Analysis Assessing the Midfield

[FKASC]

We went into yesterday’s game with four genuine mids, gaff, sheed, Kelly and redden. A lot of others who aren’t primarily mids like Duggan, brander etc.
Not surprising we got smashed in the midfield.

waterman in for Shuey was terrible from the moment it was announced.

I don’t disagree but how many genuine mids did St Kilda have?

 

[Convocation]

I was at the game on the weekend, and to be honest I was surprised we were in front at half time, let alone 33 up after Petch kicked his second in the third. We made the most of our opportunities, which we have done so for a number of years, but when my wife who watches maybe 2 games of footy a year says different variations of the following to me "why are there so many more Saint Kilda players at the ball then your team" throughout the first half, it speaks volumes to me of the 'effort' our boys were putting in from the start of the game.
There is no doubt Shannon's injury hurt us at the back half of the game. There were 6 occasions Gov kicked to the same pack on the same wing in a 5 minute patch at the end of the 3rd, when Rotham, Brander and others had made space in the center of the ground of what was at worst a mid level risk kick of which gov is capable of but not confident enough to take, Hurn (or dare I say it Jetta) I believe would have seen/hit this target and at the very least opened up the ground and given us an opportunity. We took no risks when the Saints clearly had momentum.
I'd like to chalk this loss down to a "bad night" which it was, but fundamentally I think we are far too conservative, for a team that is often lauded as one of the more skillful teams in the league.

 

[kaiserchief13]

I was at the game on the weekend, and to be honest I was surprised we were in front at half time, let alone 33 up after Petch kicked his second in the third. We made the most of our opportunities, which we have done so for a number of years, but when my wife who watches maybe 2 games of footy a year says different variations of the following to me "why are there so many more Saint Kilda players at the ball then your team" throughout the first half, it speaks volumes to me of the 'effort' our boys were putting in from the start of the game.
There is no doubt Shannon's injury hurt us at the back half of the game. There were 6 occasions Gov kicked to the same pack on the same wing in a 5 minute patch at the end of the 3rd, when Rotham, Brander and others had made space in the center of the ground of what was at worst a mid level risk kick of which gov is capable of but not confident enough to take, Hurn (or dare I say it Jetta) I believe would have seen/hit this target and at the very least opened up the ground and given us an opportunity. We took no risks when the Saints clearly had momentum.
I'd like to chalk this loss down to a "bad night" which it was, but fundamentally I think we are far too conservative, for a team that is often lauded as one of the more skillful teams in the league.

Because McGoverns kicking is not afl standard that's why

 

[Bleedblueandgold]

Who cares about how many genuine mids we have when they can't win the ball.
It's quality and consistency that will win games.

 

[Get_The_Gaff]

33 points up half way into the third quarter?

Probably 95-98 out of 100 I reckon.

That score line flattered us big time. Saints were beating us in all key stats except scoring efficiency.

 

[Lach72]

That score line flattered us big time. Saints were beating us in all key stats except scoring efficiency.

Once they stopped kicking to McGovern and Barrass you were in big trouble

 

[Balls In]

That score line flattered us big time. Saints were beating us in all key stats except scoring efficiency.

Yes and no. Our scoring efficiency has been a noted strength of ours for years so its not unusual for them to cash in on limited forward entry's. If anything its an even bigger indictment on our midfield who went from losing maybe 60-65% of the midfield battle (which was countered by our forwards who got us 30 points clear), to getting absolutely belted, giving our forwards zero chance and turning a match winning lead into a 20 point loss in the space of just over a quarter.

 

[Westend]

Well its depressing reading everyone's thoughts in this thread

Basically to sum it up .......our midfield is crap as Yeo and Shuey are gone for half this season Kelly is over rated Sheed is to slow redden is past it and the youngsters are not good enough

Lets just give up and fold the club

 

[Bacchus]

Well its depressing reading everyone's thoughts in this thread

Basically to sum it up .......our midfield is crap as Yeo and Shuey are gone for half this season Kelly is over rated Sheed is to slow redden is past it and the youngsters are not good enough

Lets just give up and fold the club

What about Gaff? A highly paid senior player required to stand up in a time of need and he’s not doing it.

 

[Cuzz09]

Well its depressing reading everyone's thoughts in this thread

Basically to sum it up .......our midfield is crap as Yeo and Shuey are gone for half this season Kelly is over rated Sheed is to slow redden is past it and the youngsters are not good enough

Lets just give up and fold the club

But thats actually the truth. Not the folding part but the rest. Even if 1 or 2 of those guys stand up our winning % would go way up

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[eaglesnutcase]

Everyone was off that day.NN was "nearly" Kelly was fumbly or "nearly". Sheed wwas running [ i use that word loosely] in treacle.Reddan was soft [ seeing a lot of that from him lately ] but i agree with some posters that the backline is our real weakness.Rotham seems to need a wind up before he kicks and if he goes to ground one more time im gunna scream.KEEP ON YA FU##ING FEET man!!! Cole is tough but he gets lost and bites off more than he can chew;Nelson wastes the ball.I keep saying hes got a beautiful left and nice candy but NEVER uses it.Duggan seems to have lost some composure and wastes the ball.But they all have one thing in common; when the pressure goes on they either go sideways for the little safe kick or they handball backwards.St Kilda didnt even need to tackle the first bloke they just ran to the last guy in line coz sure as eggs it was gunna end up there.
Ill say one thing for Brander ;he wants the ball in hand.So many of our players dont/wont take responsibility with ball in hand."i dont want it,you have it". "no no i dont want it he can have it".
Sts players were stepping round one player, then if necessary stepping round two players. We look to go backwards they look to go forward!

 

[Gugs9]

It’s not even about having the right midfielders or midfield game plan. It’s 100% about intent and effort, and applying that regardless of what the scoreboard says or who the opposition is.

We have everyone going in with 100% effort, we will almost always win. That’s basically how simple it is given our talent.

That doesn’t just apply to the midfielders, it’s everyone on the field. It’s just that the midfielders stand out badly because intent/effort in contests around the middle of the ground is what will determine whether the game’s won or lost.

FKASC has hit the nail on the head.

Obviously shuey and yeo are massive outs in the centre square, but to say we have no other clearance players on our list is ridiculous. Sheed and Kelly are both ranked top 10 in the comp and Sheed in particular has been very good until yesterday.

It's 100% a mindset thing given we destroyed the best contested team in the comp by at least +20 last week.

 

[FKASC]

FKASC has hit the nail on the head.

Obviously shuey and yeo are massive outs in the centre square, but to say we have no other clearance players on our list is ridiculous. Sheed and Kelly are both ranked top 10 in the comp and Sheed in particular has been very good until yesterday.

It's 100% a mindset thing given we destroyed the best contested team in the comp by at least +20 last week.

And it’s not like our midfield has never failed to turn up when Shuey and Yeo have been playing. They have been guilty of the same listless performances in the past too, so we can’t just blame it on their absence.

Thought lately Shuey does seem to set the bar for intensity when he plays, at least if last week was anything to go by.

 

[ConcreteWaters]

Sheed's been very very good this year, and maybe reports of him being ill before the match (reason XON flew over as a potential late in) might have been why he appeared to run through treacle. Baffling that Waterman got the nod though and we were clearly too tall. Kelly's in his 4th year in the big league so might have the odd inconsistent game. We clearly need one of Shuey or Yeo in the side at the moment. Without them, if Kelly has a down day, too much is left to too few. God help us if NN goes down before mid season.

I loved the first half- it was our younger guys keeping us in the game. Unfortunately, once the inevitable drop off happens with those young players, you need experience to step up and it didn't/couldn't. Most/all of our midfield rotations had bad days. You'd hope most times someone out of Gaff, Duggan, Sheed or Kelly would step up.

 

[frenchconnection]

We went into yesterday’s game with four genuine mids, gaff, sheed, Kelly and redden. A lot of others who aren’t primarily mids like Duggan, brander etc.
Not surprising we got smashed in the midfield.

waterman in for Shuey was terrible from the moment it was announced.

Tool of the week award goes to the Selectors/coaching staff for this selection imo!

 

[THE A5]

Sheed's been very very good this year, and maybe reports of him being ill before the match (reason XON flew over as a potential late in) might have been why he appeared to run through treacle. Baffling that Waterman got the nod though and we were clearly too tall. Kelly's in his 4th year in the big league so might have the odd inconsistent game. We clearly need one of Shuey or Yeo in the side at the moment. Without them, if Kelly has a down day, too much is left to too few. God help us if NN goes down before mid season.

I loved the first half- it was our younger guys keeping us in the game. Unfortunately, once the inevitable drop off happens with those young players, you need experience to step up and it didn't/couldn't. Most/all of our midfield rotations had bad days. You'd hope most times someone out of Gaff, Duggan, Sheed or Kelly would step up.

Sheed one of those guys that needs to be close to 100% fit to really be good. He's no Gaff(in form) or Shuey that can be hampered by something and still dominate. Remember JK kicking a big bag a couple years back while still recovering from a flu.

 

[mattyc75]

I actually think waterman can fill a wing role,probably better than brander ,problem is he was underdone.
And for the first time in a long while we have some promising looking young mids coming through like trew,xon,winder and edwards.
With brander showing that he may be a capable inside mid and duggans transition to the midfield i reckon our midfield of the future may not fall off a cliff as much as i wouldve thought even last year.
Problem is this year isnt it.with shuey and yeo out we probably need trew in there as hes an extractor. Also if rioli was playing he'd be a full time mid and our best by a long way too
Looking forward i think we'll be ok,we have a decent draft hand this year too so hopefully we prioritise mids again.
If shuey,rioli and yeo can really contribute at some stage this year we'll be fine as long as we can get some games into our youngsters too

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[RookiePick]

MC has to roll the dice and have a decent look at some of our mids coming through, even Ainsworth. We've got to try an unearth someone who can play a role in the midfield at AFL level.

It's really frustrating that we seem to make all the kids take the endurance development pathway. Someone like Ainsworth might have been really effective at stoppages, by now, on 60-70% TOG if we had concentrated on getting him to AFL size and building on his junior level strengths. Plus it would have him using his hands a lot more than his feet...

 

[hbk2015]

Pies are going to run with Mini Macrae this weekend through the midfield, perfect time to give Trew a run through there. Let them play on each other see how he goes

 

[WCErevival]

We'll probably end up bringing Hutchings in before the other mids just to enrage everyone even more

 

[Rowdy P]

Regardless of the personnel, I still think we could do with a good look at our tactics around stoppages. On Saturday, Saint lined up three on the defensive side of every in-play stoppage against no-one, and won every significant stoppage with ease. It doesn't matter if Nic is rucking to Judd and Cuz, if the set-up isn't right, things aren't going to go our way for a whole game.

I think Sumich was the midfield coach around 05/06, and I reckon the sophistication of some of our tactics and setups was far above anything I have seen since - players seemed to have an awareness of the next link in the chain, which meant we could clear the ball out of congestion even with teams flooding the area (e.g., Braun and Fletcher would hold their width and position themselves in predictable areas, then a rushed handball under pressure at least had a vague target to aim at). I would love to see something like that so that we can drop back to some sort of conventional, defensive, tough-it-out midfield play when things aren't going our way.

 

[Cuzz09]

Yeah bring back Suma

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[Biggie]

I think Sumich was the midfield coach around 05/06, and I reckon the sophistication of some of our tactics and setups was far above anything I have seen since - players seemed to have an awareness of the next link in the chain, which meant we could clear the ball out of congestion

 

[Cuzz09]

The Magenius

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[ziad]

View attachment 1102367

Fred flintstone could coach Judd, Kerr and Cousins to look good. Has the AFL ever had a better trio with strong back up and an AA ruckman?