Is it just me, or is this one of the first times that Setters has been fully involved in training this preseason? Feels like he’s spent a lot of time absent or in the modified group.
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We would want to really tidy up our ball use if we go with a structure like this. Our typical forward 50 entry is kick it long and high. The only player within that that is back to being the ball to ground is caddy. It’s exciting on paper but with our ball use we would barely have an inside 50 possession. Plus I’m not sure who would play backup ruck.
Unfortunately I think the only real option is to have one of Draper or wright in the forward line.
I used to own a Stringer watch. It looked very flash but only worked a couple of times a year. The rest of the time it was a useless dead weight on my wrist.
When I sold it I was told it was a cheap knock off and only got $5 from some bloke in Sydney.
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I love the idea of Merrett playing back.
Our backline panics and can butcher the ball. Zach does neither. His presence will have a calming impact on the remaining backmen and will make us more potent in transition.
Opens up more midfield opportunities for others, too.
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It would be an interesting experiment. His defensive tackling pressure elite. The only question is that he might get found out with high balls.
I remember Boyd from Dogs spent his last few years in the back pocket with great aplomb.
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Not sure that’s true would say Ridley and Redman are decent at kicking under pressure too
McGrath is the one that butchers the ball and panics
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Zac is still too good to play in defence at this stage, also i think the only minor flaw in his game is overhead. I’d prefer he keeps killing it around the ball, then moves back later on like Zorko when he looked just about cooked at the lions.
I also think overall you want your best players around the ball. Durham, Merrett, Martin are our best 3, then caldwell, parish and hopefully tsatas are pretty good depth. They’ve gotta stop chucking guys like Perkins and Cox in the midfield, they aren’t good enough for a gig there, particularly when it squeezes out better players to less important positions.
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We no longer have Heppell or Kelly back there, and Lav shouldn’t get a look in this year if all goes well.
Roberts has pretty impressive composure, as do Saady and Reid.
Merrett has been really potent up forward in match sim and regularly delivers for set shots or scores them himself.
You only win if you score more than the opposition, and last year conversion and generating shots was our biggest issue.
Zac forward for me
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I think Zac will end his career as a rebounding defender if and when we no longer need him in the guts. Have said this for probs 3 years, and we haven’t look getting to that point yet.
Hopefully Tsatas Durham Caldwell Hobbs all progress well and that happens sooner rather than later.
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Could totally work. The man can hit a target, something we’re god awful at. And yeah, some of the, let’s say, ‘have nots’ of the backline are no longer at the club, alleviating it’s woes. Has the same benefit of playing him defensively, too, in that it allows greater chance for the midfield young 'uns.
But I still worry about McGrath and McKay’s skills and what is at times, a complete lack of composure. I can’t help but wonder if this sort of stuff is, for lack of a better word, contagious. That’s one of the reasons I like Zach back. His instruction and leadership I feel are more needed in defence. Could offer a badly needed sense of relief to our mainstay defenders that seem a touch more easily rattled than we’d like. I mean, some of our defensive efforts last season were among the worst footy I’d seen all year. Maybe even in the last 5. Some of the offenders (add Redman to the two aforementioned names) are considered by most to be best 22. It’s kinda scary.
They’re both really good ideas. We’d like to see him spend less time in the guts so we can certainly agree on that.
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There is nothing more certain than Laverde playing Round 1 and getting 18+ games this year.
It’ll eventuate through a mixture of unavailability and our coach being stubborn about senior players. He’ll try his guts out, but turn the ball over and take an age to move the ball on and we’ll all just have to accept it because this is Essendon.
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I understand the attraction of Merrett playing back, or playing forward for that matter, but the fact is that he’s an AA midfielder, and if we take him out of there, then the midfield is that much weaker.
Personally I’d rather have him doing as much damage as possible all over the ground, rather than in a more limited area.
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We are stacked in the middle, Merret could gain AA selection from whatever position he played, no one would doubt that.
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I’m guessing that the club thinks the midfield options are now stronger and that we can deploy Zac in a more effective role. Same goes for Sam Durham, he has been a revelation midfield but he might be even better up forward.
I think a few would say he’d be no chance of getting AA as CHF.
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He will only play if Reid is injured. Which means hes playing
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His goal kicking is awful though……
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Oops your right, I should have said position/area of the ground.
Unless some one is stepping up this pre season to take his spot he will play rnd1