View Full Version : Our defence
chrisjudd3
1 Jul 2002, 18:08
What the heck is wrong with our defence??????
We have the worst defence in the top 8 and even the bottom 8 teams have better defences???????/
We don't have a specialist back pocket defender but rather make-shift guys from the midfield(eg. Banfield, Braun, Green to name a few)
Our key defenders though old are still our best and thats the problem, we have no key position depth in the backline.
Collica is the only backman specialist we recruited so far.
Greg Harding has disappeared into the WAFL.
Michael Prior has been stiffed despite good form for East Perth.
Darren Glass is a tall mobile defender but plays inconsistently and has a dreadful kick to boot, has been in afl for 3 seasons and should start to improve and cement his place.
Adam Hunter is a revelation in the backline.
Chad Morrison is injured don't expect him to have the zip he once had.
Phil Read a back pocket defender, tough run with injuries. I rate him highly.
Our future defence in 3 years time:
Read Gaspar Glass
Collica Mcdougall Morrison
Gaspar and Mcdougall are capable of holding down the key position posts. Both are tall atheltic mobile and at 196cm each can take on a ruckman cum forward anytime.
Unless we get Jon Hay through some miracle those two fellas are going to be our only hope for key position defenders.
Gaspar's place in CHF will taken over by Lynch.
McDougall can't replace Cox or Gardiner he could be a backman. Needs more beef but continues to add more each season. Expect his rise in 2003 and about time too????
Maybe a Glass - Hay trade would be nice.
Originally posted by chrisjudd3
What the heck is wrong with our defence??????
We have the worst defence in the top 8 and even the bottom 8 teams have better defences???????/
We don't have a specialist back pocket defender but rather make-shift guys from the midfield(eg. Banfield, Braun, Green to name a few)
Our key defenders though old are still our best and thats the problem, we have no key position depth in the backline.
Collica is the only backman specialist we recruited so far.
Greg Harding has disappeared into the WAFL.
Michael Prior has been stiffed despite good form for East Perth.
Darren Glass is a tall mobile defender but plays inconsistently and has a dreadful kick to boot, has been in afl for 3 seasons and should start to improve and cement his place.
Adam Hunter is a revelation in the backline.
Chad Morrison is injured don't expect him to have the zip he once had.
Phil Read a back pocket defender, tough run with injuries. I rate him highly.
Our future defence in 3 years time:
Read Gaspar Glass
Collica Mcdougall Morrison
Gaspar and Mcdougall are capable of holding down the key position posts. Both are tall atheltic mobile and at 196cm each can take on a ruckman cum forward anytime.
Unless we get Jon Hay through some miracle those two fellas are going to be our only hope for key position defenders.
Gaspar's place in CHF will taken over by Lynch.
McDougall can't replace Cox or Gardiner he could be a backman. Needs more beef but continues to add more each season. Expect his rise in 2003 and about time too????
Maybe a Glass - Hay trade would be nice.
A glass-hay trade would be very nice, but it'd have to involve taking some incriminating photos of Peter Schwab with a male prostitute to have any chance of success. I mean- 'We'll give you our third year player whose showed a bit, but had indifferent form all his career for your all australian full back... Whilst we're about it, why don't you throw in Shane Crawford for a couple of rolls of Athletic tape?"
Seriously, what we might have a chance with, is with the number of midfielder extras we have floating around- realistically, we have about two more class midfielders than we need. Partly this is just called depth, but it might be worth considering a trade . Take a team without a midfield- eg, Richmond, and offer a trade like Braun and Morrison for Darren Gaspar- who, if the rumours are correct, has been thinking about heading back west for some time.
Anyway I think the real issue with our backline is partly the way we're playing. We don't flood, we run hard in attack, and Worsfold has given the players the confidence to back themselves when they're near the ball. The flipside of this is when it doesn't come off, bad things happen on the rebound. Whilst we may have a horrific %against, we also have one of the better %for in the league, and more to the point, we're sitting on 8 and 5.
In terms of the cattle we have out there, our defense isn't all that bad, the small defender hole is a worry, and if Jako or Milli goes down, we're going to be in serious trouble, but as someone mentioned previously, lack of defensive running by our midfield and half forward line makes the defenders' jobs a lot harder.
daddy_4_eyes
1 Jul 2002, 19:41
IMO our defence is too unbalanced. We have the two old guys, a huge gap and than the young guys. Nothing in between to bridge the gap between the experienced and the inexperienced. Now I might be wrong (and I rarely am ;)), but the line of thinking between the veterans and the youngsters is very different, resulting in a lack of understanding between them.
Another imbalance is the types of players we have playing there. We have mostly talls, of which none are really capable of holding the modern forward (the Tredrea/Tarrant type). That is, the youngsters are too inexperienced to take on key position players and the 2 vets are getting a bit slow. And we have a medium defender (collica) who is too short to play on the talls and too tall to play on the talls. We also lack a small defender (we really need read/humm).
What concerns me about our defence is the fact that once McIntosh and Jakovich are gone we have no one to replace them.
Glass was touted as the replacement for Milli but hasnt come close to achieving that; and the only person i see replacing Jakovich is maybe Lynch or even Gaspar
Time to start experimenting with some players maybe??
I think our only concern down back is the replacement of McIntosh and Jakovich in years to come. We have a host of half back flankers...Morrison, Hunter, Prior, Collica, Glass but the back pocket position is a concern. However once Read gets back and maybe the development of Humm we could be alright. Collica can also play very well on small forwards, guys that can play in the back pocket...Read, Collica, Humm, Green and even Wirrpunda if were desperate. Our real problem is the FB and CHB spots.
Lynch seems to be a relevation up forward so maybe that has released Gaspar to go back into defence and apparently McDougall is turning into quite the defender. Maybe there an option or maybe we will have to offload a couple of midfielder for a quality backmen.
I dont think its a huge concern though given that we usually outscore the opposition anyways...
What the heck is wrong with our defence??????
I was thinking about the same thing ! We have the 3rd best attack and the 3rd worst defense ! Woosha has been a surprise in a lot of ways. The coach responsible for the best defence last year at Carlton was expected to prepare another good defense at the Eagles. Instead he's prepared a good attacking team when the main question in the pre-season was: "where the goals are coming from ?" The answer to this is in Mead's reply. Many players have now the confidence to do things they wouldn't even try last season.
But that's not all. Woosha is grooming a defender to play in the attack (Lynch) and a forward to play in the backline (McDougall) and though that's nothing new, not many coaches have the right perception to spot the versatility of some players. And here we are with a group of obscure players under KJ, rapidly becoming stars of the game under Worsfold. No long ago a Kangaroos supporter asked in our board where were we getting so many skillful players ! Well... now we know that most of them were already here. We just didn't have the coach to make them shine.
chrisjudd3
2 Jul 2002, 20:14
Mead,
Did you think I was serious about the Glass - Hay trade?
If so your an idiot, it was just an empty ending for a posted thread.
And besides Gaspar put the rumour of the move back home to the West is put to rest by the fact that he signed a 5 year contract with Richmond. If we wanted him we couldn;'t trade for him, under AFL rules he is not tradeable but can be drafted from the national draft. Thats why Fremantle would of drafted Gaspar if Gaspar agreed to move back West with the no.1 pick.
The problem with our defence is due to:
Allowing set shots at goals in our defensive 50 too much
And loose checking on midfielders
And poor manning up
We need a consistency of players in a particular defensive position eg. develope specialist backmen.
Andrew McDougall and Travis Gaspar for key position defending.
Andrew Embley isn't quite flash in the forward line, he would make a good utility defender rather than a floating forward. He can take on smalls and talls.
larrikin
2 Jul 2002, 20:37
The biggest problem with our defence is we're playing open attacking footy and kicking big scores in games that are great to watch. You can't have it both ways with the squad we have. The Eagles could go back to playing like they did in the 90's and struggle to kick 12 goals a game, but I'm sure we'd then be complaining that they are boring to watch.
I have been surprised by the total number of points kicked against us this year. We have Woosha head coach and McKenna as Defensive Coach. We have two Champion Defenders in Jako and Milli. Plus a quality defender in Michael Collica. So we have the ingrediants for at least a modest defence.
Where is the problem? Well it was wel and trully evident last week when Riccuto and McCleod went mad in the last quarter. Nobody can stop that avalanche. With Wooden needing a break on McLeod and Jones offinjured we were light on for a physical presence similar to what these guys provide. Cousins, Kerr, Wirra, Fletcher, Judd, Chambers whiclt very good running players do not provide this. They may do in the future. Gee wouldnt Simon Black or Paul Haselby be handy right now.
GO EAGLES!
Originally posted by chrisjudd3
Mead,
Did you think I was serious about the Glass - Hay trade?
If so your an idiot, it was just an empty ending for a posted thread.
chrisjudd3,
Did you think I was serious about the Morrison/Braun-Gaspar Trade?
If so you're (note the apostrophe) an idiot, it was just a suggestion placed in a reply to an empty thread.
-ahem...
Years in which West Coast have had a worse-than-average defensive record (ie conceded more points than the AFL average) :
1987, 1989, 2000, 2001
Years in which West Coast have had a better-than-average defnsive record (ie conceded less than the AFL average) :
1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
Hopefully you don't need me to point out what those figures correlate 100% with...
Looks like we won't make the finals this year...
[B]Years in which West Coast have had a worse-than-average defensive record (ie conceded more points than the AFL average) :
1987, 1989, 2000, 2001
Years in which West Coast have had a better-than-average defnsive record (ie conceded less than the AFL average) :
1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
Hopefully you don't need me to point out what those figures correlate 100% with...
Looks like we won't make the finals this year...
Jeff it doesn't mean we won't make the finals. Traditions are often broken. A few weeks ago everybody thought that if the Dockers won we'd lose and vice versa but now the hoodoo is gone. We don't have an easy road ahead but I still think we can win all our games at home and pick one or two wins away. We're not playing the best footy in Australia but we aren't that bad either. If we can beat Geelong away than we can even aspire for a top four position. If not we'll keep fighting and finals can still be a realistic target.
I know.. I actually think with the way things are going that we actually will make the eight this year. (top four is something i don't dare think about just yet...)
It was just an oddity I noticed that every time we've been a better defensive team we've made the finals. I'd love to see that broken!
chrisjudd3
4 Jul 2002, 00:27
Mead,
How immature you are.
First you misinterpret what I say then you childishly respond in kind.
As for Gaspar just clarifying just in case you were misinformed.
Ditto ditto ditto.
Originally posted by chrisjudd3
Mead,
How immature you are.
First you misinterpret what I say then you childishly respond in kind.
As for Gaspar just clarifying just in case you were misinformed.
Ditto ditto ditto.
... ... ... *takes deep breath, does some yoga, attends anger management seminar, returns and edits post*
Look, we all have days, and I'm going to assume you aren't always like this. Relax, I nor any other forumites are out to get you (except watch out for USAEagle, he's pure evil :)), but if you want to be treated civilly, behave civil. If you want to be treated like a jerk, well, yeah.
Originally posted by scmods
Years in which West Coast have had a worse-than-average defensive record (ie conceded more points than the AFL average) :
1987, 1989, 2000, 2001
Years in which West Coast have had a better-than-average defnsive record (ie conceded less than the AFL average) :
1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
Hopefully you don't need me to point out what those figures correlate 100% with...
Looks like we won't make the finals this year...
Interesting that!
Now you've got me thinking....:(
Originally posted by scmods
Years in which West Coast have had a worse-than-average defensive record (ie conceded more points than the AFL average) :
1987, 1989, 2000, 2001
Years in which West Coast have had a better-than-average defnsive record (ie conceded less than the AFL average) :
1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
Hopefully you don't need me to point out what those figures correlate 100% with...
Looks like we won't make the finals this year...
Ahhh there's nothing like statistics to ruin your afternoon :).
Seriously though its been our defense that's had to plug the biggest holes in recent years with the loss of Worsfold and McKenna, and we haven't as yet found anyone up to filling some mighty big boots.
I remember someone saying once that in the Eagles' glory days the attack always started on the half back line - it was our best line on the park (IMO it was even better than Matera-Kemp-Mainwairing across the center), so even if we lost in the centre of the ground, the opposition still had to get past their CHF line which was almost impossible - and if they didn't we always rebounded into our 50.
These days we win when our midfield gets more of the ball than the opposition - just look at the Adelaide game as an example (I know I'm stating the obvious ;) ). But its all for attack; another interesting stat is that we require the second least possessions per goal (only Brisbane are better). We don't defend anywhere on the ground (apologies to Jako, Milli and Wooden).
Anyway I suppose what I'm trying to say (but not getting to) is that we expect our club to have a great defence because that's what we've been conditioned to. Bluntly, now we don't, and probably won't without some pretty good recruiting. But we do have a good attack so maybe its time we followed that path for a while and see where it takes us - hopefully to a couple of cups:) .
chrisjudd3
4 Jul 2002, 19:14
I'll make you a deal Mead.
I'll retract the word "idiot" and we'll be nice friends over a cup of tea.
Deal??
I am always civil.:)
Originally posted by chrisjudd3
I'll make you a deal Mead.
I'll retract the word "idiot" and we'll be nice friends over a cup of tea.
Deal??
I am always civil.:)
deal. :) But if its all the same with you, i think beeeeeeeer is more acceptable than tea.
chrisjudd3
5 Jul 2002, 02:10
Beer, the staple drink of kings