Midfield Clearance Analysis

Shiel was never a first possession type inside mid at GWS and certainly isnt with us

We need players winning the tap off the ruck and giving to him

I seem to remember Parish winning the ball in instances when ruck drops it just behind himself in close on the defensive side. Whereas Shiel is often starting on the offensive side and needing ball hit into space more so.

Be interesting to see analysis on times where a player could/should have got a clearance via a clear ruck tap to them but didn’t as fumbled or otherwise.

How often was the tap out actually hit in direction/area that Shiel, McGrath etc could actually potentially get a clearance etc

1 Like

Didn’t even go in for the 3Q from what I can remember

i hope you’re planning on updating this table weekly @Dunlop

3 Likes

He was very effective.

As far as I’m concerned, McGrath has shown he’s clearly our best clearance mid, with Parish/Zerrett/Shiel reasonably close after that - for various reasons. Caldwell isn’t quite at that level, but I hope he’s in that 2nd tier pretty soon.

Ideally you’d have 6 guys in that rotation, so I guess Langford gets in there too as well.

To be the devils advocate, Shiel is our next best experienced midfielder behind Merrett, and it it is only round 1.

2 Likes

Shiel’d have played far more midfield time than Zerrett. He’s 2 or 3 years older.

Hepp would be the only one close for midfield experience.

Ok reiterates that then, you would expect your most experienced midfielders to be playing midfield most of the time.

Yes.

And I think the overarching point is this: if we were absolutely desparate to win that match on the weekend, we “should” have done a bunch of things differently, from matchups to setups to rotations.

People should think on that, and the implications.

(Or keep blindly mashing their keyboard in rage. Your choice).

4 Likes

Curious @Dunlop what goes into pulling this together? How much do you pull from Champion Data vs rewatching the game?

Centre clearances you can pull from footywire.

I think somebody was publishing centre bounce attendances, but dunnas does it from the tapes.

When you load a replay on Kayo it marks where the goals are, so you can quickly find when the centre clearances are.

You’d have to watch the entire game and pause it heaps of times if you wanted to do regular stoppages.

I reckon you’re up to the task @Dunlop :wink:

2 Likes

Hindsight is a beautiful thing, at the end of the second quarter I am sure your demeanour would of been different.

can you spell it out for us?

L-E-A-R-N-I-N-G-S

4 Likes

I think Shiel’s role at the centre bounce is to get on the end of the 1st possession by merrett, mcgrath or caldwell and use his acceleration and evasive skills. He seems to do this well.
What is more difficult to see on TV is his defensive work at stoppages.

@Dunlop Thank you for doing this, it is excellent.

1 game is a small sample size, so I won’t read too much into it just yet.
I’m much more interested in the winning % than the actual centre clearance (I believe this is awarded to the bloke who gets the final clearing possession, correct? Not necessarily the bloke who gets first hands on it and is often more important?)

I guess we are going to see Parish with a consistently high winning % and low attendance rate yet again this year…

One thing I found interesting was Merrett’s return. I am definitely an advocate for using him more on a wing or hbf to better utilise his skillset. However we only went 1 from 6 when he didn’t attend the centre bounce for this game. I will continue to watch that with interest.

John_worsfold_deal_with_it.gif

My understanding is first clean possession in the chain that clears the stoppage.

1 Like

Knighta_upsidedown_phone.jpg

Ok, well I would give that more weight then if that’s correct.