Clearances,contested possessions & 1%ers

[Redgum]

We suck in all 3 of them. In 2005 we were in last place for clearances,we were second last in "first possesions" and second last in "inside 50's per game". Individually in 1%ers ,we did not have a single player in the top 30 , in clearances our top player was Josh Carr at 26 , and in contested possessions we only had 2 players in the top 50. They were Hasleby at 35 and Thornton at 46. That's all the bad news.
We were good in some other areas such as number 1 in long kicks,number 1 in contested marks & number 5 in marks overall.
The top 2 teams in clearances were Sydney and West Coast and who played off for the flag?
I guess the description of being soft and an outside front running team would seem to apply based on the statistics. Also kicking too short and going sideways instead of straight down the middle, getting the ball inside the 50 quick enough would explain second last in getting the ball inside 50.
It would appear not enough of our players want to get down and dirty, no one wants to get the hard ball or do enough of the 1%ers. Is that coaching? the players?, I would say a combination of both. I think we need Harvey to takeover as caretaker ( at this stage) coach immediately. Those sort of stats seemed to have plaqued our team for a number of years and have not improved.

 

[Borry]

Clearly the rerason why Freo struggle, forget the populist reasons brought forward by some sections of the media. Every single time they are getting beaten they are simply getting flogged in these areas, I can't remember a game where they lost and they didn't get belted in the clearances and contested possessions.

 

[Ysaye]

I think the problem is reasonably well identified, but I am interested in finding a solution.

I think first of all we need to accept that there is skill involved in clearing the ball, and that there are only few that have this skill in this squad. IMO Our top clearances players in this team are Hasleby, J. Carr and Cook - it isn't suprising that when we had our good run of wins at the end of last year that these were the three in the centre 90% of the time.

Forget toughness and all that - throwing your body around doesn't make you good at clearing the ball. I think Cook is actually skilled at clearing the ball - he instinctively knows where to go and what to do. Unfortunately however, this skill is counterbalanced by the fact he can't kick and is quite slow. But for now, he is in our top 3 and he needs to play there until we can draft/trade for someone better.

If we do this, we will still lose some games through poor disposal and inability to break away quickly but at least there is going to be less chance of us getting slaughtered at the clearances.

Then we need to do what we should have done last year and draft a player who is highly skilled at clearances and has good other skills as well and get him ready to replace Cook when the time comes.

 

[Ripper]

I would like to see Medder's have a run "on ball" occasionally.

He has all the attributes needed.

 

[Tommo]

there is a website that does some rather extensive states keeping but I don't know how accurate they are.
the boys were fourth on the weekend for "contested ball gets" behind WC Hawks & the blues. How weird is that?
what is more strange is that we came last in "uncontested ball gets". I guest you can spin these things any way you like, but the way I read it s that we just weren't running hard enough for the loose ball.

http://www.prowess-sports.com/pro-stats/reports/team_category_leaders
.pdf