Finals 2009

Week One

No surprises.
AFLMad picked four winners.

EXIT
Bombers
Out of their league, as a 96 point thrashing would suggest.
Only 10 home and away wins.
Finals next year far from certain.
AFLMad suggests - Find some talls. Quickly.

Blues
Overrun by desperate Lions.
List still falls away badly.
Defense is flakey.
Need second marking forward.
Cloke and Thornton don't really cut it.

SURVIVORS
Brisbane
Brave.
Inspirational last quarter goals to Bradshaw and Rich.
Will lose to Dogs this week.

Footscray
Look vulnerable against the top teams.

Collingwood.
Unreliable forward line exposed in the last two weeks.
Opposition coaches must love Didak playing up the field. No pain.
Midfield too slow.
Too many outsiders.
What the hell was Rocca doing there?
Out in straight sets.

Adelaide
Red hot.
Dour and drilled is suddenly high-scoring and devastating.
Should be able to close down the Pies and score enough to win.
Tagging Swan is the key.

St Kilda
Smooth.

Geelong
Holding together. For now.

Welcome to 2007

Welcome back to AFLMAD for 2007.

It's round 5. Time to assess the early rounds and those pre-season tips.

I had the final ladder divided into 4 groups of 4.  Here they are in no particular order.

TOP 4

West Coast

Sydney

Adelaide

Footscray

NEXT 4

Fremantle

Port Adelaide

Melbourne

Geelong

JUST OUT OF THE FINALS

St KIlda

Collingwood

Brisbane

Richmond

 

CELLAR DWELLERS

Essendon

Hawthorn

Carlton

North

2006 Diary - Bulldogs

What a great year under considerable duress. A definite top-four and hence premiership chance next year. Need a good run with injury (doesn't everyone) and would love to pick up a tall defender like Michael or Bradshaw from Brisbane.

Darcy may play as permanent tall forward with Grant in defence. Need their champions to maintain output.

2006 Diary - Geelong

Grant Thomas's sacking has pushed the Cats off the front page.
However, their "club review" continues, with the scapegoat set to be coach, Mark Thompson.
While we all expected Geelong to do well this year, the feeling at AFLMad is that they have missed their opportunity for a flag.
The Corio Bay crew will again need to rebuild, with emphasis on a marking forward, and some rucking strength to take into their next tilt at the top four in two or three years time.
We recommend keeping the coach. Sometimes players need to be blamed when teams underperform.
Troublemakers need to be moved on. It's hard for a new coach to cut high profile players from lists, especially first time coaches.
Suggestions:
Set sites on 2009.
Keep the coach.
Move out the 'old timers'.
Sack the players which have let the club down.
Sack the trouble- makers.
Decide which one of the potential centre half forwards is going to be the long term prospect and play him.

2006 Diary - Melbourne

Melbourne's new found 'hard-edge' went missing in their final against Freo. They continually went wide as they struggled to win contested ball. McLean is going to need help in the future.
While Miller impressed with fifteen marks, most were either beyond fifty or out towards the boundary and didn't really hurt the Dockers.
Recommendations-
Look beyond winning home and away games.
More hard nuts required on the ball.
If Miller is to be a marking forward, he needs to play closer to goal.

Freo's plan to Beat Sydney I

As Terry Wallace points out in today's Sun, Aaron Sandilands is the key to a Freo victory against the Swans' lock-down style.

Sydney's dominance at the stoppages must be broken to open the door to a Fremantle victory.

May we suggest that the Dockers look to Brisabane's 2003 Grand Final strategy of punching the ball clear of traffic at every ball-up to find their edge. Punch Aaron! Punch!

Potential Coaches

Suddenly there are a bunch of potential coaching jobs available. We understand the likely candidates are:

John Longmire

Darren Creswell

Mark Harvey

Gary Ayres

Brian Royal

Chris Bond

Garry Lyon

Denis Pagan

Danny Frawley

 

Not much experience there, even less success!

2006 Diary - Collingwood

The Magpies were humiliated by the Bulldogs in their elimination final.

They have stuck to their game-plan despite their midfield being slow  and their forward structure archaic and ineffectual.

The shortfalls were badly exposed.

Mick Malthouse claimed at the start of the year that improvement would come from the return of senior players that missed large portions of 2005. While it is true that the team had a better year than last, the basis of the improvement was more from the younger than the experienced group.

Malthouse has backed this senior group for seven years, but the their time is up. The tall forward set-up has failed, with only twenty goals from fourteen finals. The on-ballers move like Galapagos Tortoises.

We recommend:

Accept that a premiership is at least three years away.

Disband the pedestrian on-ball group.

Develop a more modern forward line.

 

References:

Robert Walls

Jake Niall

2006 Diaries - St Kilda

The chiefs at Moorabbin have beat us to it, with the first big scalp for the off-season, coach Grant Thomas, sacked today. It's hard to disagree with this move as Thomas's off-beat style doesn't sit well with the perception of underachievement of a gifted list.
The Saints have suffered through injury this year, but were probably only missing two of their best twenty-two last Friday, with Hayes and Maguire sidelined with serious leg injuries.
Elsewhere at St Kilda, there are the dual problems of ageing players and a group of 'footsoldiers' that are way behind their gifted colleagues in talent. Make no mistake, while the Saints have an elite group as good as any, the overall quality is behind that of the league leaders.
We recommend:
The club accept that the list needs improvement before they again challenge for the top four.
Cull five aging players from last week's team.
Seek an experienced ruckman.
Draft some strong 'inside" players.

2006 Diaries

To kick off the end of the season, we'll be commenting on the finalists as they fall by the wayside.
Was their year wasted or are they on the improve?
We'll tell you where they are going and what they should do over the summer.

Welcome

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The blog where we call footy as we see it.
Please comment or add your two bob's worth.