He’s going to predominantly play as a mid, but in this thread it’s being discussed how to deal with Goddard’s missing leadership.
Otherwise the main reasons people consider throwing him back or rotating him there are 1) he won a rising star there 2) he could be like Hodgey 3) Wouldn’t have to run as far if his hammie’s aren’t 100% yet 4) people wanna see their favorite player in the midfield instead.
I don’t think he’d be terrible back there, but so think it would be at the expense of Saad or Connor who offer more in that part of the ground.
Settle petal, I never said you did, I just asked the question. Many people don’t, and seeing your post seemed to say that structuring the leadership battalion as we have indicates sufficient leadership exists all over the ground, I thought it was a legitimate question. You could have just said yes.
I was disappointed to see both Hooker and Hurley voted/taken out of the leadership group and we haven’t really had an explanation why it has been reduced by two.
I would have preferred a forward taken out rather than two senior defenders.
BJ is going to suffer a bit this week. He really is out of footy. I thought he had a media role this year, but I have not heard any announcements at this point. Maybe he will just play pennant golf for amusement.
Ambrose hasn’t had a full season since 2016, Hartley is miles off senior selection, Ridley will be playing in game 4, Francis game 11, Saad is in his second year with us and hasn’t played heaps of footy with those blokes just yet, whilst McKenna is a gun but has just ticked over 50 games.
Plenty of talent there but it’s easily the part of the ground where we’re the least experienced. Or rather, where the players have had the least amount of time to gel as a unit.
It seems you’re fixated on us having an ordinary defense because we’ve lost Goddard (it’s the Goddard thread) plus Hooker.
I’m just saying chill out, it shouldn’t be a big deal.
You just complained about Saad and McKenna lacking experience, but they bring other things Goddard, and Kelly, and Fletcher lacked.
Ambrose or Harts will never be Hooker in his AA year, but it won’t make that big of a difference.
Hurley has been around long enough and the guys in our back 6 should know how to follow directions.
Our team defense is meant to have changed somewhat, so there’s no knowing how Goddard would respond to that and whether he’d fit into it better than those that remain.
I’ll concede “experience/leadership down back” isn’t going to be a strength on Sunday but it’s hardly going to be a glaring weakness.
I’ve got no issue with Ridley/Guelfi/Francis all playing down back at once either, they didn’t just arrive yesterday.
Agree.
BJ’s role down back would have been substantially changed with the 666 centre bounce rule anyway.
How he would have adapted to that we won’t know, but opposition teams were increasingly making him accountable for a man to nullify his positioning. The new starting positions would have exacerbated that at centre bounces.
In general terms of backline leadership it’s a line ball. Do this group know instinctively when to cover for a teammate?
Or are the problems more positional & structurally about rolling up & back to deny space?
But if BJ was 50/50 physically (speed, agility, kicking) then I would have thought his experience and leadership would have got him across the line for another year. But it didn’t.
I didn’t see too many tears from the younger players when BJ retired. I just wonder if the club decided it didn’t like (want/need) his leadership style anymore and wanted fresh air for Heppell and Merrett et al.