That’s why we have so many inside 50s though. We get an inside 50, push right up, do nothing with it, intercept it on the way out, and get another inside 50. If we were actually any good at converting to goals, we’d have way fewer inside 50s.
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I think that’s part of the picture that needs to be appreciated.
Scott was appointed at a very awkward time. We had done our Hawthorn in 2020 and dramatically altered the age profile of our list to line up a batch of players who could come through together.
The hope was that Reid, Perkins, Cox, Caldwell, Durham, Jones, Martin, Menzie, Hobbs would go on to form the nucleus of our side. Their development had been affected by injury, Rutten’s downfall and a club professionalism that if not set straight could ruin them for good.
We had to put time into the group to see what emerged from it. Hobbs is the only one from that group that I feel hasn’t been given enough faith and game time.
If elements of that group simply aren’t good enough it puts us where we are now but at least they had a proper environment to show us what they have.
This is such an important off season in terms of list management.
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Our players have shown them selves to be resistant to both coaching and development.
Needs further investigation for mine…
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This is what we have been talking about in the “Something seriously wrong with the club” thread for years.
The recruitment has been a disaster. I’m not talking about players with poor basic skills, …… I’m talking about having low football IQ. Meaning that they’re unable to follow coaches instructions, or need to be told exactly what they need to do at every given second. They also can’t adapt to different game plans, with different coaches.
The senior players have had 4-5 different senior coaches, and a rotating roster of assistants. So they’ve been getting mixed messages every year regarding game plans, and standards.
Lack of onfield leadership and coaching. Our senior players have never tasted any success…… they have no idea what it takes. They’re also unable to deliver simple directions ie. Redman’s inability to pick up an opponent. Or Stringer giving players a spray for not passing the ball to him.
The players have had absolute power, when it comes to the club. They deliberately had Rutten sacked. They have deliberately ignored coaches game plans, just so they can prop up their own stats. There is a culture of selfishness.
There has been no cohesion between VFL and AFL. The best teams have the same game plan, so that when they come up to AFL…. They understand their role.
Every other club but Gold Coast has had top 4 exposure, in the last 20 years. They have a foundation of a successful game plan to build upon…… we do not.
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Kicking efficiency is the fakest of all stats.
Our mids just bombing it to contests is classed as an effective kick, but it’s really not serving us at all well.
The overall efficiency is also inflated by the amount of crap sideways, and backwards kicks our team takes.
This again ups our disposal numbers, as do the ridiculous dinky handballs to a hotter player. Having most disposals isn’t really a positive.
I do think our forwards are crap. But the mix is also the major issue.
3x medium fowards and 2x talls is just dumb.
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will it though ? what is his best ?
cos if you think he’s magically going back to getting 40 possies a game that’s just fantasy thinking. his still poor by foot, poor defensively the only plus he can bring is clearance work, which they showed this year, simply winning that stat doesn’t necessarily equate to better results or more goals.
if anything keeping him just keeps us stuck in the same position we’ve been in for too long, rewarding numbers on a stat sheet, hell in this case it’s numbers on a state sheet from 3 years ago now. and something he hasn’t been able to replicate across a whole season since.
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We dont have the crumbers or the contested mark in the forward line.
We dont have the pace to get it on the fat side(although perhaps another offseason they will hit up Caddy who has wheels).
The issue aint our midfielders
He had his statistically second best year (average disposals) in 2023, 30.8 vs 31.3 (best ever) in 2022. Also highest average clearances (7.7) in 2023. And 2024 was obviously cruelled by injuries.
I’m not saying he’s going to be top 5 midfielder in the AFL but I don’t think he’s past his best and your recency bias for the just completed season is astounding
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D’ambrosio’s two positions are wing and half back flank, so you’re saying that a full time mature winger coming onto the list and our usual winger in Martin therefore moving to the half back flank, didn’t make mass who plays both those positions a less important commodity on our list?
I agree with the other parts you say, but it would have definitely contributed to their apathy towards mass’s contract offer.
yep this plus none of our preferred small forwards are fast. (Guelfi, Gresham, Menzie)
Well Jayden Davey is but he doesn’t even have a contract.
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He is still and always will be a defensive liability. His body is cooked.
And he’s had one great year in 9.
But sure he pads some nice stats
I never said our mids where the soul reason.
I simply stated I don’t think they’re the finished product or as good as some make out.
Our DE % is high because we value a ‘time in possession’ game plan which means short safe kicks, and it’s all most of our defenders are capable of anyway.
Our I50’s are high because we play an aggressive forward half press, which means our forward line is flooded with copious numbers most of the time making it difficult to score.
Repeat entries don’t help if you don’t possess contested marking talls, or creative smalls.
We have neither !
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That’s not quite what I said, though I’m not sure how you can argue they were related given the timings (Not to mention we’d never seen mass as a winger, was purely a hbf with the occasional stint forward).
25/9 - Mass requests trade
5/10 - Duurmsa completes medical with Essendon
9/10 - Duursma officially requests trade.
Duursma was obviously still under contract and never a guarantee, and our contract offer to Mass would have come well before he even requested to leave.
We then at some point tried to up our offer to 2 years, but the horse had well and truly bolted.
Mass leaving was a combination of poor list management (poor offer) and the coach clearly not rating him very highly.
A wing rotation of Mass/Martin/Duursma would have been amazing.
Surely you realise the ‘one season in 9’ argument is ridiculous given it took the club what, five full years to play him in the midfield. Also second highest Brownlow votes in 2023 with 2 behind Merrett. Granted it’s a midfielders’ medal.
And yeah granted he missed a huge chunk of 2024 but came back and played the last five games in a row. Time will tell but not sure he’s cooked
I disagree. He’s also had a number of good years, it’s just that he didn’t develop like everyone hoped while he languished in the forward line. I think he’ll do well for us in the future.
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Especially astounding when you look at the length of contracts we’ve thrown around in the past 12 months. How many players have we given 5+ season deals to?!
You’re getting mixed up. Our 2024 second was given up to move up the draft to get Caddy. The BZK trade was:
EFC out: BZK, #73, 2x 2024 4th round picks
EFC in: Duursma
That said, I agree we shouldn’t have given up anything extra. Those 4th round picks could have been useful for matching Kako. Duursma struggles to stay fit for a season, which is a huge worry. Let Port trade him elsewhere and give us the draft capital for BZK.
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For those more in the know or across the news - is Owies getable? I wouldn’t mind both him and Kako inserted in our forward line from round 1 next year.
No it wasn’t. We gave 11 and 31 (Both from 2023) to move up to 10 for Caddy.
Bully was stating we have no picks AFTER 28 (Which is our 2024 2nd rounder).
We gave up our 3rd this year in a deal to get 35 last year.
We had Collingwoods 4th this year but traded it to get Archie Roberts (a steal) and obviously gave a few other 4th rounders with Zerk
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