Analysis Are we really an underperforming top 4 team?

[PAFC66]

The concept that we are a top 4 side playing badly is so far off the mark its not funny

This. We wernt top 4 even at our best ffs.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

White did nothing last year. Ken has to rethink what his gameplan is now as it's stale. If we are relying on polec and white we are in trouble.

White had his moment's last year. He picked up a groin injury against North in Rd 3 and struggled to fully stretch out after that for the next month. He was getting back into form, he played well against Melbourne and the Doggies but then did a hamstring early in the Geelong game, not an uncommon injury for players with blistering speed and was out for 4 or 5 weeks. He finished the season well in the last 3 or 4 games.

He lucked out with a pectoral injury this year. The first one club doctor Dr Fisher has seen in our 20 seasons in the AFL.

 

[Doctor Feel]

White had his moment's last year. He picked up a groin injury against North in Rd 3 and struggled to fully stretch out after that for the next month. He was getting back into form, he played well against Melbourne and the Doggies but then did a hamstring early in the Geelong game, not an uncommon injury for players with blistering speed and was out for 4 or 5 weeks. He finished the season well in the last 3 or 4 games.

He lucked out with a pectoral injury this year. The first one club doctor Dr Fisher has seen in our 20 seasons in the AFL.

Wrong I would have thought. Michael Wilson did one. Matthew Bishop did one too.

Maybe first complete tear, or off the bone? I thought Wilson's was pretty serious though.

 

[PAFC66]

Wrong I would have thought. Michael Wilson did one. Matthew Bishop did one too.

Maybe first complete tear, or off the bone? I thought Wilson's was pretty serious though.

That's what I heard too, it was the clubs first complete tear apparently.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Wrong I would have thought. Michael Wilson did one. Matthew Bishop did one too.

Maybe first complete tear, or off the bone? I thought Wilson's was pretty serious though.

When did Wilbur do a torn off the bone pec? Yeah off the bone is what i meant. He did a 4 week one according to this old thread - but missed 5 games.

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/injury-update-michael-wilson.320806/

 

[Long live PAFC]

Hence why we actively targeted him and Polec before 2014 started. It's also why we went and recruited Toumpas - when Polec isn't in the side, Toumpas should be.

The players you mentioned that are missing are the very reason why we struggle against mediocre sides. It's a pretty simple equation: without a ruck that can win his fair share of hits to our midfield, opposition mids can setup knowing that they can stand on the attacking side of our mids, who will always have to setup defensively. If they win the ball, our mids have to either tackle them (which is why our possession numbers are down) or concede the clearance (which is why our clearance numbers are down). And on the rare occasions that we manage to win the ball, our defensive position means we can't attack straight away, unless we jam it on the boot and pray that it ends up somewhere in the vicinity of one of our forwards to make a contest.

But it doesn't stop there. Compounding this s**t situation is the fact that our two most dangerous wingers, who widen the field by stretching the defense out to cover them, are missing. With Broadbent and Amon in their place, opposition coaches are quite content to leave those guys in one on one situations because the chances of them actually creating play with individual brilliance is minimal. So they compress even further into the centre, making the midfield even more congested - the way the Hawks did when we played them last week.

When you lose dangerous wingers, you narrow the field and become predictable. Hence why we continually are forced to bomb it into contested situations. Why? Because even if you did hit up leading targets, they would only ever be presented with s**t angles on which to kick on - a victim of not having a ruck through which you can gain decisive clearances with and open space in which the forwards can work.

Not a top four team? The fact that we are still in with even the possibility of making finals just shows how awesome our midfield actually is. These guys would be getting 28 possesions every week with a fit and firing Ryder, White and Polec in the side.

Other teams know it too - that's why Clarkson told his players to go after us, because he knows we don't fear their crap tactics and he needed to stop the losses to us from becoming a habit. Rioli would have been told in no uncertain terms that his team must be s**t if after we lose a player and have another go off for a concussion test, they still have trouble against a side with no ruck. That's why their s**t level players like Sicily got angry. Without Hodge and Mitchell, that side is absolutely putrid. If Burgoyne has any sense, he'd tell the Hawks he wants to go home at the end of the year and win his last flag with Port before retiring. I reckon we could find a spot for him up forward when Wingard moves into the midfield rotation permanently - you know Chad only came off the ground once?

All of our wins have been built on ticker this year. We've had to grind every single one - hence why we lose to Carlton and Fremantle when we mistakenly believe we can back off a bit and NOT grind.

This year has been like a supercharge for our players.

I do agree with much of what you say and always enjoy your posts.

My problem is not so much the close games against the Hawks, Doggies and West Coast but the games where we were blown away. Then there is the regression of S.Gray, Ah Chee, Krak and th inability of our leaders to drag us over the line.

I think we have grave concerns in our forward line and the fact that we don't have depth in a position crucial to our game plan, ie the outside fast winger, is also worrisome. Whilst experience will come with time, can we be sure that Polec, Toumpas, White and Amon will consistently be able to play that crucial role? Perhaps we can through in Impey and Broadbent there too. Can we be a top four side if, as soon as we lose Polec and White, our game plan breaks down?

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

If people don't think injuries matter, and coaches like to sound hard and tough and say that at pressers that they don't, but you know its BS PR spin, then they don't understand footy. Earlier in this thread I compared our players missing thru injury and suspension to the Hawks and said imagine if they had the same players out and/or if the tables were turned and we had all ours in for the season and their's all out.

I decided to do a table for Port v the current top 8 side and tried to match up players ie ruckmen v ruckmen, key backs v key backs, outside speedster v outside speedster, silky skilled smooth outsider v silky skilled smooth outsider, leading tall forward v leading tall forward etc. I could have made a few match up errors but you get the picture from the list. I threw in Howard since my post as he came into ruck to help out Jacko and most clubs haven't used a 3rd ruckman. The list shows half the top 8 sides are playing 2 ruckmen with Ben Brown at North doing a lot rucking but I didn't include him as a ruckman. If you take out Howard and those along his line, the difference becomes starker.

 

[Doctor Feel]

If people don't think injuries matter, and coaches like to sound hard and tough and say that at pressers that they don't, but you know its BS PR spin, then they don't understand footy. Earlier in this thread I compared our players missing thru injury and suspension to the Hawks and said imagine if they had the same players out and/or if the tables were turned and we had all ours in for the season and their's all out.

I decided to do a table for Port v the current top 8 side and tried to match up players ie ruckmen v ruckmen, key backs v key backs, outside speedster v outside speedster, silky skilled smooth outsider v silky skilled smooth outsider, leading tall forward v leading tall forward etc. I could have made a few match up errors but you get the picture from the list. I threw in Howard since my post as he came into ruck to help out Jacko and most clubs haven't used a 3rd ruckman. The list shows half the top 8 sides are playing 2 ruckmen with Ben Brown at North doing a lot rucking but I didn't include him as a ruckman.

View attachment 265249

White's should say "1 minute", lol.

 

[OneGreatClub]

If people don't think injuries matter, and coaches like to sound hard and tough and say that at pressers that they don't, but you know its BS PR spin, then they don't understand footy. Earlier in this thread I compared our players missing thru injury and suspension to the Hawks and said imagine if they had the same players out and/or if the tables were turned and we had all ours in for the season and their's all out.

I decided to do a table for Port v the current top 8 side and tried to match up players ie ruckmen v ruckmen, key backs v key backs, outside speedster v outside speedster, silky skilled smooth outsider v silky skilled smooth outsider, leading tall forward v leading tall forward etc. I could have made a few match up errors but you get the picture from the list. I threw in Howard since my post as he came into ruck to help out Jacko and most clubs haven't used a 3rd ruckman. The list shows half the top 8 sides are playing 2 ruckmen with Ben Brown at North doing a lot rucking but I didn't include him as a ruckman. If you take out Howard and those along his line, the difference becomes starker.

View attachment 265249

when you put it that way....woW!

 

[Zakk Wylde]

I must be a glutton for punishment, but I truly believe we're not far away.

Some shrewd manoeuvring of the list and a good run of health and we can be a force again.

I've said this multiple times....Things are never as good or as bad as they seem when passion is involved.

 

[nadsee]

we can be a force again

USE THAT FORCE:

 

[nadsee]

I must be a glutton for punishment, but I truly believe we're not far away.

Some shrewd manoeuvring of the list and a good run of health and we can be a force again.

I've said this multiple times....Things are never as good or as bad as they seem when passion is involved.

Glass is half full!

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

When I was doing my history of our pick 40 and higher thread I ended up in the Making the Top 4 and building for flag thread looking for info on our picks and ended up clicking on the link to this thread and re reading it all. This post from Janus in July last year on page 5, makes for good reading. The 2 new clubs taking so many first rounders in their first 3 years, helped the Hawks and to a lesser extent Geelong and Sydney keep their dominance and negate the equalization initiatives the AFL introduced and the dopes at the AFL couldn't understand why it hadn't worked as they planned as at July last year. I reckon we are now in for a run of about 5 individual premiers over 5 years, maybe a bit longer before you get a back to back premier or 3 in 5 seasons type like Geelong.

Of course they won't work - that's because they introduced two new sides that were able to plunder the draft for three consecutive years due to their shitness and compensation picks, which basically meant that an old side like Hawthorn - who should be suffering the same way that Port/Brisbane did after 2004 - can still be considered a top side because there just isn't the talent dispersed through the bottom eight sides to push them up over the edge. That's why a poor side talent wise like Adelaide can look a million dollars this year - until GWS and Gold Coast reduce their player pool to league standard and those players move to other clubs, the league is quite literally in a holding pattern waiting for the next big force to arrive, like it was in 2005/06...which was, coincidentally, the last time Adelaide played well (I'm not including the fluke in 2012 because that was just a perfect storm of luck).

Yep stuff up your drafting and you feel it 5 to 7 to 10 years later

When we balls up our drafting, it pushes everything back. We should be hitting our straps now. We shouldn't have needed to target Dixon, because Butcher should have been the answer, but he wasn't. Moore should have been the big bodied mid that could rotate with Wines at half forward...but he wasn't. So now we need to target one of those through a trade or in the draft...which is why this year, while a balls up, has a silver lining because like with Dixon, at least we have the currency available to get those sorts of trades across the line.

Then you've got guys like Ben Jacobs pissing off to North Melbourne because he thought we'd be s**t forever (won't win a flag and doesn't deserve to), Pearce and Chaplin thinking they were worth more than they are (another two players that will retire without a flag), Ben Newton leaving for nothing in return because he didn't want to grind it out like Young did...the list of first and second round draft picks we've made over that period that have either busted or not turned out like we wanted is long. Imagine what we could do with picks 8,9 and 16 in this draft!

Janus called it right that we had to have a big 2016 draft, which we did. He went a bit early on Jack Watts - he was coming out of contract and was a RFA at the end of 2016. We got him 12 months later.

That's why we really need to knock this draft out of the park. When KT says we need to fine tune, it means doing Wakelin/Hardwick/Pickett/Eagleton type trades - targeting key areas and boosting our list, not destroying it. There's no point selling low if you believe that this list can do better. See who wants to come to our club. Keep our first round pick and use it on a Jake Stringer type (Venables). Get in the ear of Jack Watts and tell him that we want to use him as a lead up tall to replace Schulz, and offer him the money we saved from Ryder/Monfries as a 'signing' bonus. I read on the rumours board (so take with a huge grain of salt) that Alex Rance is looking to get out - imagine an elite defender like him surrounded by guys like Pittard, Hartlett and DBJ.

We started obliterating the SANFL after about Rd 3 for about 6 rounds then came back to the field before obliterating West and Norwood in rounds 16 and 17. I cant see it happening in 2018 at this stage.

Be ruthless with OTHER clubs before we are ruthless with our own. Our list has a lot of talent - I'd add to it and get the depth of a premiership contender (which you'll know when we just completely obliterate the SANFL) before doing some big swathe of cuts.

But as much as I appreciated Janus' post, with the benefit of hindsight, I'm sticking with my 2019 prediction for a flag because as I said in post #114, we have to become battle hardened and become mentally tougher to go from 4th to a flag - or in 2017's case 5th and lose a home final in extra time. We will see if 2017 pain + Rockliff, Motlop and Watts hardens us up enough to win in 2018 as Janus said, but I know he is sticking to his prediction. I need to see the proof before I believe we can improve enough, before I move my prediction from 2019 to 2018.

 

[Janus]

But as much as I appreciated Janus' post, with the benefit of hindsight, I'm sticking with my 2019 prediction for a flag because as I said in post #114, we have to become battle hardened and become mentally tougher to go from 4th to a flag - or in 2017's case 5th and lose a home final in extra time. We will see if 2017 pain + Rockliff, Motlop and Watts hardens us up enough to win in 2018 as Janus said, but I know he is sticking to his prediction. I need to see the proof before I believe we can improve enough, before I move my prediction from 2019 to 2018.

And fair enough too

 

[OneGreatClub]

When I was doing my history of our pick 40 and higher thread I ended up in the Making the Top 4 and building for flag thread looking for info on our picks and ended up clicking on the link to this thread and re reading it all. This post from Janus in July last year on page 5, makes for good reading. The 2 new clubs taking so many first rounders in their first 3 years, helped the Hawks and to a lesser extent Geelong and Sydney keep their dominance and negate the equalization initiatives the AFL introduced and the dopes at the AFL couldn't understand why it hadn't worked as they planned as at July last year. I reckon we are now in for a run of about 5 individual premiers over 5 years, maybe a bit longer before you get a back to back premier or 3 in 5 seasons type like Geelong.



Yep stuff up your drafting and you feel it 5 to 7 years later


Janus called it right that we had to have a big 2016 draft, which we did. He went a bit early on Jack Watts - he was coming out of contract and was a RFA at the end of 2016. We got him 12 months later.


We started obliterating the SANFL after about Rd 3 for about 6 rounds then came back to the field before obliterating West and Norwood in rounds 16 and 17. I cant see it happening in 2018 at this stage.


But as much as I appreciated Janus' post, with the benefit of hindsight, I'm sticking with my 2019 prediction for a flag because as I said in post #114, we have to become battle hardened and become mentally tougher to go from 4th to a flag - or in 2017's case 5th and lose a home final in extra time. We will see if 2017 pain + Rockliff, Motlop and Watts hardens us up enough to win in 2018 as Janus said, but I know he is sticking to his prediction. I need to see the proof before I believe we can improve enough, before I move my prediction from 2019 to 2018.

good read

 

[Powerage]

But as much as I appreciated Janus' post, with the benefit of hindsight, I'm sticking with my 2019 prediction for a flag because as I said in post #114, we have to become battle hardened and become mentally tougher to go from 4th to a flag - or in 2017's case 5th and lose a home final in extra time. We will see if 2017 pain + Rockliff, Motlop and Watts hardens us up enough to win in 2018 as Janus said, but I know he is sticking to his prediction. I need to see the proof before I believe we can improve enough, before I move my prediction from 2019 to 2018.

 

[Power Raid]

But as much as I appreciated Janus' post, with the benefit of hindsight, I'm sticking with my 2019 prediction for a flag because as I said in post #114, we have to become battle hardened and become mentally tougher to go from 4th to a flag - or in 2017's case 5th and lose a home final in extra time. We will see if 2017 pain + Rockliff, Motlop and Watts hardens us up enough to win in 2018 as Janus said, but I know he is sticking to his prediction. I need to see the proof before I believe we can improve enough, before I move my prediction from 2019 to 2018.

Dixon took a year to find his feet within Port and Port's game plan. I think Watts, Motlop and Rockcliff will take a year to fully click

for that reason, I'd suggest 2019 is what we are building for.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

If first 22 quality counts we are a thousand times more deserving of a back to back premiership than the Crows ever were. Leigh Matthews as usual is spot on with his commentary that "he never really rated that Adelaide team yet they won in 97 and 98".

WTF does that have to do with anything.

We have plenty of marginal players in our so called best 22. Most sides do. Even the great 3 in a row side the last 4 to 6 were marginal.

 

[Powerage]

WTF does that have to do with anything.

We have plenty of marginal players in our so called best 22. Most sides do. Even the great 3 in a row side the last 4 to 6 were marginal.

I don't understand how your post relates to my post. 2018, 2019. Why Can't We have both seem simple enough and an attempt at cute with the little taco girl at the same time.

IMO, backed up by Leigh's commentary, that the crows achieved a lot with less talent in 97 and 98. I believe we have we have more talent in our first 22, whether marginal or not, and if that is a measure of deserving towards premiership success then we deserve a back to back a hell of a lot more.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

I don't understand how your post relates to my post. 2018, 2019. Why Can't We have both seem simple enough and an attempt at cute with the little taco girl at the same time.

IMO, backed up by Leigh's commentary, that the crows achieved a lot with less talent in 97 and 98. I believe we have we have more talent in our first 22, whether marginal or not, and if that is a measure of deserving towards premiership success then we deserve a back to back a hell of a lot more.

The crows may have had less talent than Brisbane did in their 3 flags but look at how many all Australian they had

McLeod, Hart, Ricutto Jarman, Goodwin (all in the hall of fame) Modra, Smart, Rehn, thats 8 plus Edwards played 300 as did the first 3 and Bickley is also in the hall of fame - lucky but still in there which makes 6 and only bettered by the North Melbourne team of 1974-79 era with 8. Edit the Hawks 83-91 5 Flags side have 7 who won 4 or 5 of those 5 flags and be in front of the crows - Ayres, Dermie, Dipper, Dunstall, Tuck, Platten and Langford ( was the one I forgot)

How many All Oz players do we have and how many will end up in the HofF?

So their best 10 players were probably as good as any side in the last 30 years. Top end talent matters especially if your bottom 6 isn't great.

As Leigh Matthews found out, thanks to us on a couple of occasions as coach, and also a couple of times when he was a player, you don't always have to be the best team for the home and away seasons, you just gotta be the best team in September.

 

[Powerage]

The crows may have had less talent than Brisbane did in their 3 flags but look at how many all Australian they had

McLeod, Hart, Ricutto Jarman, Goodwin (all in the hall of fame) Modra, Smart, Rehn, thats 8 plus Edwards played 300 as did the first 3 and Bickley is also in the hall of fame.

How many All Oz players do we have and how many will end up in the HofF?

I was talking about talent. What our vs their players had achieved to prior to 97 and in our case 2018. So you can't say how many all Oz players do we have now and compare that to the Crows AA's over their entire career e.g. Goodwin did not get his first AA jumper until 2000 just for a start.

Total talent across the first 22 was what I used tongue in cheek to determine the worthiness of a side to win a flag. I stand by my opinion that taken as a snapshot, player for player, we have a much more talented list going into 2018 than the Crows did going into 1997.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

I was talking about talent. What our vs their players had achieved to prior to 97 and in our case 2018. So you can't say how many all Oz players do we have now and compare that to the Crows AA's over their entire career e.g. Goodwin did not get his first AA jumper until 2000 just for a start.

Total talent across the first 22 was what I used tongue in cheek to determine the worthiness of a side to win a flag. I stand by my opinion that taken as a snapshot, player for player, we have a much more talented list going into 2018 than the Crows did going into 1997.

What the hell does making an All Australian side indicate?? It indicates top end talent, that's what it means to make an all Oz side. The crows in 1997 had Smart, Hart, Jarman, Modra, Rehn and Riccuto who had all at least 1 All Oz selection before the 1997 started and McLeod and Goodwin might have made the all Oz sides after 1997, but they were bloody 21 and 20 and already had that top end talent. They didn't just all of a sudden acquire it 4 years later.

 

[Powerage]

What the hell does making an All Australian side indicate?? It indicates top end talent, that's what it means to make an all Oz side. The crows in 1997 had Smart, Hart, Jarman, Modra, Rehn and Riccuto who had all at least 1 All Oz selection before the 1997 started and McLeod and Goodwin might have made the all Oz sides after 1997, but they were bloody 21 and 20 and already had that top end talent. They didn't just all of a sudden acquire it 4 years later.

The original post was a simple attempt to inject some humour in the 2019/2018 debate.

You seem absolutely determined to empirically destroy my hypothesis that we have a much more talented 22 man list as a sum total than the Crows did. Since then we have slipped into debating Crows players over their whole career???, debating that the AA's are the true end indicator of the clubs top end talent.

You do realise with two exxtra clubs on the list since the Crows started playing in 91 it is even statistically harder to get into an AA jumper because there are more players competing for them.

A flippant comment has become a grotesque debate about All Australians, Hall of Famers and god knows what else. I stand by it. We have higher collective talent in our 22 than the Crows did in 96.

 

[GremioPower]

The original post was a simple attempt to inject some humour in the 2019/2018 debate.

You seem absolutely determined to empirically destroy my hypothesis that we have a much more talented 22 man list as a sum total than the Crows did. Since then we have slipped into debating Crows players over their whole career???, debating that the AA's are the true end indicator of the clubs top end talent.

You do realise with two exxtra clubs on the list since the Crows started playing in 91 it is even statistically harder to get into an AA jumper because there are more players competing for them.

A flippant comment has become a grotesque debate about All Australians, Hall of Famers and god knows what else. I stand by it. We have higher collective talent in our 22 than the Crows did in 96.

As I read, if I understood the arguments, you are both saying that the 97/98 Crows had lower bottom and higher top than we did last year.

You disagree on which would be better overall, since, in average, both teams would be similar.

 

[TeeKray]

I think there's a bit of a cause and effect problem with using the Hall of Fame as an indicator of greatness (ie a lot of those guys would not have been in the Hall of Fame had they not won those two flags). But otherwise I agree with REH.