An insider quandry

[Hirdman]

I have been going through our best 22 and I have been thinking about the depth we have in the "inside" midfield area. The way I see it we have:

• Jobe Watson
• Sam Lonergan
• Andrew Welsh
• Heath Hocking
• Tom Hislop
• Mark McVeigh

Now I know Spike is not a true inside player but he can play both roles, and I know Welsh brings another string to his bow as he has become a good defensive player also. The question still remains how many can we play?

 

[B-Bomber]

I think that Jobe and Sam are in as the specialists. Mark and Andrew are in as the utilities. It's a battle from there between Heath and Tom. Whoever is fittest and best form at the time would get the spot as second tagger/part time insider. At the moment I say that Hocking is ahead based on what we've seen at AFL level but there is always an injury that opens the door.

Lonergan, Watson, McVeigh and Welsh can all pinch hit forward and the latter two can also pinch hit back. The revelation of Lonergan and the emergance of Hille this year have shown this area as less of a weakness then we previously thought...

 

[Jono B]

I have been thinking about this a bit. Looking at Hawthorns example they have 4 quality inside midfielders (Lewis, Mitchell, Hodge and Lewis) yet only 3 of them play in the midfield. As they believe that they are better served strengthening a relatively weak and inexperienced defence with Hodge. IMO like Hawthorn our defence is going to be our weakest link. Therefore if everyone is fit and in form this is how I think we should organise the mentioned players.

Watson- Midfield

Lonergan- Midfield

Welsh- Is flexible but has shown far more as a tagger than he did down back. Midfield.

Hocking- Has the size and attitude to play as a defender but IMO his greatest asset is his endurance and his best chance to take advantage of this asset is to be play as a midfielder.

Hislop- I feel that Lonergan fills his role as an aggresive inside midfielder. IMO his combination of size, competitiveness, reasonable pace, ability to tackle and compete in the air makes him well suited to being a small backman IMO.

McVeigh- McVeigh has been fantastic as a midfielder in the last 2 years. Wins his own ball, creates run and kicks goals. He is also a proven small backman and with Fletcher being the only leader back there I feel that McVeigh could be the one provide extra leadership, run and defensive ability to a young defence. Small backman.

 

[B-Bomber]

I like your logic Jono B. It makes sense but I'm loathe to do it!

The difference between us and Hawthorn with this is that their inside midfielders show a fair bit more on the outside with run and attack -- McVeigh is the only one that is at that quality of Inside/Outside so I can't see how we can sacrifice that versitility through the midfield. For mine, McVeigh does fulfill a need like you say, he's a two for one in that he can be there for the drop of the ball but if he's not in that area when Jobe wins the ball, he is there to provide quality attack going forward.

Besides, while McVeigh was always servicable as a small backman, he has never been AA quality but he is when he is in the midfield (Possibly even brownlow quality there as we saw this year)

 

[Jono B]

I like your logic Jono B. It makes sense but I'm loathe to do it!

The difference between us and Hawthorn with this is that their inside midfielders show a fair bit more on the outside with run and attack -- McVeigh is the only one that is at that quality of Inside/Outside so I can't see how we can sacrifice that versitility through the midfield. For mine, McVeigh does fulfill a need like you say, he's a two for one in that he can be there for the drop of the ball but if he's not in that area when Jobe wins the ball, he is there to provide quality attack going forward.

Besides, while McVeigh was always servicable as a small backman, he has never been AA quality but he is when he is in the midfield (Possibly even brownlow quality there as we saw this year)

I think McVeigh has improved as a footballer and would probably be a better player as a backman than he was before. In a similar way that Lucas improved over his stay in defence.

I agree that McVeigh is our most versatile midfielder but I am much more comfortable with the likes of Watson, Stanton, Welsh, Houli, Winderlich, Lonergan, Lovett, Reimers and Prismall being our midfield then the l am with Slattery, Nash and Nathan Lovett-Murray being our small defenders.

Also once we lose Fletcher our leadership in the back half will be left to McPhee (if he plays there). As you would know a defense is all about absorbing pressure, keeping your nerve and working as a unit. IMO that sounds like an area where leadership is needed most. We already have leaders in the centre (Welsh, Watson and Hille) and up forward (Lloyd and Lucas). IMO McVeighs leadership is most needed down back.

IMO if we can cover the loss of McVeigh in the middle with our new-found depth we should look at bringing him back as I am very worried about our backline.

 

[JH4PM]

Great OP.

I think McVeigh could be our "Quarterback" type player similar to what Hodge does at Hawthorn as he has all the qualities:

Hard at it
Reads the play well
Good overhead
and most important - Very damaging by foot coming out of defence.

He also know how to hurt the opposition by going froward at the right time (he really hurt Judd doing this to him in the past and exploiting Judd's lack of defensive ability).

We can cover the inside mids with the younger players and as mentioned in other posts McVeigh would be very good in the leadership and would provide the "steel" for the backline.

 

[Red Black and Blue]

Can have as many inside mids as you want, look at Sydney and Hawthorn all relatively one paced inside midfielders (Exceptions of Goodes and Bateman) with all the run generated from the backline (Kennelley, Matner, Malcheski and now Shaw/Young, Birchall, Ellis, Guerra)

 

[Hirdman]

Interesting ideas:

McVeigh - Can play anywhere right now he is our only complete mid and has really only being playing there for 18 months. I would love to see what he can do after another season, although I respect you opinion on the whole leader in the defence. Perhaps Ryder and Myers can be that player in the future but without Fletch your right we do struggle. It really demonstrates how weak we are in the small back position.

Hislop - Not sure he can play down back, seems like a real natural insider to me but it would give us some flexibility if he could.

Hocking - Matty loves this guy, and from the limited time we have seen him he has shown a bit just not sure if he has the pace to play down back.

Lonergan - Agree last year he came of age and should be in the best 22.

Welsh - Struggled to find a position and I really believe the tagging role saved him - needs to stay there.

Watson - only one real role for Jobe (and he is bloody good at it)

This is obvioulsy one of the reasons Pev lost his spot.

 

[bomberstomake8]

• Jobe Watson- inside
• Sam Lonergan- inside
• Andrew Welsh- utility/tagger
• Heath Hocking- depth player
• Tom Hislop- small defender
• Mark McVeigh- utility

imo mcveigh is too valuable in the middle. he is our best disposer of the ball there, is responsible for many clearences and could pretty much beat any of his opponents in the air so him going forward for patches is very valuable as its another genuine avenue to goal..

hislop has far more to offer then hocking imo. hocking just doesnt have the speed to play defence and is not as good as lonergan, watson, welsh or mcveigh in the middle.

try hislop in defence, he has the speed, agression, is a good disposal and i think could do the job. of course we havent seen much of him there so it is a bit of trial and error but it could pay out.

slattery is a very good small defender so i hope i dont here any subtle digs at him, our weaknesses down back atm are NLM and nash.

 

[Slattery_20]

Never enough ballwinners! All of those players can play forward, back or both as well as midfield. It's not like we've found some delicate team balance we'd be loath to change - still in a state of flux IMHO.