I personally believe the better way to manage player time/development is to rest senior players allowing inexperienced players to actually own the role rather than have reduced minutes and a lack of ownership. We have really missed opportunities in the past by playing and burning out senior players like Hooker, Hurley and Heppell, or worse yet cooking young players like Joe and Fantasia by playing them injured.
Same goes for this year. My preference would be to give Zerk and co. five or 6 games at a minimum of full games and allow them to take full responsibility for their opponent rather than continual rotation off the bench. If for example Zerk were to be getting beaten by an opponent there would be a strong desire to move him and replace him with Hooker, losing the opportunity to strengthen up his resolve and developing his character as well as his physical skills. Unfortunately I see the same thing happening with our mids and I think it’s why we still aren’t seeing that next wave come through and apply pressure yet. For mine the mids development is far more important so they need as much game time as possible and not less.
The shortened preparation is, by all accounts, much more likely to lead to player burn out & injury.
So an extended bench is a way to mitigate that.
You are also assuming two other things - that our next wave of mids are not coming through, which I’d argue is not the case with Parish & McGrath, and I don’t share your faith in Langford.
You also assume our coaching staff would instantly move someone like Zerk if he was being beaten.
This flies in the face of all Blitz knowledge re Worsfold and the speedy making of positional moves.
In summary though, I am seeing this season as a bit of a lottery- we should improve but how much, who knows?
Whereas next season I believe we really should be contenders.
And player development across the board, not just in midfield, is important to that.
Ruck, forwards, and wings are my priorities in taking the next step.
The shortened quarters were designed to mitigate injury were they not? Now that’s not enough and extra interchange is required? Yeah nah.
I don’t share your optimism of parish as I don’t think he’s improving anywhere fast enough to be considered a future gun. Gun mids are generally having a far greater impact at his stage of development and it’s not like he’s being held back by a gun midfield outfit either. McGrath is tracking nice though, as he should for a number one pick. I have my concerns over his disposal though but he seems to have a good understanding of the game so I think that can be mitigated some what.
As far as what blitz thinks of Woosha and his positional changes I’m not really that interested. Half the people on here think that Woosha has done a good job which flies in the face of the clubs “soft sacking” of him.
Hope you are right about us being contenders next year… Or the year after that… Or the year after that…
Parish and Langford don’t need to be given minutes or opportunities, they’ve both had plenty. It’s time for both to step up, what kind of player do they want to be?
Gil also said on radio this morning that he doesn’t think the extra interchange will happen. Doesn’t think it’s needed. He did say though that they reserve the right to be ‘flexible’ and ‘agile’ about it but those were his thoughts.
Hope this 4-week floating fixture doesn’t give the AFL any ideas for uninterrupted seasons. ■■■■■■■ impossible to use Football as an excuse to avoid family birthdays if you don’t know the fixture.
“After reviewing the decision and the current adjudicating framework in place, the Match Review Officer’s findings were appropriate, however, it has become obvious that the framework in which the MRO works relating to dangerous tackles requires strengthening,” Mr. McLachlan said.
So if it was the correct decision, why are they fine tuning it? Just man up and say it was wrong and admit Christian stuffed up
