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Ripping interview. Has a good footy brain on him does Dev.
I got the feeling heāll play more forward this year, which I think is a good thing.
Pretty sure he said in the interview that Skipworth and Kelly have developed a role for him so that he is taking more shots.
He said he will be tackling less so Iām guessing that means he will be playing less inside and more forward.
Not surprised if they need to give McGrath, Shiel, Langford and Parish more midfield rotations.
Yes, from the interview he will be taking more shots on goal but I expect heāll still spend a reasonable amount of time in the midfield. He could play a similar role to last years version of Danger (minus the 1:1 marking)?
Re: tackles, I think the point was for Smith to save energy by directing players in front of him to tackle rather than run past those players to affect the tackle.
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His mindset has changed. Last year he came to play midfield and this year is more open to impacting forward. Which is great to hear because we need our mids to impact outside of their preferred midfield positions.
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The fact that he is probably our highest impact mid forward of centre dictates it.
I think Merrett also spoke about, in the recent past, doing more on the scoreboard. Having a large number of players who see it as their role to score will increase the scoreboard pressure on the opposition.
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I like the sound of that. Even if they donāt kick the goals theyāll put a lot of pressure on.
Be great if our mids can hit the scoreboard more often itās why the Pies midfield is so dangerous.
Treloar,Adams,Pendelbury,Sidebottom,DeGoey,Beams can all kick goals when they drift forward
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Sounds like they are focusing on giving Dev some support on the defensive stuff, which will allow him to spend some of his tickets running forward.
Dev, Zach, Zaharakis and Langford too for that matter are all good around forward 50, we just need to get them there more often, adding Shiel to Heppell and Myers with McGrath and Parish coming through as āpureā mids, should lessen the need to have the goal kickers in the guts most of the time.
It was amazing at times last year seeing him sprint past teammates from about 30m back, overtake them and then smash someone in a tackle
If the whole team can bring that same mindset each weekā¦oh baby
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Dev is the king of the repeat effort
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McGrath may be looking to de-throne him this year.
I just expect our 6th fwd to fit everyone in is going to be rotation of some of the genuine mids so they will naturally get more time off the ball / able to score more often as more opportunity
As good as Bags was he canāt contribute to mid rotations and thatās where we will be looking to get advantage by having more players than other teams going through there and thus keeping pressure up / running out games better.
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Spot on speedy. How many players can you carry that are midfield size but wonāt play midfield?
Iād say this is where Bags is in trouble.
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Until Begley is fit and ready to go, I think Bags is safe. We need that forward pressure, who else can provide that?
Ham and mozzie aināt ready.
Laverde, a different player.
Long, lol.
Houlahan, doesnāt sound like heās breaking in the best 22 anytime soon?
As for mids, who can go forward? Dlarke, Mynott, Mutch?
So, I think Begley is the only one Bags is competing with for that spot, imo.
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Iām saying none of them if we are to fit in all the mids and working to bigger complement of rotations.
Raz, TIPPA & then rotation of Smith / Zerrett / McGrath / Shiel / Parish etc are going to do it
All of the latter capable of applying pressure whilst also contributing big midfield minutes
But we shall soon see once rd1 comes around
Tight for spots for sure and itās essentially play another fwd or another midā¦ Baguley vs Parish type situation. Someone is going to miss out.
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We can rotate through the bench you know.
Not everyone has to be a mid.
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Im surprised no one has really said anything about smith not running past teammates to apply toe defensive pressure/tackle but encouraging/forcing the teammate to do it. To both promote a team defensive mindset and to preserve himself.