2024 Rolling ALL-Australian Team

[RUNVS]

Even if you fielded the rejects side this week against the AA side you couldn't be that confident in the AA side.

Collins Andrews Holmes
Dale Sicily Sinclair
McLuggage Anderson Ambrosio
Young Curnow Sheezel
Stengle Daniher Daniels
Xerri Merrett JHF
Brayshaw Clark Rayner Cameron

Blakey Weitering Ryan
Zorko McGovern Houston
Gulden Bontempelli Daicos
Warner Cameron Heeney
Waterman Hogan Moore
Gawn Cripps Serong
Whitfield Neale Treloar Butters

There's no clear advantage in the ruck or followers.

The centre line, I'd be worried about Daicos on a wing defensively.

Can the AA defensive line do a better job of containing the rejects forward line? Debatable. Also there's so much run and good ball use coming out of that rejects back line, would be a headache for their forwards. Warner and Heeney don't work very hard defensively and average less than one tackle inside 50 per game collectively.

Definitely the AA has more depth on the bench but they get to choose first! If I just swap Bont for Anderson, I reckon the rejects beat the AA team.

Daicos is like Adam Gilchrist in the Australian side before Ian Healy retired. Gilchrist was so good with the bat he had to be in the team, but he was not the wicket keeper so when he was fielding they stuck him in places where he would hopefully see the ball the least since he was a pretty bad fielder without his gloves (for obvious reasons). Daicos needs to be put in a position where he won't be expected to do anything defensively.

I think the wing is a particularly bad spot for him too, since the wing it is really important to beat your opponent one on one, often in the air. You have less backup on the wing compared to other positions.

 

[stallon]

Even if you fielded the rejects side this week against the AA side you couldn't be that confident in the AA side.

Collins Andrews Holmes
Dale Sicily Sinclair
McLuggage Anderson Ambrosio
Young Curnow Sheezel
Stengle Daniher Daniels
Xerri Merrett JHF
Brayshaw Clark Rayner Cameron

Blakey Weitering Ryan
Zorko McGovern Houston
Gulden Bontempelli Daicos
Warner Cameron Heeney
Waterman Hogan Moore
Gawn Cripps Serong
Whitfield Neale Treloar Butters

There's no clear advantage in the ruck or followers.

The centre line, I'd be worried about Daicos on a wing defensively.

Can the AA defensive line do a better job of containing the rejects forward line? Debatable. Also there's so much run and good ball use coming out of that rejects back line, would be a headache for their forwards. Warner and Heeney don't work very hard defensively and average less than one tackle inside 50 per game collectively.

Definitely the AA has more depth on the bench but they get to choose first! If I just swap Bont for Anderson, I reckon the rejects beat the AA team.

The AA squad just has too many inside mids, the rejects have a much more balanced midfield and flanks tbh.
Realistically there isnt a lot on paper different, its just who had a better year or caught the selectors eye more

 

[Bunk Moreland]

You can’t change their mind it’s their default setting.
Brayshaw was top 5 for score inv in a low scoring team and is still a non damaging vanilla mid.
Just enjoy the fact they play for your club and not the oppo!

He’s the victim of playing in an unsexy side.

There is not a single AFL player or coach who would say that Adam bloody Treloar had a superior year To Zach Merrett.

Anybody who thinks so should be committed.

One thing I would note is there is a ten-person selection panel. WTF?

Four people could do it as long as they are qualified and have watched every game.

10 people!? Imagine how ****ing mental the discussions would be with everybody trying to get their 2c in. People would be overruled and shouted down… then in a separate discussion they’d get given a free hit to make up for that.

The bigger the group, the more the louder voices dominate.

WTF is Josh Mahoney adding? Betts, Buckley, Bolton, Cornes, Jakovich and Pavlich?? Do we really need all those voices? Of course not.

Butters as last-named on the bench reeks to high heaven of shutting Cornes up so they can close a meeting.

Whole process needs tearing down

 

[RonnieRaven]

He’s the victim of playing in an unsexy side.

There is not a single AFL player or coach who would say that Adam bloody Treloar had a superior year To Zach Merrett.

Anybody who thinks so should be committed.

One thing I would note is there is a ten-person selection panel. WTF?

Four people could do it as long as they are qualified and have watched every game.

10 people!? Imagine how ****ing mental the discussions would be with everybody trying to get their 2c in. People would be overruled and shouted down… then in a separate discussion they’d get given a free hit to make up for that.

The bigger the group, the more the louder voices dominate.

WTF is Josh Mahoney adding? Betts, Buckley, Bolton, Cornes, Jakovich and Pavlich?? Do we really need all those voices? Of course not.

Butters as last-named on the bench reeks to high heaven of shutting Cornes up so they can close a meeting.

Whole process needs tearing down

I agree for most but every process has its faults
When I heard Bucks and conesy say one morning they don’t watch every game I was shocked.
Coupled with the squeaky wheel (conesy) gets the grease
You just have to lower your expectations.
Most processes that are implemented by AFL house are deeply flawed.

 

[hawkman]

Daicos is like Adam Gilchrist in the Australian side before Ian Healy retired. Gilchrist was so good with the bat he had to be in the team, but he was not the wicket keeper so when he was fielding they stuck him in places where he would hopefully see the ball the least since he was a pretty bad fielder without his gloves (for obvious reasons). Daicos needs to be put in a position where he won't be expected to do anything defensively.

I think the wing is a particularly bad spot for him too, since the wing it is really important to beat your opponent one on one, often in the air. You have less backup on the wing compared to other positions.

And a wing has to do a lot of defensive running something that Daicos isn't renowned for

 

[jackag24]

I think chat GPT should pick the next AA team

Make it watch every single game 10x over.

It'll sort this whole mess out.

 

[RUNVS]

I think chat GPT should pick the next AA team

Make it watch every single game 10x over.

It'll sort this whole mess out.

Does ChatGPT have the up to date stats? I thought their information ended at 2021?

 

[Lia]

Seems to be an unpopular opinon across the board but Gawn over Xerri was 100% the correct call in my opinion.

Gawn is a victim of his own high standards I guess, everyone is used to him being very very good so it no longer stands out.

 

[jackag24]

Does ChatGPT have the up to date stats? I thought their information ended at 2021?

I don't think that's the case anymore

 

[pieman123]

I saw this post on reddit yesterday

about creating an AA team based on players who top the game with one stat.

and I must admit I have thought of something similar before, but slightly different.

I wondered what stat would make the best team, so if you had to pick a single stat for the best team what would it be, so for instance if you picked disposals, so your CHB has to be the CHB in the competition with the most disposals, your ruckman has to be the ruckman who got the most disposals in the competition, same with your small defender or small forward.

How would the most disposals team go against the team with the most tackles, or the team with the most contested marks? How about the team with the most metres gained.

I wonder which stat would create the best team.

No wonder Luke Ryan got in the team, what a valuable stat he led.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

I agree for most but every process has its faults
When I heard Bucks and conesy say one morning they don’t watch every game I was shocked.
Coupled with the squeaky wheel (conesy) gets the grease
You just have to lower your expectations.
Most processes that are implemented by AFL house are deeply flawed.

One of my favourite AFL media stories involves Terry Wallace.

He had the Sydney job after he left the Dogs but they did a backflip so he was left unemployed - he got a gig or two in media as an analyst, something he’d never done before.

So he set out his working week for the season with a schedule that allowed him to watch every game - as many as possible live, and he could catch up with the others on Sunday night / Monday morning.

He was telling some media colleagues and they were gobsmacked he was doing this. They of course watched the games they worked on, but that was it.

He was equally gobsmacked they didn’t do it. How can you be paid full-time to analyse and comment on footy and not spend the 16hrs a week it took to… watch the actual games of footy?

A good insight. None of them do it.

 

[Tasfut]

My team

FB Zorko, Andrews, McGovern
HB Sheezel, Weitering, Whitfield
C Gulden, Cripps, Merrett (VC)
HF Warner, J.Cameron, Heeney
FF Waterman, Hogan, Moore
R Xerri, Bontempelli (C), Neale
Int N.Daicos, Butters, Treloar, Curnow

My picks - Andrews, Sheezel, Merrett, Xerri, Curnow

Official team - Blakey, Ryan, Serong, Gawn, Houston

 

[DocSholl]

Hawks won the flag in 91 by 10 goals and had 0 in the AA Team.

On SM-S918B using BigFooty.com mobile app

Then had three of the starting 18 in 2005 despite winning five games, which is another weird quirk

 

[DocSholl]

I agree for most but every process has its faults
When I heard Bucks and conesy say one morning they don’t watch every game I was shocked.
Coupled with the squeaky wheel (conesy) gets the grease
You just have to lower your expectations.
Most processes that are implemented by AFL house are deeply flawed.

I reckon nearly every week in the second half of the season, Daniel Hoyne was on radio talking about some crazy Sheezel stat and both Cornes and Healy always seemed surprised.

 

[bzparkes]

Does ChatGPT have the up to date stats? I thought their information ended at 2021?

The pro version has access to the internet.

 

[RonnieRaven]

One of my favourite AFL media stories involves Terry Wallace.

He had the Sydney job after he left the Dogs but they did a backflip so he was left unemployed - he got a gig or two in media as an analyst, something he’d never done before.

So he set out his working week for the season with a schedule that allowed him to watch every game - as many as possible live, and he could catch up with the others on Sunday night / Monday morning.

He was telling some media colleagues and they were gobsmacked he was doing this. They of course watched the games they worked on, but that was it.

He was equally gobsmacked they didn’t do it. How can you be paid full-time to analyse and comment on footy and not spend the 16hrs a week it took to… watch the actual games of footy?

A good insight. None of them do it.

Yes indeed conesy would be raking in over $1million a year to know and talk football
Can’t even watch a 2hr replay yet has the nerve to question the professionalism of players that are young and paid less

 

[RUNVS]

The pro version has access to the internet.

Thanks. I checked Bing Co-pilot and asked it a simple question of which players got the most metres gained per match in 2024 and it got it quite wrong

 

[bzparkes]

Thanks. I checked Bing Co-pilot and asked it a simple question of which players got the most metres gained per match in 2024 and it got it quite wrong

Ah Bing, I'm surprised it didn't give you the result to hide a dead body without getting caught instead.

 

[bzparkes]

Waterman over Curnow is a bit of a joke. Is inferior is basically every meaningful stat for a KPF.

 

[AFDogs]

Isn't Blakey notorious for having bags kicked on him? I would take him out.

Hard to argue with the rest of the team. Would've liked to see Dale in there but getting dropped to sub at one point probably cost him (despite it being the rocket for the rest of his seasons form).

Curnow probably finds his way onto a bench too.

 

[KissKiss]

One of my favourite AFL media stories involves Terry Wallace.

He had the Sydney job after he left the Dogs but they did a backflip so he was left unemployed - he got a gig or two in media as an analyst, something he’d never done before.

So he set out his working week for the season with a schedule that allowed him to watch every game - as many as possible live, and he could catch up with the others on Sunday night / Monday morning.

He was telling some media colleagues and they were gobsmacked he was doing this. They of course watched the games they worked on, but that was it.

He was equally gobsmacked they didn’t do it. How can you be paid full-time to analyse and comment on footy and not spend the 16hrs a week it took to… watch the actual games of footy?

A good insight. None of them do it.

I remember hearing Dwayne Russell talk about this at some point in the year. Someone was criticising him for wasting time watching every game and telling him to get a life. He was saying its literally my job to watch every game every week. How else can you be be paid to talk about football if you dont watch it. Even if he is working or out over a game he has to find the time before the start of the week to finish every game

Sadly its clear that a few watch only the few games they care about and then spend more time focused on the drama

 

[RUNVS]

Ah Bing, I'm surprised it didn't give you the result to hide a dead body without getting caught instead.

If it did the answer likely would have involved taking the body and dropping it on the middle of the harbour bridge at peak hour.

 

[H00t]

Daicos is like Adam Gilchrist in the Australian side before Ian Healy retired. Gilchrist was so good with the bat he had to be in the team, but he was not the wicket keeper so when he was fielding they stuck him in places where he would hopefully see the ball the least since he was a pretty bad fielder without his gloves (for obvious reasons). Daicos needs to be put in a position where he won't be expected to do anything defensively.

I think the wing is a particularly bad spot for him too, since the wing it is really important to beat your opponent one on one, often in the air. You have less backup on the wing compared to other positions.

It’s not even that. They’ve picked Daicos on a wing and Heeney forward so that they could fit in someone like Serong who into the starting line up.

On form this year Daicos is a starting mid. Which makes it even funnier them trying to fit so many inside mids into the team. It pushes better players to positions they don’t play.

 

[Blue By Blood]

FB: Zorko, Weitering, Ryan
HB: Houston, McGovern, Whitfield
CT: Gulden, Cripps (c), Warner
HF: Heeney, Daniher, Moore
FF: Stengle, Hogan, Curnow
RU: Gawn, Daicos, Bontempelli (vc)
INT: Horne-Francis, Butters, Neale, Blakey

Turned out pretty close. 18/22.

• Swap Whitfield with Blakey on the bench and it was the exact back 6.
• Missed on Serong - I stand by JHF. I think he provides the team more flexibility as he can go forward and beast. As good a season as Serong had, the selectors need to be bolder in leaving out some gun mids. They put Daicos on the wing to accomodate Serong and Daicos would barley have played there all year if at all.
• Missed on Treloar - I went with the extra small in Stengle. Once again when you’ve already got Bontempelli, Cripps, Daicos, Gulden, Serong, Butters, Neale, Warner, Heeney- why do they select another mid? Great season by Treloar but surely for balance they go the small.
• Missed on Waterman - I stand by Curnow being the better option. Feel like his late season form carrying the injury stuck in selectors heads. He still kicked more goals despite being a little down and getting double teamed each week. Every club in the comp would choose Curnow over Waterman and that’s no knock on him as he’s also a great player.
• Missed on J. Cameron - I stand by Daniher as the better choice to be the chop out ruck. Who gives Gawn a chop out in the AA team? Cripps?

Honestly I like my team better than what was selected.

 

[kozi]

No Merrett is garbage and I’m far from the biggest Essendon fan