Preview Changes Round 10 vs Carlton

[Zeno The Great]

From talk at the player sponsor function last night lobb is a chance to return this week, but O'Donnell few weeks away.

The chatter was right...hopefully jod back next week weirdr selection with Emmett. Assuming he must come in to play fwd and as a backup ruck to lobb?

 

[threenewpadlocks]

That must be absolute curtains for Smith, I doubt if any other club will take him, so he's a delist . Though he's still young. He can play VFL for 3 years, get picked up by another club, then take his revenge by returning & smashing Emmet. I can see it. So can you.

He's a 20 year old ruck. Just because he's not preferred at this stage to a 19 year old ruck doesn't mean he's not going to have an AFL career!

 

[Dogs_R_Us]

The only thing I really don't agree with is that we are killing Emmett's confidence. He is a real competitor, fit and strong for a 19 year old and would be dying to get a recall back into the AFL team. If you think that being asked to play a small bit role as a ruck / fwd at AFL level at this stage of the year will kill his confidence and hurt his development, then he won't make it at this level.

He would also be thoroughly aware of what he has to work on and the reasons. The coaches would be very encouraging and supportive, they are not going to allow him to feel as if he’s been unfairly treated. Quite apart from the care players are given, the club has invested in them and it’s in everyone’s interest to get the best out of them all.

 

[fargy]

The only thing I really don't agree with is that we are killing Emmett's confidence. He is a real competitor, fit and strong for a 19 year old and would be dying to get a recall back into the AFL team. If you think that being asked to play a small bit role as a ruck / fwd at AFL level at this stage of the year will kill his confidence and hurt his development, then he won't make it at this level.

I only mentioned his confidence (not development). His shots at goal probably show an indication that his confidence is not high at the moment (that doesn’t mean he won’t get it back).

Anyway, we can all agree we hope he absolutely kills it from here on in.

 

[The Slitherin' Snake]

Smith's biggest issue is that he can't cover the ground, there were multiple stoppages last week we didn't have a ruck because Smith was still trying to get to the contest. Pretty sure that was his nail in the coffin (at least for a while), given that our entire system is based on winning the stoppage game.

There were two ruck contests without a ruck from memory, but i thought only one was Smith not getting there. The other had a contest very soon after and English took it

 

[Royale]

Surely the most logical thing to do is to put Lobb in the ruck.

 

[TiAn_]

Surely the most logical thing to do is to put Lobb in the ruck.

Given we didn’t omit any of Khamis, Busslinger and Coffield, I’d guess the plan is to split ruck duties between Lobb and Emmett.

Will be interesting to see if Busslinger gets a crack on the primary KPF this week. Lobb is the logical match up for McKay and may split his time there and in the ruck. But if ever Busslinger is going to step up in responsibility then a lumbering KPF like McKay that isn’t going to burn him on the move is probably the best candidate for him., even if he’ll be outsized.

 

[House_of_Dahl]

Surely the most logical thing to do is to put Lobb in the ruck.

Yep

 

[Optimistic Dog]

Just an aside lets hope The Bont has another blinder and takes out Charlie this season. Do not think I can stomach that blonde headed prick with the headband taking it out. I was not happy when Dunks left but he speaks highly of club.

 

[Doggies7]

I only mentioned his confidence (not development). His shots at goal probably show an indication that his confidence is not high at the moment (that doesn’t mean he won’t get it back).

Anyway, we can all agree we hope he absolutely kills it from here on in.

Yeah his kicking, especially set shots isn't great currently. Technique needs a fair bit of work and hopefully improves over the course of the year.

 

[The Slitherin' Snake]

Given we didn’t omit any of Khamis, Busslinger and Coffield, I’d guess the plan is to split ruck duties between Lobb and Emmett.

Will be interesting to see if Busslinger gets a crack on the primary KPF this week. Lobb is the logical match up for McKay and may split his time there and in the ruck. But if ever Busslinger is going to step up in responsibility then a lumbering KPF like McKay that isn’t going to burn him on the move is probably the best candidate for him., even if he’ll be outsized.

Yeah good point. I've been positive on Busslinger but he wasnt great last week. McKay would be a terrific challenge for him and one i think he can meet

 

[ossie_21]

Yeah good point. I've been positive on Busslinger but he wasnt great last week. McKay would be a terrific challenge for him and one i think he can meet

I’m thinking the opposite, McKay played very well last week and would burn Busslinger with movement around the ground. He’s not a stay at home forward

 

[perro_loco]

Nah I’m done, Bevo is cooked and genuinely sucks. Typical Bevo shit, it’s what he does best.

Smith & Lobb 50/50 is so obviously the ONLY option we have. Even if Smith only rucks off the bench he offers far more than Emmett anywhere

This is genuinely crazy stuff but whose surprised

Hope this is Bevo's last year as coach. Been around the club for too long.

 

[perro_loco]

It's in some ways marginal between them.

But we're lucky we picked Smith last week. He halved contests against Sweet where Emmett would have been a total nonfactor. He had a pretty significant part to play.

Not that you really plan around your players getting injured, but we're selecting a 33 year old coming straight off a hamstring injury - if the plan is to even play Lobb in the ruck. Assume it is, but dog only knows with Bevo. Some Buku or Lewis ruck minutes wouldn't surprise me, unless Lobb is going to have a surprisingly high ToG.

Having that redundancy saved us last week...So the difference between Smith and Emmett was not so marginal in other ways.

Not to confuse any of this with their long term prospects as players, obviously Emmett has a much higher ceiling. But we've played this script out with Tim himself, "fast tracking" him cost us wins.

Kind of have to get a ruck in the midseason draft at this point if we're done with Smith though.

Who is available? Any names?

 

[doggiesin08]

But I read all those posts saying Smith won us the game with his Gawn-like 6 disposal BOG performance last week?…

People keep arguing with me and being surprised but I’ve said for weeks our coaches don’t want to waste the backup ruck role on a bloke that can only be used in the ruck or on the bench.

Agree with these. Even his supposed halving the contests was only for a couple of them and the others were pretty dominant wins by Sweet, including one that almost set Butters completely free before the ball bounced out of bounds.

The final centre bounce was a clean pre-planned tap by Sweet to space that led to an uncontested Power clearance. Sweet then pushes forward and is right at the marking contest (he’s not the guy jumping but you can see his shin pad right behind) while Smith despite only 44% TOG was only able to jog back and you can see he’s about 30 meters away from a critical contest.

I get it he’s young, etc. and the comparison is to Emmett not a mature ruck but the gap isn’t that big at all and Emmett has even outperformed him as a ruck in pre-season.

 

[lachy]

Agree with these. Even his supposed halving the contests was only for a couple of them and the others were pretty dominant wins by Sweet, including one that almost set Butters completely free before the ball bounced out of bounds.

The final centre bounce was a clean pre-planned tap by Sweet to space that led to an uncontested Power clearance. Sweet then pushes forward and is right at the marking contest (he’s not the guy jumping but you can see his shin pad right behind) while Smith despite only 44% TOG was only able to jog back and you can see he’s about 30 meters away from a critical contest.

I get it he’s young, etc. and the comparison is to Emmett not a mature ruck but the gap isn’t that big at all and Emmett has even outperformed him as a ruck in pre-season.

View attachment 2612702

In the 2 actual VFL games 32 hit outs Smith 14 Emmett games that mean something. Can we at least cut the crap about out performance in the ruck. And tell me the ruck statistics in AFL games. Smith has been much more competetive than Emmett.

Emmett has shown many more attributes as a KPP no doubt, but that means jack to the issue. Smith will likely never be AFL standard though currently well ahead of Emmett with strength and competetiveness.

Bev has said himself Emmett is a long way from being a competetive ruck so he is simply saying despite all evidence to the contrary ruck work at stoppage is not important.

Bev will die on the sword for this position his team selection demostrates this.

Under Bev as coach, and I am not in the anti Bev camp, the only way we will ever be dominant in this area at centre bounce or significatly in the 60 to 80 percent non centre bounce stoppages is if English is fit or Darcy becomes a ruck when he comes back.

With Darcy out now and Question marks over English the best we can hope for is 7th to 10th unless English only misses a week. Smith clearly is not a backup ruck so why we drafted him in the first place is actually a mystery.

I will be there tomorrow and can only hope we win, but we appear to have already put the que in the rack. Hopefully the players step up to support the coaching groups decisons

 

[Bald Headed Flog]

Comparing the 4 players we've used most in the ruck this year:


Obviously quality of opponent has to come into account (English faces the number 1 ruck while the others would have majority of their contests against 2nd rucks).

But there's a pretty stark drop in output when it comes to Emmett. I rate the kid on his potential but according to Wheelo, we only win 30.8% of clearances when he's competing in the ruck. Compare this to Smith where we win 62.5% of clearances. Given the lack of around-the-ground impact from any of the backup options, we surely have to base selection on their impact in the ruck itself. Can't see any justification for not selecting Smith right now, unless we have a different role in mind for Emmett this week with Lobb coming in to take the bulk of ruck duties.

 

[Snarls Barkley]

Comparing the 4 players we've used most in the ruck this year:
View attachment 2612752

Obviously quality of opponent has to come into account (English faces the number 1 ruck while the others would have majority of their contests against 2nd rucks).

But there's a pretty stark drop in output when it comes to Emmett. I rate the kid on his potential but according to Wheelo, we only win 30.8% of clearances when he's competing in the ruck. Compare this to Smith where we win 62.5% of clearances. Given the lack of around-the-ground impact from any of the backup options, we surely have to base selection on their impact in the ruck itself. Can't see any justification for not selecting Smith right now, unless we have a different role in mind for Emmett this week with Lobb coming in to take the bulk of ruck duties.

It’ll be the same setup as we had against Fremantle. Lobb in the ruck for 70-80% of the time, whatever his body can allow. Emmett will play about 50% game time, which will be the remainder of the ruck time and then the odd spurts forward when Naughton and Lewis come off

He won’t have to come up against a 210cm experienced body at least with Carlton only going with the one ruck, there’s a chance he might make McKay look like Jackson in there. I hope he does well but he has been beyond unplayable in the four games so far, not sure what could possibly have changed in two weeks with no VFL game but we’ll see how it plays out

 

[Oliver G]

Comparing the 4 players we've used most in the ruck this year:
View attachment 2612752

Obviously quality of opponent has to come into account (English faces the number 1 ruck while the others would have majority of their contests against 2nd rucks).

But there's a pretty stark drop in output when it comes to Emmett. I rate the kid on his potential but according to Wheelo, we only win 30.8% of clearances when he's competing in the ruck. Compare this to Smith where we win 62.5% of clearances. Given the lack of around-the-ground impact from any of the backup options, we surely have to base selection on their impact in the ruck itself. Can't see any justification for not selecting Smith right now, unless we have a different role in mind for Emmett this week with Lobb coming in to take the bulk of ruck duties.

Slight correction, To Cl is the percentage of that player's hitouts that lead to a clearance, not the percentage of that player's ruck contests, so given a small sample size for Croft and to a certain extent Smith, that stat will fluctuate a lot until they get a few more ruck contests under their belt, but you're spot on about Emmett, if we set the parameters for a minimum of 30 ruck contests and 5 hitouts per game, he's dead last in the competition in Hitout Win % and To Cl, and by some margin at that.

That suggests not only is he obviously struggling to win any hitouts, but when he does win the odd one, the mids are having a very tough time reading his ruck craft. English is only mid-table for Hitout Win %, but is 6th in the comp for To Cl, and based on the small sample size for Smith, he's 1st in the comp. It's not just about getting it straight to a mid, it's getting it to a neutral position where it can be won on the ground, and at the moment, Emmett is seemingly just swinging wildly, the very worst kind of ruck given our midfield structure.

It should also be noted that To Cl is not necessarily a KPI for all teams, especially those that are structured on scoring more from turnover, but we're definitely one whose structure is largely set up around winning and scoring from clearance.


Source: Wheelo

 

[bigbulldog67]

Interesting stats, as I’ve been saying for a long time we’re a team that’s whole game revolves around stoppage dominance. Literally our whole game, it’s the only way we win. Yet we disrespect the ruck

Go figure, ****ing lunacy

 

[doggiesin08]

In the 2 actual VFL games 32 hit outs Smith 14 Emmett games that mean something. Can we at least cut the crap about out performance in the ruck. And tell me the ruck statistics in AFL games. Smith has been much more competetive than Emmett.

I did say pre-season not VFL, so not sure the relevance of that statistic or if “cut the crap” was warranted. My specific reference was to the pre-season match against Sydney where all of English, Darcy and Lobb were missing due to State of Origin and we came up against Grundy.

Smith only really played the 1Q so don’t know if he was impacted by injury, but he was getting mauled in the ruck (not unexpected) in the first quarter and then Emmett was much more competitive (obviously still wasn’t beating Grundy).

I get it’s a small sample for both of them. I’m not arguing that Emmett has outperformed Smith in the AFL games. I’m just stating a view that the gap isn’t as big as some want to make out, and plays like the one I posted a picture of a the reason Bevo won’t pick Smith. Someone literally said during the week that selecting Emmett over Smith earlier in the year was the single dumbest thing the club has done in 50 years so there’s a bit of histrionics going on.

 

[Optimistic Dog]

Jordan Croft is in the VFL today. He has had some shoulder problems I believe but he should be way ahead of Emmett.

We can argue about dumb selection however his development must have stagnated given the promise he showed at the end of last season. He is still young just hope the penny drops.

 

[lachy]

I did say pre-season not VFL, so not sure the relevance of that statistic or if “cut the crap” was warranted. My specific reference was to the pre-season match against Sydney where all of English, Darcy and Lobb were missing due to State of Origin and we came up against Grundy.

Smith only really played the 1Q so don’t know if he was impacted by injury, but he was getting mauled in the ruck (not unexpected) in the first quarter and then Emmett was much more competitive (obviously still wasn’t beating Grundy).

I get it’s a small sample for both of them. I’m not arguing that Emmett has outperformed Smith in the AFL games. I’m just stating a view that the gap isn’t as big as some want to make out, and plays like the one I posted a picture of a the reason Bevo won’t pick Smith. Someone literally said during the week that selecting Emmett over Smith earlier in the year was the single dumbest thing the club has done in 50 years so there’s a bit of histrionics going on.

Acknowledge cut the crap was unwarrnented.

That preseason game was when Smith was coming back from injury so was not close to full fitness.

In raw stats there is not alot of difference as Smith is not AFL ready , however in strength around the ground at stoppages it is not even close so we are either giving up that contest all together or are praying Lobb can ruck a full game coming off a hamstring injury and having trained as a KPP can now run out a game.

Last week showed the importance of that strength at the stoppage which nearly all bar 4 were not centre contests when Tim went down. We don't have that this week. We shall hope Lobb plays out of his skin and Emmett has a break out game since not playing 2 weeks ago and winning 2 of 30 stoppage contests.

Big risk for an 8 point game for us

 

[BEaston]

In the 2 actual VFL games 32 hit outs Smith 14 Emmett games that mean something. Can we at least cut the crap about out performance in the ruck. And tell me the ruck statistics in AFL games. Smith has been much more competetive than Emmett.

Emmett has shown many more attributes as a KPP no doubt, but that means jack to the issue. Smith will likely never be AFL standard though currently well ahead of Emmett with strength and competetiveness.

Bev has said himself Emmett is a long way from being a competetive ruck so he is simply saying despite all evidence to the contrary ruck work at stoppage is not important.

Bev will die on the sword for this position his team selection demostrates this.

Under Bev as coach, and I am not in the anti Bev camp, the only way we will ever be dominant in this area at centre bounce or significatly in the 60 to 80 percent non centre bounce stoppages is if English is fit or Darcy becomes a ruck when he comes back.

With Darcy out now and Question marks over English the best we can hope for is 7th to 10th unless English only misses a week. Smith clearly is not a backup ruck so why we drafted him in the first place is actually a mystery.

I will be there tomorrow and can only hope we win, but we appear to have already put the que in the rack. Hopefully the players step up to support the coaching groups decisons

Hitouts mean close to nothing. Especially for a 2nd ruck.

We have dominated clearances and stoppage for years when Timmy consistently lost the ruck duel.

 

[bresker]

I was having a think last night as I swam laps of the pool in Reservoir. Not the actual drinking reservoir, the swimming pool located in the suburb of Reservoir.

It's unfair to say the club has no plan for a backup ruck.

English - main ruck, injured. Or faking injury so he can play CoD till 3am.
Darcy - supreme backup ruck, Dave Grohl to Kurt Cobain. Injured.
Rory Lobb

7

Rory Lobb

Age

33

Ht

207cm

Wt

106kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

11.0

3star

K

6.7

3star

HB

4.4

3star

M

4.0

4star

T

2.4

4star

MG

174.6

3star

D

11.3

3star

K

8.0

3star

HB

3.3

2star

M

4.6

4star

T

1.4

2star

MG

228.6

3star

D

7.0

2star

K

4.0

2star

HB

3.0

3star

M

2.6

3star

T

2.8

5star

MG

133.0

3star

- has played many games as a main or backup rock. A large man. Injured.

So that's two excellent backup rucks, how many does one club need? Or can fit.

Smith - number 4 on the list. Hadn't done enough preseasons to get around the ground as he's only 20 & is a big unit. I'd say most 20 year old no4 rucks would be the same.

Emmet - clearly shows promise but is underweight and 'only' 199cm . But in a year when we're playing Dolan, Hynes etc is he any worse than them? It's just more obvious because he can't hide as a key position player. He's probably not much worse than Khamis as a key position player if we're brutally honest .

It may also be that Bev has given up on this year & is putting games into those who will be on the list for a few years, rather than pointlessly play Smith .

We'd be very long odds to win the big prize.