2004 Best Line Up

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by DaveW
Wow, all those goals, they add up to... 1754 points.

The 2nd least points conceded by any side in 2003 H&A.

Stats are misleading.

Each and every one of those blokes had very good games against us.

McGregor takes care of Rocca when Ayres gives him the job. The others all give us a bath more often than not.

 

[DaveW]

"everytime we meet them" <-- some of those guys have had one good game against us at best.

Dyertribe and Stiffy seem to think that no forward should ever when his position when playing against us.

 

[macca23]

Originally posted by DaveW
"everytime we meet them" <-- some of those guys have had one good game against us at best.

Dyertribe and Stiffy seem to think that no forward should ever when his position when playing against us.

Geez, I really am on your bandwagon on this one Dave.

If some players from the opposition didn't have good games we would win every game by 50 goals. We don't, so obviously some players do have good games against us. but not the same ones every time - other than Lynch, who we just cannot match up on.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by DaveW
"everytime we meet them" <-- some of those guys have had one good game against us at best.

Dyertribe and Stiffy seem to think that no forward should ever when his position when playing against us.

Thats a load of bull****. If you actually carefully analyzed our games and particularly our defence is that we struggle when:

* We come up against a quick nippy small forward (Milne, Matera, Burgoyne Brothers, Farmer, Medhurst etc)
* We come up against big strong key forward (Lynch, Tredrea, Neitz etc)

Those are 2 MAJOR weaknesses in our defence. The only big bloke Bassett can play on is Barry Hall. The rest just beat him or he doesn't match up well on them.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by macca23
Geez, I really am on your bandwagon on this one Dave.

If some players from the opposition didn't have good games we would win every game by 50 goals. We don't, so obviously some players do have good games against us. but not the same ones every time - other than Lynch, who we just cannot match up on.

Tredrea, Burgoynes, Matera ??????

 

[DaveW]

Originally posted by Stiffy_18
Thats a load of bull****. If you actually carefully analyzed our games and particularly our defence is that we struggle when:

* We come up against a quick nippy small forward (Milne, Matera, Burgoyne Brothers, Farmer, Medhurst etc)

There were some bad match-ups at times and sometimes these guys just get away from you. It's not as if we got killed by every small forward we came up against.

Remember Edwards against Cupido? Hart against Matera in the finals? That's two wins off the top of my head.

* We come up against big strong key forward (Lynch, Tredrea, Neitz etc)

Lynch we seem have no answer to. Tredrea kills everyone.

Neitz didn't do much against us this year. In fact he got moved to full back mid-way during the round 12 (?) clash.

 

[tribey]

Originally posted by DaveW
Wow, all those goals, they add up to... 1754 points.

The 2nd least points conceded by any side in 2003 H&A.

Was waiting for you to bring that up - but it's a purely pointless and misleading statistic. At the end of the day we conceded more than our opponent did 10 times in 24 matches and finished in sixth position - mostly because of our failure to control the forwards I listed in the previous post...

In most of the games we've lost and some of the ones we narrowly won we let the opposition's main weapons get their fair share of goals - even in some of those we coasted we couldn't contain a specific opposition forward.

Round 1 vs Fremantle... 145 vs 89... Medhurst 3
Round 2 vs St. Kilda... 91 vs 99... Milne 5, Koschitzke 3
Round 4 vs West Coast... 106 vs 73... Matera 5
Round 5 vs Port Adelaide... 66 vs 78... Cornes 3, S. Burgoyne 3, P. Burgoyne 3
Round 7 vs Collingwood... 109 vs 114... Tarrant 4
Round 8 vs Brisbane... 89 vs 107... Lynch 7
Round 9 vs Bulldogs... 109 vs 93... Brown 4
Round 11 vs Hawthorn... 70 vs 75... Nick Holland 3
Round 16 vs Fremantle... 90 vs 91... Farmer 4, Longmuir 3
Round 18 vs Sydney... 97 vs 93... Hall 3
Round 19 vs West Coast... 91 vs 67... Matera 4
Round 20 vs Collingwood... 71 vs 108... Rocca 3, Fraser 3, Didak 3
Round 22 vs Port Adelaide... 78 vs 94... Pickett 3
SF vs Brisbane.................. 82 vs 124... Lynch 6, Brown 3

This is what my point is... our recent failures to contain or choke off obvious opposition threats.

 

[DaveW]

Originally posted by dyertribe
Medhurst 3
Cornes 3, Burgoynes 3
Nick Holland 3
Hall 3
Rocca 3, Fraser 3, Didak 3
Pickett 3

If the leading opposition goal scorer has three goals then its break even at worst. You can hardly say the defence has been slaughtered by that player. (I think you've been watching too much soccer.)

Sometimes they kick more than three, but that's going to happen every now and again. That's football.

I've put the Burgoynes 3 in red because well, two players kicking three goals between them is hardly an achievement, is it?

 

[macca23]

Originally posted by Stiffy_18
Tredrea, Burgoynes, Matera ??????

Tredrea averages 15 disposals a game against the Crows - exactly the same as his lifetime average for all teams. Slightly down at 14 disposals for the last 4 meetings.

Sean Burgoyne averages just over 8 disposals per game against the Crows - barely gut wrenching stuff.

Peter Burgoyne averages 20 disposals per game against the Crows - certainly not startling numbers for an on-baller.

Matera is the exception. Doesn't get a lot of it - only averages 8 disposals per game in recent years but has really hurt us with his number of goals on occasions.

 

[tribey]

Originally posted by DaveW
(I think you've been watching too much soccer.)

Starting to slip mate - your arguments are stronger when you just say "rubbish!"

I'll fight fire with fire then... erm... you've been in Sydney too long?...

Originally posted by DaveW
I've put the Burgoynes 3 in red because well, two players kicking three goals between them is hardly an achievement, is it?

Actually both Peter and Shaun kicked three each, I edited to ease the confusion.

I'd say that in a total winning score of 12. 6 (78), two players booting half that score between them isn't an achievement, it's the difference - before we mention Chad Cornes' 3 goals, or Tredders' 8 marks and 1 goal.

 

[DaveW]

12.6 (78) ? not bad to keep a potent team like Port Adelaide down to a score like that.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by DaveW
Remember Edwards against Cupido? Hart against Matera in the finals? That's two wins off the top of my head.
Lynch we seem have no answer to. Tredrea kills everyone.

How about Edwards on Farmer in Rd 16?????? How about Hart on Matera in Rd 19?????? How about Hart on O'Loughlin?????? etc......

So because Tredrea kills everyone we should just concede defeat and don't bother about adressing our needs??????

Neitz didn't do much against us this year. In fact he got moved to full back mid-way during the round 12 (?) clash.

The only reason Neitz did nothing is because Perrie started like a house on fire and Neitz got moved to defence to mind Perrie.

How about showing us stats from 2002 where I recall Neitz giving Bassett and Smart a bath in our away game to the demons.

If its not such a major weakness why did AFC said that big strong defender is our major need??????

The only reason our defence was statictically 2nd best in the comp is because our midfield was winning the contest when ever our midfield was beater or 2 midfields broke even we got a high score kicked against us. Our midfield is not getting any younger and loss of Bickley will further weaken us. More reason for another big strong key defender.

As good as Bassett is he is no KPP. He is more of a 3rd tall type of player.

 

[macca23]

Originally posted by Stiffy_18

As good as Bassett is he is no KPP. He is more of a 3rd tall type of player.

This I do agree with. If we had a Mal Michael type full-back we would have the best defence in the comp - not the second best.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by macca23
Tredrea averages 15 disposals a game against the Crows - exactly the same as his lifetime average for all teams. Slightly down at 14 disposals for the last 4 meetings.

Sean Burgoyne averages just over 8 disposals per game against the Crows - barely gut wrenching stuff.

Peter Burgoyne averages 20 disposals per game against the Crows - certainly not startling numbers for an on-baller.

Matera is the exception. Doesn't get a lot of it - only averages 8 disposals per game in recent years but has really hurt us with his number of goals on occasions.

This is where I hate stats. They do not show a true reflexion of player's influence on a game of footy. Tredrea ALWAYS causes us headaches. 14 disposals, 8 marks, a couple of goals and providing a target all day long is a cause for concern IMHO.

Shaun Burgoyne gets 8 disposals????? How many goals does he average against us. He is the sort of player that doesn't need to touch the footy a lot to kill you off. He has a pretty high goals from possesions ratio againt us.

Peter Burgoyne is the player that always has big influence on showdowns. He does play in the midfield but he also plays across half forward and sometimes deep in the forward line. I would also like to see his goal average against us. I would suggest its a pretty handy average.

We can try to cover it up as much as we want but a strong key defender and a defender who can mind small forwards is a MUST. We probably have those types on our list to develop BUT its is a weakness in our side currently.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by macca23
This I do agree with. If we had a Mal Michael type full-back we would have the best defence in the comp - not the second best.

We would still be shot for a small forward specialist

 

[DaveW]

I still fail to recognise how letting a gun player get away from us every now and then makes our defence average.

Even the likes of Brisbane and Port Adelaide would've had top flight defenders kick the odd bag against them.

Adelaide went after a key defender because Bassett is a bit undersized and we lack depth in this area.

As for "conceding defeat" I said nothing of the sort. But if a top class forward has an average or less than average output against us then it's hardly anything to get worried about.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by DaveW
I still fail to recognise how letting a gun player get away from us every now and then makes our defence average.

Even the likes of Brisbane and Port Adelaide would've had top flight defenders kick the odd bag against them.

Adelaide went after a key defender because Bassett is a bit undersized and we lack depth in this area.

As for "conceding defeat" I said nothing of the sort. But if a top class forward has an average or less than average output against us then it's hardly anything to get worried about.

Tell me the last time a player has kicked 7 goals against Brisbane??????

Against Collingwood??????

Thats my point. They get burned far less than us by stars of the comp. Before this year Lloyd gave us a bath pretty much every time but Smart can't play for ever. I think its a major weaknesses. Along with the depth of our ruck divsion.

 

[tribey]

So what do we do in trying to mould the clay we have?

As it stands we'd all agree right here and now that the likes of Lynch, Tarrant, Matera, Rocca, Tredrea, Cornes and both Burgoynes are our biggest individual threats this season when we meet them - not to mention Brown, Pavlich, Medhurst, Milne, Riewoldt, Lloyd, Jon Brown, Ottens, the list goes on.

So what can we do? Do we go with our usual back six and hope for the best, or do we try something different? Does Mark Stevens move down back - saving his battered body from the rigours of CHF - allowing Nathan Bassett to play as a third up spoiling defender?

Do we try Scott Stevens down back as a key defender?

Do we throw Bock, Rutten and/or Hentschel to the wolves in the Ansett Cup and then early on into the real stuff?

Or do we just - as has been suggested by many on this board in the past couple of weeks - force Fred, Kenny Mac, Sarge, Stevo and our young talls into the bloody weights room and lock the door?

 

[macca23]

Back to the Burgoynes Stiffy.

Peter averages a bit less than 2 goals per game against us, Shaun averages 2.

That's barely destroying us.

Tredrea doesn't always play well against us. He's had some boomers and some quiet ones. That in itself is not a bad achievement as let's face it, he is the best CHF in the comp.

All this argument about our defence ignores our major weakness - game plan and usage of the ball. Our conversions per entry into the forward 50 must be one of the poorest in the whole comp.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by dyertribe
Do we try Scott Stevens down back as a key defender?

Probably the most likely scenario.

We cannot expect the new weights program to show real improvement by the start of the season. It will take a couple of years before we can really see the results of it.

I get the sneaky suspicion that Stevens could be used as a defender. I doubt he is strong enough for KPP yet but maybe he can be CHB and McGregor can move to FB.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by macca23
Back to the Burgoynes Stiffy.

Peter averages a bit less than 2 goals per game against us, Shaun averages 2.

That's barely destroying us.

Tredrea doesn't always play well against us. He's had some boomers and some quiet ones. That in itself is not a bad achievement as let's face it, he is the best CHF in the comp.

All this argument about our defence ignores our major weakness - game plan and usage of the ball. Our conversions per entry into the forward 50 must be one of the poorest in the whole comp.

4 goals too many

 

[spindoctor]

Funnily enough Andrew Crowell was considered our small forward specialist before getting a knee injury. Had the the height to kill them in the air and the pace to go with them on the ground.

 

[Stiffy_18]

Originally posted by spindoctor
Funnily enough Andrew Crowell was considered our small forward specialist before getting a knee injury. Had the the height to kill them in the air and the pace to go with them on the ground.

The only reason I would have kept him on the list. Hopefully Jericho comes on as he has the height, pace and even leap to cream small forwards.

 

[noddy]

Phew now that's what i call a difference of opinion.

Stiffy = 8 - 10 for effort & content.

macca23 = 7 - 10 for short sharp bursts that hit the target.

DaveW = 6 - 10 for speed out of the barrier but run out of puff toward the end.

dyertribe = 6 - 10 for, for just being dt.


For what it's worth

F: Welsh........Carey........Johncock
HF: Ladhams......Stevens......Bode
C: Goodwin......Ricciuto....Burton
HB: Massie.......McGregor.....Torney
B: Hart.........Bassett......Edwards

R: Biglands, Shirley, McLeod

I: Clarke, Smart, Stenglein, Reilly

[E: Perrie, Burns, Schuback]

I have already elevated Shirley above Stenglein going on last years form & would only start Nigel on the bench.


i can't see 2 Stenglein's

 

[HighReeve]

Originally posted by macca23
(tredrea) he is the best CHF in the comp.

No he's not if you look at it logically Barry Hall is a CHF and is continually better than Tredrea all you have to do is look at the international rules series to realise this.