While I agree in part, the basic core of the club has not changed or been impacted by year long suspensions and have been good for quite some time. It still took Hardwick 8 years to get his job right and the club to get their recruitment right.
To have an expectation that Woosha could have got our list playing in a grand final after all we have been through was unrealistic.
I wasnāt really commenting on our part. I agree. However the whole Dimma and 8 years of building is rubbish.
Iāve just re read my post 5 time and I have no idea what youāre talking about.
Neutralise the contests isnāt anything to do with hitting the targets. Richmondās pressure created easy intercepts. If the ball gets to ground I back Hooker to make the defenders more scared than Josh Jenkins. And Tippa, Fantasia etc to get involved. Betts and Cameron couldnāt get involved for the Crows because there just werenāt the crumbs.
My whole point was that everyone in this thread was talking about how we needed to have 5 small forwards to be like Richmond. We donāt. We need our game plan. Of course that has to bring pressure, and be able to withstand pressure the other way, and we need a structure that fits that, but the game hasnāt changed just because Richmond and the Dogs didnāt have 2 big forwards. They just developed a game plan around their list. We should be developing a game plan around it strengths, and to minimise our weakness. And then we need to bring that plan, with intent, every week.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying, however this year is just the first step in the evolution of our gameplan and we can and will expect minor adjustments.
Itās obvious that we had a lack of defensive pressure all over the ground and it wouldnāt be that big of a stretch to think that we can expect personnel changes as well as structural changes.
Of course.
Weāre not there yet. Wherever āthereā is. And even Richmond would be tweaking their game plan and looking for improvements both at game plan level and at list level.
When I think Richmond
I picture vomitā¦
Is anyone else hearing Aaron Hall is to be apart of the Ablett trade, so Duncan can make a move to the suns.
Discussed in the trade radio thread.
So you want to create a gameplan around what we have , instead of what works, at present ?
Is that you sheedy?
I donāt think anyone suggested going 1 big forward , most were saying we need only 2.
And you say hooker is better than ā¦ there were soome games where hooker was pretty putrid and had lol to no effect on games for the majority of itā¦
But your whole premise was if opposition teams hit their targets Richmondās gameplan and style is useless.
Which is a simplistic way to look at it, again considering they just showed their gamestyle didnāt allow the opposition to use their skills.
But again what if our strengths donāt allow foe us to produce the same intensity every week ?
There inlies a key issue.
You seem to assume hooker will always be in a position to half a contest , and that tax and tippa will always be sniffing around foe pressure and the rest well the rest takes care of itself.
But if tippa is having an off day, and hooker isnāt marking them or halving contests , then the load increases on tax and green to do the defensive work.
Whereas with the last 2 , if rioli and even another small were having an off game , there were still 2-3 other small forwards who were out applying manic pressure.
Which allowed the system they have in place to continue to function when players were off , or missing.
If hooker is off , or missing or tippa isnāt applying pressure then the ball just rebounds with ease.
You can say build a team around our strengths all you like , but if our strengths arenāt in sync with the current trend as a whole , then itās pointless.
Otherwise youād play both belly and Looney in the same side , just like in years past , just like when they wanted to play/try 3 ruckman.
You say build a gameplan to minimise our weskness, then assume our strengths will always be our strengths just cos.
Like I said the blueprint is there foe how to win now. You can figure out how to adapt to it and implement it and then figure out how to score from there.
Or you can be sheedy stubborn and say no we have 3 talls, we will prove the 3 tall system works cos we are Essendon right ?
Edit tax = raz ā¦ stupid new phone auto corrects like a ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā
You must be devastated our three talls worked this year when they had good delivery from the midfield. Imagine having three players in the top 20 of the goal kicking and then wanting to change that.
Itās interesting that all the trade talk involving us seems to involves half forwards and back flanckers. I would have thought that our pressing need was pretty obvious: contested ball winning midfielders. All the talk about Parker made sense to me. But Saad, Stringer, Smith, I donāt know how this helps us. They are all good players but do they fill needs?
Seems to me we are planning on pushing Fantasia, McGrath and Tippa through the middle and want players who can do the same (Stringer potentially). Still, you need someone at the ruckmanās feet who will win the ball and feed it out to the outside runners. I would have thought that was our most pressing need.
Wonāt be a popular view, but it is possible the club think they have the inside mids sorted. But they chose to develop them in different positions in 2017 rather than playing them in that position in the AFL. Not sure why. Anyway.
Heppell and Zerrett are both all-australian midfielders who are most likely to be in our centre square.
Parish is an obvious inclusion, and he didnāt get much time there. Langford obviously being developed for that role in the VFL.
Add to that Zaharakis, who I am convinced plays his best footy out of the centreā¦ not that Iād have imagined that was remotely possible 3 years ago.
Thatās pretty much the Best 22 inside mid positions covered.
In addition Goddard and Myers are also options, not that either are particularly thrilling long term options. With Mutch and Clarke possibilities to grow into a role. And there is always Andy McGrath, although I like him on a wing in 2018.
Rockliff and Kennedy are the only ones are available. The mids are on big coin &I looked after. HFF & HBF are pretty much midfielders these days anyway.
My question:
Who in our midfield can stand up in a tackle or bust through one?
Thats our target.
Stringer is being traded for to play as that explosive big bodied mid, and be able to rotate fwd like Dusty.
We then have Hep & Parish as key inside mids, together with upcoming Langford & Goddard still likely to roll through.
Zerrett and Zaka also very capable as well.
As we have seen with Tigers and Dogs last year, itās more about pressure and run than having all these big bodied extractors. Swans got shown up for it.
Woosh in the past had Judd, Kerr & Cousins and none of them were big bodied.
Tigers were not a strong clearance/contested footy side. Pressure. And run.
Oli Wines is another who should be targeted hard. not that I think heād be gettable but given theyāve just elected to bring in rockliff on $700-800k youād be foolish not to talk to Wines who may well feel short changed.
Our biggest deficiencies this year in the midfield were pressure and breakaway speed. All our speed was on the edges, and Watson, Heppell, Myers, etc plodding through the midfield could win the ball, but taking the ball away from the contest, and exerting pressure on the opposition when they had it, were problems.
I agree I reckon the club reckons it has the inside midfielder positions covered, but the addition of players like Stringer brings dynamism to the group, and a Devon Smith can rotate through there swapping with Fanta. Basically we release players to play in the midfield, addressing both the pace and pressure shortcomings.
Langford, Goddard, Zerrett, Zaka, Hepp, Parish were all there this year and part of a midfield that was constantly unable to win the contested ball and constantly shown up for a lack in defensive pressure (hence the low tackle count and constant inside 50 differential in favor of the opposition).
Big bodied or not, I donāt care, but you need to at least be able to win the ball or pressure it off the opposition. What are Stringers or Smiths credentials as midfielders? Richmond were certainly winning their own ball in the GF and not just pressuring it off the opposition, though they did score something like 7 goals from turnovers.
Certainly we seem to be looking to add even more leg speed to the team. Iām just not sure we are picking the players that meet our need.
Goddard won plenty of contested footy and often lead our clearances. Heppell was strong also.
Parish and Zerrett were being played more outside roles. Parish in particular for his development because he is already a known excellent clearance mid. And he will be ready to do that now in 3rd yr.
Langford barely played inside mid in senior team, spent almost whole year in VFL doing so learning his craft.
The issue was Jobe (whose output was signficantly down) & Myers (who was a passenger). They werenāt winning enough contested footy and were also part of a group of slow players in our team who could contribute next to no defensive pressure or spread from contest. As such we kept having to rob the fwd line by moving Raz and TIPPA into rotations simply to stop getting burnt out of centre of ground.
Stringer & Smith both have midfield credentials as juniors. Stringer will play inside mid when run through centre & Smith likely to play wing (and a massive upgrade on Colyer), he was racking up 30 possession games as a HFF pushing up the ground. He absolutely knows how to find the footy.
It was our midfield mix which was not working this year. I expect it will change up signficantly next year, and continue to improve as players like Parish & McGrath really hit their straps as key mids.
Just slipped through some posts.
IMO you cannot play Tigers style of footy consistently across the entire season. Itās impossible.
However, they had a good gameplan, peaked at the right end of the season and executed exceptionally well in the last 3 matches.
Doing that all year is an unrealistic expectation. At half time against Saints when they were losing 92-10 did anyone think that was the premiership side?
Consistency is in some ways irrelevant if you can win 14-16 matches in a year and put together 3-4 good games at the end of the year.
AFL is not the EPL.