I recall a year or 2 ago, Andrew McGrath was being interviewed on Triple M… in typical Triple M fashion they asked him rapid quick fire questions. One of the questions was this;
“Who’s the one player in the Essendon midfield, who won’t give up his spot at the Centre bounce?”
McGrath very quickly said, Shiel.
While you can take it with a grain of salt. I wonder if there is some stubbornness.
mcgrath and parish should be the first two. the others can rotate the third spot
They normally have two separate rotations, then play around a little with them as games play out.
First rotation get ~65-70% of centre bounces, second rotation about 30%, and change.
I’m not sure it’s realistic to expect anyone to attend the bulk, let alone Parish.
Will be interesting if they put Stringer into the centre bounces when he is back as from memory he was one of our best centre clearance winners at the start of last year.
well mcgrath and parish should be in that first rotation. it isn’t even a question imo
On skill set, he would be.
Parish should spend the majority of his time with Shiel and Langford, he can take the ball off the hands and feed them, they are very damaging once they get it
McGrath and Merrett should spend the majority of their time with Caldwell in there cracking heads.
It’s just… so… freaking… obvious.
People forget that Shiel is one of the best centre-clearance winners in the competition. It’s his strength. He was 4th in the competition last year behind Cripps, Nic Nat and Bont. He was 9th in 2019. He was 3rd in 2017. His ball use lets him down, but he doesn’t struggle winning clearances.
Let’s not overreact based on one game.
Great analysis. I’m intrigued to see our stoppage clearance numbers because that’s where we traditionally get belted. We don’t have players capable of averaging 6-7 clearances.
My confidence in the club is so low, that I am almost certain that they’ve not done any of this analysis themselves.
Stats can be deceiving and not give the whole picture but they do show trends. Btw great contribution Dunlop. It was fascinating info. Anyway, both stats and the visible look at the play vs Hawthorn, as well as pre-season games show us that Parish and McGrath are the new #1 midfield clearance players. Both Merrett and Shiel the link out of the mid to put the gas down and speed away from the centre, both, but especially, Shiel must better find the next target. It’s where we get let down too often. Maybe the leading players are partly to blame, but the mids must find their targets otherwise the rebounds will continue to kill us. Exciting to see Caldwell developing and he fits nicely into both the above categories and will improve immensely with more game time. Add Tippa and Stringer on occasions and we will be a powerhouse midfield.
I’m still a Shiel fan, big time.
Don’t you think we should be absolutely desperate to win every match? I certainly do.
No.
EDIT:
And it amazes me people still don’t get it.
We need to develop, first and foremost.
The first thing to develop is desperation to win. Everything else is secondary.
Cool brah.
Just try harder
Every sporting coach or captain I ever had commented on my endeavour and commitment
I was always a ■■■■ ■■■■. But a ■■■■ ■■■■ who cared.
Ability >>>>>>>> desperation.
Completely disagree but I guess thats each to their own.
Hard work beats talent when talent doesnt work hard.
But untalented hard work doesn’t beat talent that even works a little bit. There is a very hard ceiling to how high sheer hard work can get you in footy. And it’s basically ‘honest jobber who might creep to 100 games if he’s lucky but will be abused by his supporters for every single one of them because of his inability to kick straight or pick the ball up cleanly’
It’s a good line, but it’s mostly useful for motivating lazy talented kids. If you tell it to hard-working but less-talented hopefuls with starts in their eyes, it’s just disohonest.