Midfield Woes: Instant fix

This is by far my main concern. We loose the clearance and they just walk it out of there which lets them kick it to the fwds advantage everytime. Our backman dont have a chance. If we loose the clearance we need to put at least some sort of pressure on the ball carrier.

The clearance stat means bugger all without context. How many clean clearances did we win compared to them?

Goddard was BOG watch how many good clearances he won us in the 3rd.

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Pretty sure Hepp was not 100% either was Jobe I recon, probably why they looked even slower then usual

Career or vs Adelaide?

I said he started on a HBF in his first season to ease him into it

Colyer is playing Ben Cousins / Shane Crawford level footy awareness around packs and is using his pace ( remember him setting us up early in both our wins with clearances and busting out of packs with pace as well as a few goals)

I’d throw Zerrett, Colyer, Watson and Bird in, that’s grunt, experience, pace and class

Rotate Goddard through instead of Bird/Watson, and Parish/Hepps for Colyer/Zerrett

Hepp should go back to HBF, a role we really need filled and where he played his first season (which is actually one of his bests numbers wise)

He’s a great judge of a high ball, hard to beat in the air and on the ground, needs to remember his beautiful raking long left foot kick

Tippa and Raz should be put straight into the next clearance if we’re getting beaten, as both will give you something.

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feel like bird may bring a bit of mongrel, won a lot of clearances and dominated the VFL. I think we should, start with something like Bird, Zerrett and Watson in the middle, rotate Goddard, Colyer, Parish, Fanta, walla, hep, francis and mcgrath through at times

Midfield is ageing and slow. Will be for a year or two more. Move on.

Given he leads the club for clearances, I’d suggest it very much plays to his strengths. He was a major catalyst for our 3rd/4th quarter burst against the Hawks in round 1, had something like 5 centre clearances in a row.

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Actual Clearances:
Haw 38 Ess 36
Bris 41 Ess 31
Carl 46 Ess 37
Adel 39 Ess 39

So the games we won (-12)
The games we lost (-9)

Show’s the raw clearance numbers aren’t really as important as the pressure around the ball when we lose the clearance and conversely our ability to win clean clearances. Specific to Goddard, I’d imagine that not only does he lead the club for gross clearances but he’d also be at the heart of a large percentage of our clearances goals suggesting they’re all pretty clean.

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Yep.
I know it’s a bit of a joke, but the aim is to end up with more points then the other team, full stop. There are many paths to that goal, literally.

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Average Clearances for the 4 games( all stoppages) not including ruckmen
BJ 5.3
Jobe 4.5
Zerret 4.3
Parish 3
Heppel 3
Colyer 2

Pendles 6.8
Adams 5.8
Treloar 5.5
Sidearse 3.5
Crisp 2.5

Hence we really do need to defend and tackle hard at stoppages against this mob.
Notice also Pendles is he only tractor in there . Adams and Treloar are both around 180-182 cm.
Darcy 180, Zerret 180 thats the matchup we need.
BJ alternating with Jobe, and 2 strong tackling fast 180cm mids.

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gotta have lots of guys to go in there and provide that pressure. The whole point of having deep midfield rotations is that you can maintain intensity of pressure around the ball and force slow “dirty” clearances from your opposition. Can’t be relying on 2-3 specific guys to provide that pressure, it has to be the mantra for everyone who goes through the centre square and those pushing in off the flanks/wings. Worsfold knows this, he’s in no uncertain terms put it on the players this week to lift their defensive work rate, both publicly and you’d assume privately. In terms of changing the mix the only thing I reckon we might expect to see is Walla and/or Colyer being used more prominently for the pressure they can provide. But again, it really has to be expected of everyone who rotates through there.

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I don’t know how many times we’d go to tackle in the centre/stoppage and the Crows would have a release handball directly out to side and have a free player. That’s their get out of trouble default handball that we allowed time and time again.

So firstly it was ■■■■■■■ me off we couldn’t nail them in tackle and secondly they’d get it out to someone free who’d then break away in space.

I watched vision of how Ross Lyons gets the players to ramp up pressure when Freo was at their best and they would never commit too many players to the initial tackle… would always have others be aware of next possible possession and to be onto them immediately.

In that scenario the free Crows player on outside of stoppage would have been shut down as soon as a handball got to them (no time) or even had that handball cutoff (ball in dispute/intercept possession)

This is how they strangled opposition inside 50’s. Simply being rabid defensively. This also included being able to pre-empt opposition kicks to close space.

This kind of thing requires players being switched on. As Woosh said, you are a second too slow to react and the opposition is gone.

In short our midfield seemingly are not having that clear defensive mindset switched on to think about positioning / next possession etc. Getting caught out ball watching when need to do both that and cover the opposition at same time.

Is it personnel? I think so. Well partly.

Too many players who don’t have that built in defensive mindset. And then too many players slow pace wise to pressure once opposition get the footy/about to get footy. That is where our real improvement will come. Addressing that.

The first part is attitude. The second is personnel.

Woosh won’t accept the attitude part. Hence he has been narky about it. Because when we brought the right attitude to pressure in 3Q we got on top. Same goes for last quarter versus Bris.

When we lapse we get scored against heavily.

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I don’t think we have 1 of those let alone two. Howlett and bird are the three types but neither are particularly fast

This has been a problem for us for a decade. I think our players tend to over commit to tackle on an individual basis to. If a guy is eyeballing you with enough room to move and you over commit at the top level he is a fair chance to step you and skip out of the tackle. How many broken tackles did we have on the weekend. I think we don’t corral enough in general play. In many ways it is a better way of shutting the opposition down because it keeps you on your feet and limits overlap situations. Of course if you are on the blind side you should smash them in the tackle

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We really need to work on grabbing their hand and pinning it in the tackle to prevent the easy hand off to a teammate. The best mids simply take the play on until they are tackled knowing they can dish off nearly always and are rarely pinged.

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  1. Need a good ruckman - Somehow get Judas back
  2. Need more speed/two way running (we are getting better)
  3. Need some more contested beasts - Hope Jobe can get back to that mark.

Judas isn’t that good a ruckman, he is okay only.

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