I agree that the pickups don’t address our glaring weaknesses, but all three would be in our best 15 players at best. So it does make us better across the field.
Stringer is a far better option than Green. Some here are saying he’ll be an inside mid. I think he’ll play forward with spurts of midfield time. Something Green cannot do (regardless of his under 18 abilities).
Smith is a massive upgrade on Colyer. It won’t be popular, but at worst case he’d even be a better choice forward than Tippa and again give us a very dynamic forward line between he, Stringer and Fantasia where we can exploit mismatches by rotating all of these guys through the middle.
Saad is a little suspect. He’d be a better choice than Baguley, but offer more attacking presence to the backline. I see Gleeson taking Kelly’s role, Ambrose being the lock down third tall / small and Saad releasing McGrath into the midfield.
We haven’t addressed the midfield directly, but I think our options are limited. If we could have gotten Rockliff as a FA, then we’d be set, but he’s wanted to go back to SA all year.
We need to hope that Langford becomes the inside mid we’ve been developing him to become otherwise, we’ll need to get that midfielder next season.
If we get the three and make finals, we’d look very tempting to other players. We’d be far more attractive next off season than this one.
or maybe just maybe we could look at the last 2 premiers.
Small quick midfields that run both ways and harass all day, coupled with excellent delivery by hand (Dogs) or foot (Tigers).
We could continue down your path of big bodied mids who dominate the clearances and kill the contest, but these smaller, quicker teams will kill you once you get the ball on the outside. It’s death by a thousand cuts.
Just look at Sydney and Geelong. Both very big midfields that can win a clearance, but have been absolutely useless against the smaller quicker teams. take this years finals series as an example.
There is also a possibility that our club may be wanting to push into a new gameplan/strategy/tactic that will change the way the game is played. Similar to Sydney with their rugby style in the mid to late 2000s, Dogs and Tigers with their small manic pressure as recent examples.
Stop living in the past and support the club, better yet just support the club.
You know, I’ve seen many many people say these things. Both I think are mostly incorrect. Either that, or Parish is the worst half-forward ever (look at his goals/goal assists) and Heppell got more clearances/contested ball than any half-back ever.
I do agree that they both spent more time on the wing than automatically inside, but I believe both played almost exclusively midfield.