Lloyd, Lovett, Lucas and McPhee

[gringo]

I just went through a list of the best players for each game this year, as provided by EFC, and interestingly, Lloyd, Lovett, Lucas and McPhee were named in our best players no less than 29 times. That's almost 7.5 times each.

Arguably, we've lost our best forward, our second best midfielder (arguably our most influential), our best utitility and Lucas, who was probably past his best.

Couple that with a very tough draw, a record low number of wins getting you into a final, a disasterous performance in our final and some absurd victories, I'm really struggling to see how we go forwards next year.

Unless we get a dramatic improvement from some of our young midfielders (Zhaha, Remiers, Houli, Myers, Lonergan, Hocking) and have a fantastic run with injuried, I think we're a bottom four side next year.

[paddyl90]

[gringo]

You think yu've heard this before JumboPaddy?

I was beginning to wonder last night why everyone is so optimistic arounud here about our prospects for next year. So I did a little research re the importance of the four aforementioned players just to see whether I was putting too high a premium on their importance this year...but it looks like I wasn't.

Can someone please explain, I'm looking at you Sir Filthy, why you think we are a top four prospect next year? Please refer to some data, like I have, to back up your predictions.

[paddyl90]

You know what gringo my optimism levels for next year are quite similar to yours. Except I don't think we will finish in the bottom 4, but not far off. Only because with lack of experience and a tough draw is the reason I think we won't finish in the top 8. That's what I think. Re: the I just enjoy reading your posts thats all.

[robbie67]

I would be guessing that Lovett would account for about 18 out of those 29 Gringo? If you look at from a “performance” on the field only perspective, then Lovett is the only one we are going to miss. McPhee had two or three good games, and was outstanding on ANZAC Day, but unless you are “having a fiddle” as you’d like to say, he was bloody ordinary again. Lucas was finished, and just didn’t have the pace to keep up anymore. You can say what you like about Lloyd being played out of position, the fact of the matter is, he gave us nothing last year.

Lloyd and Lucas will be sorely missed, but that will be more from a leadership stand point than anything they have been doing on the field of late.

You are being sucked in by reputation Gringo.

For the record, I have us winning 10 -12, and sneaking into or just missing out on the 8 again.

[ealesy]

You play Hurley CHF/HFF he will kick more than 35 goals, I would be confident in saying that Gumbleton would kick more than 35 goals playing a similar role if he remains injury free.

There you've replaced Lloyd and Lucas with a couple of players who will give more output.

McPhee, was servicable with a couple of very good games, played a role that I reckon Cale Hooker will able to perform to a similar standard.

The one that will hurt is Lovett, a don't think his placing in the B&F is indicative of his importance to the team last year. His first 16-18 games were first class, his last 5 or so were poo. I reckon his placing in the B&F was more indicative of his relationship with the coaches and also possibly the playing group.

Although it provides a kid with the opportunity to stand up and cement a spot in the team, an older player to take another step up and fill the gap.

I can understand your pessimism, and I really wouldn't be surprised if we dropped back a little this year given the experience we have lost, would not be surprised if we missed the finals, I would be surprised if we finished bottom 4 though.

[gringo]

Lady Gaga:

You want the truth...you can't handle the truth.

Below is the Cricton votes. Only McPhee makes top 10. You "best" midfielder doesn't even make top ten. We get half a season out of McVeigh, Woosh and Prismall (109 votes), injury interrupted Davey season and hopefully expect a full season from them and the forgotten Hille, Laymember (even if he stands a pocket, he'll take a tall defender), Reimers, Houli, Gumbleton et al and I hear great stuff about Still. And then there is Williams being recruited. Lloyd and Lucas were done. Yet we still win 10.5 games and make the 8 albeit with only 26 guys to chose from in the Final vs a Adelaide full list over there.....conveniently forgotten by naysayers like you who never have anything positive to say about anything or anyone.

You once again show zero football knowledge and game time experience. It must be frustrating for you so all you do is knock, and carp and put down the Club from the Coach and Pres down. You are pathetic and the butt of jokes and opinion indifference.

Cricton Medal:

1. Jobe Watson – 335
2. Dustin Fletcher – 289
3. Brent Stanton – 284
4. Patrick Ryder – 223
5. Jason Winderlich – 220
6. Tayte Pears – 204
7. Ricky Dyson – 201
8. Angus Monfries – 197
9. Adam McPhee – 192
10. Henry Slattery – 186
11. Andrew Lovett – 185
12. Nathan Lovett Murray – 154
13. Michael Hurley – 142
14. Andrew Welsh – 131
15. Heath Hocking – 130
16. Courtenay Dempsey - 127
17. Brent Prismall – 109
18. Matthew Lloyd – 94
19. Alwyn Davey – 78
20. Hayden Skipworth – 72
21. Bachar Houli – 59
22. Cale Hooker – 46
23. David Zaharakis – 42
24. Mark McVeigh – 39
25. Scott Lucas – 39
26. Jarrod Atkinson – 35
27. Jay Neagle – 21
28. Sam Lonergan – 18
29. Kyle Reimers – 18
30. Michael Quinn – 10
31. Darcy Daniher - 5

"Game time experience". Hahahahaha. Gold.

Here are the 2009 Brownlow medal votes from this year that Essendon players received, which should be more objective than votes given by the club in its B&F:

Jobe Watson 10
Jason Winderlich 10
Brent Stanton 8
Patrick Ryder 5
Andrew Lovett 5
Dustin Fletcher 5
Andrew Welsh 3
Matthew Lloyd 3
Angus Monfries 3
Michael Hurley 2
Scott Lucas 2
Alwyn Davey 1
Adam McPhee 1

Thirteen players at the club received votes. Just over 30% of vote getters will not be at Essendon next year.

[Windy_Hill]

So who were the best players when the team really performed???

Vs St Kilda -Rnd 19 - Essendon: Watson, Monfries, Pears, Atkinson, Hurley, Stanton, Prismall, McVeigh
vs Carlton - Rnd 3 - Essendon: Stanton, Lloyd, Monfries, Lovett, Ryder, Watson
vs Collingowood - Rnd 5 - Essendon: Ryder, Stanton, McPhee, Watson, Fletcher, Dyson, Winderlich
vs Hawthorn - Rnd 7 - Essendon: Stanton, Monfries, Lloyd, Davey, Winderlich, Pears, Lovett-Murray, Watson
vs Richmond - Rnd 9 - Essendon: Winderlich, Ryder, Watson, Lovett, Lloyd, Monfries, Zaharakis
Vs Melbounre - Rnd 12 - Essendon: Fletcher, Watson, Prismall, Lucas, Monfries, Welsh
vs Carlton - Rnd 13 - Essendon: Welsh, Prismall, Skipworth, Pears, Lovett, Monfries
vs Sydney - Rnd 15 - Essendon: Stanton, Pears, Lovett, Watson, Welsh, Reimers, Winderlich, Dempsey
vs Hawthorn - Rnd 22 - Essendon: Hurley, Fletcher, McPhee, Stanton, Hocking, Lovett-Murray


Of the 4 players highlighted by Gringo as being so influential, they seem to be sadly missing when the team actually clicked as a group and won matches. Only on 4 ocassions did any of the 'Fab Four' appear in out Best 3. In total, they are only mentioned 10 times with Lovett being mentioned on 40% of those times.

So in reality, it looks like we have a team that most definitely is not reliant on Gringo's Fab Four to win matches.

I am sorry Gringo, another epic fail from you

[Sismis]

It could quite easily go either way. Let's face it in order to make a dent next year we will need improvement. If it comes we will do OK, I agree with robbie it will be a similar win/loss to this year. If we don't get improvement then we could well be sitting at the bottom end.

For mine improvement will come from the following areas.

1. Hille. Sorely missed when we came up against the gorrilas last year. Also goes forward and kicks goals.
2. Welsh and Spike. Unlike some I believe last year was an abberation rather than the norm. Welsh to play his negating role, while still getting touches and Spike to provide toughness and supurb delivery from the mdifield. Many people seem to forget Welsh was not supposed to get back at all last year.
3. Prismal, showed a lot of class and tenacity last year depsite coming back from injury. With a straight run at it he will very effective.
4. Williams. One of our major deficiencies last year was goals from small forwards. He will add 30-40 goals.
5. Ryder, released from permenant ruck duties he can play anywhere. He can drop back in defence, go forward and kick goals (perferably after taking hangers) or play in a wing/mid-field role. His flexibility will give us a lot of tactical options.
6. I would expect natural improvement after a year of footy and a full preseason from Pears, and Hurley.
7. Year 3 of Knights gameplan. It has improved every year as our skills have. Losing Lovett hurts but we have plenty of speedsters who can keep it going.

There are many other players with a lot of room for improvement, how many of these come on will have a massive say in how go.

Plus i will reiterate this.

Sydney- No Jolley, aging list, they will go backwards
Port- They are getting Cloke FFS
Carlton-Will stuggle to kick big scores, their defence is still ordinary
North-mediocrity
Freo-rabble
Melbourne-will improve but still rebuilding
WC-as per melbourne
Tigers-At as close to 6 o'clock as a team can get.

It could be another default finals campaign but to finish similar to this year will be a step forward.

[robrulz5]

None of the four were going to be part of our next Premiership. It was the right time for Lloyd & Lucas, McPhee can be covered and Lovett wasn't liked by the group which surely would have made it hard to play with him.

[Sismis]

"Game time experience". Hahahahaha. Gold.

Here are the 2009 Brownlow medal votes from this year that Essendon players received, which should be more objective than votes given by the club in its B&F:

Jobe Watson 10
Jason Winderlich 10
Brent Stanton 8
Patrick Ryder 5
Andrew Lovett 5
Dustin Fletcher 5
Andrew Welsh 3
Matthew Lloyd 3
Angus Monfries 3
Michael Hurley 2
Scott Lucas 2
Alwyn Davey 1
Adam McPhee 1

Thirteen players at the club received votes. Just over 30% of vote getters will not be at Essendon next year.

Is this supposed to prove or disprove your theory? They comprise 30% of the vote getters for less than 20% of the votes.

[gringo]

"Game time experience". Hahahahaha. Gold.

Here are the 2009 Brownlow medal votes from this year that Essendon players received, which should be more objective than votes given by the club in its B&F:

Jobe Watson 10
Jason Winderlich 10
Brent Stanton 8
Patrick Ryder 5
Andrew Lovett 5
Dustin Fletcher 5
Andrew Welsh 3
Matthew Lloyd 3
Angus Monfries 3
Michael Hurley 2
Scott Lucas 2
Alwyn Davey 1
Adam McPhee 1

Thirteen players at the club received votes. Just over 30% of vote getters will not be at Essendon next year.

Is this supposed to prove or disprove your theory? They comprise 30% of the vote getters for less than 20% of the votes.

Well, considering that 4 players out a list of 34 senior players got approximately 20% of the votes, I'd have thought that would support my argument?

[gringo]

Once again your Football ignorance shines through.

You would rather use as the basis of your specious "argument" votes given by the maggots who like you have never played the game unlike our Club B&F voted on by what is it? 4-5 ex-AFL/VFL Players?

And you continue to ignore the players that didn't play inc the 2008 B&F or made little contribution in your "analysis" going forward.

You know nothing. Dickhead. Go away.

Filthy, just because people may have a different opinion to you doesn't mean they are a "dickhead" or "know nothing". Similarly, not all people who refuse to participate in your favourite past time of fishing your faecal material out of the toilet and then eating it, are unadventurous.

You need to be more understanding of different views.

[Jazz_84]

and the other 9 sharing the other 80% most of which will only get better. bottom line is if they were so important then they should all have forced there way into the top 10 in the B&F and amongst our top vote getters in the brownlow, they are gone now and have been for some time, time to move on! how about you turn your focus to the draft? i know that would be being positive but hey better late then never

[Sismis]

Well, considering that 4 players out a list of 34 senior players got approximately 20% of the votes, I'd have thought that would support my argument?

To me that would suggest that based on these figures they are 4 inconsistant performers. As such they should be easy to cover.

[andrewb]

I'm concerned about the loss of Lovett but I'm expecting that full seasons from Prismall, McVeigh and Welsh and the emergence of Winderlich and Zaharakis will more than fill that void. Dempsey could also move into the midfield.

I'm less concerned by the loss of McPhee because I'm comfortable with our backline depth which includes Fletcher, Slattery, Pears, Hurley, Hooker, Dempsey, NLM, Myers, Houli, Atkinson, Daniher, Jetta and potentially McVeigh.

I'm not concerned by the loss of Lucas. Brilliant player, but well past it in 2009.

Lloyd is the most interesting one. Neagle's recent injury makes his decision a little more iffy than it was and his leadership is going to be missed on field. I'm also concerned about handing over to a new captain without the support of the encumbent. However, he wouldn't play the first month anyway because of the suspension and this is where I think our season will be made or broken. But that said I'm fairly confident that we can cover his 2008 output. Hille and McVeigh inject real on-field leadership and Still and Gumby are looking great at pre-season training, Hurley showed loads up forward, Daniher is a likely type and if Williams can get back to anywhere near '08 form we're looking at somewhere between 40-60 goals from him.

The reason that I'm comfortable with these departures is that we've had such an even contribution across the board since Knighta arrived. I don't remember having many passengers in the games that we won and apart from Watson and Ryder I don't remember too many stand-out performances. Players will come and go - providing everyone knows the role that their playing and performs in that role we will still win games. The other good thing about the departures is that it forces our younger players to step up and become leaders.

All that said, if Fletch goes down we're f*****.

[Sismis]

All that said, if Fletch goes down we're f*****.

Completely disagree. For the first time in 13 years we have the ability to cover Fletch.
Hurley, Pears, Hooker, Ryder.

Fletch will be very handy this year for the simple fact that we don't need him as much.

[gringo]

Once again your Football ignorance shines through.

You would rather use as the basis of your specious "argument" votes given by the maggots who like you have never played the game unlike our Club B&F voted on by what is it? 4-5 ex-AFL/VFL Players?

And you continue to ignore the players that didn't play inc the 2008 B&F or made little contribution in your "analysis" going forward.

You know nothing. Dickhead. Go away.

Filthy, just because people may have a different opinion to you doesn't mean they are a "dickhead" or "know nothing". Similarly, not all people who refuse to participate in your favourite past time of fishing your faecal material out of the toilet and then eating it, are unadventurous.

You need to be more understanding of different views.

You are indeed the Andrew Bolt of BomberTalk. Faced with inconvenient facts by Sismis, Windy and myself you simply ignore them, caste around for dubious data that allegedly supports your equally dubious
"arguments", put them in a mixing bowl of total crap and say this is the absolute truth and we must follow. Pfft.

I indeed enjoy having informed, intelligent intellectual discourse with like minded people who may or may not agree or disagree with me. Actually, intellectual discourse with someone who may not agree is most agreeable. You however, sadly do not fall into this category.

At the sad time you joined this forum, you have trashed the Essendon Footbal Club in general, its coach new to the job, its players and never say anything positive about anything to do with the aforesaid. Therefore your opinions" are to be treated with caution because they have no intellectual base, especially those that end with highly intellectual term...."junkity-junk." You are the epitome of the internet hero.

Additionally upon joining you found it necessary to trash those posters here who's opinions happen to be in the opposite to yours. I was one of your victims. You accused me of drug dealing/taking etc, questioned my opinions in a derogatory personal manner that caused me to complain to "management" and caused you to be suspended.

Yet you never learn...never assimilate....you are a worm and something smelly one sometimes picks up on the sole of your shoes walking on nature strips. You are fanatically anti-Essendon. A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Go away dipshit.

Yes Filthy. Because I know you soooooooooo well those comments regarding drug use must have really cut deep.

Anyway, I can't be bothered answering all your claims above. The bottom line is you don't like people who don't agree with you.

[swoodley]

Comparing Brownlow votes to Crichton Medal votes shows you lack an understanding of the real value of players to a team Gringo.

The coaching staff award the Crichton votes based on players performance in their assigned roles and so is a very useful tool in seeing who did the job that was asked of them.

Brownlow votes more often than not go to flashy midfielders or forwards who kick a bag of goals.

Who is the most valuable player on our list? - Fletcher, who came 2nd in the Crichton and only polled 5 votes in the Brownlow.

Which set of votes is more accurate?....I'll take the Crichton votes any day of the week over Brownlow votes as the Brownlow is now little more than a populist midfielders award.

[gringo]

Comparing Brownlow votes to Crichton Medal votes shows you lack an understanding of the real value of players to a team Gringo.

The coaching staff award the Crichton votes based on players performance in their assigned roles and so is a very useful tool in seeing who did the job that was asked of them.

Brownlow votes more often than not go to flashy midfielders or forwards who kick a bag of goals.

Who is the most valuable player on our list? - Fletcher, who came 2nd in the Crichton and only polled 5 votes in the Brownlow.

Which set of votes is more accurate?....I'll take the Crichton votes any day of the week over Brownlow votes as the Brownlow is now little more than a populist midfielders award.

Yes, I've noticed. Flashy midfielders like Gary Ablett Jnr? Jimmy Bartel? Greg Williams? James Hird? Buckley? Voss? I must say the first thing I think when I see names like that is "flashy".

I agree with you though in that there is value to be derived from the Crichton votes as far as who is playing the role the teams wants them to play/value to the team etc.

However, as someone else said earlier, it is clear that the season Lovett had was not reflected in the votes he received in the B & F. Hence why I said the Brownlow votes were more objective.

Obviously you can't draw sound conclusions purely by looking at votes a player receives in some award, but it's certainly an indication as to how they went that season. The only point I was trying to make was that losing Lovett, Lloyd, Lucas and McPhee is going to be a bigger problem than many people think. The votes from both the Crichton and the Brownlow and the best players each week as provided by EFC seems to suggest, in my view, that that is indeed the case.