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Opinion 2024 Round 1 Team

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Golumless said:
He's more than a decent midfielder in our current mix, and is only getting underrated here because bigfooty gets rather stupid when it comes to veterans.

Laird is a walk-up A-grade mid and has been for the last three years.
Click to expand...
Yep agree

Very good player

If we can have prime Dawson with improving Rachele / Soligo / Pedlar around them I’m excited re our midfield
 
crows dude said:
Ok now thats over the top.

Laird is for sure in our top 22. Hes in our best 10. I do believe though that he does need to spend more time out of the middle. He will be fine rotating mid, back, bench
Click to expand...
Do you rate him better than Dawson and Crouch?
Do you rate him better than Hinge, Milera or MM?
They are the players he has to replace.
No one can seriously question his ball winning ability, it’s his judgment and disposals that aren’t as good as the above mentioned players.
With us trying to get games and midfield time into our younger players someone has to make way.
 

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Faaarrk said:
Do you rate him better than Dawson and Crouch?
Do you rate him better than Hinge, Milera or MM?
They are the players he has to replace.
No one can seriously question his ball winning ability, it’s his judgment and disposals that aren’t as good as the above mentioned players.
With us trying to get games and midfield time into our younger players someone has to make way.
Click to expand...

Laird is better than Crouch, Hinge, Milera and MM. The only two players who can claim to being better on our list are Walker and Dawson. Rankine is getting close, and is the only person who has a shot at overtaking Laird in 2024.

The ball winning ability is what matters, not his disposal/judgement when you are an inside midfielder. Disposal skill is handy to have, but really, you're there to win clearances and be at the coalface. Equally to the point, Laird is both elite at his ball winning ability and when it comes to pure offensive damage stats, Laird started just as many scoring chains as Dawson and involved in just as many chains, with both being in the top 10 for midfielders, and is in the top 10 for effective disposals. He's capitalizing on enough of the ball he's getting as much as he's the guy you want early in the chain.

Laird is and has been a fantastic inside midfielder who you've grossly underrated.
 
rabidcrow said:
Rachele had 23% last year. Hard to see it halving this year


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com
Click to expand...
More likely to at least double!
 
Jcpdragonx said:
Laird to def is something people bring up here for some reason. His def days are well and truely done. If he gets phased out of the midfield as he gets older it will be rotating off half forward with a younger guy like Rachele or Pedlar.
Click to expand...
Cant see it. He’s not a goal kicker at all.
 
What do people expect our CBA rates to be like?

Ignoring Rucks we have 300% to play with

Something like this?

Dawson- 78%
Laird- 78%
Crouch-72%
Rachele- 30%
Pedlar- 25%
Rankine/Soligo- 17%

I’d like to see rach/peds/rankine combine for closer to 100% (always having 1 in there) but not sure how it happens if the 1st 3 all are selected (seems likely rd1 but form could see it change)
 
Golumless said:
He's more than a decent midfielder in our current mix, and is only getting underrated here because bigfooty gets rather stupid when it comes to veterans.

Laird is a walk-up A-grade mid and has been for the last three years.
Click to expand...
Saying he's an A grade mid is a daft as saying he's not best 22.
 

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Faaarrk said:
Do you rate him better than Dawson and Crouch?
Do you rate him better than Hinge, Milera or MM?
They are the players he has to replace.
No one can seriously question his ball winning ability, it’s his judgment and disposals that aren’t as good as the above mentioned players.
With us trying to get games and midfield time into our younger players someone has to make way.
Click to expand...
Laird is far superior to crouch. Crouch has hardly played the last 2 years.
 
Tex Danger said:
What do people expect our CBA rates to be like?

Ignoring Rucks we have 300% to play with

Something like this?

Dawson- 78%
Laird- 78%
Crouch-72%
Rachele- 30%
Pedlar- 25%
Rankine/Soligo- 17%

I’d like to see rach/peds/rankine combine for closer to 100% (always having 1 in there) but not sure how it happens if the 1st 3 all are selected (seems likely rd1 but form could see it change)
Click to expand...

I’m ok with one of Laird or Crouch in there at all times as the main extractor, with Dawson (playing a little at wing, half-forward, half-back) rotating through the middle with Rachele, Pedlar, Soligo and a bit of Rankine and Jones.
 
AFL

FF: Darcy Fogarty - Riley Thilthorpe - Izak Rankine
HF: Luke Pedlar - Taylor Walker - Brayden Cook

C : Jake Soligo - Jordan Dawson - Chayce Jones
1st R: Reilly O'Brien - Josh Rachele - Rory Laird

HB: Wayne Milera - Josh Worrell - Brodie Smith
FB: Max Michalanney - Mark Keane - Dan Curtin

RES: Lachlan Murphy - Matthew Crouch - Ben Keays - Mitchell Hinge. EM: Luke Nankervis

RESERVES

FF: Chris Burgess - Lachlan Gollant - Hugh Bond
HF: Billy Dowling - Elliot Himmelberg - Ned McHenry

C: Lachlan Sholl - Sam Berry - Charlie Edwards
1ST R: Kieran Strachan - Rory Sloane - Zac Taylor

HB: Patrick Parnell - Jack Madgen - Oscar Ryan
FB: Jordan Butts - James Borlase - Will Hamill

RES: *Nick Murray - *Harry Schoenberg - Toby Murray - Karl Gallagher - Tyler Walsh
 
Mostyn said:
AFL

FF: Darcy Fogarty - Riley Thilthorpe - Izak Rankine
HF: Luke Pedlar - Taylor Walker - Brayden Cook

C : Jake Soligo - Jordan Dawson - Chayce Jones
1st R: Reilly O'Brien - Josh Rachele - Rory Laird

HB: Wayne Milera - Josh Worrell - Brodie Smith
FB: Max Michalanney - Mark Keane - Dan Curtin

RES: Lachlan Murphy - Matthew Crouch - Ben Keays - Mitchell Hinge. EM: Luke Nankervis

RESERVES

FF: Chris Burgess - Lachlan Gollant - Hugh Bond
HF: Billy Dowling - Elliot Himmelberg - Ned McHenry

C: Lachlan Sholl - Sam Berry - Charlie Edwards
1ST R: Kieran Strachan - Rory Sloane - Zac Taylor

HB: Patrick Parnell - Jack Madgen - Oscar Ryan
FB: Jordan Butts - James Borlase - Will Hamill

RES: *Nick Murray - *Harry Schoenberg - Toby Murray - Karl Gallagher - Tyler Walsh
Click to expand...

Good team, I'd be happy with that 23.

Butts dropped the biggest call IMO. So Worrell on Lukosius and Keane on King for R1? King won't be isolated for 1v1 anyway, but I'm yet to see Keane as a lockdown - more damaging the other way - the whole backline is.
 

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Samcro24 said:
Saying he's an A grade mid is a daft as saying he's not best 22.
Click to expand...

Saying Laird is an A-grade midfielder is purely responding to evidence. I would go so far as to say any other opinion here is utterly worthless because it is that cut and dry, and to get to any other opinion can only come from pure incompetence or a bias seeping through. May as well say we don't revolve around the Sun.

Take 2023 for instance on AFL stat pro benchmarking.

Laird produced at elite level for:
  • disposals (+ handballs, effective disposals and contested disposals)
  • ground ball gets
  • clearances (+ center clearances)
  • score involvements
  • score launches
  • tackles (+ tackles inside 50).

Laird was above average at:
  • pressure acts,
  • goal assists
  • uncontested possessions.
  • inside 50s

Laird was average at:

* disposal efficiency - and missed out on above average by 0.2%. It is worth noting AFL stat pro does not separate inside and outside midifelders (like it does with other positions) so likely disposal and kicking efficiency would benchmark higher with an appropiate sorting - typically this hurts outside mids, however this is the rare case it hurts inside mids.

Just about every function an inside midfielder is there to do, Laird is producing at near to a league leading level and every player is ultimately their production line. After all, there is a bloody reason Laird was our equal highest vote receiver alongside Dawson in the brownlow. I would go so far as to say not only is Laird A-grade, he's one of the gatekeepers for the superstar tier.

The only thing arguably lacking in Laird game is a reliable and above average kick, however history has also repeatedly (and to the point it should be well and truly beaten into everyone who follows football) shown it's not a roadblock stopping an inside midfielder to become a superstar, let alone A-grade. After all, even now, some of the genuine superstar midfielders, i.e. Oliver, Petracca, Green, operate in that 52-56% KE% range and Laird is at ~59%. Kicking is a skill that can be sacrified here because it's a price you tend to pay for having a guy your hoping gets 45-50% of his disposals at the coalface, typically kicking into lower percentage areas for disposal and football being purely about speed of ball movement.

But the tl;dr here he's A-grade and the numbers - which are the only thing that genuinely matters - back it up big time.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. :)
 
Last edited:
I’m giving pedlar more mid minutes than Rachele.
He was our best clearance player last year as a % of cba.
 
Last edited:
FR0GGY said:
I’m giving pedlar more mid minutes than Rachele.
He was our best clearance player last year as a % of cba.
Click to expand...
Pop Tv Bb21 GIF by Big Brother After Dark
 
FR0GGY said:
I’m giving pedlar more mid minutes than Rachele.
He was our best clearance player last year as a % of cba.
Click to expand...
They both need to play more in the middle this season IMO, as bring different things.

Rachele could play off a wing at times...
 
Faaarrk said:
Do you rate him better than Dawson and Crouch?
Do you rate him better than Hinge, Milera or MM?
They are the players he has to replace.
No one can seriously question his ball winning ability, it’s his judgment and disposals that aren’t as good as the above mentioned players.
With us trying to get games and midfield time into our younger players someone has to make way.
Click to expand...
Come back to us in 2 years
 

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