Ambrose, Mutch, Begley, Ridley, Langford all making strong cases for an upgrade in various positions. Laverde has shown enough in the 2s to be given a crack. You could easily shuffle someone in the best 22 to an outside mid role. Look at Parish for example. Players can cover more than 1 role in the modern game.
The more I think about this the more I like it. Not sure we’ve got much in the cupboard with regards to back pockets though.
the problem is maintaining something like the same balance of skills and attributes.
We’ve already got Parish and Hepp playing out of position.
We could drop colyer, use Zaha as a purely outside mid role too, and replace him with Howlett or Bird on ball, but that leaves the 22 much slower
Yeah. The total distance covered stats are 80km vs 304km. But surely that can’t be right. Maybe it should be 280km?
The team structure is bound to change based on the cattle available. We used Goddard as a defensive clearance player early. We’ve gone tall because Stewart is in form. That creates problems as well as positives. If we bring in someone new the chess pieces will be shuffled so that the overall structure works as well as possible. You’re correct that some players will be out of position but that’s the facts of life. Most clubs with injuries are making do with far less competent players than what our 23-26 could produce.
Data sounds sus to me.
I’d very much doubt Brown covered 16kms, that’s roughly what the best midfielders do. Tom Scully was highlighted as ‘most distance covered’ on the AFL website a few weeks back, having run just over 17kms from memory.
We’ve had the same structure in probably 14 games. Stewart replaced Francis who in turn replaced Langford, 3 small forwards (with Howlett and now Lav in Green’s slot when he went out). McKenna essentially replacing Stanton’s back flank from the start of the year. And so on. A few names have changed but the structure is pretty set.
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Gleeson already plays pretty deep.
I know this is going to sound negative to some tossers, but we’ve been very fortunate with injuries this year.
And it’s great that we’ve been able to lock in that preferred set-up thing, albeit with Stewart starting in round 8.
It does seem like we’ve got a lot of plates spinning at once, though.
And Laverde for Green is an example of that.
No-one for Colyer is another.
Overall it’s good, but there are necessarily drawbacks to it.
At 3/4 time they needed to have a 6+ goal lead instead they were roughly equal to us on the scoreboard and they were gassed. Thats not the way to win games, and thats whats been happening to them, It would seem.
Gleeson expected to be fit to play this week.
I watched “on the couch” on foxtel earlier and they were going through the team’s and finals potential.
Gushed (at length) about Swans, Dees, Crows and Tigers.
Concerned about Cats, GWS.
And they’re starting to hype a “Bulldogs run to finals”. David King is convinced that they’ve got their spark back.
Not a word about Essendon. I think it’s better for the team to be under the radar, but it’s a bit disappointing for the team to get overlooked a lot. Regardless of the season outcome, as a side that hasn’t been playing together for even a year, they’ve done a pretty fantastic job so far.
Just kind of hoping the boys stand up to be noticed as legitimate finals contenders this week.
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We’re totally flying under the radar!
Some journos did mention that we could be one of the most damaging side in the comp, but our inconsistency prevented us from being considered as a genuine contender.
Hopefully we prove the doubters wrong come September…
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David King said that? Now I’m much more confident.
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Worth the read. I had a chuckle 
Not sure we’re completely under the radar. On Talking Footy they looked at our forward line and concluded that we had the second best forward line in the league, just behind Adelaide. Tim and Carey were both very complimentary towards us.
How many KM’s does our midfield do a game? Would love to know how far Zerrett runs
When Brown has a set shot at goal he chalks up 1km.
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See, there’s your problem, sir.
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Good to know!
Living in Europe, I only have access to fox footy’s programs (legally at least…) so never get to watch channel 7’s shows