Jack Darling is set to leave the West Coast Eagles during the 2016 trade period.
It is understood that after the player review at West Coast, the interview between Jack Darling and Coach Adam Simpson, it was agreed that a fresh start at another club maybe best for player and the club.
It is believed that Jack Darling wishes to team up with former mentor John Worsfold at Essendon and the former coach is very keen to have the big forward on his books.
The 24-year-old who is contracted to the end of the 2017 season has not yet officially requested a trade, but it is believed that a number of clubs have contacted his manager regarding the availability of Darling for next season.
Port Adelaide, Richmond, Collingwood and Carlton are four clubs who are very interested in the services of Darling but there is believed to be a number of other Victorian clubs who are circling the gun forward.
Darling has played 128 games and kicked 228 goals for West Coast since his debut in 2011.
I thought we’d have a chance of getting Darling IF Hogan went to WCE. However it seems Hogan is set to sign an extension at Melbourne so WCE would be mad to lose Darling.
If Zaine Cordy is potentially a premiership centre half forward with either Boyd/Roughead as the other key forward perhaps it says that rapid ball movement between the arcs is where it's at.
Move the ball quick enough to prevent the opposition time to set up properly defensively and just wait for the predictable ‘bomb’ in.
You can have an array of medium sized and smaller forwards who get good separation on their opponents or are strong for their size.
If we were able to improve our ball movement we can probably afford to keep Hooker back and line up with something like:
HF: Laverde Brown Fantasia
F: Tippa JoeDan Francis/Lang/Jobe
Francis and Lav are big enough to compete well in the air but have that genuine power and acceleration about them that allows them to pick up ground balls and burst through tackles i.e. Stringer.
Brown showed at times he can perform that hit up at the ball carrier role quite well. See the Sydney game in particular.
Admittedly, this structure probably has Joe playing closer to goal more often which perhaps isn’t ideal given he seems most comfortable up the ground but he could roam around a bit higher at times and allow Francis/Lav/Lang/Jobe to get in the space behind him and get a mismatch and duke them.
Ask Luke Beveridge if Z Cordy is his preferred CHF and the answer will be no.
Ask him him Z Cordy is in his best 22 and the answer is still probably no
I feel like this kind of thinking is a bit knee jerk, just because one good team doesnt have a conventional forward set up doesn’t mean that it is the way of the future for every club
Forgetting the other grand finalists? Franklin + tippett + a ruckman
Top 4 at end of H&A
Swans - Franklin + resting ruckman + Reid if he was fit
Geelong - Hawkins + resting ruckman + Henderson at times
Hawthorn - Gunston + resting ruckman + Roughie if he was healthy (they’ve used Schoenmakers and Sicily in the same role)
GWS - Patton + Lobb + Cameron
The rest
West Coast - Kennedy + Darling + resting ruckman
Adelaide - Taylor + Lynch + Jenkins
Dogs - Stringer + resting ruckman + Redpath if fit (+ Dickson as well as a ‘third’ tall type)
Roos - Waite + Petrie + Brown
Even if Bulldogs win on the weekend it would still appear the favoured set up is 2 permanent forwards + forward that can ruck
It can be broken down even further. Each team overcomes their weakness by working to it’s strengths.
There is no real future way.
If you’ve got the best FF and CHF in the comp, then you use them as much as can until teams find a way to stop them.
The Bulldogs pretty much play 16 midfielders and continually rotate them through the bench/forward (and some back) because that’s where their strength is and that’s where their point of difference is compared to the other teams.
Whether we end up with dominant talls or dominant midfielders depends on how successful we are at drafting over the next few years.
Disagree with italics (to some extent at least)
All the successful teams have drafted/traded in players to fill specific roles, rather than create roles for players.
Any variation from this is often due to necessity because of injuries or list deficiencies eg West Coast's zone defence from last year - only created because they had 2-3 tall defenders do knees
Yep. There is a reason as soon as Redpath went down for 2017, Bulldogs started considering Cloke.
If we are parking Bellchambers at FF. And JD is at CHF. Then you want your 3rd tall fwd to be extremely mobile to run their opponent out of the area at time and also able to apply plenty of fwd pressure.
Darling is a big body who has endurance, tackles a plenty and kicks goals.
It’s a no brainer really IMO.
Except for the fact Francis should grow into that role himself. But over the next two years when we having a genuine crack at it can’t be sure Francis will be ready physically, whereas Darling ready made and allows Francis to develop.
Personally, I’m not parking any immobile ruckman in a key position. People keep bringing and ignoring all the times it fails.
Yet many of the top teams have been successful running two talls + resting/chop out ruck in their forward line. Is Belly that much less mobile than Jenkins/Hale/Waite/Lycett/Tippett?
The thing helping the new club is that west coast want to offload him, so they can’t be demanding a high pick. The fact he’s still contracted will come into it too, does the new team take on the year remaining? Partly take on, or does west coast pay him out.
If he wanted to go and West Coast didn’t…he’d be worth a pick 10-20 range. The fact west coast are happy for him to go, drops him around 10 picks in my book. I’d be comfortable Hibberds pick would get it done.
Having said all that…i’m not sure I’d want him personally. I’d rather keep the pick and develop Francis for that role.