Opinion Changes vs Richmond

[Waspy79]

Have just read the SANFL report.

Outs: Pfieffer, Schulz, Wingard, Renouf
Ins: Salopek, D.Stewart, Hitchcock, Redden

 

[Amstaff_]

Gp why so much hate on Ebert? We need a forward that will actually lead for the ball and the only bloke I see doing that lately is Shulz and guess what he is injured.

 

[Forzaport]

Because coaches always get it right?

Bit of a broad question there. In this instance, I haven't seen any issue with Pfeiffer's selection in rounds 4 & 5. That in itself suggests to me that we don't have many better options, especially if he's getting games this early in the season.

 

[Waspy79]

Bit of a broad question there. In this instance, I haven't seen any issue with Pfeiffer's selection in rounds 4 & 5. That in itself suggests to me that we don't have many better options, especially if he's getting games this early in the season.

His selection is not the main issue (with me, anyway). The issue was his performance on the weekend. It was not AFL standard, I would almost go as far to say he was the difference between a win and a loss, and it warrants a dropping, especially with Salopek rotting in the SANFL reserves despite good form.

 

[klem22]

Pfieffer, Renouf, Salopek, D.Stewart, Hitchcock, it sounds to me like we are shuffling the deck chairs on the titanic here.
It is very depressing knowing we don't have any depth of talent

 

[Forzaport]

His selection is not the main issue (with me, anyway). The issue was his performance on the weekend. It was not AFL standard, I would almost go as far to say he was the difference between a win and a loss, and it warrants a dropping, especially with Salopek rotting in the SANFL reserves despite good form.

Well that's a totally separate point to the one I was making in reply to Tribey's post.

 

[Schulzenfest]

Bit of a broad question there. In this instance, I haven't seen any issue with Pfeiffer's selection in rounds 4 & 5. That in itself suggests to me that we don't have many better options, especially if he's getting games this early in the season.

I didn't have an issue with his selection in Rounds 4 & 5 either, but after the game he just played and considering the form Salopek is in (irrespective of Glenelg being idiots) I will have an issue with his selection in Round 6 if it happens, because considering the current form of our fringe players we do have better options.

 

[Waspy79]

I didn't have an issue with his selection in Rounds 4 & 5 either, but after the game he just played and considering the form Salopek is in (irrespective of Glenelg being idiots) I will have an issue with his selection in Round 6 if it happens.

Concur

 

[S.Patrol.G]

Nope watched his last two SANFl games and he wasnt playing key forward at all.
Seemed more Half forward flank, and then a decent amount of time on the ball.

If used properly i think he can play off the half forward flank, lead up the wing and be the one booming it in towards Butch and say Stewy. Plus can have a run on the ball.

Why Power only use him as a Key forward is beyond me. Primus should go out and watch his magpies games more often. And i dont want to hear this crap that he doesnt have the engine for it etc

90% of the time he gets the ball he hits a target, something at least half our 22 cannot do. Shows a class above when getting the ball.
Has a beautiful kick....

Clearly we're seeing different things. Ebert was played essentially as a key forward against south. Port were missing harder and thurgood.

He spent almost no time on the ball against south.

Brett's a great bloke but he is no good for our forward structure because he struggles to work within a structure.

He will forever be a CHF stuck in the body of a rover.

 

[Jonts]

Out: Schulz Renouf Rodan Wingard, Pfieffer
In: D Stewart Redden/Lobbe (haven't been watching Lobbe is he in form?) Salopek/Oshea, Hitchcock/Phillips, Logan

 

[philthy05]

Please don't bring back Brett Ebert.

Out: Schulz (inj), Wingard (inj), Renouf, Pfeiffer
In: D. Stewart, Logan, Redden, Salopek

i agree.

renouf not good enough. we cant let him just think we will put up with it, lets show him he has to be better to hold his spot. lobbe needs to build more match fitness. redden back in. stewert back so we dont take trengove out of defense and risk his knee as well! ( its more dangerous for a big leaper in the ruck than a big bloke) logan is in our best 22 right now ( with injuries). please play him in the mahoney role up forward. how much can we really lose by swapping sal for pfeiffer?? cant be any worse really can he?? should bring a better kick which we lack.

 

[n4nirvana]

Would love to see Young given another week. Full game this time.

Rodan to sub

Would consider Sal
-decent form
-played well in reserves after being dropped from Glenelg's first team (ugh)
-decent playing attitude despite not being in PAFC's first 22
-to know where he's at? where to for sal post 2012 ...

Would consider Brett if
-he's instructed to stay down and not compete with the talls in marking contests
-he's instructed to slow down to collect the ball on approach to the flanks

Re-evaluate Cassisi and Broadbents formline after this game

 

[Schulzenfest]

The dropping to Glenelg's reserves might actually be a blessing in disguise for Salopek. If we bring him back into the side this week, maybe last week will be the motivation he needs to work so hard and perform so well in a Port jumper that he's never considered to be dropped to that shitheap of a club (sorry TSW) ever again. If that doesn't give him a kick up the arse, nothing will.

 

[drcollossimo]

Would love to see Young given another week. Full game this time.

Rodan to sub

Would consider Sal
-decent form
-played well in reserves after being dropped from Glenelg's first team (ugh)
-decent playing attitude despite not being in PAFC's first 22
-to know where he's at? where to for sal post 2012 ...

Would consider Brett if
-he's instructed to stay down and not compete with the talls in marking contests
-he's instructed to slow down to collect the ball on approach to the flanks

Re-evaluate Cassisi and Broadbents formline after this game

Our treatment of Sal is hard to understand sure yeah he had some stinkers in 2011 but so did many other younger players who IMO have a much smaller ceiling than Sal!

He was hardly sighted due to injury in preseason plays a solid game and two good ones with Glenelg and despite us sitting at 1-4 him being a former pick 6 with 100+games played who has a reputation for GOOD skills when the rest of the squad couldn't hit a target for love nor money will most likely be playing yet another SNAFFLE game......

Where is Sal? right now Adelaide in 12 months time as a free agent I'd bet my life he'll be in Melbourne if u were him why he'll wouldn't you?!?!

 

[MarkRobboPA1870]

Why doesn't anyone understand that we need two specialised ruckmen? There is no point only having one. All of our ruckman don't have the fitness and need a second ruckman to help them out around the ground. Have you seen how well it works for West Coast.

 

[Schulzenfest]

It works so well for them that they're 15th in the league for clearances.

Meanwhile, 4 of the 5 top clearance sides play one specialist ruckman and one forward/ruck back-up and the three top hitout teams rank 6th, 10th and 13th for clearances.

Freo average mid-table with 40 clearances with the best ruckman in the game Aaron Sandilands as their lead ruck and another specialist ruck in Zac Clarke backing him up. This combo was averaging 55 hitouts a game. Sandi missed this week and was replaced by Griffin, and Freo won 15 less hitouts than they're average. But how many clearances did they manage? 40 again.

Hitouts are so, so overrated. The midfielders at the ruckman's feet are far more important than the ruckmen when it comes to determining who gets the ball away from a stoppage.

 

[MarkRobboPA1870]

It works so well for them that they're 14th in the league for clearances.

Meanwhile, 4 of the 5 top clearance sides play one specialist ruckman and one forward/ruck back-up.

That is nothing to do with the ruckman. The rovers still need to be doing the clearances. Port always get so many clearances compared to the amount of hitouts to advantage they get. Imagine if we had a duo like cox and natanui

 

[Schulzenfest]

That is nothing to do with the ruckman.

Exactly. Clearances have very little to do with the ruckman.

Imagine if we had a duo like cox and natanui

Yeah, then we might be 14th in the league for clearances like West Coast are! Wouldn't that be great!

Cox and Naitanui are tapping it down to guys like Kerr, Priddis and Shuey who are miles ahead of our best three midfielders. We wouldn't be any better with Cox and Naitanui than they are, and they're not that great with Cox and Naitanui. Just like Freo have had the best ruckman in the game Aaron Sandilands for years but have never been any more than average at clearances.

 

[Byron!!!]

Team:
F: Hitchcock........D. Stewart......Westhoff

HF: Young.........Butcher........McCarthy

C: Hartlett.......Boak........Jacobs

HB: Logan........Trengove.......Paul Stewart

B: Surjan.........Carlile.......Chaplin

R: Redden.......Brad Ebert......Rodan

Int: Renouf........Salopek........Cornes........Pearce


I guess that leaves us with a shit looking forward line, but with Gray, Schulz and Wingard out, I think that's a bit inevitable.

Structurally I think it leaves us looking better with the right balance of talls and smalls. Hopefully we gain from our injury misfortunes.

 

[ClintEastwood]

renouf not good enough. we cant let him just think we will put up with it, lets show him he has to be better to hold his spot.

Might be a bit harsh judging him on one game, but at the same time, Redden just seemed to have so much more impact. Renouf was just being jumped all over like he wasn't there.

Could be harsh, but I'd agree Redden should come back in, if he's fit (?).

 

[Byron!!!]

Quality clearances and goals have a lot to do with ruckmen.

 

[pstew2dstew]

Brendon lade is the best ruck man I have ever Seen no bias or anything...his tap work was worth 5 goals and made Shaun look better then he actually was...

I have never seen ruck man tap the ball behind his head he had so many tricks...

But alas those were the days...

Also just watched the 97 showdown on fox...primus was so dominant. In the ruck lol it was funny...then the primus rule came in

 

[Schulzenfest]

Since I'm a uni student who doesn't have to wake up early tomorrow, I decided to look further into this.

I don't know where to find total hitout-to-advantage stats, but I do have the Prospectus which has percentages. I went through every number one ruck and averaged their percentages, and ended up with an average of 24.7%.

There were 3605 hitouts in the AFL last year. Let's be very generous and assume that the 24.7% percentage applies to all ruckmen and there's not a drop-off between first and second ruckmen or third men up. That would mean there were 890 hitouts to advantage last season.

There were 3469 clearances last season. Let's be even more incredibly generous and assume that every single hitout to advantage resulted in a clearance. Even then, that means only 25.7% of clearances were won as a result of an effective hitout, and by extension that 74.3% of clearances were won from by a player after a neutral or ineffective hitout by their ruckman or from an opposition hitout.

So even being extremely generous, effective hitouts only lead to about a quarter of clearances. They don't seem that important.

From a Port perspective, lets look at the 'Renouf as second ruck v Stewart as ruck forward' debate that's been happening here. Renouf played as a second ruck last year and averaged 2.9 hitouts to advantage. I don't know where I could find Stewart's hitouts to advantage, but as an unskilled tap ruckman averaging 8 hitouts a game he probably gets about 1.5 hitouts to advantage a game. So let's say Renouf would get 1.5 more hitouts to advantage than Stewart a game as the second ruck.

Daniel Stewart averages 0.93 goals per game over his career. Brent Renouf averages 0.17 goals a game over his career. So let's say Stewart averages 0.75 goals a game more than Renouf.

Over a season, would you rather have 33 extra effective hitouts or 16.5 extra goals? I know which one I'd rather.

 

[b0ydman]

so we drop trengrove?

better still, westhoff scores more than stewart....

how about we just get a better ruckman

also, what about the stat of "hit outs to clearance after 16m mark when primus reliably removes ruckman"

your stats miss their ruckmans dominance when we don't offer a ruck contest

 

[bringbackbucky]

Depending on fitness, I'd make the following changes...

D Stewart for Schulz
Redden for Renouf
Hitchcock* for Wingard
Logan for Broadbent
Salopek for Pfeiffer

Release Pearce and Hammer into the midfield rotations.


*Toss up between Hitchy and Brett but I've listed Hitchy to avoid the predictable (and very boring) commentary on the value of Brett Ebert by the same posters week in week out...