The Doggies actually preferred three talls.
Redpath, Boyd, Stringer with a dummy small centre half forward.
They didn’t always mark it ( though you may be surprised how often they did) but consistently brought it to ground AND locked it in there.
This is Hookers role. He is very good at it.
Joe D’s biggest weakness is the ease with which the ball is rebounded if he doesn’t mark it.
As for Richmond completely different. Joe D is not Riewoldt thank Christ.
And it remains to be seen if their game plan can hold up in Year 2.
The Doggies game plan didn’t.
Stewart is a third tall/support forward just like Ambrose is a third tall/support defender but many seem to struggle to grasp this concept. Keep seeing people posting teams with Ambrose at CHb and Stewart at CHF. Will never work. Daniher and Hooker have to play for Stewart to be effective as that 3rd option and same goes for Ambrose with Hurley and Hartley/Brown. Pretty simple I would’ve thought.
Genuinely not having a go at you here just curious as to what you feel does make a key position player as if it is a combination of the two factors that have been mentioned above then Stewart still isn’t a KPP.
Hang on , people are saying stewart isnt a kpf , so by that logic, stringer isnt one.
Redpatg went down in rd 18.
Richmond won it with revolt as their only cpf.
Im not saying we go the exact same path as them. All im saying is teams find a way to win , whether the have marking kpf or not.
But again the main premise of my statement is , do you want a gameplan that relys on long contested marking and hooker having to be in the side foe it to work properly??
Or would you rather players up field not panic , find good leading options , and as a last resort bomb it long ?
Cos hooker forward seems to make players think , just like supporters, that if we bomb it long hooker will just mark it all the time. Which obviously isnt the case.
strong textFair enough. Is an interesting discussion around the best forward set up and. I just feel that the majority of players up the field are going to be more confident putting it on Hookers head as a get out thinking he will at least break even if he doesn’t mark it, whereas I just don’t think they would have that confidence in Stewart. Probably sums up my views on the KPP thing although not overly eloquent or fully thought through.
I was heading back towards and through Colac between 7.30 and 8.30. One word of advice to you buggers…dip your pharquing high beams. It’s got to be the buggers who watched the twos, so I’m holding @theDJR personally responsible.
I might have thought it was people leaving the Port Fairy Folk Festival, but there were no campers or caravans amongst them. Just long streams of cars.
Stewart and Stringer are oversized HFFs, Stringer will be a full time mid in about two years.
I think they are playing the roles we wanted Lang and Lav to play. However Stewart’s size mean he rotated to the ruck instead.
People look at the cm height too much and assume a players role from that. Joe and Hooker play a KPP role, the other too lack the ability to do that effectively.
Centre clearance have been one of our weaknesses for a long time. Even though it accounts for only like 30% of all clearances it’s still an important one to win in order to get that quick reply goal or back to back goals which changes the flow of the game. I like Myers, Smith, Parish in for the centre clearances. Heppell, McGrath, Parish is also a good combo.
…and being good at centre clearances means we should be able to shut down a run on. At least keep the ball in. Get a few ball ups in a row and stymie the opposition’s run to reset the momentum.
Very easy to look at Hooker goal tally and suggest that is the end of the story. A lot of those goals came late in games when he was left ‘over the back’… he was also getting the worst defender and even then they were often zoning off Hooker to double up on JD.
However his 40 goals were valuable and it would be great if we could have two of him… and two of Hurley for that matter… but we don’t. The real question is whether you think he could have saved more than 40 goals by playing FB.
Considering the lack of impact Hooker had on many games last season… it is valid discussion point. Would you have difficulty saying that Hooker wouldn’t save at least two goals a game as FB? I personally believe our defence is at least 4 goals better with him back there. I reckon our forwardline is probably only 1 goal better with Hooker forward as opposed to going smaller etc etc. So, for me, our team structure is 3 goals better off with Hooker in defence. Last year that was the difference between top 4 or not.
The reality is that Hooker is a quality player and is in our top 5… he has value both in the forward and defence… the only debate is where the team is best served. I am happy to have a different view to everybody else in the entire world… but this is a forum for opinions and I am entitled to express mine.