This is a sort of what do you do with these players thread. Cunningham, Rohan and Lloyd are good, pacey young players with finals experience last year. However, they struggle to fit into our game at times because of their slight size, poor skills under pressure and almost non-existent tackling pressure.
Lloyd
Lloyd to his credit, has good well-rounded game and can find space where there is none, and as he showed last night, is very good in traffic, eerily reminiscent of Pendleberry. But when the heat is on, and he's being scragged and tackled, he really struggles to break it. It will come with experience, but he doesn't have the pace to beat it, nor endurance to outlast, or the physical strength to break it.
Cunningham & Rohan
Cunningham and Rohan are similar players - pacey forwards with good skills, capable of marking it and goaling it. They're both just as quick and can move the ball very fast. However, they've struggled to really peg down a starting position, with Cunningham rolling into the midfield in a tagging role, which he's ill-suited for against better midfielders, and Rohan rotating into the backline, where he really isn't anywhere near good enough for. I think it's too much to play both in the same side, because for their upside in pace and directness, we lose too much in physical pressure.
Towers
I really don't know enough about him, but he's been on the cusp for a while and each time he's had a chance he's shown just enough to get another chance, in the same way that Jesse White did. I personally don't think he's anywhere near good enough to play.
Jetta
His 2011 & 2012 seasons were excellent playing off the wing, but faded in 2013 with an inexplicable and quite frankly, absurd role change to get him closer to the contests. I think the flow-on impact was Hanneberry and KJack both experiencing poor patches of form together. It really hurt us too, because we just stacked the contests with too many players, and when we were able to move the ball out, which KJ and Hanners are excellent at, there wasn't anyone on the outside to release.
I feel that swapping Jetta with Rohan/Cunningham/Llyod as our release players was just bad coaching. 2014 wasn't any better with calls for his dropping and even trade (me included) throughout the season. He had a pretty good premilinary final, probably his best of the season, but still no where near as good as the form he showed in the 2012 finals series, where he was easily one of our best. His grand final was atrocious, like so many others.
It is my hope that he's moved back to the wing where he can exploit his pace and excellent foot skills and start hitting the scoreboard again. Too far forward and you risk reducing his running space, and too far back he just doesn't get involved. He's not good enough, nor tough enough (but he sure can tackle) to be an inside midfielder, and he just doesn't have the strength to break a tackle to be an outside midfielder (eg. Judd/Fyfe type). He's an out and out winger and should be played as such. It's really just bad coaching to try to shape him to something else.
Mitchell
Conundrum and mystery of the 21st century for the Sydney Swans. Practically BOG in his first 3 games, even had 3 votes towards the brownlow, and barely gets a sight since. Sure, ankle injury and a few piss-poor games aside, he was an excellent inside midfielder who had no problem getting tough and winning the ball. He was winning it more than Kennedy, and Kennedy is considered the premier inside midfielder! Considered trade bait because he can't get a look in ahead of Cunningham, Lloyd, BJack, Rohan and other youngsters, even when we're getting slaughtered in the middle. Whilst he lacks pace, he sure doesn't lack in hand skills, but couldn't kick his way out of a wet paper bag.
For me, he has to be playing, and we just have to use KJack and Hanners on the outside to move the ball fast to players like Jetta who can run with it, or McVeigh who can pin point consistently over 45-50m's.
Reid
Came on with a tonne of potential and so far has lived up to none of it. For me, this can be traced all the way back to the North Melbourne game in 2012 when he had his shoulder knocked. Before that game he was throwing himself into packs, crashing them, even destroying them, and clunking marks regularly. Something about that game really threw his confidence, because he's been shit ever since. Sure, he played most of 2012 with an injury, but so did many other players, but never did they look so inept. I watched him drop marks without pressure that you'd expect someone in Auskick to take, but before that knock, was taking screamers.
He epitomizes confidence players; without confidence, he really looks bad, but with it, he looks like he could be the next Riewoldt. I think he really needs to go back to the reserves and get that confidence back, the desire to crash packs and start clunking it. We don't rely on him as much to get 2 or 3 goals each game, but we do need him to lead up the ground and take marks, or swing into defence and do it competently. He isn't small or as skinny as he was 2 years ago. His arms and shoulders are damn big so he shouldn't be getting shifted off the ball by some midget - he should be flattening them on the way to taking a screamer.
Team changes
I think it's imperative that the team is changed so that players like McVeigh and Jetta can have a better impact in their natural positions, and that the midfield is properly balanced. We need our best ball users on the outside, playing off the wings and half-back flanks. We can't do that if that consists of Rohan and Cunningham, and Jetta being played in no-mans land.
For me, I would send Cunningham to the subs bench, Rohan and Goodes back to reserves, move Jetta and Lloyd to the wings, start McVeigh and Jones (if he's good enough) at HBF, put Laidler in the pocket, bring Mitchell into the middle as the 2nd follower, start Hanners and KJack as HFF but obviously to follow the ball around and Heeny to the forward pocket. If Reid is to play, it has to be as the CHF with Franklin and Tippet deep forwards.
The team should be dynamic and intelligent enough to figure out who players where, but we have a penchant for having too many players around the ball and not enough forwards, or even outside players to move or receive the ball.
If Jones isn't good enough, I'd rather see Shaw playing HBF than in the pocket, he just gets exposed way too much.
Lloyd
Lloyd to his credit, has good well-rounded game and can find space where there is none, and as he showed last night, is very good in traffic, eerily reminiscent of Pendleberry. But when the heat is on, and he's being scragged and tackled, he really struggles to break it. It will come with experience, but he doesn't have the pace to beat it, nor endurance to outlast, or the physical strength to break it.
Cunningham & Rohan
Cunningham and Rohan are similar players - pacey forwards with good skills, capable of marking it and goaling it. They're both just as quick and can move the ball very fast. However, they've struggled to really peg down a starting position, with Cunningham rolling into the midfield in a tagging role, which he's ill-suited for against better midfielders, and Rohan rotating into the backline, where he really isn't anywhere near good enough for. I think it's too much to play both in the same side, because for their upside in pace and directness, we lose too much in physical pressure.
Towers
I really don't know enough about him, but he's been on the cusp for a while and each time he's had a chance he's shown just enough to get another chance, in the same way that Jesse White did. I personally don't think he's anywhere near good enough to play.
Jetta
His 2011 & 2012 seasons were excellent playing off the wing, but faded in 2013 with an inexplicable and quite frankly, absurd role change to get him closer to the contests. I think the flow-on impact was Hanneberry and KJack both experiencing poor patches of form together. It really hurt us too, because we just stacked the contests with too many players, and when we were able to move the ball out, which KJ and Hanners are excellent at, there wasn't anyone on the outside to release.
I feel that swapping Jetta with Rohan/Cunningham/Llyod as our release players was just bad coaching. 2014 wasn't any better with calls for his dropping and even trade (me included) throughout the season. He had a pretty good premilinary final, probably his best of the season, but still no where near as good as the form he showed in the 2012 finals series, where he was easily one of our best. His grand final was atrocious, like so many others.
It is my hope that he's moved back to the wing where he can exploit his pace and excellent foot skills and start hitting the scoreboard again. Too far forward and you risk reducing his running space, and too far back he just doesn't get involved. He's not good enough, nor tough enough (but he sure can tackle) to be an inside midfielder, and he just doesn't have the strength to break a tackle to be an outside midfielder (eg. Judd/Fyfe type). He's an out and out winger and should be played as such. It's really just bad coaching to try to shape him to something else.
Mitchell
Conundrum and mystery of the 21st century for the Sydney Swans. Practically BOG in his first 3 games, even had 3 votes towards the brownlow, and barely gets a sight since. Sure, ankle injury and a few piss-poor games aside, he was an excellent inside midfielder who had no problem getting tough and winning the ball. He was winning it more than Kennedy, and Kennedy is considered the premier inside midfielder! Considered trade bait because he can't get a look in ahead of Cunningham, Lloyd, BJack, Rohan and other youngsters, even when we're getting slaughtered in the middle. Whilst he lacks pace, he sure doesn't lack in hand skills, but couldn't kick his way out of a wet paper bag.
For me, he has to be playing, and we just have to use KJack and Hanners on the outside to move the ball fast to players like Jetta who can run with it, or McVeigh who can pin point consistently over 45-50m's.
Reid
Came on with a tonne of potential and so far has lived up to none of it. For me, this can be traced all the way back to the North Melbourne game in 2012 when he had his shoulder knocked. Before that game he was throwing himself into packs, crashing them, even destroying them, and clunking marks regularly. Something about that game really threw his confidence, because he's been shit ever since. Sure, he played most of 2012 with an injury, but so did many other players, but never did they look so inept. I watched him drop marks without pressure that you'd expect someone in Auskick to take, but before that knock, was taking screamers.
He epitomizes confidence players; without confidence, he really looks bad, but with it, he looks like he could be the next Riewoldt. I think he really needs to go back to the reserves and get that confidence back, the desire to crash packs and start clunking it. We don't rely on him as much to get 2 or 3 goals each game, but we do need him to lead up the ground and take marks, or swing into defence and do it competently. He isn't small or as skinny as he was 2 years ago. His arms and shoulders are damn big so he shouldn't be getting shifted off the ball by some midget - he should be flattening them on the way to taking a screamer.
Team changes
I think it's imperative that the team is changed so that players like McVeigh and Jetta can have a better impact in their natural positions, and that the midfield is properly balanced. We need our best ball users on the outside, playing off the wings and half-back flanks. We can't do that if that consists of Rohan and Cunningham, and Jetta being played in no-mans land.
For me, I would send Cunningham to the subs bench, Rohan and Goodes back to reserves, move Jetta and Lloyd to the wings, start McVeigh and Jones (if he's good enough) at HBF, put Laidler in the pocket, bring Mitchell into the middle as the 2nd follower, start Hanners and KJack as HFF but obviously to follow the ball around and Heeny to the forward pocket. If Reid is to play, it has to be as the CHF with Franklin and Tippet deep forwards.
The team should be dynamic and intelligent enough to figure out who players where, but we have a penchant for having too many players around the ball and not enough forwards, or even outside players to move or receive the ball.
If Jones isn't good enough, I'd rather see Shaw playing HBF than in the pocket, he just gets exposed way too much.
