Injury Injury thread 2019

[Balls In]

It seems pretty clear that if he gets up it won't be in time to play a game or two before finals.

I'm still torn on whether we roll the dice with an underdone Nic Nat come finals. The game against the Pies really showed that we struggle to carry his reduced minutes if a runner goes down. He also tired in the last (albeit he was playing through injury) and Grundy ran amok.

I reckon Nic beat Grundy hands down (we lost because our defence sucked in the first half and let them stay in touch, then the whole team stopped in the final quarter because of the loss of Cripps and two consecutive 6 day slogs). The way I see it there's three H&A games left plus a bye before the qualifying final on the 5-8th Sept - effectively five weeks from now. That's what we need to target because at worst we get a second chance, at best a week off before the preliminary final.

 

[woosha24]

It seems pretty clear that if he gets up it won't be in time to play a game or two before finals.

I'm still torn on whether we roll the dice with an underdone Nic Nat come finals. The game against the Pies really showed that we struggle to carry his reduced minutes if a runner goes down. He also tired in the last (albeit he was playing through injury) and Grundy ran amok.

This is why ive been down on him being an auto-inclusion for finals without any WAFL first (which he probably wont get).

Nic's legs are made of paper-mache and he doesn't have any match fitness. By being on reduced minutes the rest of the team will have to carry his workload on-ground, and if one of our runners gets injured during a match we will be proper f*cked.

For me its just too risky. Im sorry Nic, but for the good of the team we shouldn't be putting the premiership at risk for you this year. Go get surgery, get a pre-season under your belt and come back ready to flatten campaigners in 2020.

 

[Illeagle]

Listening to Schofield on Coast to Coast podcast, i got the impression he was talking more about when we get Nic back for finals, how do we fit him in. It was never really "if we get Nic back". Maybe reading too much into it, but i think he's likely to come back. I also believe he should slot straight back in as soon as he's able.

 

[Balls In]

For me its just too risky. Im sorry Nic, but for the good of the team we shouldn't be putting the premiership at risk for you this year. Go get surgery, get a pre-season under your belt and come back ready to flatten campaigners in 2020.

 

[ioppolo]

I feel like Hickey or OAllen could end up being modern Jaymie Graham if NIC does come back

 

[Avalor]

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That's the difference he makes right there. When he is ready, he is straight in.

 

[Luuuc]

It seems pretty clear that if he gets up it won't be in time to play a game or two before finals.

I'm still torn on whether we roll the dice with an underdone Nic Nat come finals. The game against the Pies really showed that we struggle to carry his reduced minutes if a runner goes down. He also tired in the last (albeit he was playing through injury) and Grundy ran amok.

I'm torn as well, but I love that having to make that call is still a possibility.

 

[TheGhostOfJohnBelushi]

If anything, if it came down to bringing him in for a prelim/GF, I'd do the opposite and start him on the bench. Side would have been rolling well if we make it that far, so let the current setups do their thing and bring Nic on for controlled bursts as required. I feel like starting him and giving him breathers late means sides can use tactics to counter and hold and then when he's off, it's difficult for us to gain ascendancy as we've become reliant on his dominance.

Do it the other way, catch teams when they're tired, and burn them off.

Who's with me?

 

[Chris_6678]

If anything, if it came down to bringing him in for a prelim/GF, I'd do the opposite and start him on the bench. Side would have been rolling well if we make it that far, so let the current setups do their thing and bring Nic on for controlled bursts as required. I feel like starting him and giving him breathers late means sides can use tactics to counter and hold and then when he's off, it's difficult for us to gain ascendancy as we've become reliant on his dominance.

Do it the other way, catch teams when they're tired, and burn them off.

Who's with me?

With Hickey holding his own lately i dont see why not.

 

[ZergMinion]

We've played 19 games this season and we've had players go off injured 3 times total (one in each of 3 games). Out of those injuries, one was in the first quarter, one was in the second and one was either in the 3rd quarter or became apparent at half time.

I don't believe the fear of an injury mucking up out rotations is statistically sufficient to keep Nic out of finals, especially considering the boost to our odds of winning he provides.

Plus he's an awesome dude and deserves a shot at winning a flag more than you deserve back to back flags as a supporter

 

[SloppyJoe]

It's not so much when we play him in game, but if we should play him at all when he is underdone/not completely over his injury.

At the moment I'm line ball on this.

 

[JohnW]

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What a beautiful graph. 10 times better than the ASX one I have been looking at

 

[squashface]

NN 100% plays if he’s fit, the very fact that they are racing against the clock to rehab him shows that the club agrees.

 

[FKASC]

We've played 19 games this season and we've had players go off injured 3 times total (one in each of 3 games). Out of those injuries, one was in the first quarter, one was in the second and one was either in the 3rd quarter or became apparent at half time.

I don't believe the fear of an injury mucking up out rotations is statistically sufficient to keep Nic out of finals, especially considering the boost to our odds of winning he provides.

Plus he's an awesome dude and deserves a shot at winning a flag more than you deserve back to back flags as a supporter

Yeah I feel like getting Nic a premiership medal is the #1 goal

 

[shooshka]

It's not so much when we play him in game, but if we should play him at all when he is underdone/not completely over his injury.

At the moment I'm line ball on this.

underdone - yes

not over the injury - no

if he's still in pain then he shouldn't play. But if he is just lacking match fitness he is a lock - he was lacking match fitness earlier this year and still dominated games.

 

[wce4premiership]

Naitanui dominated Grundy when he was on the ground. There was a tweet going around that gave the statistics on it but I can't find it.

That was Hickey's worst game for the club, so it came at a bad time with Naitanui injuring the ankle but Hickey has been huge this season.

Naitanui will come back if fit, I don't think there's any doubt, the doubt is more whether he will get himself fit enough in time. I get the feeling he will make it round one of finals.

 

[Feeling Groovy]

Also with NN's limited time on ground, that was largely club mandated. If we were in a GF, I am sure he could and would push himself. When he came back this year, he was on limited minutes with the thought to building him to get him through the rest of the year. When he only has a couple of finals, hopefully with rest weeks between them, he could be pushed harder. I acknowledge he never plays excessive minutes though. He is a burst player. But he won't necessarily be on 50% game time in finals. If fit, he plays.

 

[wce4premiership]

He was on limited minutes for the Hawks game in the wet but did extras in the 4th quarter because the game was so close.

Also Simpson said Duggan's injury wasn't too bad which is awesome news. Depth needed.

 

[Dylan82]

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Updates to this chart since then only highlight further his impact in this area:

 

[HoneyBadger35]

Big shoutout to Hickey helping fuel our centre clearance dominance last week.

 

[Godfather32]

Am I reading this s**t right? People not wanting Naitanui back if he's slightly underdone?
If he's good to go you play him 100% of the time, WAFL game or no WAFL game.

 

[Total_Juddshanks]

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If you include the last 3 weeks without Nic, this is even more glaring, we are suddenly back to -1, +9 and -12 in overall clearances- against three bottom 8 sides no less.

It sucks Nic isn't more durable but anyone who says he's too big a risk too play is deluding themselves- we might be able to cover the lack of engineroom firepower against weaker teams, but in tightly contested finals against the likes of Richmond or Geelong decisive centre square clearances >>> some extra outside run.

Every other top 8 coach in the league would be hoping against hope we'd be foolish enough to leave him out of our finals team.

 

[Priddis Is Done]

Full Nelson!

A half chubby nelson

 

[HoneyBadger35]

Am I reading this s**t right? People not wanting Naitanui back if he's slightly underdone?
If he's good to go you play him 100% of the time, WAFL game or no WAFL game.

I think the only one that’s up for debate is if you have another prelim performance like last year, just embarrass a team straight off the park, then have the option of dropping someone for a Grand Final to make way for Nic Nat who hasn’t played in two months at that point. That’s a discussion to me.

Anything else, any earlier than the Grand Final off the back of a massive prelim, he plays.

 

[YEOLO]

If Nic does make it back it would surely have to be at the expense of Hickey or OA? I don't think we can carry all three - it cost us during the Collingwood game. Whatever happens someone would be very, very stiff.