Had no preseason at all and is playing like it.
In those conditions, I’d have valued a defensive impact over “linking up”.
In fairness, I may be a touch harsh, it’s not his fault for three decades Essendon have instructed the players to play dry weather footy in a friggin cyclone.
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Yeah to be fair I didn’t take much note of him defensively.
He is generally pretty good in that regard though.
With the 3 talls, saad, redman & mcneice playing back, and guelfi providing the rotation, Connor is playing most of the game on the wing, and has been for a few weeks. He is learning a new position and is doing ok.
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Tackling stats can be misleading, but he wasn’t credited with a single one, and that was my impression of his game as well. In a game like that one, your small defenders need to be making everything a contest, not worrying about defensive rebounds.
Anyway , he’s just one of a lot not currently playing at their best.
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Assuming they brought McNeice in to move McKenna up the ground. Have him perhaps be the one kicking inside 50?
Didn’t he miss a chunk of the pre season with groin soreness? He’s not looked the player of 2018 all year. Lacked the run. My hunch is he’s playing with sore grouns like I think Hepp is…
Chalk up another one to the fitness/conditioning staff
He was anonymous for three quarters and appeared to fail to handle the greasy conditions - He found his mojo once the ground dried.
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He was a major reason we got back into the game from late in Q3 onwards.
Direct hand in 3 goals from late Q3 and early Q4 (two of which were to Langford).
As well as a limited pre-season is playing a new role on the wing; hence why McNiece is in the side across HB.
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You do know that a handball to the left is held on the left hand and hit with the right hand, thus a right hander finds it easier to handball (correctly) to the left!!
He meant right, right?
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Not sure if the above comment is serious but I’ll bite as I’m many beers deep.
100% of players can handball to either side of their body - most players and especially our Conor are a lot less efficient kicking when running on their non preferred side.
tell me about
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I haven’t seen him mentioned once tonight.
He has 25 disposals at 80% disposal efficiency, which really surprised me. Was he playing more on the wing today? Or still off the half-back flank?
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Very specific defensive wing role as he has done nearly all year - a role he continues to develop in and get better at.
Watched him closely at the ground: he starts every centre bounce, not right on centre wing, but well to the defensive side. About 7m (give or take) from the point of the square.
Initially, his Carlton opponent would start right on centre wing (Zaka generally did start right on centre wing on the other wing btw). But as McKenna really started to get into the game I noticed his opponent started manning him up at the centre bounce after the PArish goal I think in Q2. He was having a pronounced effect on the game by this point. Arguably only Parish was a better for us in Q2, but McKenna was excellent as was Guelfi and I though they were easily our best 3 on the day.
One thing McKenna did do from his defensive wing starting point was try and run in an stop a Carlton centrre clearance being rushed forward. Not always successful at it - very difficult to judge the slippery ball yesterday - but he got superbly right after one centre bounce in Q3 that I think Kreuzer was bulldozing forward. McKenna ran in laterally, intercepted the loose ball and very quickly through it on his left boot to repel their attack and send it forward our way to a no worse than 1:1 contest.
Both he and Parish were the best on playing to the conditions in congestion - neither would hesitate they would get it on the boot and send it our way but hardly ever to the advantage of Carlton.
If only Heppell could do the same - arguably the worse 36 possession game I have seen.
There’s a reason why Heppell is never tagged - that’s because he stops & props & stumbles when he gets the ball, coughs it up - and if doesn’t he either handballs to a teammate under pressure or kicks it the opposition’s advantage. Did it all game, and all game Carlton got more benefit from him getting his hands on the ball than we did.
Whilst Heppell wasn’t tagged, Carlton couldn’t control Parish around the contest, couldn’t deal with Guelfi’s superb attack on the ball (BOG for mine) or cope with McKenna’s reading of the play and drive. From mid Q2 onwards, Carlton tried a number of players to McKenna and none of them had an impact.
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Great post.
I too noticed McKenna on the defensive side of the wing. Guelfi playing the bullet, running in from the D50, with McKenna drifting across.
Guelf certainly runs in straight lines, looks like Jane-plays like Tarzan.
Nice post BakerWAS.
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Thanks
Thanks Benny.
In different ways, Guelfi and McKenna hurt Carlton big time between the arcs, especially after quarter time, much like you’ve described with Guelfi drive hard straight up the ground off defensive side of centre and McKenna doing it laterally and then straightening.
Essentially, we played an 8-6-4 set up (8 defenders, 6 mids, 4 forwards) as did Carlton.
McKenna and Guelfi were our “+2” defenders.
Carlton’s +2 defenders stayed further back, often just inside D50 - which is partly why Francis struggled to get into the game. Problem for them was they would lay it off by foot when they won the ball with their extra numbers back - they did not attempt to run it off HB like we did with the likes of McKenna (Guelfi went more inside with some superb contested ball efforts). If they had better foot skills and systems, their spares would have been more damaging.
McKenna’s run was critical after quarter time and was a very clear marker of the different game styles. To have players to run and carry the ball ~ 25 times and then deliver at 80% disposal efficiency is a huge benefit to a team, especially in poor conditions.
This is fundamentally one of Carlton’s key problems, exacerbated by Docherty being out. They have no one, and make no attempt, at running and carrying the ball off HB; it’s always by foot, it’s not particularly quick and it is easy for the opposition to get back and cover. You cannot get back quick enough to cover a McKenna (or Saad or McGrath or Guelfi when he plays more uncontested) when they run the ball hard through the lines and deliver into F50.
A great example of this is in Q4 when McKenna made a great run and then kicked it into space to Begley’s advantage between HF and FF. On a dry day it would have been an easy bounce for Begley to pick up and run into goal (harder to do so when the ball slides as it does in the wet). The ball was moved so quickly and directly, Carlton’s +2 had next to no time to get back and win the ball.
Also, as well as adapting tagging, Worsfold has basically stopped trying to to get the forwards to run way up the ground and then back. We always had 2-3 forwards (at least) there for our players up the ground to kick to. Pity one of them was Baguley who point black refused to lead to the ball carrier on multiple occasions and the kick forward subsequently got picked off as he stood 60m ahead of the ball kicker, flat footed.
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