTube). He blew North out of the water by kicking 4 goals in a second quarter when he just plucked and drilled anything that came near him...

Because I, like anyone, love data that conforms to my prejudices, I'm pleased to see Brisbane 1998 to Brisbane 1999 take the gold medal. Brisbane 1998 was the biggest underperformance with a quality list in the AFL era. They singlehandedly ruined my 1998 tipping comp—I kept looking at the side...

Go back to the beginning re whether Squiggle takes account of the 'convincingness' of a team's victory (yes it does if you're talking about margin—and it also factors in whether it's home or away, the number of points given up as a measure of defensive quality, as well as raw margin, etc; see...

Finals are a money-spinner because (with a few embarrassing exceptions) people enjoy watching them. The much-debated 'double chance' matches (and let's not forget that there are 9 finals, 7 of which are knockouts) in the first week are likely to be really high quality games, and simply much more...

Yep, a favourite wins, plus an upset occurs. And amazingly, those two things occur within the same round! Totally far fetched. Plus North Melbourne are perfectly happy to travel to Adelaide to play a final rather than playing one in Melbourne, right? To say otherwise would be far-fetched. The...

This is exactly why North's proposal is comp-rigging and the AFL should have banned/should ban it. Everyone is sore and carrying around niggles/tired bodies at this time of year. That's a constant. It doesn't matter if you enter into selections to manipulate the table and rest up your players so...

The simplest formula will be to change the father/son rules so that if another club bids a first round on Dunkley, and we're committing to Mills with our first round, we don't get Dunkley. The rules would only need to be tweaked slightly, essentially to say that once a F/S bid has been placed on...

Baulderstone is an interesting one; he fits the mould in some ways but breaks it in others. He is only average-to-good as a knock ruckman, but the prevailing wisdom is that merely totting up tap numbers is a meaningless statistic that doesn't win games. Also, he is not super-athletic, which is...

I'd imagine that the difference between ND and rookie for him would be the degree to which clubs are concerned by his hamstring history, and how his recovery from a poorly-timed bout of dengue fever is tracking. Would be a surprise to see him overlooked entirely.

This post is a really cool example of attempting to explain something that makes no sense, pretending that it makes perfect sense, and making no sense in the attempt. Que? They're not over the salary cap. If they were over the salary cap they would be punished as salary cap cheats. They are...

It's not hard to make the argument that, with not far off 50% of the Australian population between them, NSW and Qld form a significant part of the long-term (financial, if nothing else) future of the code that justifies special rules to increase participation rates and encourage potentially...

Massive shock that he got in front of Fyfe in the last round, but 26 votes means it's certainly no Bradbury win. Anyone who's supported the Bloods can relate to a guy who's arrived on a rookie list at the age of 20, and has just got there by sheer hard work.

It's an amazing story. Even hardcore Norwood fans were surprised to see him going into the centre square at the start of the round 1 clash v Port Adelaide. Thought it might have been a shock tactic to throw out the opposition's defensive structures, before he drifted back forward. But from the...

He is just a beautiful kick of the footy, still has a yard of pace and (even though he's had the odd quiet one) stood up in important moments through the SANFL finals series. Only thing is it's a 2-club market because an article published midyear suggested that family issues would mean that he's...

The 2 (outta 28 who've tried) 5th-8th sides to play a prelim so far in the current final 8 structure, have acquitted themselves far better than anyone expected. Hawthorn (finished 6th, 13-9) came within 9 points of Essendon (1st, 17-5) in 2001 and then Collingwood (6th, 13-9) nearly caused an...

Your side just made a preliminary final an hour or so ago... and you keep coming back to taking solace in the idea that you'll lose, but at least the team that beats you will itself get badly beaten the following week. Enjoy the moment and have some faith, man!

Actually, 2012 was the year when much of the accepted wisdom had the Hawks tearing us a new one in the GF. If you're talking about the Swans getting molested in the 2014 finals series, don't be modest and expect someone else to do it for you by proxy: Sydney's largest loss of the year has been...

Perfect analogy (apart from the fact that G Ablett didn't miss in 1989, while for the first 3 quarters Hawkins' goalkicking was ropey). A Geelong side coming from way too far back in the final quarter, which is dragged almost single-handedly to the top of the mountain by its best big forward...

And if you want to go a step further back, our employers/customers/Centrelink are feeding him. The money trail goes back forever. Doesn't change the fact that if you're the AFL, hundreds of millions are poured directly into your coffers each year by 7 and Foxtel combined. Plenty of regular...

He's been around long enough to know that the overwhelming part of why his salary is exponentially higher than it was 25 years ago, is the value of the media coverage of the AFL. The bosses of those journalists that he despises, are feeding him. And a small but important part of the...

An undersized (even by the standards of a decade ago) Adam Goodes being moved into the ruck in 2003. Admittedly, this was a premeditated move (albeit somewhat influenced by injuries) across the whole year, not a spur-of-the-moment masterstroke during a match.

And, on that topic, well-said, Rohan Connolly.

Ah, good point. Hadn't picked up on that (obvious, in retrospect) distinction. Because of vagaries in the draw, 'Squiggle ranking for team performance ≠ predicted ladder position after 22 rounds, even if current performance remains static.'

A lot of what Squiggle says is pretty intuitive and so easy to agree with (e.g. Freo are an outlier of the 'putting defence #1' approach, Hawthorn when on song are the #1 attacking team in the comp, Melbourne's great leaps forward during 2014 have all been defensive, not because they're kicking...

What's happened to Mac Bower? SA's 3rd match of the championships, and he can't get a game, not even on an extended interchange bench. It may not make you any worse a player, but it sends a strong message and would be likely to make many recruiters run a mile if you can't get selected by your...

As at last night it was an awesome 5 wins! (The 7th placed team was going to be the unluckiest 7th placed team not only in current AFL history, but for the next 100 years as well, by finishing 17:5.) So at this rate, it'll only be a couple more days' tweaking until the 8th ranked team wins more...

I love that last night's version (since watered-down) predicted that 7 teams could wind up on 17 or more wins! It's amazing that that's even technically feasible from here. The squiggle ladder predictor might be a work in progress, but it quite accurately brings into focus something that I...

The bad news is that 17 AFL-listed players playing for your SANFL side (plus Callinan making 18), which is what you fielded last weekend, is above-average in terms of net AFL-listed players available to a 2nds side. (Not that I could be arsed actually calculating the averages of AFL-listed...