I watched a VFL game at Sandringham, and Hislop started a brawl with about 8-9 Sandringham players…… he took them on by himself.
Our players stood back and watched.
Pretty sure Dean ■■■■ did play one game for us.
Was it him that left a ■■■■ box car in the car park at windy hill?
Looney was pretty good before he did his knee. Even when he came to us he tried his guts out. And in “the Luenberger Mystery” he provided one of the quality Blitz threads.
2 Likes
One of the weirder parts of this club’s last 20 year history, was the obsession with Hayden Skipworth.
What the f*ck was going on there?
1 Like
I think it depends what we’re trying to achieve. I definitely wouldn’t want to go into a contending year with just Draper, Bryan, and Visentini on the list. That would be fraught with danger. I agree the demons will probably be on the lookout for some sort of backup next year, given Gawn’s going to be 33 and rightly or wrongly they’ll be trying to win the flag. By comparison we have two AFL ruckmen on our list (Draper and Bryan), melbourne only have one (Gawn), and most importantly we as a club shouldn’t be remotely worried about whether an injured ruckman might cost us the flag.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that it would be actively harmful to Visentini for him to play senior football next year, so he’s just off the table as an option. The way I see it, Goldstein would be cover if Bryan’s injured, and that’s it. We play two rucks because it’s Sam Draper and a normal ruck. If Draper gets injured, I don’t think we’d play Bryan and Goldstein. If Bryan was injured, we could play Draper as the sole ruck and let Wright give him a spell. That’s a very common kind of set up around the league.
So really, we’re talking about having a 36/37 year old on the list for a scenario in which Bryan and Draper are injured, and I don’t think Bryan’s missed a game through injury in 3 years. For where I think we’re at, I just don’t see the value in that use of a list spot. If both are injured, Wright rucks a few games. He’s not a ruckman, true, but teams have done fine with worse (we lost to melbourne with Van bloody Rooyen as their number one “ruck”).
I suppose in the end I just don’t agree with the common wisdom that having proper backups is more important than trying to get better for a team hanging around in the middle of the table. If injuries come along, try some different structures, move some players around, worst case scenario eat a few losses. If we’re not contending with our best 23, I don’t really mind if a few injuries to a single position have a disproportionate negative impact.
2 Likes
My issue is that you are relying on 1 ruckman who has barely completed a season as the number 1 ruck, a developing ruck who whilst injury free hasn’t completed a full season and Visentini who is developing at VFL level.
Going into a season with 3 ruckmen is terrible list management. Regardless of where you are as a club.
One injury and you’re shuffling players around to fill ruck gaps.
We shuffled the team around quite a bit to get whatever the hell we were trying to get halfway through the year and it threw the balance of the team out.
You can call 2MP a ruck all you like, but he doesn’t train as a ruck. He’s a forward. Yep, he can give a chop out for a few minutes per quarter. But it’s not reliable.
You have compared Draper and Bryan to Gawn and van Rooyen.
Draper is five years into his AFL career. Played 22 games one year, been mid teens since.
Bryan is still developing. I don’t think you can rely on him to run out a full season yet.
Max Gawn has played 20+ games six out of the last seven years.
van Rooyen is chopping Gawn out. He’s very much the 2MP type ruck who just contests.
You can drop Goldstein if you want. But you’d be wanting another ruckman with some experience as a back up with what we have.
The main reason why I think we should hold on to Goldy is because Scott has picked Bryan ahead of him. So hopefully, he sticks with the plan. But give him another ruck (like Flip) and he may be swayed into playing him instead of Bryan.
If we hang on to Goldstein and he languishes in VFL as Bryan and Draper smash the year, then you can delist Goldstein after next year. No problems.
If you delist him now and Bryan and Draper have troubles finishing the season, then you’re really providing our midfield with very little chance to actually get the ball moving in our direction from the centre bounce. It is probably our biggest visible improvement between this year and last year (for the first time in a long time, we are top 4 in centre clearances differential). You’d want this to continue regardless of whether we are developing or in contention.
And it’s not going to continue if any one of Draper or Bryan are struggling to run out the season (or injured along the way).
There are very few teams that are trying to go into a season with the kind of profile of rucks we have (minus Goldy). Happy to agree to disagree though. It might work for us. It might not.
3 Likes
This.
And it’s a list spot that we might be able to discover another player with. Contending, sure, keep him. But we aren’t. I’d rather use the spot for a SSP/MSD.
2 Likes
Good post and I agree with all of it.
The only flaw I see in this strategy is Wright being in the 22. I don’t mind Wright as a back up ruck but at the moment, Jones, Langford and Caddy are all ahead of him as forwards.
Obviously you don’t play them all. So does Jones miss out? Maybe injury will solve the problem for us.
Wright is a dinosaur, the game has passed him.
3 Likes
It really reinforces how much of a lottery the draft can be
1 Like
2 Likes
LOL.
4 Likes
If that statement rings true then no problem. Goldy should get games only when Draper / Bryan are unavailable or rested.
11 Likes
HAHHAHAHAHHAHSHSHSHAHAHAHSHA
we could have grabbed Pruess but he is always injured. so I guess keeping Goldy ok.
Having goldy as insurance means 2025 won’t be a development year but play 110% to finish 7-11th again.
my preference would be just grab best young ruck in rookie draft and develop.
Happy to have him as depth and ruck coach. But if Bryan misses out to him I will lose my mind.
“yeah look, we came into the season thinking that Goldy would be more of a playing ruck coach and there as insurance if Nick or Drapes got injured, but his form over the pre-season meant that he more or less picked himself. He’s running around like a 20 year old again”
16 Likes
It is hard to imagine a bigger joke of a football club.
Jobs for da boiz.
1 Like
That’s Vigo
6 Likes