Centre Clearance Conundrum

[sideswipe]

I think at a ground the size of the SCG, we can afford to ask more of Carmichael and not manage his minutes so much.

These days, the relative smallness of the SCG is greatly exaggerated.

5 metres shorter than the MCG, 5 metres narrower.

SCG looks narrower on TV because of lower camera angles too.

 

[loki04]

We are 18th in the comp at centre clearances.
We’ve lost Grundy for the year.
Cox was actually quite good on Friday, but Gawn was smart enough to rove to Cox and add to Melbourne’s avalanche of clearances.
We levelled up with Melbourne at half time and pulled away.
I’m confident if we can square the clearance numbers it will make us far more potent.
Cameron has lost a bit of form.
Adams is no guarantee to come back.
What do we do??
Throw Ash Johnson in for short bursts for some second efforts?
Time for McCrae?
Reboot Callum Brown?
Activate Nick Daicos?
We need another spark, I reckon.
Thoughts, guys??

Our mids do not play proactive footy.
Those taps to space by Cox if we had a player moving there as a deliberate tactic they would hit that loose ball at pace and break at pace with either a clean f50 entry or bang one home from 55m on the run.

But our mids sit around the feet in a defensive set up which half the time the opposition just sag off like Brayshaw did and get a clean exit anyway.

They need to back Cox in at the tap, run in with him to move past him as he taps and hit the ball at pace, leave a defensive player on other side and one in front.

 

[manicpie]

Our mids do not play proactive footy.
Those taps to space by Cox if we had a player moving there as a deliberate tactic they would hit that loose ball at pace and break at pace with either a clean f50 entry or bang one home from 55m on the run.

But our mids sit around the feet in a defensive set up which half the time the opposition just sag off like Brayshaw did and get a clean exit anyway.

They need to back Cox in at the tap, run in with him to move past him as he taps and hit the ball at pace, leave a defensive player on other side and one in front.

I agree, we are way too stagnant around stoppages

 

[Countrypie]

Our mids do not play proactive footy.
Those taps to space by Cox if we had a player moving there as a deliberate tactic they would hit that loose ball at pace and break at pace with either a clean f50 entry or bang one home from 55m on the run.

But our mids sit around the feet in a defensive set up which half the time the opposition just sag off like Brayshaw did and get a clean exit anyway.

They need to back Cox in at the tap, run in with him to move past him as he taps and hit the ball at pace, leave a defensive player on other side and one in front.

Spot on.
I fail to see why we seem so lost. I'm sure though that part of the problem is the two grabs and fumbles that seem so prevalent.

 

[neilk]

I think the reason we suck so badly at centre clearances is because our midfield are already thinking about pulling back towards the D50 rather than going forward. Our style really does rely a fair bit on winning the ball across half back and running the ball out towards goal that way before the opposition can set themselves up defensively. I may be wrong but it looks that way to me. Our mids don't play in front of opposition mids, we sit back off the shoulder looking to peel back into defence or to lay a tackle, mostly!

And the opposition always have a free man standing on the defensive side in the square ready to take a handball.

 

[PIEWITHSAUCE]

I agree, we are way too stagnant around stoppages

It literally looked like the Melbourne mids were running circles around us at times ........they would have 3 guys circling the ruck contest at speed while we stood quite still and odds are one of them would run on to it. I am honestly not sure how much of what we are doing is tactical/on purpose and how much is just poor execution of what we want to do.

 

[The Royal Sampler]

5 metres shorter than the MCG, 5 metres narrower.

Well hopefully he sets up in the negative space, and he’ll never get tired!

 

[jonbe54]

It literally looked like the Melbourne mids were running circles around us at times ........they would have 3 guys circling the ruck contest at speed while we stood quite still and odds are one of them would run on to it. I am honestly not sure how much of what we are doing is tactical/on purpose and how much is just poor execution of what we want to do.

Yet they lost.

A great team beat a team of greats.

Don't say it won't happen in the finals because it happened in the 1958 grand final - same two teams - same result.

 

[domus]

I'm always bewildered by lopsided centre clearances. You'd think by sheer luck one side would win their fair share of clearances as the tap downs often bounce awkwardly or the first player to the ball often gets tackled and dispossessed. Any AFL midfielder is a quality player with good hand eye co-ordination so in a four on four set up I cannot understand how we are smashed the way we were in the first half against Melbourne.

 

[magpienato]

Macrae needs to come in. Has a real sense for where the balls going which will help clean up clearances.

 

[The Plowking]

Yet they lost.

A great team beat a team of greats.

Don't say it won't happen in the finals because it happened in the 1958 grand final - same two teams - same result.

Bluudy hell. I don't want to see a bunch of 85-90 year olds playing footy....

 

[loki04]

Yet they lost.

A great team beat a team of greats.

Don't say it won't happen in the finals because it happened in the 1958 grand final - same two teams - same result.

They lost because Gawn couldn't kick regulation goals from 24m out, how many easy shots did they miss again?

Was an awesome win and fight back but your comment does a disservice to just how close a game it was and further to that how much those clearances set up scoring opportunities for them. Fact is they kicked poorly at goals which allowed us to stay in the game we then took over in the second half with our plan.

 

[jonbe54]

Bluudy hell. I don't want to see a bunch of 85-90 year olds playing footy....

Your loss - the finest GF underdog performance of all time.

 

[mwhop]

I think we should go ultra defensive at cb. Hold it in and play for a second ball up and send numbers back in the meantime. Neutralise our weakness at CB and just win off transition. Would definitely have saved us goals vs dees

 

[loki04]

I think we should go ultra defensive at cb. Hold it in and play for a second ball up and send numbers back in the meantime. Neutralise our weakness at CB and just win off transition. Would definitely have saved us goals vs dees

They pretty much already do that but they all go in for the contest, Melbourne's bulls in Pettracca and Oliver allow the 3rd mid to sag off. Watch Brayshaw drop out and toward the wing space in teh square ready to be fed the ball and be in clear happened nearly all night. Not a single player stayed with him because they were worried about losing the contest.

 

[Carringbush2010]

This conundrum doesn't seem to stop us winning games.

It's almost as if we forfeit it.

We win contested ball after the fact, seems pretty clear if you watch our games we close space without ball to force turnover - that is when the oppo has transition we close it down by our man leaving their own man to create pressure on the ball carrier into forced disposal and we pounce - with numbers outside the contest on the ball win.

In short, at centre bounce, we don't have the personnel to combat the top teams. Still we win these games.

I'm certain with Tay and Degs in the centre we can at least contest, this I'm sure is what the mc will be thinking. We know that Degs can be a clearance winner here. 9 in total on Friday.

This will however not even us up in the centre against the top teams, negate it a bit - but we'll rely heavily on what our current game is.

Close space after that fact, create turnover and score from there - with our kamikaze (albeit pretty efficient) ball movement.

In any event in the short time span we won't be able to close the cc gap, what we do have, will that hold up in September? Not certain but biasedly optimistic.

 

[Finnishpie]

We are 18th in the comp at centre clearances.
We’ve lost Grundy for the year.
Cox was actually quite good on Friday, but Gawn was smart enough to rove to Cox and add to Melbourne’s avalanche of clearances.
We levelled up with Melbourne at half time and pulled away.
I’m confident if we can square the clearance numbers it will make us far more potent.
Cameron has lost a bit of form.
Adams is no guarantee to come back.
What do we do??
Throw Ash Johnson in for short bursts for some second efforts?
Time for McCrae?
Reboot Callum Brown?
Activate Nick Daicos?
We need another spark, I reckon.
Thoughts, guys??

I think the best policy is to trade out our two best clearance players -- Grundy and De Goey -- and get in a mid-level forward and a forward pocket who doesn't get a game in his current team....

 

[No SPIN]

Our mids do not play proactive footy.
Those taps to space by Cox if we had a player moving there as a deliberate tactic they would hit that loose ball at pace and break at pace with either a clean f50 entry or bang one home from 55m on the run.

But our mids sit around the feet in a defensive set up which half the time the opposition just sag off like Brayshaw did and get a clean exit anyway.

They need to back Cox in at the tap, run in with him to move past him as he taps and hit the ball at pace, leave a defensive player on other side and one in front.

Agree 100%.
Set up is a far great issue than personnel.