- Jun 19, 2006
- 9,998
- 18,283
- AFL Club
- Geelong
I thought I'd start this thread for a couple of reasons. Firstly he's clearly a scapegoat seeing the criticisms from last night's game and instead of derailing other threads too much perhaps some of the discussion on him could be moved here. But secondly I think he's a classic example of the type of midfielder who will benefit from the extra space at center clearances that the starting positions allows.
The 666 starting positions makes center clearances incredibly important. It's almost impossible to get numbers around the player escaping the clearance and with even numbers in the forward 50 it means no pressure on the ball carrier and 1 on 1 contests up forward. It also means that the initial center bounce is completely different to every other clearance because there is so much space. So what's the impact?
Firstly acceleration and speed become more important so that you can get into all that space when you win the ball and defend the space somewhat when you lose the ball. Secondly the big bodied mids become less important because there aren't many other players to overpower or shrug off. Thirdly you want players who will try to escape the congestion to get a cleaner clearance because there is so much more space rather than players who bang it on the boot which now will waste a potentially dangerous clearance.
So which players of ours does this suit? For mine Guthrie is the obvious one because his biggest strength is his acceleration and ability to put teammates into space while his biggest weakness has been getting caught in congestion holding onto the ball too long. And he showed it in the 3rd quarter last night when he was involved in 3 classy center clearances to drag us back into the game (see 1:13:00, 1:35:20 and 1:37:45 in the video below).
This doesn't mean he has to play as a permanent mid but we should see guys like Guthrie, Duncan and Parfitt attend a lot more center clearances. In contrast the rules don't really suit guys like Menegola and both Selwoods who are bigger bodies, good on the inside but fairly slow and tend to bang the ball on the boot at times. It could even be a smart move for Guthrie to attend the center bounce then shift towards defence while someone like J Selwood or Menegola line up in the forward 50 but then shift in to midfield once the game develops.
The 666 starting positions makes center clearances incredibly important. It's almost impossible to get numbers around the player escaping the clearance and with even numbers in the forward 50 it means no pressure on the ball carrier and 1 on 1 contests up forward. It also means that the initial center bounce is completely different to every other clearance because there is so much space. So what's the impact?
Firstly acceleration and speed become more important so that you can get into all that space when you win the ball and defend the space somewhat when you lose the ball. Secondly the big bodied mids become less important because there aren't many other players to overpower or shrug off. Thirdly you want players who will try to escape the congestion to get a cleaner clearance because there is so much more space rather than players who bang it on the boot which now will waste a potentially dangerous clearance.
So which players of ours does this suit? For mine Guthrie is the obvious one because his biggest strength is his acceleration and ability to put teammates into space while his biggest weakness has been getting caught in congestion holding onto the ball too long. And he showed it in the 3rd quarter last night when he was involved in 3 classy center clearances to drag us back into the game (see 1:13:00, 1:35:20 and 1:37:45 in the video below).
This doesn't mean he has to play as a permanent mid but we should see guys like Guthrie, Duncan and Parfitt attend a lot more center clearances. In contrast the rules don't really suit guys like Menegola and both Selwoods who are bigger bodies, good on the inside but fairly slow and tend to bang the ball on the boot at times. It could even be a smart move for Guthrie to attend the center bounce then shift towards defence while someone like J Selwood or Menegola line up in the forward 50 but then shift in to midfield once the game develops.