Coach #34: Jamie Macmillan - delisted after 167 NM games/46 NM goals - returns as NMFC AFL Footy Ops boss (reporting to L.Kane)

[Psychic Roo]

The narrative about MacMillans worth to the side is not his weaknesses as a footballer but moreso is he the best available as playing his current role?
I read the comments every year from all posters who have a divisive optinion on him be it you or Philly, TOD, the Roosurgence, etc - what needs to be stated in black and white is Jamie is a very good footballer in his own right. He has pace, penetrating kicking and can position himself well. These arent variables up for debate.

His tackling is a weakness. He got turned inside out in the opening minutes that lead to the opening goal. Is that his fault? No. He isnt a defender. He doesnt have the closing speed to pin an opponent ala Jed or Marley.
His kicking is good without being great and yesterday was probably at its worse. His one on one defending leaves plenty to be desired.

So, what is his value to the team? Our current midfield doesnt have a place for him and we have more adept players to put on the wing. So ultimately he shifts back. He provides leadership down there and a calm head, advises teammates where to go and positions himself well to be a receiver and offer support. I get why he is rated around the club as he sets a good example and provides a level head. He is a Scott man no doubt.

He gets a game because he is invaluable to the team right now. This I agree with undoubtedly.
However, if this team is to progress he needs to be surrounded by elite defenders who can lock down, win one on one contests or have elite disposal. At the moment he is surrounded by Williams, McDonald, McKay and Pittard. Its a recipe for disaster and will continue to be so. He is the best of an average bunch and the reason why our defence has been plagued for years.

Most of your post is fair enough but he isnt a penetrating kick. Thats a huge part of the issue. His kickins and field kicks drop short and are intercepted. He rates himself to make the kick and he cant. Lmac just blasts it. Ziebell too unfortunately. You can see the difference with polec even tyson and scott. They are careful with the footy. Different tolerance for bad turnovers by foot at nth. At hawks you wouldnt play. Richmond used to be like us and changed it.

 

[Kimbo]

Eh, he's a good player who had a bad day. 12 turnovers is shite. And the fact so many of them came before the game was beyond doubt is doubly shite. But they're also as much a symptom of team effects as his own game. Freo win a clearance or turnover upfield, then swarm down to set up the forward press and his mates don't give him any good options, and he has no choice but to dump it out. I'd be looking at why we got so horribly pantsed in the midfield long before turning the blowtorch on the back 6 today.

He also had a game-high 13 intercept possessions. Worked his arse off.

Thank you (and dump it out on his left.)

 

[The Other Dean]

The narrative about MacMillans worth to the side is not his weaknesses as a footballer but moreso is he the best available as playing his current role?
I read the comments every year from all posters who have a divisive optinion on him be it you or Philly, TOD, the Roosurgence, etc - what needs to be stated in black and white is Jamie is a very good footballer in his own right. He has pace, penetrating kicking and can position himself well. These arent variables up for debate.

Good post, taz, but I don't recall ever having expressed any particularly passionate views on this forum regarding Jamie. I may have defended him on occasion purely for the purposes of winding up the Ziebull, but that'd be about it. Solid, (normally) reliable role-player with a ceiling to match, IMO. No world-beater but he can definitely football.

Much has been made of his turnovers against Freo and they were indeed costly. There's just no two ways about it. But he did some other things well and he had a few excuses, meaning in the final overarching analysis he probably ended up in the handful of better players for us on the day.

I generally see him as a pretty decent user of the ball (78% over the course of his career), so I'm fairly confident that he won't be backing up from the weekend's game with another masterclass in ball butchery. (Abysmal footy from his mates in the Midfield and Backline notwithstanding.)

 

[iSmack]

I was listening on the radio and the first series of turnovers that really cost us had his name linked to them.

The dockers had 36 shots on goal and 68 inside 50s.

Can you imagine the pressure... Ofcourse JMac is going to turn the ball over....it was in there 68 times with absolutely no help from the mids, half backs or defenders....

The bloke put in an enormous amount of effort which left him running on empty for repeated efforts....

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

 

[Tas]

I feel for Jamie, he tried, he tried hard. It just went horribly wrong and it hurt us bad. He wasn't the lone wolf though, we sucked arse across the board. Scott and to a lesser extend LDU were the only real glimmer of light on a bleak day.

I am more upset with the club because we clearly haven't given all the players the required toolset they need to avoid disaster, it isn't like this is the first hint of potential catastrophe, we just keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome.

 

[the flying ham]

Had 8 turnovers in the 1st half. Doubt we would ever see that from him again. Cracked in all day. Thought he and Pittard had a crack.

Didn't like him giving McCarthy 4m head start in the forward 50. But aside from that, difficult to defend when you are out of position after losing it via a turnover.

On SM-G950F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[ferball]

The dockers had 36 shots on goal and 68 inside 50s.

Can you imagine the pressure... Ofcourse JMac is going to turn the ball over....it was in there 68 times with absolutely no help from the mids, half backs or defenders....

The bloke put in an enormous amount of effort which left him running on empty for repeated efforts....

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

I made that comment in response to one wondering why there was so much anti JMac feeling after a game when he was in our bests. So many turnovers early. And I agree its not all on him. Things like that happen when the system breaks down, not just cos he is useless, in fact I don't think he is a useless player.

Its a similar thing to the constant sideways handball. That isn't the game plan, its what happens when the players can't implement the game plan.

It seems we aren't fit enough and don't have the composure to work our way out of those situations by slowing the ball down and resetting our movement.

Its our first proper game of the year, with 5 new players in the side. So to me its understandable that the game plan didn't work and that players were a bit lost and that is an easy thing to take advantage of.

What's really disturbing tho isn't that and the fact we were beaten and lost. Its how we were beaten (the lack of fight) in the second half.

 

[Passmore]

Unless we can find a better ball user out if the back half, I guess Macmillan will continue to be it. He's generally better than what he was in Sunday, but he's hardly going to cause the opposition to want to clamp down on him. Which in turn means they're going to have more attacking options.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

 

[Horizons_00]

If only most of our players put as much effort in as Jmac we would have been pushing for finals ages ago

Not sure why he cant be half forward or something, he gets plenty of the ball

 

[koshari]

If only most of our players put as much effort in as Jmac we would have been pushing for finals ages ago

Not sure why he cant be half forward or something, he gets plenty of the ball

did you see his disposal on sunday?

 

[The Nostradamus]

he is just not a defender
and he isn't good enough to play anywhere else

 

[Snake_Baker]

he is just not a defender
and he isn't good enough to play anywhere else

You're pretty good at just potting certain players as the be all and end all solution to our problems, so are you suggesting it's not in any way the coaches game plan?

 

[Tectonic]

Jamie plays his role well enough

If he is getting 37 possessions there's something wrong further up the ground.

 

[Shermanator]

If only most of our players put as much effort in as Jmac we would have been pushing for finals ages ago

Not sure why he cant be half forward or something, he gets plenty of the ball

No he doesnt get plenty of the ball he averages 17 disposals in his whole career as a rebounding backman who takes our kick ins.

This year, the new rule change allows the person taking a kick in to ‘play on’ without kicking it to themselves so the JLT games and on Sunday he’s getting almost 40 possessions a game because the opposition teams keep kicking points. So the more points the opposition kicks the more padded his stats become and unfortunately lazy, dickhead commentators like Campbell Brown just simply open the AFL app and look to see who had the most touches and conclude that they were BOG when in fact if he they we’re the opposite..

The usual suspects keep defending him because they’re related or close friends and I’m cool with that, he seems like a top bloke, but unfortunately my hard earned that I cough up every year in memberships and sponsorships is for us to win premierships no to gift games to players who is the teachers pet and/or is a ‘good bloke’ in the locker room..

 

[the flying ham]

he is just not a defender
and he isn't good enough to play anywhere else

Mate give it up

On SM-G950F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[TennisPlayerAndy]

Jamie plays his role well enough

If he is getting 37 possessions there's something wrong further up the ground.

Freo kicked a shitload of behinds and he took most of, if not all, of the kickouts. He ran out of the square for most of them.

 

[Pykie]

I reckon someone like Clarkson or Blight for example would of made him into a gun footballer. There's certainly one in there.

He's hitting his peak as a footballer, his decision making is his major problem, he thinks he's a far better kick than he is, he bites off way too many 30m kicks into the corridor that have to be perfect, he kicks a huge % of ground ball grubbers in these scenario's. He also isn't a great tackler, players walk through his tackles way more than they should for a guy of his size.

Despite the s**t kicking and decision making, he's averaging 38 disposals a game through the JLT and now Rnd 1, he's got a decent enough footy brain, he obviously is being instilled with confidence to execute beyond his ability at the moment.

I can just imagine the coaching staff etc going along the lines of "Back yourself in etc", when in reality he should be told to play within himself and take the option with the least amount of risk.

I will be interested to see where he finishes the year on the turnovers statistic for the league, given he looks like racking up 30+ a game, there's a fair chance he finishes #1 in the league for that stat by years end. Turnovers are pretty much the anti-christ in modern rebound footy.

I feel like he's being played in a position which exacerbates and highlights pretty much every weakness in his game at the moment. He's poor defensively, a poor decision maker in the sense of trying for high degree of difficulty kicks and he's not a great kick to start with and every mistake and missed tackle he makes is in a position on the ground at which these mistakes end up resulting in the most damaging consequence.

I feel like he's actually probably best suited to be a half forward. He's got a big engine, he's a good size, he's a decent mark, he can rack up the ball and he's actually a pretty decent one-on-one player. His kicking isn't as important in the sense bad kicks won't result in goals against and half backs aren't anywhere near as elusive as a small forward he is trying to tackle.


It's just another case of Brad being far to one dimensional, I feel someone like Clarkson would of re-engineered JMAC into a quality player, or the more troubling thought that Brad actually thinks JMAC is a quality half back.

 

[Tectonic]

Freo kicked a shitload of behinds and he took most of, if not all, of the kickouts. He ran out of the square for most of them.

He did like 3 in the 2nd quarter, I don't remember seeing much more than that. At a stretch that's what, 15 possies? More likely 8 or 9 from kick ins.

Most of his touches were around the 50. Now I'm not saying he was great on the weekend but the squad as a whole gave the backline zero to work with. Out of the 68 inside 50s Freo got i wonder how many had some pressure applied by our mids?

 

[TennisPlayerAndy]

He did like 3 in the 2nd quarter, I don't remember seeing much more than that. At a stretch that's what, 15 possies? More likely 8 or 9 from kick ins.

Most of his touches were around the 50. Now I'm not saying he was great on the weekend but the squad as a whole gave the backline zero to work with. Out of the 68 inside 50s Freo got i wonder how many had some pressure applied by our mids?

I wonder how many were repeat entries after turnovers with players all out of position expecting the ball to be retained?

 

[the flying ham]

More concerned about the handballing around the boundary to clear the ball from a kick in. Clearly instruction from the top down, created the repeat entry disaster for our defenders

On SM-G950F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Snake_Baker]

I feel like he's actually probably best suited to be a half forward. He's got a big engine, he's a good size, he's a decent mark, he can rack up the ball and he's actually a pretty decent one-on-one player. His kicking isn't as important in the sense bad kicks won't result in goals against and half backs aren't anywhere near as elusive as a small forward he is trying to tackle.

If you can remember back far enough, he played a couple of blinders in the middle for Vic Metro as a kid. If I moved him, that's where I'd put him.

 

[Snake_Baker]

More concerned about the handballing around the boundary to clear the ball from a kick in. Clearly instruction from the top down, created the repeat entry disaster for our defenders

On SM-G950F using BigFooty.com mobile app

It's due to only basically having two tall targets up the ground. The defenders often don't even have a long target down the line.

1) Brown, who is usually still a kick further up the ground.
2) Goldstein, who is usually guarding the corridor when the oppo ruck drags him in there.

It's glaringly obvious that we need a CHF type (195+ cm) hit up work horse.

 

[Pykie]

It's due to only basically having two tall targets up the ground. The defenders often don't even have a long target down the line.

1) Brown, who is usually still a kick further up the ground.
2) Goldstein, who is usually guarding the corridor when the oppo ruck drags him in there.

It's glaringly obvious that we need a CHF type (195+ cm) hit up work horse.

Mason Wood should be perfectly capable of that role in modern footy.

He's pretty much athletically perfect for it.

He can't find the footy and he just doesn't have the physicality to play taller than his height. His overhead presence is actually an indictment on him considering he's actually a decent mark and clearly athletic and big for his height.

 

[LuvtheKangas]

It's due to only basically having two tall targets up the ground. The defenders often don't even have a long target down the line.

1) Brown, who is usually still a kick further up the ground.
2) Goldstein, who is usually guarding the corridor when the oppo ruck drags him in there.

It's glaringly obvious that we need a CHF type (195+ cm) hit up work horse.

We also need Goldy to hold his effing marks.

I say that as a Goldy fan, as I know you are.

 

[Snake_Baker]

We also need Goldy to his effing marks.

I say that as a Goldy fan, as I know you are.

He's just not a very good contested mark mate, so we have to deal with it other ways.

The whole "long down the line" thing relates more to bringing the ball to ground in modern footy. He can do that.