Absolutely , Jones has that mobility, Wright doesn’t. There always seems to be a disconnect between the players we have a the way we expect them to play. Play to the strengths we have.
We don’t always do this. Not in every game. And I’m not sure what the trigger factor is to deploy this tactic.
Certainly not our opponent’s ability or otherwise to intercept or we wouldn’t have done it against Geelong & Stewart etc.
Got a sneaking suspicion we use this tactic less often when we have 3 genuine tall forwards. Though it could also relate to the opposition midfielders & how we perceive them.
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Helps if you have 2 gun tall forwards. That’s ok, we have Francis as a forward. Has anyone mentioned that we picked Francis ahead of both those guys in the draft?
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WSPHU
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I don’t think it’s ever come up.
What’s scarier is that Melbourne took Weidermann ahead of them both, too. Imagine their team with McKay in it? Goodness.
With context, though, we weren’t drafting for a KPF because our team already had Joe Daniher in it.
Drafting McKay under those circumstances would have been…odd.
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Yeah, I don’t think we were ever looking at McKay.
We were definitely looking at Curnow, though.
But we already had Michael Hurley, too. So Francis was hardly a desperate need. We picked him because he was ‘too good to pass up.’
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I’ll be honest, I would have been okay if we ended up with two good key forwards. I think you might just be able to find a way to make it work.
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The way we just may be able to make it work is that one might be able to play when the other is perennially injured, and vice versa.
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Hurley was always going to be close to his end by the time Francis or whomever else we drafted that year peaked. Add Hooker into the same conversation and another KP had merit. My question was always at what stage of development is a potential 3rd tall forward or back a key need worthy of that pick. Too good to pass up is a luxury position we simply haven’t been in. Its a similar position with Cox, do we have a plan on what key role we wanted him to fill. If not then taking talent and hoping it finds a spot is flawed.
We’d just lost Carlisle, too. I was keen for a KP player at that point as well. I guess McKay just seemed too similar to Joe at the time.
And 12 months later we took a better version of Francis at pick 20.
We should have taken Oliver & Curnow.
Dodoro is a fool.
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Of course Brisbane chose Schache instead of McKay. So what does that make them?
I know there have been some mitigating circumstances which we all respect but honestly, from a purely on field performance point of view, 7 years into a career, Francis has done nothing. Absolutely nothing. Hasn’t fired a shot.
And it’s these kind of returns that are starting to bite.
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Pretty spewing I would imagine.
A couple of handy mids went straight after that, too.
It certainly has been an enduring issue. Problem is some teams, like Geelong with Stewart, Brisbane with Rich, will keep throwing numbers behind the ball to keep their spare. So if you go man on man forward of the ball and put someone on Stewart, they just throw another one back. This not only keeps their spare but clogs our forward line and opens theirs up. Who wants to see Cameron and Daniher one out in the Brisbane forwardline, whilst every other player is at the contest or in our forwardline?Having our spare ‘at the contest’ is as much about not having him at half-back as it is going 6 v 6 forward. We play our best footy when Ridley is our spare, playing the Stewart/Lever role, or the opposition lets us go even numbers forward and back.
A team that changed list managers twelve months later.
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Is the answer you were looking for- smart enough to replace the person who made that decision??? 
So that’s a no to recruiting Cripps I take it?
Killing us softly with spare man…