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Prediction 2023 GWS Giants - Predicted best 22, breakout player(s), general player/team discussion & questions

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'51 Bewick said:
Who do you see sharing the extra midfield time?
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Think the core 5 midfield group is Kelly, Coniglio, Green, Callaghan and Pereyman. Green, Kelly and Coniglio are probably the top 3 CBA getters but still think we see the other get a consistent midfield role. Wouldn't shock me if Ward sneaks into the back end of the rotation after this forward thing inevitably fails, they've tried him at half back before but I don't think there's really a role for him there, maybe wing but he not that effective there or he just might not be best 22 anymore if they're not keen on expanding the rotation.
 
'51 Bewick said:
Yep, Supercoach. Any chance Callaghan gets a slice of the pie?
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I think he will be first choice on the wing and may (likely to even) pinch hit in the middle.
I picked Callaghan in my Supercoach team.
 
Here's Fox Sports' predicted round 1 team:

B: Isaac Cumming, Sam Taylor, Connor Idun

HB: Lachie Whitfield, Phil Davis, Nick Haynes

C: Harry Perryman, Josh Kelly, Lachie Ash

HF: Brent Daniels, Harry Himmelberg, Daniel Lloyd

F: Toby Greene, Jesse Hogan, Toby Bedford

FOLL: Braydon Preuss, Stephen Coniglio, Tom Green

I/C: Finn Callaghan, Callan Ward, Jacob Wehr, Adam Kennedy, Jake Riccardi

We say: Harry Himmelberg looks set to play forward in 2023, so Phil Davis could slot back in seamlessly, although Leek Aleer has been looking good this pre-season. Jake Riccardi may have to settle for a sub role early and do more to solidify his spot in the senior side. The midfield core still looks virtually the same as last year despite the losses of Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper. Aaron Cadman won’t be rushed despite his immense talent.
 

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B: Isaac Cumming, Sam Taylor, Connor Idun

HB: Lachie Whitfield, Nick Haynes, Lachie Ash

C: Harry Perryman, Josh Kelly, Stephen Coniglio

HF: Brent Daniels, Harry Himmelberg, Jake Riccardi

F: Toby Greene, Jesse Hogan, Toby Bedford

FOLL: Matt Flynn, Finn Callaghan, Tom Green,

I/C: Callan Ward, Adam Kennedy, Conor Stone, Leek Alleer

Sub: Jack Buckley

Theory for changes:
I feel like with the amount of youth coming through we are better off trying to get games into Conor Stone rather than playing Lloyd who has been a serviceable role player.

I'd probably play Davis ahead of Leek in round 1 if his body is good to go as I doubt he will last too long and we can bring Leek in.

I have Ward and Kennedy because they can both swing from offence to defence if needed.

3 talls up front because if a young Riccardi starts to play his best under the 'big lights' of Giants stadium he will be huge in consolidating our fwd line.

Jack Buckley should probably be in the team. ****.
 
Giant Gutsache said:
Mission impossible for even the best defensive group if the mids don’t work back and support them.
Poor buggers were too often outnumbered in recent years.
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Feels like the key will be our ability to score freely again. Something we lost last year.
I'm personally excited to see what Bedford brings as a true crumber and pacy forward.
 
Giant Gutsache said:
Mission impossible for even the best defensive group if the mids don’t work back and support them.
Poor buggers were too often outnumbered in recent years.
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That's certainly true. I think, or at least hope, that the new gameplan will go some ways towards helping with this. Our old gameplan was so slow and predictable that opposition teams had all day to set up and wait for the inevitable long kick down the line and when a turnover did eventually come they were all in position to rebound quickly and score, leaving us essentially flat-footed.
 
We just really struggled to score and move the ball if it wasn't coming from winning at the contest, hopefully Kingsley can implement a system to help us breakdown defences more often building up from the back and working our way through a set defence which is something we've struggled with for a few years now. Cumming, Whitfield and Ash are all good enough users to help us build up from D50 and then Perryman, Kelly, Finn are all good users going forward as well, the talent is there just have to implement a system. Turning teams over more often and becoming more dangerous from them will help us score more efficently and take the burden off only winning from the contest.
 

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Best 22 based off what we've heard and what I'd do at this stage

Cumming Taylor Haynes
Ash Buckley Whitfield
Finn Green Perryman
Greene Hogan Bedford
Daniels HH Stone

Preuss Cogs Kelly

Idun Wehr Ward Kennedy

  • Think the midfield rotation is pretty tight tbh of Cogs, Kelly, Perryman, Finn and Green maybe some small roles for other but think they soak up the majority of our CBA's
  • Wehr getting a shoutout the other day makes me think he's a chance to play as a wing for us, he was fine last year but maybe he's stepped up a bit and a new system has allowed him to show off some of his skills
  • Plenty of question marks around our forward line, think it's comfortably our weakest group. There's a high enough ceiling there if everything goes our way like Stone, Hogan and Daniels healthy, Bedford breakout and Toby keeps being Toby but also a pretty low floor for this group if it doesn't.
  • Not picking any of the rookies to make much of an impact this year would be good if either of Jones or Cadman can adapt quickly and provide us with something
 
Hendo_21 said:
Best 22 based off what we've heard and what I'd do at this stage

Cumming Taylor Haynes
Ash Buckley Whitfield
Finn Green Perryman
Greene Hogan Bedford
Daniels HH Stone

Preuss Cogs Kelly

Idun Wehr Ward Kennedy
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I like what you've written, and based on the snippets we've heard, I would agree that this is likely to be pretty close. I would probably expect another tall forward though. At times there has been positive comment about Riccardi and Cadman, so I wouldn't be surprised if either of those made the round 1 team. In that case, you would expect one of Kennedy, Ward or Stone to come out (those 3 filling medium forward roles).

If Wehr does make the team, which seems possible on the back of recent comments, then he would take the more traditional wing role, leaving Finn to take more of a Kelly-type role going into contests and rotating out into a running role.

The ruck role seems to be a toss-up still - haven't really heard any preferences between them.
 
'51 Bewick said:
One last question, please.
How is Harry Rowston going at training? Do you think he'll get any early games?
Cheers.
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There were some positive comments about his game opposed to the primary midfielders. However, I don't see that he's likely to get an early opportunity unless we have multiple injuries to the inside mids. Presuming that you're looking at SC/AF etc, I would think there would be other lads more likely to play early (the WC kids, for example).
 
Giant Strides said:
I like what you've written, and based on the snippets we've heard, I would agree that this is likely to be pretty close. I would probably expect another tall forward though. At times there has been positive comment about Riccardi and Cadman, so I wouldn't be surprised if either of those made the round 1 team. In that case, you would expect one of Kennedy, Ward or Stone to come out (those 3 filling medium forward roles).

If Wehr does make the team, which seems possible on the back of recent comments, then he would take the more traditional wing role, leaving Finn to take more of a Kelly-type role going into contests and rotating out into a running role.

The ruck role seems to be a toss-up still - haven't really heard any preferences between them.
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Yep agreed, seems like they're trialling Riccardi in a couple different roles so maybe we see him but not as a forward. if Cadman is ready to go then that'd be cool but it's always tricky with young KPP. Yeah ruck I have no idea, sort of just pick Preuss but could be anyone.
 
Giant Strides said:
There were some positive comments about his game opposed to the primary midfielders. However, I don't see that he's likely to get an early opportunity unless we have multiple injuries to the inside mids. Presuming that you're looking at SC/AF etc, I would think there would be other lads more likely to play early (the WC kids, for example).
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Thanks for the response. Yeah, I've already got a couple of Eagles in there.
 

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I feel like these first 6 rounds will be pretty important in terms of shaping selection for the season. If the game plan brings out the best in the group and we are competitive and winning games then players like ward, Kennedy and Davis will continue to play.

If we start losing, we will look to youth and continue to rejuvenate the list

Right now, we are looking to back in the experienced guys
 
Agree. There's many winnable matches in those first 6 rounds. If we have a new style, we may not convert that to wins, engendering doubts about the new style, and subsequently making us less likely to crack wins as we move to harder match ups. Conversely, if we can convert the new style into early wins courtesy of the draw, it could build confidence to upset a few more highly ranked teams later in the season.

First weeks are very critical for us. We saw it all go wrong last year, without Toby (whether his presence could have changed things we'll never know). Hopefully the opposite this year.
 
Giant Strides said:
Agree. There's many winnable matches in those first 6 rounds. If we have a new style, we may not convert that to wins, engendering doubts about the new style, and subsequently making us less likely to crack wins as we move to harder match ups. Conversely, if we can convert the new style into early wins courtesy of the draw, it could build confidence to upset a few more highly ranked teams later in the season.

First weeks are very critical for us. We saw it all go wrong last year, without Toby (whether his presence could have changed things we'll never know). Hopefully the opposite this year.
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We’ll be starting as firm favourites against Adelaide, and you would also think that would be the same in the following match against the Eagles in Optus. Carlton after that will be harder but we are at home in Giants Stadium, and the games against Essendon and Hawthorn are definitely winnable even if we are playing them away (noting Hawthorn are also away as that is the Gather Round). Ideally we will be 4-1 when we come to Manuka to play Brisbane.
 
MelbourneGWS said:
We’ll be starting as firm favourites against Adelaide, and you would also think that would be the same in the following match against the Eagles in Optus. Carlton after that will be harder but we are at home in Giants Stadium, and the games against Essendon and Hawthorn are definitely winnable even if we are playing them away (noting Hawthorn are also away as that is the Gather Round). Ideally we will be 4-1 when we come to Manuka to play Brisbane.
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If we can get the new system to work, 4-1 would be a very good start. (5-0 would be possible, given the Blues' injuries & being a home match. But that also requires everything to go right for us, which I'm sure it won't.) Less - i.e. away losses to lowly teams - would quickly consign us to being also-rans.
 
MelbourneGWS said:
A dual ruck system is favoured under Adam, although none of our rucks are assessed as “elite”.
www.zerohanger.com

Assessing each AFL team's ruck stocks ahead of the 2023 season

A premiership trend is beginning to show the importance of shared ruck roles. So who has the strongest partnership?
www.zerohanger.com www.zerohanger.com
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I read that, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. Richmond has used various back-up ruck strategies over the time AK was an assistant there. I guess they're referring to Nankervis-Soldo, which was used quite a bit, for sure, but they also used Grigg as their secondary ruck (quite successfully) for a couple of years, Chol and Balta were used a bit as well, and last year Miller (from the backline) was used a bit. So, nothing there really discounts AK using HH or Riccardi as back-up ruck.

As I often said previously, there could (and IMHO should) be a 'horses for courses' policy. If there's a strong opposing ruck combo or really strong single ruck (so, Melbourne comes to mind with previously Gawn-Jackson and now Gawn-Grundy) then absolutely we should take in 2 rucks. But not for weaker ruck combos where a more nimble player would be better (e.g. Port playing Finlayson as their secondary ruck, or even at times last year primary ruck).
 

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