Brent Guerra - No Passengers Player Critique

Seeing as we have been a bit quiet lately I thought I would copy a thread I started on Guerra in the main board just to get some converstaion going. It probably should have gone here in the first place. Nothing special, just a short player review. Guerra is somebody many people will be looking at this week so if we could get some discussion on him an move it to the main board that would be good.


Brent Guerra

Position: Defender
Age: 25

Averages over the past 4 years.

2007: 76
2006: 72
2005: 53
2004: 49

Guerra experienced a complete role reversal after being picked up by the Hawks in 2006. His switch from tough forward to defensive playmaker has seen him become an excellent fantasy player. He is the go-to-guy or quarterback if you like for the hawks. This year has seen Guerra step up his numbers to a new level. Excluding his injury interrupted game (30) Guerra has averaged 93 in 2008. He has a highest score of 161 and a lowest of 55. The biggest worry with Guerra is his hamstrings. He is prone to soft-tissue injuries and has already missed 4 games this year with a hamstring. If he could stay fit I doubt many would hesitate in picking him up at apprximately $320,000. The other immediate issue is that he plays Sydney this week.

Re: Brent Guerra

He is a 25 year old in a 32 year old body.
As you said, his penetrating, long kick of the ball makes him quite useful in the backline as it allows him to set up most of the play.
However, i think G.Birchall is a bit of a quarterback as well.

Most teams have their designated player who creates the initial movement from the backline, but i think Hawthorn share this responsibility between Brent and Grant.
Adelaide: A.McLeod
Brisbane: J.Drummond
Carlton: H.Scotland
Collingwood: H.Shaw
Essendon: Shared
Fremantle: Shared
Geelong: A.Mackie/D.Milburn
Hawthorn: B.Guerra/G.Birchall
And so on...

These players sweep, get a lot of handball receives and cheap marks and are usually the first player picked to be a loose man in defence, if needed, which is gold for Dream Team.

At his price, he would be a great pick up this week.

Interesting to see that the teams with two quarterbacks (Geelong and Hawthorn), so to speak, are more successful than the teams with a shared duty of the role (Essendon and Fremantle).

Re: Brent Guerra

Made a bad mistake (one of many) this year by not researching Guerra properly. Had him in my initial lineup based on a mid 70s average improving to 80-85 which would make him a solid all year keeper in the backs. It was a toss up between him and Newman who both play the same role out of the left back pocket, involved in cheap marks from switch of plays and many uncontested possessions.

My mistake was to not check his injury history well enough. It is simply too poor and almost all soft tissue. Over the past 5 seasons he has played 14, 18, 13, 15 and 24 games.

I think as a DTr he will score well but (apart from this year) there are generally plenty of keepers in the backs who will play 22 most years hence are safer options. Very much in the Josh Drummond mould IMO.

Re: Brent Guerra

theone5 said:

He is a 25 year old in a 32 year old body.
As you said, his penetrating, long kick of the ball makes him quite useful in the backline as it allows him to set up most of the play.
However, i think G.Birchall is a bit of a quarterback as well.

Most teams have their designated player who creates the initial movement from the backline, but i think Hawthorn share this responsibility between Brent and Grant.
Adelaide: A.McLeod
Brisbane: J.Drummond
Carlton: H.Scotland
Collingwood: H.Shaw
Essendon: Shared
Fremantle: Shared
Geelong: A.Mackie/D.Milburn
Hawthorn: B.Guerra/G.Birchall
And so on...

These players sweep, get a lot of handball receives and cheap marks and are usually the first player picked to be a loose man in defence, if needed, which is gold for Dream Team.

At his price, he would be a great pick up this week.

Interesting to see that the teams with two quarterbacks (Geelong and Hawthorn), so to speak, are more successful than the teams with a shared duty of the role (Essendon and Fremantle).

Click to expand...

I found this very interesting, so I decided to see who was each clubs leading defensive 50 rebound player, I know that just cause you rebound doesn’t mean you set up all the play but, I still found this very interesting,

Here is what I found.

Adelaide – N.Bock 59
Brisbane – J.MacDonald 50
Carlton – J.Waite 50
Collingwood – H.Shaw 54
Essendon – D.Fletcher 63
Fremantle – D.Mundy 37
Geelong – C.Enright 43
Hawthorn - C.Brown 36
North -D.Pratt 66
Melbourne -P.Wheatly 54
Port - P.Burgoyne 45
Richmond - J.Mcmahon 47
St. Kilda -S.Fisher 48
Sydney - L.Barry 53
West Coast - B.Jones 40
Dogs -L.Gilbee 58

Re: Brent Guerra

Hirdy_5 said:

I found this very interesting, so I decided to see who was each clubs leading defensive 50 rebound player, I know that just cause you rebound doesn’t mean you set up all the play but, I still found this very interesting,

Here is what I found.

Adelaide – N.Bock 59
Brisbane – J.MacDonald 50
Carlton – J.Waite 50
Collingwood – H.Shaw 54
Essendon – D.Fletcher 63
Fremantle – D.Mundy 37
Geelong – C.Enright 43
Hawthorn - C.Brown 36
North -D.Pratt 66
Melbourne -P.Wheatly 54
Port - P.Burgoyne 45
Richmond - J.Mcmahon 47
St. Kilda -S.Fisher 48
Sydney - L.Barry 53
West Coast - B.Jones 40
Dogs -L.Gilbee 58

Click to expand...

Very interesting to see this Hirdy_5.
There is definitely a correlation between these figures and DT points.
Bock(1, DT ranked defender based on averages), Wheatley (3) and Shaw (6) are all up there.
Brown's low 36 shows that there is no 1 defender at the Hawks the ball goes through, backing up what theone said above about the quarterback role being shared.

On a sidenote, I'm in defensive trouble this week with Myers, Chad and Burger all out or maybe's and am looking at trading Myers as he is out for what seems a definite 4 weeks.
The only person I can afford of any interest is J.MacDonald so it's good to see he ranks the highest at the Lions for this.

Re: Brent Guerra

Am looking to upgrade Harry Taylor this week and am quite interested in Guerra, although with 3 trades left, I think I will go with the less injury prone Ryan Hargrave from the doggies. Interesting to see those figures of how many games Guerra has played each year for the last 4 years.

Re: Brent Guerra

54Dogs said:

My mistake was to not check his injury history well enough. It is simply too poor and almost all soft tissue. Over the past 5 seasons he has played 14, 18, 13, 15 and 24 games.

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Part of the reason he has missed so many games has been because of suspension though. He missed 5 games in 06 and 4 games in 04. Not a massive amount, but over the last three seasons he has played 47 out of a possible 55. Not as bad as originally thought.

Do I say *bump* here?

I was thinking Luke Hodge out created the possibility of a big score for Guerra (or Birchall). Until I looked at the stats and actually saw that Hodge, Birchall and Guerra seem to track each other rather than have any sort of contra relationship. It obviously also relates to Hawthorn's overall possession tally (sorry I don't know how to post graphs or anything - if anyone can give me a quick lesson on how to do that I will feel more funky).

I think Guerra and Birchall rely on Hodge to distribute the ball to them, and him being out doesn't create the opportunities I thought. Not a great time of year for this discussion but any thoughts?

Just about immediately after this thread was created he had a horror run with scores of 24, 34 and 57. I think this was mainly due to him having to do some bigger jobs on players including O'keefe (24) and Steve Johnson (57), I couldn't find his matchup for the 34. I have two worries inparticular with his scoring capacity 1) Hodge seems to be playing loose in defence a bit more and maybe steeling his points 2) Campbell Brown has moved forwad which could mean a few more of those bigger jobs for Goo.

Wrt One5's point about the Hawks sharing the QB role between Guerra and Birchall I tend to think Grant plays far more HB/Wing and Brent gets just about all of his touches inside defensive 50 (and uncontested). I've had Birchall all year and one thing I have noticed is he doesn't get a lot of cheap ball and certainly doesn't play loose in defence.

I can't decide between Guerra or Bock - really struggling with this one.

JuddyisGod said:

I can't decide between Guerra or Bock - really struggling with this one.

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Trades thread Juddy, just out of interest why would you bother with your last post? What was it going to achieve? Would have been acceptable if you actually had something of value to add to the discussion.

dazza wyatt said:

Trades thread Juddy, just out of interest why would you bother with your last post? What was it going to achieve? Would have been acceptable if you actually had something of value to add to the discussion.

Click to expand...

point take but was just after some final advice - got $150 riding on beating my housemate this week and i'm just getting nervous.

FWIW Guerra should dominate against the Eagles this week but it's his average against Carlton (38.7 overall & 47 since joining Hawthorn) that worries me. Being the week of the Grand Final it concerns me, who do people think Guerra would take, if anyone, when they play Carlton? It's very annoying that this is the first time the two teams have met this year.

I'm actually not convinced he's in our (Hawthorn's) best 22. When he's asked to actually play defensively he battles. I think he'll be spared this week because Hodge is out. But with Hodge back next week I'd be inclined to put Brown back in defence and keep Stokes/Young in the team, in which case Goo would miss out...

FWIW I'd defintely go with Bock if I had the choice.