Player Watch Ronin O'Connor - Delisted

What’s your opinion?


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Jun 7, 2011
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Anyone know what our marking stats were like for our mids in 2019? I going by the assumption that the coaches want more marks out of the midfield if they are pushing for recruiting taller mids.

There’s only a handful of contested marks taken per team each game. Height isn’t really a factor given midfields would barely share 2 between them. More marks is about ball use and getting into advantageous position without a competitor for that ball.
 
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Anyone know what our marking stats were like for our mids in 2019? I going by the assumption that the coaches want more marks out of the midfield if they are pushing for recruiting taller mids.
I would think it would be just simply to add some size and strength inside the contest to compliment the ball magnets Crouch X 2 with the added bonus of good pace to go with it in the case of Ronin. CEY and Hugh not known for their speed and tanks, moreso lack of same.
 
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May 29, 2011
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There’s only a handful of contested marks taken per team each game. Height isn’t really a factor given midfields would barely share 2 between them. More marks is about ball use and getting into advantageous position without a competitor for that ball.
Yeah it's all about speed of ball movement now I agree.

It's kind of funny/sad that despite drafting pretty tall, we actually look like a faster more mobile side than we did before.

I would think it would be just simply to add some size and strength inside the contest to compliment the ball magnets Crouch X 2 with the added bonus of good pace to go with it in the case of Ronin. CEY and Hugh not known for their speed and tanks, moreso lack of same.
O'Connor looks like he will build into a massive unit in a couple of years. Lots of upside here if we can cover for his weaknesses.
 

huludicidal

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Cripps, Fyfe, Bont play pretty well against most teams. Merrett, Neale, Shuey, Treloar, Rockliff, Boak, Gaff, Sheed, Taranto, Kelly, Prestia, Kelly, Selwood, Gray, Murphy, Walsh and Hunter all had 30+ against us last year and none of them are more than 184cm

i don't think height has anything to do with 'tearing us a new one'

30 plus means absolutely nothing, especially against the 2019 crows who never actually returned from the bye.

Granted, a couple of the guys you mentioned above had match winning performances against us, but blind Freddy can see that all teams actually need to have a player or two in their midfield who has some height and or bulk. Who would you play on Cripps, Fyfe or Bont, someone 10cm smaller than them? The rest of the AFL world couldn’t stop laughing when Sloane was sent to Cripps. What did he have, 40 something and 3 goals? He’s literally never had a game like that against anyone else in his career.

Good teams all have midfields with brutes in the coalface. Even Dusty is taller than any of our mids. We cannot matchup with these players at stoppages with the current list, it has been proven beyond all doubt.

As for the notion that those players play well against everyone, have a look at their records against GWS (De Boer) and get back to me. There are other taggers doing reasonable jobs on them too - none of them are Jordan Gallucci’s height I can assure you.

Will we elect to utilise a tagger now that Nicks is on board? Probably.

Do we have a player on our list with the physical attributes capable to do the job? Remains to be seen.

Personally I’d be going with the big bodied option of Jake Kelly in this role, but if you think one of the midget brigade (eg the fabled tagging ability of Riley Knight which is a complete myth) can handle the comps elite, I reckon you’re in for a rude shock.

Hamish would’ve been under strict instructions to draft tall mids this time around after the exits of CEY and Greenwood, and he’s done a good job of doing so. It won’t help us in 2020 though.
 

Thetrader15

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30 plus means absolutely nothing, especially against the 2019 crows who never actually returned from the bye.

Granted, a couple of the guys you mentioned above had match winning performances against us, but blind Freddy can see that all teams actually need to have a player or two in their midfield who has some height and or bulk. Who would you play on Cripps, Fyfe or Bont, someone 10cm smaller than them? The rest of the AFL world couldn’t stop laughing when Sloane was sent to Cripps. What did he have, 40 something and 3 goals? He’s literally never had a game like that against anyone else in his career.

Good teams all have midfields with brutes in the coalface. Even Dusty is taller than any of our mids. We cannot matchup with these players at stoppages with the current list, it has been proven beyond all doubt.

As for the notion that those players play well against everyone, have a look at their records against GWS (De Boer) and get back to me. There are other taggers doing reasonable jobs on them too - none of them are Jordan Gallucci’s height I can assure you.

Will we elect to utilise a tagger now that Nicks is on board? Probably.

Do we have a player on our list with the physical attributes capable to do the job? Remains to be seen.

Personally I’d be going with the big bodied option of Jake Kelly in this role, but if you think one of the midget brigade (eg the fabled tagging ability of Riley Knight which is a complete myth) can handle the comps elite, I reckon you’re in for a rude shock.

Hamish would’ve been under strict instructions to draft tall mids this time around after the exits of CEY and Greenwood, and he’s done a good job of doing so. It won’t help us in 2020 though.
Who do Richmond play on Cripps, Fyfe, Bont?

CEY isn't a tagger, his games v the above prove it.

Play Kelly as a tagger if you like - personally I doubt he has the speed off the mark, agility or midfield nous to do the job, but being tall in the mids doesn't mean you can tag taller players.

What would afc know about building a list
 

huludicidal

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Who do Richmond play on Cripps, Fyfe, Bont?

CEY isn't a tagger, his games v the above prove it.

Play Kelly as a tagger if you like - personally I doubt he has the speed off the mark, agility or midfield nous to do the job, but being tall in the mids doesn't mean you can tag taller players.

What would afc know about building a list

Kelly is a lot faster and more agile than De Boer. Whether he has the midfield nous remains to be seen, but there is nobody else on the list with the physical attributes required for the role, so it seems like a bit of a no-brainer to me. O’Connor likely ends up being the tagger of the future, but he’s not ready to do that as a teenager.

Richmond are a dominant side with quality on all lines. They don’t need to worry too much about tagging as a result I wouldn’t have thought. Sheer team dominance eliminates the need.

We are a middle of the road side with players who don’t deserve to be playing AFL footy on all lines.

I’ll ask again, who would you play on Cripps, Bont or Fyfe? If the answer is Sloane, M Crouch, B Crouch, Milera or Knight, I’m struggling to see how that’s going to work.

Nobody was ever arguing that CEY was a “tagger”. The point is that it made sense to recruit big bodied, tallish mids because we were completely devoid of any while the vast majority of other clubs have at least 2 of them running around. It was a glaring need.
 

maxlilly

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Kelly is a lot faster and more agile than De Boer. Whether he has the midfield nous remains to be seen, but there is nobody else on the list with the physical attributes required for the role, so it seems like a bit of a no-brainer to me. O’Connor likely ends up being the tagger of the future, but he’s not ready to do that as a teenager.

Richmond are a dominant side with quality on all lines. They don’t need to worry too much about tagging as a result I wouldn’t have thought. Sheer team dominance eliminates the need.

We are a middle of the road side with players who don’t deserve to be playing AFL footy on all lines.

I’ll ask again, who would you play on Cripps, Bont or Fyfe? If the answer is Sloane, M Crouch, B Crouch, Milera or Knight, I’m struggling to see how that’s going to work.

Nobody was ever arguing that CEY was a “tagger”. The point is that it made sense to recruit big bodied, tallish mids because we were completely devoid of any while the vast majority of other clubs have at least 2 of them running around. It was a glaring need.


I would like to see Doedee play in the midfield and play against the bigger mids in the comp
 

kulak

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Dusty, McIntosh, De Boer, Hopper, Hately and Ward are all bigger than any of our guys.
At the risk of taking a joke post seriously:

Richmond: Dusty is 187 cm. McIntosh is not very good.

GWS: Hopper is 187 cm. Ward is 187 cm. De Boer is a tagger. Hateley isn’t first team.

I guess that 1 cm that Dusty Hopper Ward have over B Crouch makes all the difference?
 

huludicidal

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I would like to see Doedee play in the midfield and play against the bigger mids in the comp

Eventually, I absolutely agree that this is a good plan. Doedee has that rare combo of speed, agility, 1 on 1 ability and size that suits a midfield stopper role perfectly.

In 2020-21, returning from a knee reco, it’s not happening though. Happy for Tom to stay in the D50 for a while yet.
 

huludicidal

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At the risk of taking a joke post seriously:

Richmond: Dusty is 187 cm. McIntosh is not very good.

GWS: Hopper is 187 cm. Ward is 187 cm. De Boer is a tagger. Hateley isn’t first team.

I guess that 1 cm that Dusty Hopper Ward have over B Crouch makes all the difference?

They’re all physically significantly bigger than our mids, including the slimline Brad Crouch we saw in 2019. As stated previously, it’s not only height where we are exposed. It’s physical strength. This is one of the reasons why CEY became such an important player for us in the first half of 2019. We got killed at stoppages without him, and now that neither of him or Greenwood are options to rotate through there, it’s magnified further.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that O’Connor has addressed a clear list need. I’m a big fan of this pickup and I like what he can bring in the long-term.
 

maxlilly

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Eventually, I absolutely agree that this is a good plan. Doedee has that rare combo of speed, agility, 1 on 1 ability and size that suits a midfield stopper role perfectly.

In 2020-21, returning from a knee reco, it’s not happening though. Happy for Tom to stay in the D50 for a while yet.

yes, happy for him to get some confidence in his knee this year and play in defence but hopefully next year they look at Doedee in the midfield
 
At the risk of taking a joke post seriously:

Richmond: Dusty is 187 cm. McIntosh is not very good.

GWS: Hopper is 187 cm. Ward is 187 cm. De Boer is a tagger. Hateley isn’t first team.

I guess that 1 cm that Dusty Hopper Ward have over B Crouch makes all the difference?

B. Crouch not having a defensive bone in his body is what makes the difference. Ditto his brother.

Hopefully this will change now that Campo is no longer in charge of our mids.
 
May 17, 2009
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Who do Richmond play on Cripps, Fyfe, Bont?

CEY isn't a tagger, his games v the above prove it.

Play Kelly as a tagger if you like - personally I doubt he has the speed off the mark, agility or midfield nous to do the job, but being tall in the mids doesn't mean you can tag taller players.

What would afc know about building a list
Campo doesn't/didn't know how to tag either. We just sat guys 1 on 1, body to body and expected to brute force it against big, strong mids like Cripps. All it takes is a strong arm and the tag is broken, watch a team like Richmond, it's all movement, in and out of space to get momentum behind you defensively. Guys read the play and move into the space defensively to stop the play. Everything we did was just static.
 

Thetrader15

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Campo doesn't/didn't know how to tag either. We just sat guys 1 on 1, body to body and expected to brute force it against big, strong mids like Cripps. All it takes is a strong arm and the tag is broken, watch a team like Richmond, it's all movement, in and out of space to get momentum behind you defensively. Guys read the play and move into the space defensively to stop the play. Everything we did was just static.
Agree, we were very stagnant.

I'd love to see us tag too, with someone like Kabe Cornes who wasn't naturally gifted but just ran all day and made it 17 v 17
 
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The way Gibbs is playing these days, I don't think i'd want him in a role that requires him to be fiercely defensive.
I counted the stats last year and there was a huge period early in the year where Tex was averaging like twice the amount of pressure acts as Gibbs and he's absolutely cooked physically when it comes to repeated running.
 
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