Thinking Merrett will likely extend his career a few years by moving to half back permanently at the back end.
He will probably split some time there in the next few years aiming to eventually move into a Luke Hodge type role.
If we are to win a flag with Merrett it will likely be when he is 33-35.
Would be nice for him to play full time mid until the end of time but preservation becomes a factor.
Merrett has that luxury players like Cripps of a similar age will struggle to play another position once the body can’t hold up to permanently playing as a mid.
Who are you talking about with this sentence?
Durham went from a wing into the midfield very well. So seeing how that pans out in the forward line is not such a terrible idea.
If it is Zach, he’s predominantly played wing in his first few years, then midfield since.
Trying to sort out the splits will drive where players play when they aren’t there.
I don’t think Martin is a failure in the backline, but there’s no point arguing it because most people are already fixed on where he should be playing.
I’m interested to see if shifting Shiel elsewhere works. Hopefully, he’s in the VFL, but I’m not confident he’ll stay there. Parish is a midfielder. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t have a position elsewhere and his best position is the midfield. Caldwell will switch forward and play a similar high half forward role when there. Probably switch with Gresham and also chop out the other small forward. Where Tsatas plays outside of the midfield will another interest. Most teams use the win as their resting mid / developing mid position, which we used him at times there last year, but we then shifted how the wing position was to work. Long term, we could have a similar alternative position problem with Tsatas because of his limitations.
Our forward line really depends on what we do with in the ruck. Bryan can’t take full time ruck yet (like Marshall). Draper may be able to do it, but I don’t think we go that path. So we’re likely to go with Bryan as 1st ruck and Draper as a resting tall forward. That means Caddy, Jones and Draper (one may rotate off the bench) in the forward line. Langford, 2 small forwards (one off the bench or sub), Gresham and a resting midfielder as the high half forwards who push up the ground.
It’ll be interesting if we can somehow free up a spot there to rotate another midfielder through there.
I suspect we’ll use the gaps in our backline as ways to give players some development time / resting time. That a pretty risky knife edge there though because mistakes will come at a greater cost than up the field. But maybe it helps the players learn some resilience. Could also crush their confidence.
I was referring to Durham in the sentence you highlighted. I’ve since edited it to make it clearer. Thanks for that. He certainly went from a wing to midfield and excelled there but in the final half a dozen or so matches last year his role was given to others and his output suffered when playing an outside role. Maybe his form dip wasn’t due to a lack of versatility.
Sadly, I’m not confident Shiel will stay in the VFL as much as I’d like. Should be depth only. In previous seasons, Brad has loved the older brigade but maybe the direction of the club has changed. Here’s hoping.
Is only pre season and I think it’s good trialing players in different positions. There are games when changes need to be made due to injuries and it’s better if we have tried players there previously. It should also help Durhams development and help him connect better with the forwards when he’s a mid and vice versa.
That’s a rather small sample size to call Durham moving to another position a failure.
I’m pretty sure he said at the end of last season that he was gassed towards the end of the year.
And the form of the rest of the team didn’t help things either.
The only player who performed above their usual standard was Caldwell.
I think training another position during the pre-season and going into a season with that behind you would have a different result to a switch during the year.
I’m not expecting it until I see it. The only reason Shiel started in VFL was for fitness purposes due to a restricted pre-season. Once he cleared that, he was bound to get AFL games.
Unfortunately, he was pushed straight into centre bounces. He’s in a similar boat to Parish in that he doesn’t have another spot on the field to play when he’s not at the CBA.
Hopefully he’s pushed to a backline or elsewhere if he is in the AFL team. But I’m not expecting it.
If I get a chance to drop down to training, I’ll be keeping an eye out on him and a handful of other players who end up affecting the setup on a typical week.
When the drop off is stark, as it was with Duz, I feel that 6 weeks (or however long it was) is enough time to have measured doubts about his versatility but as we both stated, there could be other factors at play. For perspective’s sake when talking versatility, I don’t have any doubts about Zach’s effectiveness at half back or Nic Martin’s goal sense.
I don’t have a fixed position on this and keep in mind, my objection was to him going from a more heavily weighted inside mid role, which he clearly excels at into a ‘Stringer’ role which prompted thoughts of ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.’
Depending on exactly how he’s played, I’m cool with a bit of experimenting, especially if it provides opportunities to likes of Tsatas and Hobbs.
I’d say the drop off coinciding with parish’s return has something to do with it, I don’t have exact stats to back up if durhams midfield minutes dropped or the synergy wasn’t there with the midfield group
It did coincide with Parish’s return.
But they both held high % of CBAs earlier in the season.
Shiels return coincided with Perkins out of the midfield, but this affected Durham’s CBAs.
You’ll notice Merrett’s percentages dropped off later in the year too. Which points to that we were trying to spread the midfield duties around a bit more.
Stringer’s midfield minutes were completely gone in the last bit of the season.
Merrett’s CBA were increased during our worst parts of the season.
So were Parish’s.
And there was far less combinations being used during that period too.
I think there were other things at play towards the end of both seasons. And you could argue in 2024, the coaching group experimented more with the midfield mix towards the end of the season and did their best to reduce the reliance on Merrett to solve our midfield problems. Only problem is they reverted to the Merrett, Shiel and Parish mix which isn’t good at all.
Hopefully Durham and Caldwell can take more CBAs this year. Tsatas is phased in as well. Something like a 30% across the year would be great for him. And when players are gassed, they are shifted elsewhere on the field for the likes of Perkins or Hobbs to fill in gaps than revert to Shiel.
I think the coaches ideal midfield is Parish and Merrett with a mix of Durham, Caldwell, Tsatas and Perkins depending on the matchups.
I don’t think they are as fixed on Shiel at the CBAs as Rutten was. His percentages are more high 50s and high 60s under Scott, whereas they were in the 70s and 80s in 2020 and 2022 (he was injured in 2021).
What evidence do you have? We’ve largely sucked with him in the middle, maybe he’s part of our midfield mix problem?
Don’t get me wrong, he’s our best player and he’s the most committed footballer we’ve had for a long time, but it’s worth asking the question, could we improve if we changed our midfield set up?
If its any consolation Hawthorn are building their new facility at Dingley, at the highest point in kilometers, they will cop similar wind to Tullamarine.
