We talk a lot about list balance in terms of salary cap, but I've been wondering lately if an unbalanced list can cause problems in other ways too. There's a constant (not necessarily unhealthy) tension in every team between letting players play naturally to their strengths and getting them to play within a certain structure and game style for the sake of the whole. Generally I would expect most clubs would try to maximise the latitude they give their stars, because that's where the upside is greatest.
As an example, Voss has spoken multiple times in press conferences about 'letting Charlie be Charlie', i.e. just letting him do his thing because that's where he shines.
Thing is, giving a star player the greatest opportunity to be themselves necessarily shapes how the team plays around them. This is part of what it means to have stars that you can 'build your team around' -- it's not just that they're a focal point for salary and marketing, they also provide a centre of gravity that has a say in what roles fit around them and what style of play suits them best. Which is fine when you've got 2-3 stars, ideally one on each line. But what if you've got more?
In defence, Weiters is our one star and everything else is built around him. And that seems to be working pretty well. Weiters gets the role he wants / is best at, and everyone else defers to that. There have been some rough patches along the way, e.g. Young -- his synergy with Weiters seems to be not great, so he ends up without a best-22 spot in the backline, even though he goes OK at filling the actual Weiters role when called for. But for the most part our defence seems to be our best line, so this seems to generally be working OK.
In attack, we have two stars, Charlie and Harry. Their style of play is somewhat different, so this seems to somewhat work. But they're still similar enough that it's also a bit clunky. They make contests in different ways, they make leads in different ways, etc. The optimal forward setup for each must be different -- but we have to pick a single structure, presumably midway between their preferences, because each exerts a pull on our style of play. (Imagine the difference if we had two truly different star forwards, e.g. one tall and one small?)
In the midfield we have Cripps and Walsh, and maybe TDK. We know Cripps loves Pitto in the ruck, but he can't have it because TDK is there. If rumours are to be believed, Walsh is getting frustrated because he knows he could be doing more if given the opportunity, but for whatever reason he's not getting the midfield role / structure he wants.
Obviously none of this is ever perfectly solvable. Every team has tensions of this kind to some degree, and often multiple stars find a way to share a line and work together. But it seems like a top-heavy list is more likely to have more tensions of this kind, with a greater risk that someone doesn't get their optimal setup.
So what does this mean for our list? I'm starting to wonder if Cripps + Walsh + TDK (+ Jagga to come?) is too many stars in the midfield -- not too many for the salary cap, but too many to optimise a midfield game style for. Fewer A / A+ and more B+ / A- players that can thrive under different conditions might actually get us a better functioning group.
On the forwards, it seems to me that Charlie's style of play is the more limiting for our forward line as a whole. His lack of a defensive game means he can't push up the ground where a lack of defence will be exposed, and it also means we need to play other, more defensively minded forwards to make up for the defensive gap (e.g. Fogarty). Charlie's biggest asset is of course his mercurial brilliance -- but mercurial by definition includes a degree of unreliability. Harry on the other hand seems to have a more well-rounded game and thus seems to have less of a distorting influence on the forward line. If Charlie were to leave, I wonder if that might open up possibilities that we don't have right now to build a more consistent and reliable forward style of play.
Anyway, like everyone else here I'm on the outside looking in, and this post is getting way too long. But I'd be interested if anyone else sees anything like this, or if I'm just imagining it all.
As an example, Voss has spoken multiple times in press conferences about 'letting Charlie be Charlie', i.e. just letting him do his thing because that's where he shines.
Thing is, giving a star player the greatest opportunity to be themselves necessarily shapes how the team plays around them. This is part of what it means to have stars that you can 'build your team around' -- it's not just that they're a focal point for salary and marketing, they also provide a centre of gravity that has a say in what roles fit around them and what style of play suits them best. Which is fine when you've got 2-3 stars, ideally one on each line. But what if you've got more?
In defence, Weiters is our one star and everything else is built around him. And that seems to be working pretty well. Weiters gets the role he wants / is best at, and everyone else defers to that. There have been some rough patches along the way, e.g. Young -- his synergy with Weiters seems to be not great, so he ends up without a best-22 spot in the backline, even though he goes OK at filling the actual Weiters role when called for. But for the most part our defence seems to be our best line, so this seems to generally be working OK.
In attack, we have two stars, Charlie and Harry. Their style of play is somewhat different, so this seems to somewhat work. But they're still similar enough that it's also a bit clunky. They make contests in different ways, they make leads in different ways, etc. The optimal forward setup for each must be different -- but we have to pick a single structure, presumably midway between their preferences, because each exerts a pull on our style of play. (Imagine the difference if we had two truly different star forwards, e.g. one tall and one small?)
In the midfield we have Cripps and Walsh, and maybe TDK. We know Cripps loves Pitto in the ruck, but he can't have it because TDK is there. If rumours are to be believed, Walsh is getting frustrated because he knows he could be doing more if given the opportunity, but for whatever reason he's not getting the midfield role / structure he wants.
Obviously none of this is ever perfectly solvable. Every team has tensions of this kind to some degree, and often multiple stars find a way to share a line and work together. But it seems like a top-heavy list is more likely to have more tensions of this kind, with a greater risk that someone doesn't get their optimal setup.
So what does this mean for our list? I'm starting to wonder if Cripps + Walsh + TDK (+ Jagga to come?) is too many stars in the midfield -- not too many for the salary cap, but too many to optimise a midfield game style for. Fewer A / A+ and more B+ / A- players that can thrive under different conditions might actually get us a better functioning group.
On the forwards, it seems to me that Charlie's style of play is the more limiting for our forward line as a whole. His lack of a defensive game means he can't push up the ground where a lack of defence will be exposed, and it also means we need to play other, more defensively minded forwards to make up for the defensive gap (e.g. Fogarty). Charlie's biggest asset is of course his mercurial brilliance -- but mercurial by definition includes a degree of unreliability. Harry on the other hand seems to have a more well-rounded game and thus seems to have less of a distorting influence on the forward line. If Charlie were to leave, I wonder if that might open up possibilities that we don't have right now to build a more consistent and reliable forward style of play.
Anyway, like everyone else here I'm on the outside looking in, and this post is getting way too long. But I'd be interested if anyone else sees anything like this, or if I'm just imagining it all.
