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Angus Graham

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just saw the game. i was proven wrong when i thought he wasnt that bad.
i dont care if he got around the same amount of hitouts but he just either tapped it to the dogs or hit it to the ground which didnt provide anything.
hudson absolutely smashed his ass. when angus got the tap to the ground he just backed away from everything while hudson went to the ball with desperation and got handballs and clearances.
at the centre bounce and the ball went away from the middle he went to the middle because he was just watching hudson's movements.
take the idiot out. put someone else BUT him until he is desperate. he feels like he is comfortable because he is our only no.1 ruckmen thus not needing to increase his workrate.
 
Bazzar said:
I posted this before a few pages back, if you look at the ball when the ump bounces it, and its at its highest point and it just starts its downward trajectory, that’s when Gus looked at Hudson for just a split sec and then made his move.

It obviously worked, as contrary to the multitude of Gus haters here, he was NOT smashed by Hudson, if anything nullified him as he had a season low of 18% eff in his hitouts. Might not look pretty but it was effective.

Dont forget he used similar (not as much obvious looking) tactics against Sandilands who he dragged back from 53 hitouts (against the Bulldogs the week before) to 43 with his second worst eff for the year of 28% (Gus had a ripper 42% for that game)

Dimma also mentioned last week on AW that the defence are instructed to “kill the ball” and later on in the year and next year, change that to “taking control of the ball” so how do we know if the coaching tactic for now is to try and kill and nullify centre bounce? We are all armchair experts, but the one thing we don’t have is INSIGHT into the coaching staffs short, medium and long term plans.

Gus on Sunday was so obvious and I cant understand the shit he cops.
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Its not just his ruck work thats the problem, standing on the line and watching the ball sail past him, what was he thinking ? I will just push the dog player out of the way and shepherd in their goal......duh.....dumb footballer, always has been but he atm is the only ruck we have. Or is he ?

Gets pushed over by players half his size....
Falls over his own feet
Jake king had a push and shove with hudson during the game Gus stood around and watched........

No guts, no skill.
 
Bazzar said:
So it would be safe to assume Grahams negating tactics had absolutely no bearing on Hudson’s pathetic and lowest hitout eff of the year of 18%
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Yes your right the tactics had total bearing on that stat, they also were integral in the other pathetic stat, the one that had Hudson in the BOG debate.

Like I can find a hint of defence for Gus, but I will not opt for the ludicrous to do that. If you can say that Gus winning hit outs was an advantage to the dogs, then you have NFI and are purely defending a player for the sake of defending him. Gus did a couple ofnice things around the ground and in the ruck, but in the end it all comes down to the negatives outweighed the positives So his input was a negative to the team.
I will say this in his defence though. The brains trust need to wake up when they see that we are winning the tap outs but getting smashed out of the center. Stop winning the tap outs FFS, the opposition are letting it happen and they rove to Gus. ;)
 
Tigerland said:
This is the most laughable statement I have ever read and there have been some bad ones. What particular game were you watching?

Graham got smashed by Hudson in every single aspect of the game. Anyone watching with with no bias could see that as clear as day.

Smashed him in the hitouts? FFS! You have absolutely NFI.
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In the real world where people are capable of counting, 32 hitouts to 22 is most definitely a smashing when you consider Graham conceded Hudson the majority of centre bounce clearances. Graham beat Hudson at will when contesting away from the centre, out-bodied him, out-wrestled him, out-jumped him and out-rucked him, all he didn't do was get the ball to our advantage often enough to be more damaging.

As for their respective effectiveness, Hudson had 12 effective hitouts, Graham had 11.

We should be happy that our rookie ruckman took on a good opponent and got his hands on the ball 1/3rd more often, and be lamenting the fact that when opposition rucks hit the ball straight to our mids, our mids get tackled immediately, while opposition mids who get their hands on the ball first waltz away from stoppages way too often without any of our mids even challenging them, let alone laying a hand on them.

That has zero to do with Graham and everything to do with playing first year players and having midfielders like Cotchin, Foley, Martin and Deledio who are far too often defensively poor in the centre.

Cotchin particularly was disgraceful at times in this aspect of his game, on numerous occasions his opponent could have literally stopped and made a cup of tea while Cotchin ambled along behind him applying zero pressure.

It's one thing to win lots of clearances under pressure, Cotchin, Martin, Foley and Deledio do that pretty well, but when their opponent gets first hands on the ball, all four are allowing them to waltz out of the middle totally unpressured far too often.

When the average ruckman can only be expected to hit the ball to their mids' advantage 6-8 times a game, that leaves 50-70 other contests a match where it's up to the midfielders to either win contested ball or prevent their opponent clearing the ball - including the times our ruck hits it straight down their throats. Graham is clearly doing his bit ruck-wise and adding more in terms of ground level pressure than all our mids bar Jackson, if you want to hand blame out for the Dogs' midfield beating us, then aim first at our 'four champions' who have a hell of a lot to learn about playing accountable centre square football and have been pantsed at it every single game this year (with apologies to Deledio who has only been defensively poor every game he's played in the middle, not every game this year).

NQTIGER said:
Its not just his ruck work thats the problem, standing on the line and watching the ball sail past him, what was he thinking ? I will just push the dog player out of the way and shepherd in their goal......duh.....dumb footballer...
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I'm very surprised that you're amongst this fleet of weekly Graham knockers NQT, but even more surprised that you couldn't see Graham did exactly the right thing in the incident you're referring to - he prevented his opponent contesting the mark in the goal square and gave Rance every opportunity to kill the ball with no external pressure.

Graham did everything we could have asked for by eliminating his opponent fairly with superior strength, Rance just missed the ball.
 

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LOOK, it’s obvious there are two schools of thought on Gus – those who give him unconditional support and those like me who don’t rate him all that highly. But even the most ardent of supporters has to admit his game on Sunday was poor. Don’t believe me … you will when they are reading out the Brownlow votes and the name B. Hudson gets amention. Gus was reasonably good the week before against Sandilands, who was still outstanding, but his effort, particularly at the centre bounces on Sunday, was feeble!!
 
Goldust said:
LOOK, it’s obvious there are two schools of thought on Gus – those who give him unconditional support and those like me who don’t rate him all that highly. But even the most ardent of supporters has to admit his game on Sunday was poor. Don’t believe me … you will when they are reading out the Brownlow votes and the name B. Hudson gets amention. Gus was reasonably good the week before against Sandilands, who was still outstanding, but his effort, particularly at the centre bounces on Sunday, was feeble!!
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i reckon a rest after battling Sandi was due, but ... a bye a couple away, and 2 big games, and he does appear to be our best ruck.

still looking fwd to seeing a bit of Browne later
and Derricx if he is fit
 
Excuses, excuses. Only 2 of our players dropped their bundle against the dogs. Graham and Deledio. Graham was shit scared of their ruckman and is a little pussie. He didn't even run and jump at them in the end.

They also got into Deledio's head and he also cracked it.
 
SleepingGiant said:
Excuses, excuses. Only 2 of our players dropped their bundle against the dogs. Graham and Deledio. Graham was shit scared of their ruckman and is a little pussie. He didn't even run and jump at them in the end.

They also got into Deledio's head and he also cracked it.
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Pretty good effort by Deledio to drop his bundle and still end the game with 30 touches despite not touching the ball for the first 20 minutes.
 
Deledio did touch the ball in the first 20 minutes. He made a brilliant spoil of Griffen, followed up, won the ball at the bottom of a pack and got shoved in the back without reward. That scragging shitman Addison had two arms around him at every stoppage, including the boundary throw-in that led to Hargraves' goal. If the umpires had penalised Addison for it a little sooner than just before half-time the score would have been closer and Lids would have had an even better game. As it was, he was still our best player. Dropped his bundle my arse.
 
Rayzorwire said:
In the real world where people are capable of counting, 32 hitouts to 22 is most definitely a smashing when you consider Graham conceded Hudson the majority of centre bounce clearances. Graham beat Hudson at will when contesting away from the centre, out-bodied him, out-wrestled him, out-jumped him and out-rucked him, all he didn't do was get the ball to our advantage often enough to be more damaging.

As for their respective effectiveness, Hudson had 12 effective hitouts, Graham had 11.

We should be happy that our rookie ruckman took on a good opponent and got his hands on the ball 1/3rd more often, and be lamenting the fact that when opposition rucks hit the ball straight to our mids, our mids get tackled immediately, while opposition mids who get their hands on the ball first waltz away from stoppages way too often without any of our mids even challenging them, let alone laying a hand on them.

That has zero to do with Graham and everything to do with playing first year players and having midfielders like Cotchin, Foley, Martin and Deledio who are far too often defensively poor in the centre.

Cotchin particularly was disgraceful at times in this aspect of his game, on numerous occasions his opponent could have literally stopped and made a cup of tea while Cotchin ambled along behind him applying zero pressure.

It's one thing to win lots of clearances under pressure, Cotchin, Martin, Foley and Deledio do that pretty well, but when their opponent gets first hands on the ball, all four are allowing them to waltz out of the middle totally unpressured far too often.

When the average ruckman can only be expected to hit the ball to their mids' advantage 6-8 times a game, that leaves 50-70 other contests a match where it's up to the midfielders to either win contested ball or prevent their opponent clearing the ball - including the times our ruck hits it straight down their throats. Graham is clearly doing his bit ruck-wise and adding more in terms of ground level pressure than all our mids bar Jackson, if you want to hand blame out for the Dogs' midfield beating us, then aim first at our 'four champions' who have a hell of a lot to learn about playing accountable centre square football and have been pantsed at it every single game this year (with apologies to Deledio who has only been defensively poor every game he's played in the middle, not every game this year).



I'm very surprised that you're amongst this fleet of weekly Graham knockers NQT, but even more surprised that you couldn't see Graham did exactly the right thing in the incident you're referring to - he prevented his opponent contesting the mark in the goal square and gave Rance every opportunity to kill the ball with no external pressure.

Graham did everything we could have asked for by eliminating his opponent fairly with superior strength, Rance just missed the ball.
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he is improving ray, but he is a liability around the ground, he can;t take a mark, he should be an option at the kick outs but he cant mark to save himself, its a huge weakness. must upgrade him at years end, I would say that would be our number 1 priority ATM.
 
blaisee said:
he is improving ray, but he is a liability around the ground, he can;t take a mark, he should be an option at the kick outs but he cant mark to save himself, its a huge weakness. must upgrade him at years end, I would say that would be our number 1 priority ATM.
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Disagree blaisee. Vickery is going to be a gun. A quality partner in crime would be very handy but I reckon we need a key defender and another key forward more. And a Troy Taylor-like third tall capable of taking marks and kicking goals at ground level. I wonder where we can find one of those...
 
Graham's work during the throw ins seems much better than his work at the stoppages. He is much better at wrestling and out-bodying his opponent than he is at contesting in the air. I'm a bit of a fan of Graham, but I don't think he'll ever be a beast in the centre, his tackling pressure after the ball hits the ground is better than his tap work.

I would like to get a look at Browne, but I'm still okay with Gus as our main ruck for the next year or so. I thought Vickery looked better in the centre late in the game last week, and I think we should still be looking at him as our #1 ruck for the future.
 

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People are too harsh on this guy. Take a look at the AA ruckmen for the last decade or so, you'l see a trend. The trend being that the majority are 25+, with many getting AA as the later 26,27,28 year olds. Occasionally there has been a 24 year old. Perhaps once or twice a 23 year old.

Take Jamar for example, only really come into his own in the last year or two, at about 26 years old.

Graham will be considered a pretty good ruckman by the time he's that age.
 
The guy is 5th in the league for hit outs, its easier to notice some of those hits be uneffective compared to those who can't even get a hand to the ball, give the guy a break!
 
At the end of the day, Gus winning tap outs in the ruck equates to our midfield getting smashed out of the center. As was the case last week, Sandilands killed Gus in the tap outs, but our mids knew where to look for the ball. When Gus gets the tap, they havent got a clue where it is going to go. Or it might be the case where the mids have to come to terms that Gus will win his share of tap outs and stop roving to the opposition ruckman. ;)
 
The decision to drop Gus supports those who believe he has deficiencies in his game that need to be rectified at the burgers. I'm hoping he'll be back better than ever in a few weeks.
 

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Yep he was definitely tiring and coming off his worst game for the season. Browne in red hot form for Coburg too. Hopefully this isn't a recurring thing.
 
:thumbsu:I THINK we can put paid to ... I can remember quite whom's .... theory that Gus plainly staring at Hudson as the ball was being bounced in scared-like fashion, was NOT actually a coaching ploy, with this decision to axe him!!
 
RT73 said:
*Sits back and awaits the avalanche of posts, saying its about time*
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Just another indicator to me that the match committee won't bow to the idea of dropping guys after a shite game or two. I dare to say that he wasn't dropped for a bad game, he just hasn't shown 'enough' in the first eight weeks to keep a promising Browne out for much longer. No revolving door syndrome here, which is a good thing IMO. Having said all that, hopefully Browne doesn't get dropped after one week of being belted by close to the most formidable ruck combination going around atm :o

When someone is given a specific role, they give that player a proper opportunity to prove themselves or otherwise. After that time, if the door is left open, they will give someone else an opportunity.

With regards to our ruck stocks, I think this kind of approach will continue for another twelve months, since we just don't have anyone who is good enough and mature enough to jump up and grab the No.1 spot. Granted, we don't really know enough about Derrickx yet, and won't until he has enough match fitness and form to get an opportunity.
 
RT73 said:
*Sits back and awaits the avalanche of posts, saying its about time*
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yes the time was right last week was the final straw you can not allow any player to get away with a weak insipid performance like that.brown deserves his crack at it but i dont think hes our answer long term either , hope he proves me wrong .
 
I have asked this question before but no one seems to know.


Last week Lade was on AW and said last year he was Ruck/Stoppage coach and this year he is Midfield coach with a “small” involvement in the ruck.


Question is- If that’s the case, then who is responsible for the majority of our ruck coaching?
 

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