- May 15, 2017
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- Dusty
bring rance through reserves.
wouldn't be surprised
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bring rance through reserves.
FB: Astbury, Rance*, Vlaustin
HB: Short, Grimes, Houli*
C: Caddy, Cotchin*, Pickett
HF: Stack, Riewoldt, Lambert
FB: Rioli, Lynch, Edwards*
Foll: Soldo, Prestia*, Martin*
Int: Broad, Ross, Castagna, Nank*
All of the players with * need to be rested through the year for a 4-5 game stint. This will allow them to rejuvenate and allow for other players time in the team.
Rance=Balta
Houli=Egg-Smith
Cotch=Collier-Dawkins
Edwards=Arts
Prestia=Graham
Martin=Macintosh
Nank=CCJ
Going to be a real challenge managing the list in 2020 if we are blessed with an relatively injury free year. I really don't mind if we get injuries early. It's only late injuries to our stars that would give us reason to be concerned because, despite wonderful depth, we can't replace Dusty/Lynch/Prestia/Edwards when push come to shove
Just playing our best 22 every week is the way to win premierships, and that's the way to keep the fringe players hungry and wanting to stay.Lmfao. Our bottom 6 are no better than most teams bottom 6.Yes there are plenty of links that can and should be improved upon
What weak links that played more than 5 or so games were moved on.
To be a weak link you have to get a game.Oh i see you mean Ellis the softest player in the entire league, but wait he played in a premiership and i agree he was a weak link.
Are you seriously going to say Graham is not best 22 or that Pickett if not for Grahams injury in his one game is not best 22. Or Ross if not for the timing of his injury he was would not have played, or after 13 games this yr we are not going to put games into Balta, or how about Stacky copping an injury at the wrong time fmd mate like all clubs we have a bottom 6 and some of them are only average at best. We are lucky we have upgrades in our system and i hate to tell ya they will replace premiership favorites. Yep we have a bottom 6 and if we sit on our hands and dont try to replace em we will get overrun.
I will eat my hat if Balta , Graham, Stack, Pickett and Ross dont play the majority of games next yr that means premiership players will miss out and they will miss for good reasons.
Something exactly like that needs to happen to avoid the limping finals entry by the Team in 2018...smart player management over a long season with players ready to fire at the pointy end! Some VFL players promoted against the weaker oppo like GCS, Carlscum, Bumbers...You missed Riewoldt.
"5-6 game stint". Surely you don't mean they miss 5-6 consecutive weeks!! Even spread out throughout the season, that number of games for all those players is extremely unlikely. These guys are not 35 years old.
If they get injured, ie. more serious than a niggle, sure they might get an extra week or two to be conservative (Cotchin this year). But just for the purpose of 'resting', wanting to get gametime into younger players, aint happening. You need to see it from the players perspective. Imagine Dimma calling Dusty into his office and saying, " we'd like you to sit the next month on the sidelines to give Macca some game time ".
Next..."Alex, you will be sitting all of July in the stands so young Balta can play".
One game if Rance feels sore...possibly.
There may not be weak links but there are always players that you can improve on or can improve their game back in the VFL. Who would have thought Caddy would have found a home on the wing, because he was struggling up forward for one reason or another. You have to replace players with better players no matter that we are current Premiers.You missed my point. There are no weak links in the team. The weak links weren't getting game. Moore, Menadue, Weller, Butler, Townsend (and Ellis).
I agree... Graham, Ross, Stack (more than likely Pickett) are best 22. They were not in the team due to injury. So 'blooding' youngsters I believe you were arguing, doesn't include them.
It's Balta, CCJ, DES and RCD I'm disagreeing with you about. With Stack, Ross and Graham to come back in on top of those four. My point is Houli, Rioli, Nank and Broad are not coming out. So it will be interesting who R1 is missing (assuming no injuries).
One for Ellis. Baker perhaps. But you don't start dropping players from a premiership team when they are still dominating games. To suggest Houli is bottom 6 by leaving him out of your team is laughable.
I am looking forward and hope two kids get more than a handful of games though, and that's CCJ and RCD. But they come in on merit. I can see CCJ pushing Nank out, and RCD intonthe mids, pushing someone (??) out.
Just playing our best 22 every week is the way to win premierships, and that's the way to keep the fringe players hungry and wanting to stay.
Picking people with 2 or 3 years down the track in mind makes no sense wrt where were are as a club at the moment.
Just pick guys on merit and nothing else. Then we'll have successful AFL and VFL teams for the next 2-3 years. There's no need to get funky at the selection table.
All of that I agree with. The key word you have there is "pressing". If they are "tearing it up" and a current best 22 senior player that plays their position has a niggle, then they come in for one or two games. I am against saying to Edwards, Cotch, and Dusty, you're sitting out the next 4 weeks so we can get a block of games into the next generation. Fk that. These players love to play, want to see the team win every week, and some kid coming up would want to be absolutely dominating in the VFL to take their spot. If DES takes over Baker's role, great. Ross/RCD is racking up 20+ every week and Graham is down on form, in one comes.There may not be weak links but there are always players that you can improve on or can improve their game back in the VFL. Who would have thought Caddy would have found a home on the wing, because he was struggling up forward for one reason or another. You have to replace players with better players no matter that we are current Premiers.
Rance coming back means that Broad is in the firing line, not because Broad is not good enough, but that Rance is so much better. Stack may go back, for Short or Baker. Will DES come on leaps and bounds and take a half back spot. He has way more class than either. Stack is better than all of them. Ellis makes way for Pickett which is a win. I'm a massive fan of Ross and think he will be a better player than a similar sort Graham. Probably a spot for both but I'll bet that Ross becomes a superior player.
Of course injuries and to a lesser extent form will play a big part. RCD will be pressing as will Balta. Even Nank or Soldo may give way for CCJ tears it up in the VFL early.
Completely agree but I feel it unlikely anyway. You soon get caught out in a season of footy if you don't treat every game with equal importance. Of course that involves a certain amount of rotations at the bottom end of the list, but the good players play every week unless they have a niggle. Geelong were guilty off it in their premiership years, but that was not until they were well entrenched in the top 4 and their senior players were then cheery ripe come finals.All of that I agree with. The key word you have there is "pressing". If they are "tearing it up" and a current best 22 senior player that plays their position has a niggle, then they come in for one or two games. I am against saying to Edwards, Cotch, and Dusty, you're sitting out the next 4 weeks so we can get a block of games into the next generation. Fk that. These players love to play, want to see the team win every week, and some kid coming up would want to be absolutely dominating in the VFL to take their spot. If DES takes over Baker's role, great. Ross/RCD is racking up 20+ every week and Graham is down on form, in one comes.
These senior players (Cotch /Edwards /Rance/Dusty) played in some dark years. They got reamed most weeks, and now the team bends over most teams, I am pretty sure they want to be out there enjoying every minute of every game. It's a short career these guys have. So yes we need to develop the kids, but putting senior players in the stands for multiple weeks to achieve it is wrong...imo!!
Lmfao. Our bottom 6 are no better than most teams bottom 6.Yes there are plenty of links that can and should be improved upon
I'm of the opinion our bottom six players are pretty damn good, if you can name them!
This incessant need to ruin a good thing irks me.
If DES takes over Baker's role, great.
It is tough to argue with the principle of picking teams based on merit and never veering from that. But I am happy to make the case against it here in answer to your post.
As we have seen in each of the last three seasons, by the time we get to the last 1/4 or so of the regular season, the selectors have more or less locked in their team and only changed it if forced by injury or some other reason. I think most premiers and probably most finals teams follow this path. I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting doing anything different to this from about 5-6 matches to go in the home and away season onwards.
What I would argue is in the first 16 rounds or so the approach needs to be more fluid. In 2019, injuries or other reasons forced us to find Baker, Soldo, and Bolton, who all played in our Grand Final team and were all at least useful. In the case of Baker, he found time to come into the team as a forward and play well, then was sent back to the VFL to learn a new role in defence, then came back into the senior team in the last phase of the regular season in that defensive role, and despite some shaky moments, played that role well. In Soldo’s case I consider it unarguable that he improved with exposure at AFL level and had Nankervis not been injured, it is highly doubtful we’d have ever arrived at him playing more than a small handful of matches in the AFL team. Earlier, Balta had been preferred in the second ruck role, right in my opinion.
Ok, you could argue Soldo came in based on merit as we needed a number one ruckman after Nankervis was injured. But what I put to you is what about the scenario where Nankervis was not injured. Would it have preferable in hindsight to rest him for a run of matches, or even send him to the VFL, while having a good look at Soldo in the number one ruck role during the middle half of the season? Perhaps you might argue this is too funky and leave well enough alone. I am saying unequivocally I would prefer to see the selectors make some of these type of selection decisions. In this case, the results were clearly favourable. I accept in other cases, they may not be, but the payoff should be worth the cost. There were other benefits to the Nankervis unavailability as well. Suddenly with Soldo vacating the first ruck in the VFL team Chol and then CCJ were given much more prominent roles in that team. Based then on his excellent VFL form Chol was given a good run in the AFL Team and this may yet pay good dividends down the track, certainly the club would have discovered some things about him they might otherwise not have known.
Caddy was another where the club appeared to benefit from creative selection. Back to the VFL to learn a new role when he was a redundant forward, and again this paid dividends. As I posted before, despite all of the injuries we had, 11 of the AFL GF team managed to do time in the VFL during the season. The unsuccessful 2018 Prelim team had I think 6 players who had played in the VFL team that season. OK, you could argue the 2017 GF team had only about 5 who had played VFL that season, but our tactics and player roles were a lot less known to other clubs at that time, and our list was a bit thinner as well, with more mature and exposed players going around in our VFL team.
To me the best pathway to being at your best and most dangerous at finals time is along these lines:
- as many relatively fresh and hungry players as possible, achieved by resting players if necessary
- players being able to play multiple roles helps cover in game injuries
- game plan not overly exposed to key finals opponents, ideally something new about your formation they haven’t seen first hand before.
It is also interesting to note the best performing home and away teams’(as judged by finishing top of ladder after regular season) recent finals results.
2019 Geelong lose PF 19 points, 1-2 finals record, premier came from 3rd on ladder
2018 Richmond lose PF 39 points, 1-1 finals record, premier came from 2nd on ladder
2017 Adelaide lose GF 48 points, 2-1 finals record, premier came from 3rd on ladder
2016 Sydney lose GF 22 points, 2-2 finals record, premier came from 7th on ladder
Note since the pre finals bye teams finishing top of ladder have a 6-6 finals record, not won a GF. In four seasons only one team finishing top 2 has won the flag, Eagles in 2018 and they fell in.
Pre finals bye introduced....
2015 Fremantle lose PF at home 27 points, lucky to win their other final, arguably nowhere near the best team in h&a season as shown by relatively weak %, 1-1 finals record, premier came from 3rd
2014 Sydney lose GF 63 points, 2-1 finals record, premier came from 2nd
2013 Hawthorn win GF 15 points 3-0 finals record, premier came from 1st
2012 Hawthorn lose GF 10 points 2-1 finals record, premier came from 3rd
2011 Collingwood lose GF 38 points, 2-1 finals record, premier came from 2nd
2010 Collingwood drew GF won replay 56 points, 3-1-0 finals record, premier came from 1st
2006-7-9 the team who finished on top won the flag. 08 Cats lost the GF after finishing top, premier Hawks came from 2nd.
So before the pre finals bye the team finishing top had made the GF all but one of the previous 10 seasons and won 5 Premierships. There was arguably a much bigger advantage to finishing on top at that time. Only two teams won the premiership in that time from outside the top 2, and both were 3rd.
9 out of 10 teams finishing top made the GF. The one that didn’t, Fremantle in 2015 were arguably the weakest top team in memory as measured by their percentage.
So 2006-2015 premiers came from:
1st on ladder = 5 times
2nd = 3 times
3rd = 2 times
-----------------------------------------------------------
The trend is clearly suggesting that since the introduction of the pre finals bye, there is not such a premium on finishing top 2, and the teams finishing top are not flourishing at all.
So I would argue there are a few good reasons to think ahead in selection and not simply select the best known available team each week in the regular season. And where the luxury exists, I would even make some selections with future seasons in mind, but this I agree is much more debatable.
i cant help but look at where we want to get to as far as development goes.
I really believe that Stack Graham Balta and Ross have to play most games to allow us to improve.We also need to make sure we have enough kids with enough games behind them so its a smooth transition when a lot of the big guns retire over the next 2 to 4 yrs.
Going by vfl reports and what they have done RC-D, CC-J, and DE-S are not far away. In fact what i have seen of them they look impressive.
Now this never goes down well but we do have a bottom 6 or 8 in the 22 and it is incumbent upon those in charge to look for better, look for improvement, thats despite winning the flag.Of course this brings up the question of well do we need to improve, I dont think you will find too many who think otherwise.
For me theres three big bolters to come into the team that won the flag.Thats the latter three mentioned. imo the first four mentioned will be regulars and if not for injuries could well have a premiership medallion hanging around their necks.
So in essence and people will say im crazy but from a premiership team still in its window i can see up to 6 or 7 changes on a regular basis.
Im going to phrase this this way. We have just had a horror run of injuries and this is the team thats left.
B/ Grimes - Astbury - Vlastuin
HB/ DE-S - Balta - Rance. Fair dinkum if this was our round 1 back half i would not be complaining.
C/ Pickett - Cotchin - Ross. Soldo aside who continues to improve each yr thats some midfield.
R/ Soldo - Martin - Prestia
HF/ Edwards - Riewoldt - Lambert. A young promising ruck/fwd who offers a real point of difference to Nank/Soldo
F/ CC-J - Lynch - Castagna
Int/ Stack - Bolton - Graham - RC-D. All genuine mids they offer size grunt pace and all can play fwd if need be or as a part of rotations.
If we copped the injuries to the obvious absentees who would have a problem. in many cases they are potential significant upgrades.
See now that is where I disagree with you...You've just used a hell of a lot of text to say what? That because we had a few injuries this year we found we have pretty strong depth. That's how you'd hope it works in a good club. I think selection is simple: If DES is better than Houli on the HBF, he plays in the seniors. That's all it comes down to. If CCJ is better than Nank he plays. Easy. Your Caddy argument is fair enough but he basically had to go back into the 2s to learn a new role as Lynch and Riewoldt are now the proper key forwards and we are always going to play a heap of small pressure guys around them (unless Dusty strolls down). You can argue resting senior guys thru the year is viable, but I don't think it's necessary with the bye plus either 1 or 2 weeks off in the finals, depending on your ladder finish. If they are out injured, you might indulge the luxury of giving them an extra week off, but that'd be it.You make finals by putting your best team on the park, every week.
Are you implying that Houli, Short, Caddy, Nankervis, Broad & Rioli are our weak links?
Egg & RCD are no where near upgrades on any of those players above. They aren't getting in ahead of them until they have earnt it.
CCJ while I agree needs games, wont be playing ahead of Nankervis. CCJ will get 5 - 7 games in 2020 IMO as part of player managing Soldo / Nank so they are fresh for the back half.
Reckon 2021 could be his year.
Reckon they would be the best bottom five in the League!If Short is in the side. Which he probable wil notl be. He is defiantly one of the weak links.
Broad, Rioli, Caddy, Nank are nominations for' bottom 6 players' too. It sounds harsh but most of the best 16 players is pretty firmly set
Please remember that
A- its ok for players to learn their craft in the 2's (which means they don't have to be gifted games if there isn't a place for them). Remember we have been waiting for good team for a long time, and now some want to dismantle it? **** off I say!
For a few games yes we don't lose much out of the side..and those players gain experience and the Coaches gain insights to player's capabilities...win win!In defence of the mopsy and co. points of view; If you were to swap the like of
Balta for Broad
Ross for Graham
CCJ for Soldo etc.
you are arguably not losing much, perhaps even inserting more talented footballers. 'Dismantling it is a bit drastic or alarmist terminology, competition is good.
With Ellis and Grigg off the list IMO the squad is pretty strong. I am confident with whatever dimma rolls out as long as he doesn't fall apart again without Blake there to hold his hand.
The scales are pretty equal. Rance for Broad is an easy win. Ross for Graham is about even. CCJ for Soldo is slightly under but with Nank as first ruck, there's not much in it.For a few games yes we don't lose much out of the side..and those players gain experience and the Coaches gain insights to player's capabilities...win win!
If that does occur hopefully Rance in the defensive half, Cotch in the mids and JR8 up forward take charge on the field to turn it back around in our favour!
You've just used a hell of a lot of text to say what? That because we had a few injuries this year we found we have pretty strong depth. That's how you'd hope it works in a good club.
I think selection is simple:
If DES is better than Houli on the HBF, he plays in the seniors. That's all it comes down to. If CCJ is better than Nank he plays. Easy.
Your Caddy argument is fair enough but he basically had to go back into the 2s to learn a new role as Lynch and Riewoldt are now the proper key forwards and we are always going to play a heap of small pressure guys around them (unless Dusty strolls down).
You can argue resting senior guys thru the year is viable, but I don't think it's necessary with the bye plus either 1 or 2 weeks off in the finals, depending on your ladder finish. If they are out injured, you might indulge the luxury of giving them an extra week off, but that'd be it.
You make finals by putting your best team on the park, every week.
Agree that Rance and Stack are straight in. At this stage Ross & Graham are slightly behind Pickett. I'm happy to rotate ruck combos Nank/Soldo/CJ/Balta/Chol. Give CJ a taste of it in a couple of 4 week blocks.There may not be weak links but there are always players that you can improve on or can improve their game back in the VFL. Who would have thought Caddy would have found a home on the wing, because he was struggling up forward for one reason or another. You have to replace players with better players no matter that we are current Premiers.
Rance coming back means that Broad is in the firing line, not because Broad is not good enough, but that Rance is so much better. Stack may go back, for Short or Baker. Will DES come on leaps and bounds and take a half back spot. He has way more class than either. Stack is better than all of them. Ellis makes way for Pickett which is a win. I'm a massive fan of Ross and think he will be a better player than a similar sort Graham. Probably a spot for both but I'll bet that Ross becomes a superior player.
Of course injuries and to a lesser extent form will play a big part. RCD will be pressing as will Balta. Even Nank or Soldo may give way for CCJ tears it up in the VFL early.