Strategy Trade and List management Thread Part 6 (opposition supporters - READ posting rules before posting)

[Anja_Nees]

One remotely comparable player to get a first rounder at that age was Shaun Burgoyne, but he was 28, Port's Vice-Captain and firmly best 22. I could not fathom trading Macrae out with our mids list profile of Bont, Treloar, Libba and then not much until a developing Sanders and an ACL recovering Bailey Smith.

The loss of Lipinski and Dunkley hurts badly in terms of age profile. Treloar, Bont and Libba are holding up but if one or two seriously lost form we’d have issues. We already do really.

 

[Golden_6]

I think it's fairly clear he has though when you consider his role in the team last year.

I hope he hasn't, and I'd love to be proven wrong but there's a few considerations here. A new coach would do Jack a world of good, whether that's at the Dogs or elsewhere remains to be seen.

One could argue that the coaching staff realised that we had too many centre square mids and identified Jacko as the player most likely to be able to succeed in a high half forward role.

I mean he essentially still played midfield and averaged 28 touches a game. It wasn’t like he was plonked in a forward pocket and left to rot. He had a clear role to move up to the contest as an extra midfielder.

 

[doggies ftw]

The loss of Lipinski and Dunkley hurts badly in terms of age profile. Treloar, Bont and Libba are holding up but if one or two seriously lost form we’d have issues. We already do really.

Well never know how our next gen midfield is tracking if we never use them

Centre Bounce Attendance
26 - Bontempelli, Liberatore
22 - English, Treloar
7 - Lobb
5 - Sanders
4 - Harmes
3 - Gallagher
1 - Daniel

We have to move past this shit

 

[Anja_Nees]

Well never know how our next gen midfield is tracking if we never use them

Centre Bounce Attendance
26 - Bontempelli, Liberatore
22 - English, Treloar
7 - Lobb
5 - Sanders
4 - Harmes
3 - Gallagher
1 - Daniel

We have to move past this s**t

Not really sure who our young kids actually are.

I would have thought West but he seems to have been stamped as a forward. Garcia hasn’t been selected.

Sanders and Gallagher I guess but they’ve just debuted. We definitely need to blood new young mids. Not sure the people the club views as the next gen are actually on the list yet.

 

[Anja_Nees]

One could argue that the coaching staff realised that we had too many centre square mids and identified Jacko as the player most likely to be able to succeed in a high half forward role.

I mean he essentially still played midfield and averaged 28 touches a game. It wasn’t like he was plonked in a forward pocket and left to rot. He had a clear role to move up to the contest as an extra midfielder.

He was shocking in the first few games in the centre. Really looked like he was struggling, whether it was fitness or form. I think the new role actually worked pretty well initially last year. Hard to judge it’s success later given the whole team went to hell in the second half of the year.

 

[adogsfan5]

Well never know how our next gen midfield is tracking if we never use them

Centre Bounce Attendance
26 - Bontempelli, Liberatore
22 - English, Treloar
7 - Lobb
5 - Sanders
4 - Harmes
3 - Gallagher
1 - Daniel

We have to move past this s**t

You’d think after getting pantsed in there again on the weekend you’d try Weightman, Naughton (club even spoke about this option), use more Daniel, send Harmes to Petracca, and maybe, just maybe, Tim would learn what Grundy did last week and move around Gawn so that he can try move away from the ruck fend off.

You know, just some basic learnings?

 

[King Harold]

You’d think after getting pantsed in there again on the weekend you’d try Weightman, Naughton (club even spoke about this option), use more Daniel, send Harmes to Petracca, and maybe, just maybe, Tim would learn what Grundy did last week and move around Gawn so that he can try move away from the ruck fend off.

You know, just some basic learnings?

You would have thought !
It’s staggering to me how little we change , unless I’m missing something.

I’m old enough to remember, coaches would sometimes exchange backs with forwards during the game when the rot sets in.
Sometimes it actually worked !

 

[Golden_6]

Well never know how our next gen midfield is tracking if we never use them

Centre Bounce Attendance
26 - Bontempelli, Liberatore
22 - English, Treloar
7 - Lobb
5 - Sanders
4 - Harmes
3 - Gallagher
1 - Daniel

We have to move past this s**t

Those numbers are an out and out disgrace. Who does the blame fall on? Bevo? Lade? All of them?

We have so many capable midfielders yet we trot out the same 3 for 80%+ of the game. There is zero justification for playing Bont & Libba in the guts for 26 out of 29 centre bounces. It's no wonder we looked even worse in the last quarter. Both of those guys should be hovering around the 20 mark with others played allowed to share the loads.

 

[Sentinel]

Those numbers are an out and out disgrace. Who does the blame fall on? Bevo? Lade? All of them?

We have so many capable midfielders yet we trot out the same 3 for 80%+ of the game. There is zero justification for playing Bont & Libba in the guts for 26 out of 29 centre bounces. It's no wonder we looked even worse in the last quarter. Both of those guys should be hovering around the 20 mark with others played allowed to share the loads.

Do we?

 

[doggies ftw]

Those numbers are an out and out disgrace. Who does the blame fall on? Bevo? Lade? All of them?

We have so many capable midfielders yet we trot out the same 3 for 80%+ of the game. There is zero justification for playing Bont & Libba in the guts for 26 out of 29 centre bounces. It's no wonder we looked even worse in the last quarter. Both of those guys should be hovering around the 20 mark with others played allowed to share the loads.

Yep it’s pretty crazy, especially when it was clearly a focus in the preseason. I mean why did we trial Naughty there and he was being soundly beaten on the day and we didn’t even think to run him through there.

What could actually go worse? We’re so ****ing afraid when really we have nothing to lose.

If we take it at face value that Macrae is injured, CD is out of form and Sanders/Harmes were poor on the day we still should have tried the likes of Cody, Naughty, West - one of our best on the day and the only guy who looked like he gave a ****, I don’t really want to disturb his role but he could have had an influence. A larger role for Harmes who was brought in for this exact thing. Richards who ran rings around a few of our mids in preseason, couldn’t hurt to try him there considering the state of the game?

We’re just so scared to make any moves, and once again we’ve thrown out every plan from preseason within 2 qtrs of the real stuff starting. Not for the first time.

 

[Golden_6]

Do we?

Yes. Harmes, Sanders, Daniel and to a lesser extent Weightman can be used in the middle for periods to allow our top tier players an actual break. The game is played over 4 quarters and you need your players fresh when it counts.

 

[Sharpiesadog]

We can’t keep rotatingBont, Libby and Treloar through the middle and expect different results. They are all great in their own way, but the combination lacks defensive integrity.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Those numbers are an out and out disgrace. Who does the blame fall on? Bevo? Lade? All of them?

We have so many capable midfielders yet we trot out the same 3 for 80%+ of the game. There is zero justification for playing Bont & Libba in the guts for 26 out of 29 centre bounces. It's no wonder we looked even worse in the last quarter. Both of those guys should be hovering around the 20 mark with others played allowed to share the loads.

There is justification. It's called playing your best players in the most important positions in a hope that you will win this game, and ultimately, this season's premiership. Get a grip people. We still have to try and win games. If we lost by a bigger margin because we were playing other players in more important positions, people would equally be critcising it (I can imagine complaints of "what benefit is there in playing young players midfield in a 15 goal loss when you get thrashed? Isn't that what Libba and Bont are for? etc.).

Ultimately, it's one game. Until we're more or less mathematically knocked out of finals (say a <10% chance, currently about 25-30%, was about 35-40% before this game), there's no point worrying about future development, otherwise we're just short-changing our possibility of winning current games in the hope that it'll make a difference in winning future games. Do we not all see how counter-productive and flawed that is?

If this team is truly as bad as the pessimists here say it is, it won't be long until we are such that little chance of making finals - indeed we are still favourites to beat GC, so that factors into the 25-30% chance. Two or three more losses will see that chance drop like a stone, and ultimately, by the end of the season whether we gave Gallagher or whoever 14 games instead 18 games in the midfield rotation or whatever won't make a huge difference to the quality of player he is in 2025 and beyond.

I bet North Melbourne wishes they didn't move on their veterans when they did, in order to give experience to their young players, many of whom just weren't very good and despite "development" as players they failed to be good enough to get them back up the ladder. It's always a risk when you do things like this.

 

[doggies ftw]

There is justification. It's called playing your best players in the most important positions in a hope that you will win this game, and ultimately, this season's premiership. Get a grip people. We still have to try and win games. If we lost by a bigger margin because we were playing other players in more important positions, people would equally be critcising it (I can imagine complaints of "what benefit is there in playing young players midfield in a 15 goal loss when you get thrashed? Isn't that what Libba and Bont are for? etc.).

Ultimately, it's one game. Until we're more or less mathematically knocked out of finals (say a <10% chance, currently about 25-30%, was about 35-40% before this game), there's no point worrying about future development, otherwise we're just short-changing our possibility of winning current games in the hope that it'll make a difference in winning future games. Do we not all see how counter-productive and flawed that is?

If this team is truly as bad as the pessimists here say it is, it won't be long until we are such that little chance of making finals - indeed we are still favourites to beat GC, so that factors into the 25-30% chance. Two or three more losses will see that chance drop like a stone, and ultimately, by the end of the season whether we gave Gallagher or whoever 14 games instead 18 games in the midfield rotation or whatever won't make a huge difference to the quality of player he is in 2025 and beyond.

I bet North Melbourne wishes they didn't move on their veterans when they did, in order to give experience to their young players, many of whom just weren't very good and despite "development" as players they failed to be good enough to get them back up the ladder. It's always a risk when you do things like this.

What are you talking about? No ones talking about future development - we’re talking about giving ourselves the best chance to win. Clearly being so heavily reliant on 3 guys, and running them into the ground is not working. Especially when two of those guys are on the wrong side of 30.

Good teams have much heavier midfield rotation numbers, not because the rotations are better midfielders because clearly the output drops when your first choice midfield is being run into the ground. Otherwise we’d just play Bont and Libba there at every CB because their our best players, obviously in the real world it doesn’t work like that.

No one would care about how many rotations we had if it was working and our midfield was firing, it’s clearly not. This has nothing to do with developing players it’s to do with sharing the load so we can get the best out of our best players for longer and when we need it

 

[doggies ftw]

There is justification. It's called playing your best players in the most important positions in a hope that you will win this game, and ultimately, this season's premiership. Get a grip people. We still have to try and win games. If we lost by a bigger margin because we were playing other players in more important positions, people would equally be critcising it (I can imagine complaints of "what benefit is there in playing young players midfield in a 15 goal loss when you get thrashed? Isn't that what Libba and Bont are for? etc.).

Ultimately, it's one game. Until we're more or less mathematically knocked out of finals (say a <10% chance, currently about 25-30%, was about 35-40% before this game), there's no point worrying about future development, otherwise we're just short-changing our possibility of winning current games in the hope that it'll make a difference in winning future games. Do we not all see how counter-productive and flawed that is?

If this team is truly as bad as the pessimists here say it is, it won't be long until we are such that little chance of making finals - indeed we are still favourites to beat GC, so that factors into the 25-30% chance. Two or three more losses will see that chance drop like a stone, and ultimately, by the end of the season whether we gave Gallagher or whoever 14 games instead 18 games in the midfield rotation or whatever won't make a huge difference to the quality of player he is in 2025 and beyond.

I bet North Melbourne wishes they didn't move on their veterans when they did, in order to give experience to their young players, many of whom just weren't very good and despite "development" as players they failed to be good enough to get them back up the ladder. It's always a risk when you do things like this.

Look at Melbournes numbers



Compared to ours:




Melbourne obviously aren’t playing their best players only 60-70% game time in the middle because they’re trying to ‘develop younger players’ they’re doing it because realistically thats the most any mid should be playing most weeks, not 90%

 

[Golden_6]

Look at Melbournes numbers

View attachment 1932839

Compared to ours:

View attachment 1932840


Melbourne obviously aren’t playing their best players only 60-70% game time in the middle because they’re trying to ‘develop younger players’ they’re doing it because realistically thats the most any mid should be playing most weeks, not 90%

If you scroll through every single other side it’s clear that we’re the biggest anomaly in the league.

 

[doggies ftw]

If you scroll through every single other side it’s clear that we’re the biggest anomaly in the league.

Other sides clearly aren’t focused on winning otherwise they’d play their best players flat out in the most important positions

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Look at Melbournes numbers



Compared to ours:




Melbourne obviously aren’t playing their best players only 60-70% game time in the middle because they’re trying to ‘develop younger players’ they’re doing it because realistically thats the most any mid should be playing most weeks, not 90%

But we are forced to play our best mids more on the ball because we simply don't have the depth to do otherwise. People are complaining about our "bottom six" or our "lack of depth", but by definition we would be putting them in more important roles if we were to have Libba, Bont and Treloar in the middle less. Can't have it both ways!

 

[threenewpadlocks]

What are you talking about? No ones talking about future development - we’re talking about giving ourselves the best chance to win. Clearly being so heavily reliant on 3 guys, and running them into the ground is not working. Especially when two of those guys are on the wrong side of 30.

Good teams have much heavier midfield rotation numbers, not because the rotations are better midfielders because clearly the output drops when your first choice midfield is being run into the ground. Otherwise we’d just play Bont and Libba there at every CB because their our best players, obviously in the real world it doesn’t work like that.

No one would care about how many rotations we had if it was working and our midfield was firing, it’s clearly not. This has nothing to do with developing players it’s to do with sharing the load so we can get the best out of our best players for longer and when we need it

Can you actually specify what the optimum strategy would have otherwise been with our selected team?

If you actually break down the specific numbers, using your very own example they ran a five-mid rotation. Viney, Oliver, Petracca, Salem, Pickett. First four evenly split and Pickett picking up a moderate amount.

We also ran a five-player rotation - Bont, Treloar, Libba, Harmes, Sanders/Daniel.

So the difference being is that we gave more to Bont, Treloar and Libba. They gave a lot more to their fourth than our fourth (pick your difference between Harmes, Sanders/Daniel), gave a bit more to their fifth than our fifth (the other), but we also gave Gallagher, a sixth, when they didn't have a sixth at all (so actually going against your point).


Do you think:

• Harmes should have played more centre bounces (even though he played an awful game with only 3 kicks)
• Sanders should have played more centre bounces as a first gamer (even though we can assume he was struggling physically hence he should have been subbed out)
• We should have put Gallagher on the ball earlier?
• We should have introduced a seventh player as part of the rotation (even though your comparison point, Melbourne, didn't even have six?). If so, which player?

Given that you're the one presenting the fact that we is proposing that is "not working", can you please be explicit about which alternate option that I listed above would have worked better?

 

[dogwatch]

Wouldn't mind seeing Weightman given a few CBAs. Could solve two problems with the one move!

 

[doggies ftw]

Can you actually specify what the optimum strategy would have otherwise been with our selected team?

If you actually break down the specific numbers, using your very own example they ran a five-mid rotation. Viney, Oliver, Petracca, Salem, Pickett. First four evenly split and Pickett picking up a moderate amount.

We also ran a five-player rotation - Bont, Treloar, Libba, Harmes, Sanders/Daniel.

So the difference being is that we gave more to Bont, Treloar and Libba. They gave a lot more to their fourth than our fourth (pick your difference between Harmes, Sanders/Daniel), gave a bit more to their fifth than our fifth (the other), but we also gave Gallagher, a sixth, when they didn't have a sixth at all (so actually going against your point).


Do you think:

• Harmes should have played more centre bounces (even though he played an awful game with only 3 kicks)
• Sanders should have played more centre bounces as a first gamer (even though we can assume he was struggling physically hence he should have been subbed out)
• We should have put Gallagher on the ball earlier?
• We should have introduced a seventh player as part of the rotation (even though your comparison point, Melbourne, didn't even have six?). If so, which player?

Given that you're the one presenting the fact that we is proposing that is "not working", can you please be explicit about which alternate option that I listed above would have worked better?

Nah just keep doing what we’re doing mate working a treat

 

[Golden_6]

Can you actually specify what the optimum strategy would have otherwise been with our selected team?

If you actually break down the specific numbers, using your very own example they ran a five-mid rotation. Viney, Oliver, Petracca, Salem, Pickett. First four evenly split and Pickett picking up a moderate amount.

We also ran a five-player rotation - Bont, Treloar, Libba, Harmes, Sanders/Daniel.

So the difference being is that we gave more to Bont, Treloar and Libba. They gave a lot more to their fourth than our fourth (pick your difference between Harmes, Sanders/Daniel), gave a bit more to their fifth than our fifth (the other), but we also gave Gallagher, a sixth, when they didn't have a sixth at all (so actually going against your point).


Do you think:

• Harmes should have played more centre bounces (even though he played an awful game with only 3 kicks)
• Sanders should have played more centre bounces as a first gamer (even though we can assume he was struggling physically hence he should have been subbed out)
• We should have put Gallagher on the ball earlier?
• We should have introduced a seventh player as part of the rotation (even though your comparison point, Melbourne, didn't even have six?). If so, which player?

Given that you're the one presenting the fact that we is proposing that is "not working", can you please be explicit about which alternate option that I listed above would have worked better?

The reality of the situation is that Bont and Libba are unquestionably spending FAR too much time in the midfield. Not one other midfield in the league plays their best players that much in that position. I don't care if they are our best players, they need to be kept as fresh as possible to last full quarters and full games.

Do you ever wonder why our midfield is routinely smashed despite our mids racking up terrific numbers and being terrific individual players? Maybe they're cooked because they are doing too much heavy lifting? From your logic, they may as well spend 100% of the game on the ground and 100% in the midfield because they're our best players.

I don't care who the coaching staff puts in there, that's their job to find the right mix. Are you trying to tell me that a West or Weightman (or Harmes, Sanders or Daniel) can't spend 5 minutes a quarter on ball to inject some energy into the midfield and allow these guys to save their petrol tickets?

 

[threenewpadlocks]

The reality of the situation is that Bont and Libba are unquestionably spending FAR too much time in the midfield. Not one other midfield in the league plays their best players that much in that position. I don't care if they are our best players, they need to be kept as fresh as possible to last full quarters and full games.

Do you ever wonder why our midfield is routinely smashed despite our mids racking up terrific numbers and being terrific individual players? Maybe they're cooked because they are doing too much heavy lifting? From your logic, they may as well spend 100% of the game on the ground and 100% in the midfield because they're our best players.

I don't care who the coaching staff puts in there, that's their job to find the right mix. Are you trying to tell me that a West or Weightman (or Harmes, Sanders or Daniel) can't spend 5 minutes a quarter on ball to inject some energy into the midfield and allow these guys to save their petrol tickets?

I don't disagree in what you're suggesting that playing Bont and Libba on ball so much exhausts them.

But even with the value-add of a rested Bont/Libba, are you really suggesting that West, Weightman, Harmes, Sanders and Daniel up against Oliver and Petracca - their 'injected energy' - would have had better outcomes? The combination of previous form there (West), lack of ever having actually done it in the past/trained there (Weightman), or the realities of in-game management against what we had planned (Harmes' bad game/Sanders getting even more exhausted). Daniel we should have put in the middle more granted, but keep in mind that it was Gallagher that took the 3 at the start of the 4th quarter that he could have taken, which isn't the complaining about (or Daniel should have taken them when the game was done and dusted)?

I don't agree that my logic infers 100% time on ground/centre bounce attendances because there's obviously an exponential element to the amount above an "optimal" amount. In other words if 23 out of 30 or whatever centre bounce attendances is ideal for Bont, than the drop-off of quality between 23 and 25, on average across all 25, is less than the drop off of quality between 25 and 27, on average across all 27. And in turn between 27 and 29. If that makes sense. So (for the sake of argument) Gallagher's 3 centre bounces replacing Bont's 27 out of 30 suggests Gallagher would do a better job on average for 3 vs Bont 27, but not on average for 6 vs. Bont 24. If that also makes sense. Ideally if Sanders didn't blow up physically, he would have attended 12 or whatever replacing Bont and Libba 27 down to 24, but he did, so even an exhausted Bont and Libba 25, 26 and 27 is better than West 1, 2, 3. In my view, at least.

In other words I just can't accept that the overall result would have been better if halfway through the 2nd or 3rd quarter we just spun the magnets and said "West and Weightman, you're going in the middle". With them matching up against Petracca and Oliver (lol). As much as I agree we should look to diversify the midfield rotation heading forward, but that might simply be as easy as Sanders not blowing up physically next week.

 

[Anja_Nees]

I don't disagree in what you're suggesting that playing Bont and Libba on ball so much exhausts them.

But even with the value-add of a rested Bont/Libba, are you really suggesting that West, Weightman, Harmes, Sanders and Daniel up against Oliver and Petracca - their 'injected energy' - would have had better outcomes? The combination of previous form there (West), lack of ever having actually done it in the past/trained there (Weightman), or the realities of in-game management against what we had planned (Harmes' bad game/Sanders getting even more exhausted). Daniel we should have put in the middle more granted, but keep in mind that it was Gallagher that took the 3 at the start of the 4th quarter that he could have taken, which isn't the complaining about (or Daniel should have taken them when the game was done and dusted)?

In other words I just can't accept that the overall result would have been better if halfway through the 2nd or 3rd quarter we just spun the magnets and said "West and Weightman, you're going in the middle". With them matching up against Petracca and Oliver (lol). As much as I agree we should look to diversify the midfield rotation heading forward, but that might simply be as easy as Sanders not blowing up physically next week.

I don’t really disagree, but I think West is one who at least could go through there. Daniel could as well, but neither is exactly imposing.

I don’t think we have much in the way of developing mids on the list at the moment.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

I don’t really disagree, but I think West is one who at least could go through there. Daniel could as well, but neither is exactly imposing.

I don’t think we have much in the way of developing mids on the list at the moment.

And I'm not against an attempt to develop whatever (relatively weak) developing midfielders we have, should we continue to play poorly.

Like I said in another post, we are about a 28% chance to make finals. We are also more-than-slight favourites against Gold Coast, which is a contributing factor to the 28%. So logically, should we lose to Gold Coast, our finals chancers will crater to sub 15% or whatever, despite only being two games into a 23 game season. I'm all for playing Weightman and West and whoever on the ball, even if it loses us games than Bont centre bounce beyond 70%, if we don't think we can make finals. But we will have 21 games to do it after this week, which in the grand scheme of things is no difference to 22 games if we were to start this week. But lets try to use Bont and Libba - even to the point of exhaustion - to increase our small chances of making finals this year, first?