Remove this Banner Ad

Changes v Suns

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Generation West said:
The issue I have is players like Bedendo, Cleary, Khamis, West, Garcia come into the side for 1 or 2 games and are dropped, never to be seen or heard from again until the next one game opportunity. Make a mistake, don’t follow instructions, have a poor game - back to Footscray son.

We are crying out for another winger and developing inside mids and these guys are 21, 22, 23 years of age. If we can gift JOD a few games at the top level, we can do the same for others. I know Bedendo and Garcia have been injured, but I get the feeling that they would be playing VFL ala Cleary, Khamis, West even if they were fit.
Click to expand...
The alternative argument is that each player is treated equally, with reasonable KPIs and expectations to hold their position that are only really obvious to coaches and people who know the ins and outs of what we're looking for. Things like holding structure, playing the role set out for them, ground coverage statistics, etc. Maybe these players weren't meeting them, but JOD is?

Bev has his flaws, and it's possible we're seeing one of them in action. That said, very few of the players that the fans have felt were "unfairly treated" have gone on to be successful, even the ones that have moved to other clubs. In contrast, most of the players that Bev has shown the faith with against the weight of opinions here (e.g., A Jones, English, Baker, Scott, Gardner) have gone on to be at least serviceable contributors.

I actually think Bev's ability to judge who is ready to come in and who should be persisted with is one of his greatest strengths. There have been positional misses but very rarely does he invest in a player for no reward, and very rarely do we lose depth players that go on to be good players elsewhere.

I wouldn't have played JOD this week and I don't totally understand why he's in the team, but this is one area where I'm prepared to back Bev and see what happens. I think the bold part of your post in particular is really unfair speculation.
 
Gardner's athletic and consistently kept up with small forwards athletically in his career so far (incredible that people don't give him credit for that).

O'Brien is more than capable winning clean ground balls and not panicking through forward pressure.

And from what little we've seen of JOD he clearly moves ell for his height.

I don't think we're going to be "too tall" in the sense that they'll benefit from their smaller forwards defeating our bigger forwards. Will anyone be truly worried that Ben Ainsworth might be too good for Ryan Gardner, for example?

I think the issue lies more with ball movement, espeically a willingness to run direct to goal with ball in hand that JJ does. We lost that and we don't have any real replacement. If Dale and Richards shuts down and we're struggling to move the ball in our defensive half, simply having a fast player run 20m before kicking 50m in the shortest path to goal, like JJ often does, can be a solution. But we have fewer players that can do that. Then you risk an inability to transition, and that's a big risk.
 
threenewpadlocks said:
I don't think we're going to be "too tall" in the sense that they'll benefit from their smaller forwards defeating our bigger forwards. Will anyone be truly worried that Ben Ainsworth might be too good for Ryan Gardner, for example?
Click to expand...

As soon as the ball hits the ground, yes I will be worried.

He kicked 3 goals against us last time and the year before that.
 
Last edited:

Log in to remove this Banner Ad

Dannnnnnnnnn said:
The alternative argument is that each player is treated equally, with reasonable KPIs and expectations to hold their position that are only really obvious to coaches and people who know the ins and outs of what we're looking for. Things like holding structure, playing the role set out for them, ground coverage statistics, etc. Maybe these players weren't meeting them, but JOD is?

Bev has his flaws, and it's possible we're seeing one of them in action. That said, very few of the players that the fans have felt were "unfairly treated" have gone on to be successful, even the ones that have moved to other clubs. In contrast, most of the players that Bev has shown the faith with against the weight of opinions here (e.g., A Jones, English, Baker, Scott, Gardner) have gone on to be at least serviceable contributors.

I actually think Bev's ability to judge who is ready to come in and who should be persisted with is one of his greatest strengths. There have been positional misses but very rarely does he invest in a player for no reward, and very rarely do we lose depth players that go on to be good players elsewhere.

I wouldn't have played JOD this week and I don't totally understand why he's in the team, but this is one area where I'm prepared to back Bev and see what happens. I think the bold part of your post in particular is really unfair speculation.
Click to expand...
Would you include Hannan, McComb & McNeil in his ability judge who should be persisted with?
 
We've won 7 of 9 there (all as the "home" team), but not played in Darwin for 10 years. Last game was a narrow win v Port in 2013, and before that an easy win vs Suns in 2012.

Liam Jones and Liber played in the 2012 game, Liam, Liber and Jack Macrae in 2013.

2012 v Suns was 9.18 v 4.10!
In 2013, Liber had 35 disps, but no Brownlow votes. Griffen 40poss - 3 votes, Minson 57hos - 2 votes, Brett Goodes 26poss - 1 vote.

Interestingly the 2013 game we fielded 3 indigenous players: Jones, Goodes and Koby Stevens.

2012 we had LJ, and Zeph Skinner was the sub.
 
threenewpadlocks said:
Gardner's athletic and consistently kept up with small forwards athletically in his career so far (incredible that people don't give him credit for that).

O'Brien is more than capable winning clean ground balls and not panicking through forward pressure.

And from what little we've seen of JOD he clearly moves ell for his height.

I don't think we're going to be "too tall" in the sense that they'll benefit from their smaller forwards defeating our bigger forwards. Will anyone be truly worried that Ben Ainsworth might be too good for Ryan Gardner, for example?

I think the issue lies more with ball movement, espeically a willingness to run direct to goal with ball in hand that JJ does. We lost that and we don't have any real replacement. If Dale and Richards shuts down and we're struggling to move the ball in our defensive half, simply having a fast player run 20m before kicking 50m in the shortest path to goal, like JJ often does, can be a solution. But we have fewer players that can do that. Then you risk an inability to transition, and that's a big risk.
Click to expand...
I'm an ideal world you'd have Caleb up your sleeve as a plan B for that... but we're short for CBA rotations without that extra midfielder.

I do wonder if this game was post-MSD whether JOD would be in the side, or Poulter.
 
About the game so I post it here

The Western Bulldogs are going to new lengths to prepare for their game against Gold Coast in Darwin on Saturday night.

With the weather set to peak at 32 degrees on Saturday, the Bulldogs are playing in some seriously foreign conditions for late May.




Given the weather will be so different to what they’re used to, AFL Media’s Josh Gabelich says the Bulldogs have been spending some extra time in the sauna across the last fortnight.

“This is an interesting one because they're heading to the Northern Territory,” Gabelich told SEN Sportsday.

“They've just landed in Darwin as we speak (on Thursday) but they’ve been preparing for this for the past fortnight.

“This is in terms of their heat training because they're in a sauna (playing in Darwin).

“They have been training in a sauna on the bikes (at Whitten Oval), they’ve done four sessions on either side of Ballarat.”












On top of training in saunas, Gabelich says the Dogs are also preparing in some unique ways like putting detergent on footballs to mimic slippery conditions and drinking only room temperature water – something they’d been doing for two weeks.

“The last time they played was single-digit degrees (against Adelaide in Ballarat) but they're going to play in 31 degrees on Saturday and in humidity.

“They’re doing a few other things like the old school detergent on the footy … they did that out at Skinner Reserve yesterday.

“But the other one I found quite fascinating is that they've been drinking room temperature water for the past fortnight.

“Now, there is some scientific background to this.

“No ice, no chilled water, they’re getting prepared that way.

“These are just the little incremental gains that the Western Bulldogs are going through this weekend.”
 
yebach said:
Would you include Hannan, McComb & McNeil in his ability judge who should be persisted with?
Click to expand...
Hannan - yes. He's been persisted with too much and is a miss.

McComb - somewhat but as a mature age role player the goal posts shift a little bit. This is no longer a discussion of persisting with a player who is viewed as a long-term contributor despite middling early returns, it is a matter of a guy being brought in to play an immediate role being relied upon too heavily. If you want to just look at the optics of it - sure, you can count him.

McNeil - I'm not sure I follow your point with this one. I don't think he has been overly persisted with at any point. If you mean that he should have been, he has been consistently solid but I think it's difficult to argue that he has been excellent enough to make his non-selection baffling or wrong.

Having a 100% strike rate is not a requirement for being good at something. These examples, even if you want to stretch them to mean something, aren't close to countering the reverse examples above.
 
Bulldogs85 said:
About the game so I post it here

The Western Bulldogs are going to new lengths to prepare for their game against Gold Coast in Darwin on Saturday night.

With the weather set to peak at 32 degrees on Saturday, the Bulldogs are playing in some seriously foreign conditions for late May.




Given the weather will be so different to what they’re used to, AFL Media’s Josh Gabelich says the Bulldogs have been spending some extra time in the sauna across the last fortnight.

“This is an interesting one because they're heading to the Northern Territory,” Gabelich told SEN Sportsday.

“They've just landed in Darwin as we speak (on Thursday) but they’ve been preparing for this for the past fortnight.

“This is in terms of their heat training because they're in a sauna (playing in Darwin).

“They have been training in a sauna on the bikes (at Whitten Oval), they’ve done four sessions on either side of Ballarat.”












On top of training in saunas, Gabelich says the Dogs are also preparing in some unique ways like putting detergent on footballs to mimic slippery conditions and drinking only room temperature water – something they’d been doing for two weeks.

“The last time they played was single-digit degrees (against Adelaide in Ballarat) but they're going to play in 31 degrees on Saturday and in humidity.

“They’re doing a few other things like the old school detergent on the footy … they did that out at Skinner Reserve yesterday.

“But the other one I found quite fascinating is that they've been drinking room temperature water for the past fortnight.

“Now, there is some scientific background to this.

“No ice, no chilled water, they’re getting prepared that way.

“These are just the little incremental gains that the Western Bulldogs are going through this weekend.”
Click to expand...
I hope this zig zagging the country doesn’t affect the Geelong game. It would be good to have the bye after Darwin. Darwin is closer to the equator than Bangkok, it is a true tropical joint.
What if we shut the roof at Marvel on Sunday evening and run 500 heaters in there for a week and make it 32degreesC against the Cats?
 
At some point, the Suns needs to get smashed. Will this finally be the week it happens?
 
Unorth said:
This season we will have played in Ballarat, Darwin, Tassie (hawks round 22) and Canberra. Is that some kind of record for amount of ‘boutique’ venues played at in a season? And we could have added one more with a different gather round draw.
Click to expand...
Arthur Jones has played at 6 different grounds in his 8 career games. Alan Didak played at 6 different grounds in his 218 games
 

Remove this Banner Ad

threenewpadlocks said:
Gardner's athletic and consistently kept up with small forwards athletically in his career so far (incredible that people don't give him credit for that).

O'Brien is more than capable winning clean ground balls and not panicking through forward pressure.

And from what little we've seen of JOD he clearly moves ell for his height.

I don't think we're going to be "too tall" in the sense that they'll benefit from their smaller forwards defeating our bigger forwards. Will anyone be truly worried that Ben Ainsworth might be too good for Ryan Gardner, for example?

I think the issue lies more with ball movement, espeically a willingness to run direct to goal with ball in hand that JJ does. We lost that and we don't have any real replacement. If Dale and Richards shuts down and we're struggling to move the ball in our defensive half, simply having a fast player run 20m before kicking 50m in the shortest path to goal, like JJ often does, can be a solution. But we have fewer players that can do that. Then you risk an inability to transition, and that's a big risk.
Click to expand...
Gardner is brilliant athletically with his closing speed in an aerial contest - he’s an absolute nightmare at ground level though, I don’t agree that he’s fine covering a small at all personally. It’s probably his biggest weakness, if he’s tracking a ground ball back towards goal he’s terrifying tbh 😂 it’s also not really a strength of O’Brien, again these guys strengths are all based around their aerial game - and from the little we’ve seen of JOD at VFL level he leans that way as well.

If we mark everything that comes into defence tomorrow well it’ll be great but if ball hits the ground in a defence of Jones, Gards, O’Brien and JOD I have no confidence we’ll clear it and even less that we’ll be able to generate a scoring opportunity from it
 
Dannnnnnnnnn said:
Hannan - yes. He's been persisted with too much and is a miss.

McComb - somewhat but as a mature age role player the goal posts shift a little bit. This is no longer a discussion of persisting with a player who is viewed as a long-term contributor despite middling early returns, it is a matter of a guy being brought in to play an immediate role being relied upon too heavily. If you want to just look at the optics of it - sure, you can count him.

McNeil - I'm not sure I follow your point with this one. I don't think he has been overly persisted with at any point. If you mean that he should have been, he has been consistently solid but I think it's difficult to argue that he has been excellent enough to make his non-selection baffling or wrong.

Having a 100% strike rate is not a requirement for being good at something. These examples, even if you want to stretch them to mean something, aren't close to countering the reverse examples above.
Click to expand...
Might want to include Billy Gowers, Will Hayes, Ryan Gardiner and Anthony Scott to this conversation. 2/4 strike rate.
 
VogonProsthetnic said:
Might want to include Billy Gowers, Will Hayes, Ryan Gardiner and Anthony Scott to this conversation. 2/4 strike rate.
Click to expand...
Gowers was played while he was serviceable and best 22 (due to a poor list). Dumped pretty quick after that, hardly persisted with beyond the point where there were many better players he was keeping out of the side.

Hayes was in and out of the side.

Gardner and Scott are clear wins. Not sure what you're even talking about with these two.
 

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Dannnnnnnnnn said:
Hannan - yes. He's been persisted with too much and is a miss.

McComb - somewhat but as a mature age role player the goal posts shift a little bit. This is no longer a discussion of persisting with a player who is viewed as a long-term contributor despite middling early returns, it is a matter of a guy being brought in to play an immediate role being relied upon too heavily. If you want to just look at the optics of it - sure, you can count him.

McNeil - I'm not sure I follow your point with this one. I don't think he has been overly persisted with at any point. If you mean that he should have been, he has been consistently solid but I think it's difficult to argue that he has been excellent enough to make his non-selection baffling or wrong.

Having a 100% strike rate is not a requirement for being good at something. These examples, even if you want to stretch them to mean something, aren't close to countering the reverse examples above.
Click to expand...
McNeill is different to Hannan and McComb because of his age.

We seem to forget he is the same age as JOD and younger than West or Garcia.
 
Freshwater said:
I hope this zig zagging the country doesn’t affect the Geelong game. It would be good to have the bye after Darwin. Darwin is closer to the equator than Bangkok, it is a true tropical joint.
Click to expand...
The AFL fixture should be arranged so that the teams which play in Darwin have the bye the following week. Playing in those conditions is extremely enervating and players lose a lot of weight during the match. A very difficult task to front up the following week, particularly against our old nemesis Geelong.
 
Generation West said:
I agree he should be learning his craft at VFL level, but the MC obviously see some attributes that they like, so I can see the logic in playing him for a handful of games in the AFL.

The issue I have is players like Bedendo, Cleary, Khamis, West, Garcia come into the side for 1 or 2 games and are dropped, never to be seen or heard from again until the next one game opportunity. Make a mistake, don’t follow instructions, have a poor game - back to Footscray son.

We are crying out for another winger and developing inside mids and these guys are 21, 22, 23 years of age. If we can gift JOD a few games at the top level, we can do the same for others. I know Bedendo and Garcia have been injured, but I get the feeling that they would be playing VFL ala Cleary, Khamis, West even if they were fit.
Click to expand...
I’d say not following instructions is a pretty serious offence in a sporting club.
If this is a reason some players get dropped, I think that’s great.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Changes v Suns


Write your reply...

Similar threads

Mojorisin
Prediction Changes vs Suns in Darwin
6 7 8 9 10
Replies
244
Views
12K
Mojorisin
Mojorisin
glenashley
Changes dogs v GWS
10 11 12 13 14
Replies
345
Views
14K
Fossie 32
Fossie 32
Fossie 32
First Goal, Banner etc v Suns
Replies
13
Views
287
Fossie 32
Fossie 32
Bulldog Brent
Prediction Changes v Fremantle (Round 4)
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
137
Views
9K
Bald
Bald
Bulldog Brent
Prediction Changes v Collingwood (Round 2)
12 13 14 15 16
Replies
392
Views
17K
stefoid
stefoid
Optimistic Dog
  • Locked
Game Day Dogs v Suns Darwin 7.35pm Hot & Humid
20 21 22 23 24
Replies
591
Views
9K
DexterTan
DexterTan
Bulldog Brent
Prediction Changes v Cats (Thurs 22 May, 7:30pm @ Alphabet)
Replies
8
Views
267
Ghenghis
Ghenghis

Remove this Banner Ad

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Back
Top