Forward Structure (Target)

[Stephen2]

In 2005 we used a four forward marking target structure:
Perrie, McGregor, Hentschel, Welsh

With Ricciuto, Thompson, Goodwin & Edwards in the mix as resting mids, kicking goals, and no real crumbers (McLeod & Skipworth 13 & 12 goals).

I thought the structure worked well, with the lack of a crumber.

Should our target structure in the future be simlar?
Perrie = Gill/McKernan(?)
McGregor = Tippett
Hentschel = Hentschel/Davis(?)
Welsh = Walker

With Thompson, Goodwin, Edwards, Vince resting mids, and Jacky/Douglas/(?) as crumbers?

Does anyone else have a difference of opinion in how the forward structure should look (use players as examples)...

 

[WALL-e]

I personally like the line up of

Vince/Porps Sellar/Gill/Hentschel Hentschel/Goodwin

Walker Tippett Jacky/Douglas

 

[betterthanu]

I hope they trial cook as a small forward in the NAB cup.

Is very very quick, is an excellent tackler judging from the trial game and can kick a goal. If he has the instinct to read the ball off the pack then i think he could do a great job in that position. What do other humans think?

 

[IddyBiddy]

I like the structure presented, but def Gill in the Perrie role, he even has the poor kicking boots.

Perrie - 39 goals in 2005
McGregor - 31 goals
Hentschel - 26 Goals
Welsh - 58 goals

Can we expect 39 goals from Gill - i hope so, something over 30 is required from him this year IMO.

Can we expect 31 goals from Tippett - it'll be tough but not unreasonable to expect so.

Can we expect 26 goals in 2009 from Hentschel? For his sake i hope so, that would be a terrific return.

We would be crazy to expect 58 goals from Walker this year and this is where our structure falls slightly. I think we can hope for 18-25 and pray for more. But basically that leaves us 40 goals short prior to considering the outputs of our midfielders in 2005. Douglas plus either a Jacky or Cook or even Danger could be expected to give us 10-15 goals up forward, but we'll still need an attacking midfielder or two to kick some goals for us.

 

[Stephen2]

That's a good extension of the comparison there IddyBiddy... It really does highlight that we'll probably have a lack of goals from our talls this year, even if everything goes right for us, and god forbid we have a bad injury or two.

Hopefully the Porpoise can kick a lot of goals as a midfielder/forward, and I always feel that Thompson is a damaging goal kicker when moved up there.

We'll really need a couple of smalls to get goals too...

Does anyone have any other formations that they think we should aim for? Or is the 3 talls, 1 med/tall, 1 medium, 1 small the consensus?

 

[Coopers]

Vince/Porps Sellar/Gill/Hentschel Hentschel/Goodwin

Walker Tippett Jacky/Douglas

I'm worried about Tippet being more than 10 meters from goal.

 

[WALL-e]

That's why i've anchored him in the square. But apparently he's been working on his kicking so all should be fine.

 

[spexau]

Didn't we have Bode as our small forward in 05? Or was he injured then? I remember him having a phenominal amount of tackles in the forward 50 one season. Can't remember if that was 05 or 06.

Anyway we'll see this Saturday I guess. Hentschell, Gill, Walker with a resting ruckman is similar to what you've mentioned (noting that Tippett is out).

 

[Geoffa32]

That's why i've anchored him in the square. But apparently he's been working on his kicking so all should be fine.

IMO that is his main problem as a forward. Not knowing when to lead and when to stay. His kicking aint that bad, and possibly improved this year. I hope they have also worked on his leading skills. As he generally gets it or we crumb it when he does move.

 

[lacrow]

I guess the issue to me is not who is going to be a dominant forward but rather, how are we going to score goals effectively given the amount of flooding that is going on in today's game.

IMHO, dominant forwards are a thing of the past (except for a few exceptions). As long as teams flood back into defense, it is going to be harder and harder to score goals no matter how talented you are.

I frankly don't know what the solution is. Part of me was thinking that we should change our structure up to have someone like Tippet operate almost as a Ruckman up forward. In this situation we just bomb it in as quickly as possible and have Tippet try to palm the ball down to one of our roving players as he would in a ball up situation. This would require a completely new strategy for foward play and cause us to look at stocking the area with midfielder-type players. I don't know if it would work at all, but it's just a thought I had.

 

[WALL-e]

IMO that is his main problem as a forward. Not knowing when to lead and when to stay. His kicking aint that bad, and possibly improved this year. I hope they have also worked on his leading skills. As he generally gets it or we crumb it when he does move.

I want him leading as well, but when the leads not there, we can use his biggest strength in his contested marking ability and quick recovery to crumb himself.

Walker should be our number one lead up option as he's probably more advanced in that area than Kurt. None the less I hope to see him moving around more so he gets less double teams this year.

 

[cammo84]

I guess the issue to me is not who is going to be a dominant forward but rather, how are we going to score goals effectively given the amount of flooding that is going on in today's game.

IMHO, dominant forwards are a thing of the past (except for a few exceptions). As long as teams flood back into defense, it is going to be harder and harder to score goals no matter how talented you are.

I frankly don't know what the solution is. Part of me was thinking that we should change our structure up to have someone like Tippet operate almost as a Ruckman up forward. In this situation we just bomb it in as quickly as possible and have Tippet try to palm the ball down to one of our roving players as he would in a ball up situation. This would require a completely new strategy for foward play and cause us to look at stocking the area with midfielder-type players. I don't know if it would work at all, but it's just a thought I had.

If he's able to get a palm onto the ball, then why wouldn't you want him to just mark it?

 

[johnnypanther]

I hope they trial cook as a small forward in the NAB cup.

Is very very quick, is an excellent tackler judging from the trial game and can kick a goal. If he has the instinct to read the ball off the pack then i think he could do a great job in that position. What do other humans think?

I think Cook is better suited on a wing because his strengths appear to be his running & carrying the ball & crossing the lines. I see him as a goal kicking winger.

 

[Tex200]

I like the structure presented, but def Gill in the Perrie role, he even has the poor kicking boots.

Perrie - 39 goals in 2005
McGregor - 31 goals
Hentschel - 26 Goals
Welsh - 58 goals

Can we expect 39 goals from Gill - i hope so, something over 30 is required from him this year IMO.

Can we expect 31 goals from Tippett - it'll be tough but not unreasonable to expect so.

Can we expect 26 goals in 2009 from Hentschel? For his sake i hope so, that would be a terrific return.

We would be crazy to expect 58 goals from Walker this year and this is where our structure falls slightly. I think we can hope for 18-25 and pray for more. But basically that leaves us 40 goals short prior to considering the outputs of our midfielders in 2005. Douglas plus either a Jacky or Cook or even Danger could be expected to give us 10-15 goals up forward, but we'll still need an attacking midfielder or two to kick some goals for us.

I think this is an intersting post in so far as it details our key goalscorers in 2005. Lets look at them individually....Perrie, honest but not a star...Kenny, honest but not a star....Hentschel,potentiall a star but he wanst quite at that time....Welsh, inconsistent, not a star.

What does this tell us? How well our forward line operates is not so much about personal and structure...its really more about having some good average talls that compete...and winning MIDFIELDERS. Winning midfielders are the key. If they win the ball and deliver properly there is no question we have the players to kick a winning score as we did in 2005/06 (finals excepted where we got blown away by WCE midfield).

 

[Vince Van Mackay]

Exactly, look at Geelong's forward line, it is the definition of average.

 

[budget]

really its not rocket science,surely if you have midfielders that can deliver the ball lace out,( V B , RADAR, MACKAY) and forwards that lead to vacant space and we have then problem solved.the trouble is for the last 18 years we just bomb it in and hope for the best. every year it is the same and i have seen no reason to expect any difference this year.

 

[beartoo]

We won a couple of premierships in 97/98. I'm curious to know if you think we were bombing it in then, or were those 2 years exceptions out of the 18?

 

[jackster83]

If Geelong's forward line is "average", then what does that make ours? They have Steve Johnson (2x AA) and Mooney and Stokes who played in the HOF game last year.

I can't see Gill kicking 39 goals. He tries hard but averaging a goal a game is simply not good enough for a key forward. Plus he can't kick and is injury prone. Good bloke though.

The rest of our tall forwards are either coming back from injury (Hentschel) or are young and skinny. This is going to place more responsibility on the smaller Porp, Goodwin, Thompson and Edwards to kick goals. Maybe we could throw Sellar or Moran in the deep end (Full Back) and throw the truck up forward for a while, with instructions to kill, eat and destroy opposition defenders.

 

[Vince Van Mackay]

If Geelong's forward line is "average", then what does that make ours? They have Steve Johnson (2x AA) and Mooney and Stokes who played in the HOF game last year.
.

They aren't terrible, but they aren't great, made to look good by a talented defence and Midfield playing out of its skin. West Coast won a premiership with an ordinary forward line, they just had a dominant midfield, and now that that midfield dominance is gone their Forward line is shown for what it really is, and honestly it wasn't even that great in 2006.

 

[Crow-mo]

why does anyone think a lead up chf has to kick 39 goals?

have you guys landed from the planet zog and you have just discovered this thing called footy? FFS.

 

[Stephen2]

For example, a different structure we used in 1998 to good success was to have basically a forward line full of highly skilled midfielders/goalsneaks, and a good lead up CHF or two.

Jars 45 goals
Vardy 44
McLeod 30
Ricciuto 22
Robran 22
James 15
Smart 13
Eccles 13

Does anyone think this model is a good one? Or is it a case of we made the best of what we had in that year?

For example, we could try and emulate it to some degree with a setup of Thompson, Porps, Goody, McLeod, Douglas, Hentschel/Gill/Walker all predominantly as forwards.... Any value in that? Or is it robbing too many other areas of need?

 

[Crow-mo]

the structure is not the problem, the efficiency of movement into the forward 50 is.

 

[IddyBiddy]

why does anyone think a lead up chf has to kick 39 goals?

have you guys landed from the planet zog and you have just discovered this thing called footy? FFS.

Robert Murphy kicked 30 plus goals last year, while 39 might be way over the top, it's not completely other-worldly to expect Gill to be averaging at least a goal a game.

 

[cmndstab]

I don't give a damn if Gill doesn't kick a single goal this year if he controls CHF and spots up other forwards multiple times a game. Gill isn't actually a bad kick to a lead, it's his goalkicking that is shocking.

 

[Vince Van Mackay]

Robert Murphy kicked 30 plus goals last year, while 39 might be way over the top, it's not completely other-worldly to expect Gill to be averaging at least a goal a game.

Yeah well, Robert Murphy looks like a zombie.