True. But we’re also not going to be playing a guy who couldn’t chase anyone at all, and who could only kick exactly 10m short of where he thought he could. At every. Single. Stoppage.
So to me, no, not a strength. But it’s only going to get better.
He’s never going to be your number 1 or 2 (or even 3) guy in there, but he’s been very very very good for 2 teams for almost 15 years as a bit of a “Mr Fix It”, who can and regularly does go in there, as a (more than useful) member of the second rotation.
It means he’s not the answer to your specific question, but (on the flipside) it makes him a hell of a useful 22 player.
Also, he’s 32. We shouldn’t be aiming or trying to build around him.
2 Likes
Which players? I was at that game and I dont think it had anything to do with missing a couple of rotations. In fact I would say that excuse is taking the easy way out, instead of confronting a serious issue of mental fragility. They expected to win that game by just showing up and it showed.
I might be reading it wrong, but I don’t think he meant being down a couple of players in the rotations. I think he meant they missed a couple of rotations that were meant to happen at certain times in the game, which stuffed up matchups for a while and possibly tired some players more than necessary.
I was asking which players said that missed rotations was what caused the loss.
If I remember correctly that was the game xavier campbell commented publicly on a poor performance.
Sorry I can’t remember exactly who said what and when, but I think there were a couple of different interviews 2 or 3 weeks after the Brisbane game, it may have been after the St.Kilda game when we flogged them.
If my memory serves me correct I think it was a post game radio interview and the discussion was something along the lines of Essendon had managed to get a number of mismatches though their rotations which gave them a big advantage, in contrast to the match against Brisbane when a few missed rotations by us meant that for a period of time we didn’t have the match ups we wanted and some of their midfielders were able to take advantage and get loose.
It was no doubt a very big focus after the Brisbane game to try and work out what went wrong and try to avoid it happening again.
The whole point is there are so many different moving pieces on the field at any given time with each team looking to create mismatches and an advantage. When things go wrong as they did in the Sydney match it can be very difficult to correct it on fly in the field before the break in the quarter, and by then the game was effectively over.
2 Likes
That was the game where Langford ended up spending an extended period on the bench. There was some vague, play it with a straight bat discussion about it during the week from the coaches and maybe some senior players.
Did they?
All of them? Roughly equally, or were some more mentally fragile than others? Do you reckon they were all arrogantly expecting to win? Or were some arrogant, while others mentally fragile that day?
1 Like
Devon Smith could be our best centre half forward since Alwyn Davey.
Our team often has a poor record against the bottom teams see Brisbane and Carlton last year. We came very close to losing to Carlton twice. Why is that? I honestly cannot pinpoint individual players because I felt against Brisbane the whole team was flat. Maybe it is a leadership thing, or maybe I have my red and black glasses on and think the team is better than they are. Hence have the expectation they should smash teams like that.
A team is an extremely complex system. A match is one extremely complex system against another.
Media will tell you that one ‘didn’t try hard enough’.
2 Likes
Exactly
2 Likes
I think our biggest plus heading into 2018 season is that there is nothing for the players to think about but playing good footy and putting themselves in a position to win the flag.
I think last year we had some guys whose heads had already moved on.
This year they will be driven. We have a lot of players on our list who are maniacs when it comes to setting standards and driving high performance. Be very surprised if we don’t see the best this list can produce in 2018.
2 Likes
I think that Devon will be the most valuable contributer of the new players. He has that professional, hard demeanour about him. Strikes me like the type that hates losing. Stringer will be more spectacular but I suspect that he will go missing at times. Saad will do some good things but probably not often enough.
I didn’t really know Smith when he played at GWS, so that best bits of 2017 was an introduction for me.
And what I got from that was…gee, he likes the cheapie ahead of the play, doesn’t he.
No idea what to expect from him this year.
But I really hope it’s not that.
1 Like
You don’t rack up the numbers he can (which was off a HFF) just being a seagull. He is a very smart player in terms of knowing where to run to get the footy/ recieve the footy.
I fully expect he will be someone capable of 30+ possession games regularly when in the permanent midfield rotations.
5 Likes
That’s a fair assessment of the video but I think to be fair to him it was the role they were asking if him to some degree. I had a look at his game against the saints at Docklands last year, I think I posted a break down earlier in the thread, and from that game it was clear that he has a strong defensive side to his game and certainly goes when it’s his turn. I don’t think we need to worry about him being a pure front runner.
3 Likes
I think his tackle numbers were very good as well considering he was playing as a HFF.
If he was averaging 5 playing there, he could average 7 playing more in midfield
He’s a massive upgrade on Green, who correct me if I’m wrong likes a blooody cheapie.
2 Likes