Delisted #28: Mitch Brown - Retired - 20/9/22

Missed with wrist soreness, given he was just coming back from a broken wrist. Should be putting his hand up for selection.

“Mitch Brown is another who looks like he will put his hand up for selection following his wrist soreness. Keeping him out two weeks ago was a precaution and he has trained well since, so hopefully he will be back on the field this week.”
https://www.essendonfc.com.au/news/2019-06-11/skins-injury-update-rd-13


Whether he is actually selected or not is another story.
 

blitzer

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I'd be surprised if he wasn't selected. His form pre injury was stronger than what McKernan or Francis has been producing.
Missed three weeks (R6-8) with a broken wrist, then in round 9 he was an emergency and played in the VFL while McKernan, Francis, Stringer, Laverde, Begley, Walla played as our forward line against Richmond. Brown then missed round 10 as a precaution due to possibly reinjuring his wrist in round 9.

If we've played this line up three weeks ago while Brown came back through the VFL, I don't see why he'd be straight in this time. Unless it's down to match ups? :shrug:
 

blitzer

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Missed three weeks (R6-8) with a broken wrist, then in round 9 he was an emergency and played in the VFL while McKernan, Francis, Stringer, Laverde, Begley, Walla played as our forward line against Richmond. Brown then missed round 10 as a precaution due to possibly reinjuring his wrist in round 9.

If we've played this line up three weeks ago while Brown came back through the VFL, I don't see why he'd be straight in this time. Unless it's down to match ups? :shrug:

Fair point, I must admit I thought Daniher was still in the side when Brown played VFL but I guess that was the round prior when Daniher last played.

Nonetheless neither McKernan nor Francis are kicking many goals at all so far this year. Now admittedly conditions have been lousy for key forwards the past 2 weeks but they aren't exactly putting in the kinds of performances where you would hesitate to drop them if you thought you had a better option.
 

Bombers36

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I really hope he gets named in the 22. He is super important to the team right now with his marking and ability to cover the ground, and a 1.4 goal average is pretty decent - better than McKernan who has averaged 1 goal a game and seems a little out of form, and Francis. Francis may come good up forward, but I'd much rather him plying his forward craft in the reserves than the seniors right now where he has yet to kick a goal in his 8 games this year. If Brown's wrist is OK I'd drop Francis back to the reserves but play him at full forward, it takes the pressure of Stringer and SMACK also with Brown in the team.
 

bombitlong!

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How good is the clip of Browns work rate and ability to read the play. We usually only see the finished product of him taking a mark on his chest from a lead up, or getting the ball over the back. This shows the sort of stuff he does to get to that point. He is so quick to get on his bike, which caught the defenders off guard. Very smart player with an elite work rate.
 
That’s why I like him in the senior side, we seem to move the ball a lot better with him leading up the wing to provide a target when the opposition have blocked the corridor. With him out of the side we did a lot of bombing down the line to a contest which slowed our moved and often just turned it over.
 

fairbump_playon

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Not getting the fat side hit ups he does when we are playing the slingshot style everyone wants to stop us playing. Love his work rate but he’s not great when there is slow ball. Can’t prop and contest. Makes me think he isn’t part of our “finals style”.
 

blitzer

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I'm really not sure how I feel about Brown. He runs all day and on a good day can rack them up but he has bloody little impact with his possessions unless he's within scoring range. His disposal is ordinary, he's slow and he can't take a contested grab to save his life. On the plus side he regularly does get on the goal kickers list and he is a straight kick at goal. The other benefit is if we want to keep the option of Hooker as a swing man then Brown can always shift down back where he's pretty solid without being special.

When we get Stringer back I could easily see us rolling with McKernan, Stringer and Laverde as our 3 taller targets and say Begley, Fantasia and Tippa to round out the forward line.
 

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I'm really not sure how I feel about Brown. He runs all day and on a good day can rack them up but he has bloody little impact with his possessions unless he's within scoring range. His disposal is ordinary, he's slow and he can't take a contested grab to save his life. On the plus side he regularly does get on the goal kickers list and he is a straight kick at goal. The other benefit is if we want to keep the option of Hooker as a swing man then Brown can always shift down back where he's pretty solid without being special.

When we get Stringer back I could easily see us rolling with McKernan, Stringer and Laverde as our 3 taller targets and say Begley, Fantasia and Tippa to round out the forward line.



I would argue that so much of his scoring occurs because he sits off contests he shouldn't.

It could be that he is smart but before I would concede that, I'd want to know what percentage of his sitting off a pack with his arms outstretched results in JTG goals and what percentage results in his direct opponent influencing that marking contest to his team's advantage.
 
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We've got this one completely wrong again. He is not capable of playing the role we need. Yes, he can run all day but he can only get it when the game is on our terms or its being played at less than finals intensity.

Now that Stewart is injured we have effectively botched a 2 years of his development by playing Brown thinking we may scratch into finals and that is a better outcome.

We should have put Mitch to pasture last year and kept on playing Stewart who I don't rate that highly anyway but he does have enough athleticism to still develop a little bit.
 

BrunoV

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We've got this one completely wrong again. He is not capable of playing the role we need. Yes, he can run all day but he can only get it when the game is on our terms or its being played at less than finals intensity.

Now that Stewart is injured we have effectively botched a 2 years of his development by playing Brown thinking we may scratch into finals and that is a better outcome.

We should have put Mitch to pasture last year and kept on playing Stewart who I don't rate that highly anyway but he does have enough athleticism to still develop a little bit.


The Stewart development is probably world record pace for the most severely botched development of a player.

By round 5 2018 he'd shown the ability to:

- get high teens to low 20s possessions, kick a goal and apply about 50 pressure acts (my exaggeration) as probably the best defensive forward player we had;

- stood up playing genuinely as a key forward on 3 or 4 occasions and had started to one-grab contested marks while playing lower possession but big structural impact forward footy.

How many forwards in the AFL can claim the ability to do both of those things? He's just finally got a run as a 24 year old whose game knowledge and physical capability had started to match each other.

But our side tanked, primarily because the esteemed minds in our coaching panel misread the tactical trends in the game and/or failed to implement desperately needed new plans, Stewart lost confidence in his goal kicking and he was replaced with a player who has 0 physical impact on a game.

Now he hasn't been seen for over 12 months. It is mindbogglingly stupid.
 
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Probably a bit harsh, some of you blokes. Brown got his chance last year and took it, he came in Round 12 and kicked 18 goals for the remainder of the year. More than did his job.

Sometimes that’s how selection works. Not sure we were ever dropping Brown in the second half of last year and really, deservedly so.

When fit Stewart will get a chance.
 
The word that sums him up, without being in any way derogatory, is ‘serviceable’. But he has 2 qualities that elevate him beyond your average serviceable types. His set-shot kicking, and his indefatigable running.
You'd have got a like for the use of the word indefatigable alone.
 

Bigjobss

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The word that sums him up, without being in any way derogatory, is ‘serviceable’. But he has 2 qualities that elevate him beyond your average serviceable types. His set-shot kicking, and his indefatigable running.

I Googled indefatigable just to check if Google knew what it meant.
 
The Stewart development is probably world record pace for the most severely botched development of a player.

By round 5 2018 he'd shown the ability to:

- get high teens to low 20s possessions, kick a goal and apply about 50 pressure acts (my exaggeration) as probably the best defensive forward player we had;

- stood up playing genuinely as a key forward on 3 or 4 occasions and had started to one-grab contested marks while playing lower possession but big structural impact forward footy.

How many forwards in the AFL can claim the ability to do both of those things? He's just finally got a run as a 24 year old whose game knowledge and physical capability had started to match each other.

But our side tanked, primarily because the esteemed minds in our coaching panel misread the tactical trends in the game and/or failed to implement desperately needed new plans, Stewart lost confidence in his goal kicking and he was replaced with a player who has 0 physical impact on a game.

Now he hasn't been seen for over 12 months. It is mindbogglingly stupid.

Stewart was dropped because he needed to be, don’t rewrite history. Brown was then an important of our run last year.
 

BrunoV

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Stewart was dropped because he needed to be, don’t rewrite history. Brown was then an important of our run last year.


I've been consistenly "re-writing history" on this point from day 1 because it is what happened.

Stewart's form was fine, certainly not consistently bad enough to get dropped (because he was failing to provide a marking target, working up to the wings, etc). He was genuinely good against Geelong which was the third last match he played. He was solid against GWS, the second last match he played, hitting contests hard and providing a physical target.

He was dropped because he couldn't be trusted to kick a goal. That's the one thing Brown will do, together with get up to the wings to take a mark as long as there is no physical pressure. He's especially good at kicking goals and getting possessions sitting off the packs that Stewart would be busing (but which is currently left to smaller players).

It's interesting that perception of Laverde's games at the moment is that they are good contributions (last week aside) when he's basically doing exactly what Stewart was doing when Stewart was dropped.
 
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