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crows dude said:
Hes a midfielder. You will see. McLeod started forward then half back before midfield. Both Rankine and rachele will be mids
Click to expand...

Being a forward takes instinct, creativity, arrogance, the ability to sense a moment. These guys have those things. Not many players do. Why push them into the midfield and turn them into something that doesn’t come as naturally? The players themselves might want to, I get why the coaches might give it a try, might or it might not but my money is on it not working.


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Kensy006 said:
Being a forward takes instinct, creativity, arrogance, the ability to sense a moment. These guys have those things. Not many players do. Why push them into the midfield and turn them into something that doesn’t come as naturally? The players themselves might want to, I get why the coaches might give it a try, might or it might not but my money is on it not working.


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Click to expand...
Rachele's first 8 week last years suggest otherwise and it does come naturally.
 
Kensy006 said:
Being a forward takes instinct, creativity, arrogance, the ability to sense a moment. These guys have those things. Not many players do. Why push them into the midfield and turn them into something that doesn’t come as naturally? The players themselves might want to, I get why the coaches might give it a try, might or it might not but my money is on it not working.


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Click to expand...
I reckon the truly elite forwards usually stay there. Trying to think of one that got converted to a mid.
 
Imo, Rachele will become more a midfielder than forward... & Rankine will be more of a forward than a midfielder... but hope we use in both roles.

Most of out midfielders (except Crouch & Laird) can play up forward & we should use this to deepen our midfield rotations. Would like to see us use Dawson up forward at times.
 
Kane McGoodwin said:
Imo, Rachele will become more a midfielder than forward... & Rankine will be more of a forward than a midfielder... but hope we use in both roles.

Most of out midfielders (except Crouch & Laird) can play up forward & we should use this to deepen our midfield rotations. Would like to see us use Dawson up forward at times.
Click to expand...

Yes I think teams are pushing to have less mids that only play mid. Big focus on players rotating through. Makes trying to make Rankine more of a mid than a forward like Rozee silly in my opinion


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Kensy006 said:
I love your optimism. If Rankine can become as good as Rozee is in the midfield then I would be very happy. With that being said I don’t think you understand how comparing works ^^


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Click to expand...
I dare say you would be pleasantly surprise as Rankine doesn't "just" have agility ;) Funnily, he played more midfield than Rozee who played half back during their draft year.
 

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Big Dub said:
Every time one of our players shows any elite skills, someone posts “do you think he could make it as a midfielder?”

So I thought that I’d check the correlation between elite midfielders (including mid-forwards) and premierships.

The All Australian team selections for the premiers for the last 20 years is as follows:
View attachment 1889935

The data suggests that All-Australian defenders are almost as important as All-Australian mids (including mid-forwards) for winning premierships. Only 3 premierships have been won in the last 2 decades without an All-Australian defender (compared with 4 without an AA mid). One of those premierships without an AA defender was the time that the umpires got the Bulldogs over the line against Sydney. I’ll leave it up to you as to whether that one should count.

Interestingly, the difference between the premiers and the runners up in All-Australian selections over the last decade has been the runners up have been stronger in the midfield and forwards and the premiers have been stronger in defence, particularly in key defenders:
View attachment 1889936

Elite forwards do not seem to be as important as mids or defenders, but this might also be somewhat impacted by mid-forwards being classified as mids in the above analysis.

Rucks don’t matter much at all.

Having elite mid depth (ie AA squad mids) appears more important than defensive depth (I’ve only gone back 10 years, data was more effort than AA team).
View attachment 1889937

There is also the question of where the player can be his most impactful. Moving an elite defender to the midfield to be our fifth best mid makes no sense, but making an All-Australian midfielder out of a fringe elite defender does.

Key takeaway:
Given that we have a decent amount of mids and mid-forwards (mainly the latter) that could be elite:
  • If one of our forwards shows elite skills, it is more than reasonable to ask “do you think he could make it as a midfielder or mid-forward?”
  • If Michalanney or Curtin shows elite skills, we need to ask if they can become All Australian defenders
Click to expand...

Is that AA specifically in a premiership year or just players who have been AA at least once?
 
Rags_118 said:
Nat Fyfe? A promising forward who became an elite midfielder.
Click to expand...
Never kicked more than 24 goals in a season. Theres plenty of players that start forward and end up in the middle.

The ones with truly elite goal sense tend to stay forward I think. That’s Rankine. He’ll only ever pinch hit in the midfield I reckon.
 
Big Dub said:
Every time one of our players shows any elite skills, someone posts “do you think he could make it as a midfielder?”

So I thought that I’d check the correlation between elite midfielders (including mid-forwards) and premierships.

The All Australian team selections for the premiers for the last 20 years is as follows:
View attachment 1889935

The data suggests that All-Australian defenders are almost as important as All-Australian mids (including mid-forwards) for winning premierships. Only 3 premierships have been won in the last 2 decades without an All-Australian defender (compared with 4 without an AA mid). One of those premierships without an AA defender was the time that the umpires got the Bulldogs over the line against Sydney. I’ll leave it up to you as to whether that one should count.

Interestingly, the difference between the premiers and the runners up in All-Australian selections over the last decade has been the runners up have been stronger in the midfield and forwards and the premiers have been stronger in defence, particularly in key defenders:
View attachment 1889936

Elite forwards do not seem to be as important as mids or defenders, but this might also be somewhat impacted by mid-forwards being classified as mids in the above analysis.

Rucks don’t matter much at all.

Having elite mid depth (ie AA squad mids) appears more important than defensive depth (I’ve only gone back 10 years, data was more effort than AA team).
View attachment 1889937

There is also the question of where the player can be his most impactful. Moving an elite defender to the midfield to be our fifth best mid makes no sense, but making an All-Australian midfielder out of a fringe elite defender does.

Key takeaway:
Given that we have a decent amount of mids and mid-forwards (mainly the latter) that could be elite:
  • If one of our forwards shows elite skills, it is more than reasonable to ask “do you think he could make it as a midfielder or mid-forward?”
  • If Michalanney or Curtin shows elite skills, we need to ask if they can become All Australian defenders
Click to expand...
Love the evidence based approach to this. Fascinating reading.
Do you think the data is skewed by the dominance of individual players over the research timeframe? For example, Tom Stewart has virtually owned a backline spot recently. Max Gawn is another who only won a single premiership but must have dominated the AA ruck spot.

I wonder about the importance of having an elite AA in KPD and midfield.

Great post 👏
 
Kensy006 said:
Footage of him at training? Or when he has moved in the midfield for a short time? Either way that isn’t strong evidence he can be an elite full time mid in the AFL for a whole season and repeat it year in year out. I understand that is all you have to go by but you guys are making it sound like it is a move that will very likely be successful. I think that is too optimistic. I think it could be successful but I would not say it is likely. I understand why the club would want to give it a shot but settling being a specialist forward that goes into the midfield when the team needs will work too.


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Click to expand...
Izak is an impact player. Not a workhorse who should be slogging away in any single position. I'm happy to play him where he can expect to have the greatest impact at any given time.
I don't believe a player necessarily needs to be full time in that position to be good at it.
 
Ciao Giacomo said:
I was at Richmond Oval the first time he played a full game in defence for us in the twos. We eventually had a solid win but the Berg was killed by his no name opponent. I have never seen a tall defender with less natural instincts to defend (made Big Billy Frampton look like SOS in comparison).

GWS must have a fantastic coaching group to reinvent the Dragon (hello Ben Hart?).
Click to expand...
remember when he went into defense in the 2nd half vs richmond in round 2 last year.......a witches hat would have applied better pressure
 
Scorpus said:
Is that AA specifically in a premiership year or just players who have been AA at least once?
Click to expand...
AA specifically in a premiership year, ie those that are performing in that year.

I've previously done some analysis that suggests squad depth (specifically how many elite, above average and average players in the squad) is a better indicator of premiership success than just elite players. You would expect most AA players to be at least above average players for a number of years either side of their AA selection.

The bulk of our players coming into their prime from 2025 onwards should help us with this.

I also wanted to have a look at Norm Smith medallists (or gf best players), as gut feel is that they more often than not are NOT AA in their Norm Smith year.
 
Big Dub said:
AA specifically in a premiership year, ie those that are performing in that year.

I've previously done some analysis that suggests squad depth (specifically how many elite, above average and average players in the squad) is a better indicator of premiership success than just elite players. You would expect most AA players to be at least above average players for a number of years either side of their AA selection.

The bulk of our players coming into their prime from 2025 onwards should help us with this.

I also wanted to have a look at Norm Smith medallists (or gf best players), as gut feel is that they more often than not are NOT AA in their Norm Smith year.
Click to expand...
There was great interview of WC high performance boss from their last premiership

I recall 1 comment of his in their thought process. They looked at each of the selected teams, and compared how many of the top 10 players on each list were selected / available to play.

They believed they could / would win because WC had 7 of their 10 available, while Collingwood had 6 (I may have these numbers wrong).

In essence, what they believed was that the team that was able to field more of the best 10 players on their lists was "more" likely to win
 
Big Dub said:
AA specifically in a premiership year, ie those that are performing in that year.

I've previously done some analysis that suggests squad depth (specifically how many elite, above average and average players in the squad) is a better indicator of premiership success than just elite players. You would expect most AA players to be at least above average players for a number of years either side of their AA selection.

The bulk of our players coming into their prime from 2025 onwards should help us with this.

I also wanted to have a look at Norm Smith medallists (or gf best players), as gut feel is that they more often than not are NOT AA in their Norm Smith year.
Click to expand...

On GF day teams have done so much homework on how to stop the oppos best players that someone else beats them


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Gtowncrow said:
Love the evidence based approach to this. Fascinating reading.
Do you think the data is skewed by the dominance of individual players over the research timeframe? For example, Tom Stewart has virtually owned a backline spot recently. Max Gawn is another who only won a single premiership but must have dominated the AA ruck spot.

I wonder about the importance of having an elite AA in KPD and midfield.

Great post 👏
Click to expand...
AA players alone won't win you a premiership, overall depth is more important. However, if you have a player/s who is consistently at AA levels for a number of years, it makes it easier to build a quality team around them (and focus on drafting/ trading for other areas of the ground).

Players are at their peak from around age 24 to 28. If the bulk of your team are a similar age, it makes it more likely that they will be peaking together. That makes it easier to have a good collection of elite, above average and average players in the same year, which is what will allow you to contend (have previously posted on this). However, most players are not consistently great during this peak period (eg most AA selctions only make it once or twice over this 5 year period). So there is still a fair bit of luck in having players with the potential to be elite actually being elite in the same year and game (the gf).

Having a Stewart or Bontempelli (both 5xAA over the last 8 years) should increase the hit rate of enough players peaking together (as you already have one locked in, and for longer than the 5 years - Bont was 21 the first time he went AA).

However, if you don't have the team to put around them, a consistently great player won't win you flag, like Gary Ablett Jr:
  • Geelong - 4xAA & 2 flags from 2007 to 2010 (Geelong had 5 to 9 AA each year during this period)
  • Gold Coast - 4xAA & 0 flags 2011 to 2014 (Gold Coast's only AA over that period)
 
PeterSalt said:
There was great interview of WC high performance boss from their last premiership

I recall 1 comment of his in their thought process. They looked at each of the selected teams, and compared how many of the top 10 players on each list were selected / available to play.

They believed they could / would win because WC had 7 of their 10 available, while Collingwood had 6 (I may have these numbers wrong).

In essence, what they believed was that the team that was able to field more of the best 10 players on their lists was "more" likely to win
Click to expand...
I'd trust the WC high performance boss's judgement over mine, but I've always believed that the bottom 6 players in your team have almost as much impact as the top 15. It's the mismatches that kill/ make you.
 
Big Dub said:
I'd trust the WC high performance boss's judgement over mine, but I've always believed that the bottom 6 players in your team have almost as much impact as the top 15. It's the mismatches that kill/ make you.
Click to expand...
I found the link with a youtube video attached if you're interested in watching it. I don't have time to revisit it now, though remember enjoying watching at the time.

It's nearly 30 mins

smartabase.com

Performance Optimization Strategies That Helped Win a Championship

The West Coast Eagles used data aggregated to analyze stats and devise performance optimization strategies that helped win a championship.
smartabase.com smartabase.com
 
Big Dub said:
AA specifically in a premiership year, ie those that are performing in that year.

I've previously done some analysis that suggests squad depth (specifically how many elite, above average and average players in the squad) is a better indicator of premiership success than just elite players. You would expect most AA players to be at least above average players for a number of years either side of their AA selection.

The bulk of our players coming into their prime from 2025 onwards should help us with this.

I also wanted to have a look at Norm Smith medallists (or gf best players), as gut feel is that they more often than not are NOT AA in their Norm Smith year.
Click to expand...

The reason I asked is that anecdotally I feel that defenders are the position most likely to be selected AA in a given year based on ladder position.

Eg. the selectors look at the highest performing teams, and choose the best defenders from those teams. It's extremely rare that a defender from a weak team (especially KPD) would make it, even if they've had a great season

Midfielders are usually selected on a mixture of form and reputation, plus there are more available spots, so you get a mixture of both the elite midfield units in the league and great players from other teams.

The forwards pretty much lock themselves in based on goals and it's not always the best teams that have the highest goal kickers, especially if a weak team has only one good forward that everyone directs goals to (eg Nick Larkey). If you had an elite forward line with two great forwards, but neither was in the top 3 goal kickers, you'd never get an AA

If I went back and had a look at (for example) the three time Richmond premiership team that side had:

Defense - Rance (5xAA), Grimes (1xAA), Houli (1xAA),
Midfield & Mid-Forward - Martin (4xAA), Cotchin (1xAA), Edwards (1xAA), Bolton (1xAA)
Forward - Riewoldt (3xAA), Lynch (1xAA)

This allows for All Australians before, during and after premiership years, in other words whether the player is good even if it's not recognized in that specific year.

Rance had the most AAs but only featured in the 2017 flag. But typically that is a spread you'd expect for an elite premiership team, most of the quality is in the midfield and forward line

Here's the 2018 West Coast side

Defense - McGovern (4xAA), Hurn (2xAA)
Midfield & Mid-Forward - Yeo (2xAA)
Forward - Kennedy (3xAA), Darling (1xAA), LeCras (1xAA), Ryan (1xAA)

Not as much in the midfield, but stacked up forward and a couple of great defenders

Melbourne in 2021

Defense - May (2xAA), Lever (1xAA), Hibberd (1xAA)
Midfield & Mid-Forward - Petracca (4xAA), Oliver (3xAA)
Forward -
Ruck - Gawn (6xAA)

Stacked in the midfield, nothing up forward, good players in defense

Hawthorn's three peat

Defense - Lake (2xAA), Frawley (1xAA), Birchall (1xAA), Gibson (1xAA), Burgoyne (1xAA)
Midfield & Mid-Forward - Mitchell (3xAA), Hodge (3xAA), Lewis (1xAA)
Forward - Franklin (8xAA) Rioli (3xAA), Bruest (2xAA), Roughead (2xAA), Gunston (1xAA)

Franklin only there for one flag in that period but this was a stacked side on all lines

Geelong in 2022

Defense - Stewart (5xAA)
Midfield & Mid-Forward - Dangerfield (8xAA), Selwood (6xAA), Blicavs (1xAA), Guthrie (1xAA)
Forward - Hawkins (5xAA), Cameron (3xAA), Stengle (1xAA)

Bulldogs in 2016

Defense - Boyd (3xAA), Morris (1xAA), Wood (1xAA), Daniel (1xAA)
Midfield & Mid-Forward - Bontempelli (5xAA), Macrae (3xAA)
Forward - Stringer (1xAA)

Collingwood in 2023 (although some players could continue earning AAs)

Defense - Moore (2xAA), Maynard (1xAA)
Midfield & Mid-Forward - Pendlebury (6xAA), Mitchell (2xAA), Sidebottom (1xAA), J. Daicos (1xAA), N. Daicos (1xAA)
Forward -

So in summary over the last decade
  • Not one flag won without at least one midfielder that is multiple All Australian quality
  • Five of the seven teams had two or more multiple All Australian midfielders
  • Four of the seven teams had three or more All Australian midfielders
  • Four of the seven teams had at least one multiple All Australian forward
  • Three teams had zero or one AA forwards, suggesting it's possible to win a flag with no forward line. However all three sides had at least 8 All Australian jumpers awarded to the midfield
  • Every side had at least one AA defender. Six of the seven teams had multiple AA defenders.
  • Only one team had more AA jumpers awarded to defenders than to the midfield
  • However four teams had more AA jumpers awarded to defenders than to forwards. All four of these sides had at least one midfielder with a minimum of four AA jumpers
I would say based on this that a premiership team makeup MUST have a top tier midfielder. If a team chooses to skimp on the forward line, the midfield must be even stronger than average. Defense is non-negotiable, but the midfield cannot be weaker than the defense. And if defense is stronger than the forward line, the midfield must be (again) stronger than average. Rucks are irrelevant
 

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