dahlhaus wat

Dahlhaus is elite. Ablett mould who gets a tonne of contested footy and hits the score sheet.

In player rankings midfielders are always going to dominate as the position is just so much more valuable intrinsically than any other.Think of them like QB's in the NFL .

Robbie Gray is a great player and a fine bloke - but putting him before say Joel Selwood would not be the choice of any AFL coach

Fyfe is plainly top 5 - son of god should be uncontroversial as first picked in the list - Selwood, Franklin - then I struggle... - I don't think it is Mumford but I think he is clearly a much bigger loss for the Giants if injured than Gray will ever be for the Power

You could say that about most number 1 rucks. Doesnt make them any better as a player. Gray is better than Jelwood. Fyfe is the one where you can say is better or not. Its of my opinion that Gray is the best player in the comp.

pretty clear that rucks are lol and don't matter at this point

Unless you believe in the AFL player ratings in which case Defenders and Key Forwards come in last

what do people actually think of the ratings, i think they are 'ok'. i mean they get the top few guys essentially correct. basically i'd take them over the average person's opinion because i think the level of smarts around afl discussion is pretty low

on rucks, hitouts correlate only marginally to clearances, imo having an extra player around the ground who impacts the game is much more important. goons who do nothing around the ground are hurting their team even if they win hitouts on average

Always wondered about if you are better off when you play Freo not bothering playing a Ruck at all given that you are going to lose the hit outs anyway.Have a random player stay close enough that Sandilands can't catch and play the ball himself but other than that don't contest the bounce.

I know the guy who built them, he's a stats PhD and a decently smart dude.

I think they are clearly better for determining true player value than any other statistical measure available, and are really good for a given game or set of games (like for example this season). I think though the way they actually add it up and give them an 'overall' score seems pretty arbitrary and is too delayed/doesn't weight recency enough.

Agreed re: the ruck contest in general. But all of the good ruckmen do more than just get hitouts. Goldstein and Nik Nat are beasts around the ground.

Made this up

Interesting stuff.

Gray mainly plays across half forward too, which what makes his stats even more amazing.

Re Nic Nat. He lacks AFL IQ to even be relevant imo. Brother played with him and he has no idea how to ctually play at AFL level. He is just a freak athlete and prob the best tap ruckman in the game. Honestly think he has 0 presence on the ground other than at stoppages.

RE afl ratings, I think they are pretty way off imo,

nicnat is def one of the better rucks and one of the few worth playing. but imo his around the ground work is actually a weakness. he takes barely any marks, and just doesn't seem to read the play that well. i think his strength is his impact once the ball hits the deck at clearances. for applying pressure and making an impact at ground level at clearances there's no ruck in the same league

i think he gets hated on a bit because it's easy to drool over his potential given what a beast athlete he is, and i agree he could be amazing if he "knew how to play", but he's still pretty good

I can't decide if not having a ruckman is a fantastic and revolutionary idea no-one has ever thought of and tried before or whether the standard of AFL discussion is commonly pretty low

but seriously - it is hard to judge the impact of a ruckman - it is not a sexy role or one well represented in the stats

take the second half of the Fremantle game from the weekend - if Fremantle didn't have Sandilands dominating the ruck contest the extra 4-5 clearances (at least) they got as a result might of been the difference between winning and losing - and it is not an answer to say the other team can just adjust by assuming Sandilands is going to get the hitout - that is hardly a new concept and I am sure the Adelaide midfield had that as part of their game plan

Big Blizty > NicNat imo.

yeah that we can largely agree about - I rank Mumford for a similar reason - with a young inexperienced midfield like the Giants have his physical presence at the stoppages is clutch - you just need to look at what happened when he was out last year to see that

when kicking out after a behind and the opposition have all the areas inside 50 accounted for who do you kick it to ? - go long to the 6'10' 115 kilo dude who can gaurantee you a contest but won't get a stat for that - when you have time to set up in defence who can you rely on to stop the power forwards like Franklin, J Riewoldt, or even that Dixon kid for the shinboners ? - try marking in a pack when one of the opposition guys is a big ruckman - very unlikely to happen but again no stat for that

all that plus I guess the main game for a ruckman is stop the other ruckman - it is a dull but crucial role

The Betts kick was actually a weird one. From that angle, most players would usually kick a "banana" kick, where the ball aims to curl in the air, but in this case Betts ended up with a "torpedo" esque kick, which is almost like an NFL punt. Either way, he is a great player as a small forward to compliment Tex Walker (#13 the big forward).

Depends on how you want to measure it. Dayne Beams probably not getting enough love from Brisbane.

If I was going forward and all the players were in a draft (in a who do you want going forward way) its probably something like Fyfe one and then a bunch of younger players with high projected value (such as Wines, Bontempelli, Yeo, Shiel etc...) since the value of them for 10 years is better than Ablett for three obviously in the same way people wouldn't value Peyton Manning highly long term.

The best term for the 50m areas is generally either the "forward" 50 and the defensive 50. The actual lines on the field do nothing except for aesthetic purposes at the game and on TV (there is no rules about who can and can not be in each areas)

Marking is quite a skill, in particular when facing pressure from players or in packs (big crowds). It is what makes some big forwards overpaid relative to their talent at other areas such as kicking for goal (Travis Cloke for Collingwood is a prime example as someone on a very large contract but with some fundamental problems with his game)

I don't mind the idea, but what the Bulldogs did a few weeks ago was stupid (Aaron Sandilands is really tall, and since they changed the rules about run ups is almost unbeatable in terms of total taps. To counter, rather than their best tap ruck in Minson they instead used an army of smaller guys to just contest. However, using Bontempelli (young superstar, massive talent going forward) as one of those ruckmen was stupid since he could get seriously hurt and was almost equivalent to using your young talented QB on designated run players while down 30 with three minutes to play.

Maybe, but I would expect Sandilands to start just thumping the ball forward and gaining 20m right off the bat a lot, with Fremantle starting their wingers forward of centre. There was a preseason game vs WCE years ago when Mark Seaby was just destroyed in the centre of the ground and Sandi kept doing this, and we couldnt stop it.

Anyway, projected table based on nothing but my own 2 minute opinion

Freo
Hawthorn
Sydney
WCE
GWS
North
Collingwood
Geelong
-------------
WB
Adelaide
Port
Richmond
Essendon
St.Kilda
Melbourne
Brisbane
Carlton
GC

Outside of the top 3 and the bottom 5, it is a very even competition though. I think this could be another year where we see a team in the bottom half of the eight get hot in September and push a preliminary final really close like we saw with Port Adelaide last year.

wow, with so many marks made close to the line i assumed players needed to mark the ball within the circle to be allowed to kick a goal with a free run-up.

when a player marks a ball in the forward 50 at a bad angle, why don't they attempt a short kick to a teammate to improve the angle and increase the chance of scoring? the same could apply for very long attempts, making a short pass to your best kicker for example.

also if anyone outside of Australia has AFL Livepass, are there any reason to pay $140 for a full year rather than $100 for the next 4 months? this sport perfectly covers the worst American sports dead-zone it's almost too good to be true.

Big call on WCE. Only decent team they have beaten is Port. Lost to 2 other top 8 teams.

i think the problem with dogs v freo was that ayce cordy sucks so they didn't really gain anything out of not playing minson. sandi didn't kill the dogs that game, they only lost clearances 33-38, to be expected vs freos mids iyam

rucks who provide something else AND win hitouts are fine, it's just that the 5 or so oafs who are employed every year to "be tall" without providing any value other than hitouts are probably costing their team in the long run, and i think the trend currently will move in the direction of more mobile/skilled rucks

guys near the boundary do attempt to centre it when it's there but defenders are usually paranoid about it, if a team manages to do it successfully it's usually because someone ****ed up. one of the core tenets of defense is to force it to the sides. when teams are allowed to move the ball quickly through the centre the EV of the possession is waaaay higher

so phil walsh was murdered last night, sounds like by his son

what do we think they do with the round? some pundits on the radio this morning suggest cancelling the whole round, seems too fair. i think the adelaide/geelong game gets cancelled and they split the points

Really awful news.

I think they'll go ahead with the round. Not really sure how you handle the Adelaide game tho, can split points but not really sure if that's something Geelong would want to really do (they might do it just because, bad PR to really fight it)

Don't see why they would cancel the other games.Let the Crows decide whether they play or not seems fine.

i meant to say far there, not fair. i agree, can't cancel the round especially since it's already begun

sounds like he had a contentious relationship with his son by some reports

The Cats and Crows play each other in the last round if they cancel this game they should make that one the first true 8 point game