List Mgmt. Forwardline woes

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Tulip

Tulip

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May 3, 2009
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Seriously, what do we to do fix this.

Our Premiership forwardline was:

Neal-Bullen - McDonald - Spargo
Pickett - B.Brown - Fritsch

With Jackson spending time in there too.

Recently it’s essentially been:

Neal-Bullen - Melksham - Spargo
Pickett - B.Brown - Fritsch

With Gawn spending a fair chunk of the game in there too

It just looks dysfunctional now and has done lol season, including our 10 game streak, with the kind exception of the two Lions games. That’s with very little change from last year to this year.

Others in the mix: Bedford, Chandler, Laurie, M.Brown, Weideman, Van Rooyen, Moniz-Wakefield

How many of those depth players would get a game elsewhere as things stand?

Will analyse a bit more later on, but just wanted to crack open a discussion on this.

How do we fix it? Is it too late this year? Is Grundy a legitimate answer?
 
I still feel the entry is the main problem, not the cattle. However we could make some changes.

Gawn offers next to nothing up there. He ends up spoiling his own teammates and when he does mark it he is extremely unreliable. Move back to main ruck and leave Jacko up there more. Moving Gawn out might also help with this ridiculous notion of always bombing it on his head in the pocket.

Fritsch is a mainstay.

ANB offers nothing in there. He has been down on form all year and lucky to be in the team. Replace with Chandler.

Brown is not moving well and delivery is poor to him. Replace with JVR.

Melk is up and down. Would replace with TMac.

Spargo finds himself far too often upfield to impact around the goals. His delivery into the forward line is good though. Keep but ask to spend more time in forward half.

Pickett is great when he is on, but when not on he offers little. Needs to get up the ground more and impact like Spargo. Keep.
 
As I said to Lampers in another thread the problem is more across the half forward line. If Petracca for example was even half the forward Dusty is (was?) our forward line would look a lot better. We have no connection through the midfield and we don’t really have anyone who can go forward and break the game open. Kossie is the closest but he’s too inexperienced and inconsistent at this stage, and you can’t be relying upon on your 171cm small forward every week.

Melksham was a huge part of the reason we were able to score so heavily in 2018, along with Garlett. Just don’t have anything like that now in the way of talent. We either need someone like Laurie to debut and come on and turn out to be some kind of Shai Bolton/Zac Bailey/Chad Warner type or trade for Gulden, Papley, Hayward, Ben Ainsworth, etc. Would have been very ideal if Harley Bennell had worked out.
 

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Someone like Bedford has the flair and arguably the skills but doesn’t have the brains. Is there another Stengle type who could fall into our lap?

Tbt that 2017 game where Harmes went forward and tore the Saints apart. How do we have so many midfielders who just cannot impact forward consistently in spite of very much having the skill set
 
Gysberts2Bate said:
Someone like Bedford has the flair and arguably the skills but doesn’t have the brains. Is there another Stengle type who could fall into our lap?

Tbt that 2017 game where Harmes went forward and tore the Saints apart. How do we have so many midfielders who just cannot impact forward consistently in spite of very much having the skill set
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It's a pity we don't see Harmes drift forward more. He has a lot more ability and sense around the goals than Trac does.
 
We could have all six of the All Australian forwards playing and our attack would still be putrid.

The main problem is the delivery; we just bomb it in and hope for the best.

We looked better with T-Mac in the mix as he had a knack of creating a contest and giving our crumbers a chance. He was also a dead-eye if he clunked the mark.

Gawn is OK as a marking target, but an unreliable shot. He would be more useful if he played out of the goal square to force a 1v1 and give more space in the arc for Fritsch and BBB to lead to. They just tend to clump together at the moment and are all less than useless when the ball hits the deck.

Our playstyle does BBB no favours. He looks like Tarzan and plays like Jane. He needs the delivery to him on the tit. Instead we just bomb it in his direction and he either runs straight under the ball, or tried to jump in from the side. He never bodies a defender to make the contest a 50/50. He is not the guy that is ever going to crash a pack.

Fritsch and Pickett are good. Although I would prefer Pickett playing the Spargo role as he offers more further up the ground. I would rather have Spargo closer to goal to make the entry kick.

Sparrow and ANB offer nothing.

Petracca is one of our most dynamic forwards, but he was putrid last night. But in fairness, he had a broken leg. I think the midfield mix for next season should be looked at to see if we can get Petracca more time in attack.

And just generally, our midfield does not hit the scoreboard often enough.

If Jackson stays, I think he would be better resting forward than Gawn as he offers more when the ball hits the deck.
 
Daemon said:
It's a pity we don't see Harmes drift forward more. He has a lot more ability and sense around the goals than Trac does.
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it’s the part of trac’s game with the most scope for improvement. With his size and explosiveness (plus agility) he should be doing a lot more damage inside 50 even aside from his poor goal kicking.
 
We've definitely missed T Mac since he's been injured. I'm looking forward to seeing JVR when he gets his opportunity. Also I like the sound of Harmes playing a permanent part in our forward half mix, he's got the attributes and IMO would make us more dangerous there.
 
Entry is the problem for sure, i do think we need another tall for structure and competitveness.

Frtisch is doing well either way but i'd rather someone draw a key back away from him and not let ben brown be our sole focal point because he is terribly misjudging the ball, not that the kicks favour him anyway. But we're not getting much from Ben Brown in a pack as the only contested option
 
If you were a forward looking for a new team would you want to come to us the way the ball is delivered?

You get two good users across half forward or the wing that can hit a target and our forward line looks better than it’s been performing.

It would be nice to grab another younger forward like ricciardi to play with JVR for the next few years.
 
T Mac for me has been the difference , he made the smalls around him look good and gave them opportunitIes.

Think Ben Brown has run his race, would prefer we persevere with youth like Weideman but not sure he is the answer either.
Next year blood Van Rooyen in lieu of Melksham
 
Slartibartfast said:
youth like Weideman
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Mate the last two Coleman winners were drafted the year Weid was. He’s not young at all in football terms. He’s Oliver’s age.
 

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Slartibartfast said:
He is 24-25. For a key position he still has years ahead of him. Ben Brown is 30, big difference.
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Do you think he is going to improve now though?
I don't think he is and he has had more than ample opportunity to do so. We're better off trying to get a pick for him and get another player in to replace him. The sad thing is he has all the physical attributes to be a decent player, just not the mindset.
 
If all brown has is 'hit him on the tit' then why even play him? Mitch Brown would kick 5 it was that easy to hit him on the tit. Browns so ******* gumpy and useless he can't even get separation on a defender so it's not gonna happen. He's basically an accurate kicking dinosaur ruckman. Until he's gone we can't even start to fix it. You don't need tall marking blokes you need guys that create contests, win one on ones and can gather it at ground level. We have 2 of those.
 
netslave said:
Do you think he is going to improve now though?
I don't think he is and he has had more than ample opportunity to do so. We're better off trying to get a pick for him and get another player in to replace him. The sad thing is he has all the physical attributes to be a decent player, just not the mindset.
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As I said in my first post I dont think he is the answer but moving forward i would prefer the younger guy who has not reached his potential over the older guy who has passed his potential.
I would be happy if we could get some value for him in the trade room.
 
Daemon said:
Mate, he is not AFL standard. We have tried and persisted so many times and he has shown nothing. I like the guy but there comes a time you have to cut your losses.
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As I said , I dont think weideman is the answer. At this point he and Brown are at MFC so out of the two I would prefer they went with weideman. It was a comparative statement on who we should play On our current list.
Let’s see if we can get a trade done , that would be good.
We are still stuck with Sideshow Bob.
 
Debate all you like but it says everything about Weideman that a clearly cooked Brown is still playing whilst he sits fully fit in the twos.

He will get traded for a pick swap in the 4th round, if anyone wants him
 
Getting quality ball users is the easiest way to fix our scoring issues under the current game plan given there is no KPF worth trading for out there (that we know of right now)

Or ask the AFL if we can play Brisbane and the Dogs every week.







troll dancing GIF
 
It’s attitude adjustment from Goodwin that is required.

Forward line is supposed to be there to kick goals. But go through our forward line:

Spargo - there for defensive running/workrate
ANB - there for defensive running/work rate
Melksham- Defensive forward
Sparrow - Out of position mid there for tackling

4/7 regular forwards not goalkickers.

Clearly Kosi has weapons but because of our attitude and system we take them away.

Fritsch is a gun forward but we play a style which kills his strengths.

Yes, we need better talls but on the rare occasion we actually move the ball properly even Brown still looks dangerous. I think any two competent AFL standard talls would make do in our forward line of our entries were fixed.
 
Agree with everyone here that entry is our issue. Bomb high, long and into the pocket every ******* time. Instead of having our forwards lead out, separate from their defender and have their lead honoured.

That cattle in there isn’t much chop for the most part outside of Fritta and the odd Kosi cameo. The entry doesn’t help anyone though.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com
 
So now every one in the football world knows how we bomb it long to the pocket nearly all the time , what is coach going to do about it ? Maybe the useless media can ask Goodwin if its an instruction or are the players just doing it ? I won't hold my breath .
 
The cattle are average, but the system completely kills whatever half a chance they have.

Quick, unpredictable entries would be nice. Not repeatedly to the pocket where Brown, Gawn and Fritta all just smash into each other in an ineffectual mess.

Sparrow and ANB have no business in the forward line (or possibly even the team) and offer nothing. Trac, Harmes and Spargo need to be spending more time in there. Melk had a mini resurgence but we clearly can't rely on him - every week is a roll of the dice as to whether he'll pull a ridiculous game out of his arse or go full turd for the rest of his career.

The talls situation is shot. If we can't land a decent FF in the offseason then we should run with all of Fritta, Smith and JVR tbh. Completely change the dynamic and see what happens.

Feels like we actually need an extra player of each type - an exciting small, a mid sized explosive mid/fwd and a tall that can actually make a god damn contest.
 
Dancing Potato said:
Not repeatedly to the pocket where Brown, Gawn and Fritta all just smash into each other in an ineffectual mess.
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Love react given for this alone.
 
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