To be fair it’s an average of only -5 a game, and they’re giving away an average of -20 in the ruck. Which, considering they play a turnover game is pretty good. It’s be more impressive to see how effective their opponents clearances were, I’d guess a lot of them would be under pressure and ineffective.
Thats the thing isn’t it? sustainability. will the tiges be there again this year? or will we see perennial flag contenders sydney giving it a go again…
Cats had midfield dominance
Hawks had handy midfield - but was very good at possession footy
Swans have had a pretty strong midfield lineup and been thereabouts for a while but relied heavily on Buddy.
Dogs - luck, I mean they had a pretty strong midfield core, but it was more manic pressure over finals period.
Tigers - more of the same - forward pressure like Dogs, plus Elite match winner in Dusty, and Rance turns defence into attack. Tigers win ball from half back probably more than doggies did.
Giants - Elite midfield - but a bit soft in finals.
Crows - Had a great season last year, but midfield depth has fallen away due to injury, and so has their forwardline, along with ours due to lack of supply players leaving injuries, lack of synchronisity.
Not taking marks in fwd half (no Hooker or JD) a huge factor as much as not tackling enough to trap it in (took a while to get our smalls going)
As for the pressure we doing amazingly well over last month or so. But it’s our skills breaking down under opposition pressure and also not capitalizing on fwd entries that hurting still.
Well, there were a number through the Hawthorn sides and the runners up in 2016 & 2017 had some very good ones. If Franklin didn’t get injured in the 2016 Grand Final maybe we’d be saying 4 of the last 5 premiership sides were based on talls.
To say Richmond has an average midfield is conplelty ignoring Martin, who had probably one of the greatest seasons ever last year. The rest of the midfield was about creating pressure becuase they only needed one match winner. Martin stood up and won every game whenever he was needed.
Yep and clearly we have turned that aspect around leading the comp for it.
Now need to find the players with skills / temperament to execute & associated ball movement patterns that work when we under that pressure from the opposition.
Ultimately yes. But there’s a lot of bits to that. First they stopped the Crows (who had all the stats from midfield in the first half, IIRC); second half Martin et al stepped up and put the game beyond doubt. He’d been basically a non-factor the first half but was the one who basically cemented the win in tbe 3rd & 4th