And now Heppel is injured will Connor be the one to fill in the empty space?
My guess is not this week.
2 Likes
Tell me how good our midfield is when Carlton almost double us in the clearance count.
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Worst in the league. Useless.
Rotting from the head down
Weāll never have a dominant midfield because the people responsible for our list have no idea how to put one together and it seems the coaching group have no idea how to develop one.
1 Like
The old saying is that a fish rots from the head. But any biologist will tell you that is incorrect, a fish rots from the guts.
And thatās where our problem is. The midfield.
3 Likes
We donāt have any guts
Thatās another problem.
The mids pick and choose. They got obliterated in contested groundball tonight. They all looked off, I donāt think we had a contest result in a clean passage of play all game.
TāBell got quite a few taps but our blokes didnāt win the ball in the middle.
Our midfield is terrible. End of story.
Its our biggest issue bar none. Our forward line is bad but if we had midfielders who could deliver it to their advantage it wouldnāt look half as bad as it does.
Shiel and merrett are the only 2 decent players we have running through there, not good, decent.
Weāve got to have some of the worst midfield setups in the league. Itās a complete mess.
How can we rely on Shiel, Merrett and McGrath to be our major ball winners? Name me one contender that would be dumb enough to do that.
- Langford as an inside/defensive mid when he doesnāt have a defensive bone in his body. He did his job, but what makes them think āwe need to stop Cripps tonight and itās Langford that needs to do itā. I want to know how we came to the conclusion that heās the standard for grunt work. Why do we have Clarke on our list? Do they understand what we mean with a big bodied mid? It doesnāt mean a HF/outside mid/wingman you potatoes. Play him in his position.
- Parish as a small forward. Itās the single worst decision that completely defies logic. He will leave elsewhere to play in the actual position he was drafted for.
- TBC is cooked. Proper cooked. Why canāt they actually observe what he does outside of the ruck contests?
- Shiel with zero assistance from our mids while being tagged because he is our biggest body in the contest. I mean, surely Hibberd or Clarke or even Ambrose could do more to free Shiel. Shiel did as well as he could, but itās such an oversight from our coaches. Without Shiel, weāre left with Merrett, McGrath and Smith. Mate. Thatās unacceptable.
- Our set up around stoppages is really poor.
- No inside bull to bust through contests and feed the ball to our mids. Again, Iām not asking for an A-grader. Just an honest Hocking-style workman like player who blocks, tags and feeds the ball to our mids. Even throw in a couple of turnovers. Iāll take it.
- Heppell goes down and isnāt replaced by anyone. We were already down one inside mid before Heppell was out of the side. Our biggest mid is Dylan Shiel. Dylan Shiel. Yes Dylan Shiel.
Weāve been talking about big bodied mids for so long. It really isnāt a difficult part of ground to fix. All you need is a player that can use his strength to bust through packs and extract the ball. At this point, Iāll even take an inside mid that doesnāt really have an outside game. As long as heās able to extract the ball and feed it to our mids in space.
Merrett, Parish, McGrath and Shiel are a talented group of midfielders. We have personnel to be selecting a decent midfield. Weāre wasting their talent.
Weāre always behind the ball game because weāre very conservative with our team structure (as if itās a winning combination lol). I thought we at the very least learned our lesson about our midfield from the EF smashing.
What Iād like to see:
Parish, Hibberd (until Heppell comes back) and Clarke as our inside/defensive mids.
McGrath and Shiel playing more of an inside/outside role.
Merrett playing as the outside/receiver as heās our most damaging mid in space.
Draper/Phillips to be the ruckman.
That already looks so much better. A much more balanced midfield.
So sick of seeing McGrath, Shiel and Merrett as our main sources of contested ball and clearances. Thatās way too easy to pick apart. Tag Shiel and watch everything collapse.
2 Likes
Doubt they play Hibberd AND Clark. But they damn well must play one of them. Then chuck Parish in the middle too and weāre looking a lot better. Stringer in there for bursts only. McGrath, Merrett, Shiel, Langford can all spend time on wings/flanks.
Would be happy to see what Phillips can provide. Draper will need some praccy matches first.
is hibbered anygood?
For VFL, yes
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People see what they want to see but the last thing we needed last night was two more slower mids in the mix.
I agree we wouldāve been better with Parish getting more mid time.
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Yeah, last thing we needed was a Bont, Pendelbury, Fyfe, Kennedy etc etc.
Oh FFS! Heās saying we should pick Hibberd and Clarke. They donāt fit into the etc etc category
4 Likes
OK. Thatās what I said.