At the time we didnt have Ridley so Francis as a 3rd tall defender would have filled a need and he had potential as a forward or mid as well so his versatility was a bonus.
Or the 11 meter short pass option to the diagonal right hand side of the square. Then that player bombs it 50 meters down the line to the right hand boundary line side only to be marked or taken over the line for the opposition to set up and brought straight but into our hot defensive zone.
As soon as Fletch retired this was our strategy and I never saw it once pay off.
It always sounds good but this is almost a death sentence for an EFC player. Give me a guy who’s really good in 1 position & thats where he plays. We seem to spend 8 years trying to find an effective use of their versatility only to have them fail everywhere. Francis needed to be developed where we planned to use him not chopped & changed hoping to find a home. Every time I saw him in the VFL in his early years he played forward but then mostly back when called up. Makes no farking sense to have a club working against itself. If we wanted a key forward then there were clearer options at the draft. That may have meant drafting Weideman & we’d be no better off but at least it shows a clear plan plan & coordination through the club. Same story with Cox - did the recruiters & coaches get together, look at the unique nature of Coxs’ attributes & have a plan of where they could utilise them OR did we simply pick up the kid we rated the highest talent & hope he became really good at something. We don’t have that strong structure that these versatile players can shine in. Blicavs is a perfect example. He has unique athletic abilities but didn’t really fit a typical role. Geelong were able to develop him into a very handy player because they had a rock solid backline with guys like Taylor to carry the load. We are bringing in these guys needing them to be Taylor from game 1 & then wanting them to be Hawkins the next week. I see versatile players as cream - we need more cake.
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I’m not sure how pointing out EFC play the extra midfielder regardless of personnel effects drafting one way or another.
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It looked like Brisbane had a spare in their forward line
I was trying to identify the spare man but it’s pretty difficult when there are several of them.
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Should send the Spare Man to Ukraine so he can use his killing skills to help people who need it more
Maybe our spareman could be a tagger??
Whilst I agree with what you say, Blicavs isn’t the right example.
Early days he was playing ruck and wing.
Then shifted back.
That doesn’t sound to me like identifying and selecting a player for a particular role and sticking him in a position to let him develop.
The difference between Cox and Blicavs is that Blicavs wasn’t a high pick, didn’t have high expectations and had to slot into a team challenging for a prelim every year of his career so could have a few weeks of indifferent form during his development and keep his confidence pretty high through his form slump.
Even when sent back through VFL, he’s part of a well organised team where he can develop.
The Geelong club is an incredibly well organised team from top to bottom that gets the most out of players. We are nothing like that.
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great post
The spare man is killing us, because we have several players who are effectively witches hats each game, giving the appearance of multiple spare players for the opposition.
Work rate is half the issue. Structure/game day decisions the other half.
Excellent analysis, bookmarking for my own reference
Blicavs was also a mature age recruit and didnt debut til he was 21. Cox just turned 20.
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Just a note here, because it’s not evident on the TV, but according to the commentators, Brisbane were playing a 7 man backline at times during the second quarter.
I’m not a fan of playing 5 forwards like we did against Geelong, but that’s a wrinkle in the tactics of the match.
And I don’t think playing a 7 man forward line is the answer.
And yet we didn’t use Ridley as the spareman, when we had 6 goals in a row kicked on us.
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How many of those six were directly from centre bounces though?
The spare man is irrelevant then.
The real question is where was our spare, when Zorko was the seventh defender in general play?
Most were from turn overs
Thank goodness we have fixed this issue.
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W Carey was having a giggle - Essendon players just sucked in repetitively.
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