Preview Hawthorn v North Melbourne AAMI Community series clash, Saturday March 6th 4.10pm at Arden Street

[The Spirit of Cricket]

Burger has always played pretty much anywhere. Mitchell went to a back flank to distribute the footy. Lewis spent years refining his running style, shedding kilos to play a running game.

O'Meara and Mitchell are going to multi-skill where? What skills do they have outside of being an inside ball gatherer?

so why can't either of them do the same? for example tom mitchell is a really hard-worker and clocks up huge numbers in the GPS and is elite with his hands

JOM, as I discussed earlier, in space can be a fantastic distributor of the footy and has deceptive speed (though not as much as he did with GC due to injury, unfortunately)

Burger never really played forward either and was mostly inside mid with PA before coming across

anyway, i'm not even arguing with you on my behalf, this is pretty much verbatim what clarko said. if you dont agree with what im sayin thats fine, but youre disagreeing with clarko by doing so and its not a fair discussion to have without listening to the pod

 

[Brishawk]

Burger has always played pretty much anywhere. Mitchell went to a back flank to distribute the footy. Lewis spent years refining his running style, shedding kilos to play a running game.

O'Meara and Mitchell are going to multi-skill where? What skills do they have outside of being an inside ball gatherer?

Listen to the Clarko interview.

 

[Lotus]

The club just send out email for those who wish to attend. But it's limited spot available so be hurry .

 

[HODGEYROAD]

Really hope I can get a ticket for this, only game all season that'll have my beloved standing room.

 

[Roger Rogerson]

Really hope I can get a ticket for this, only game all season that'll have my beloved standing room.

Is that so your seat number can't be reported to security by other attendees?

 

[Ned Ryerson]

Really hope I can get a ticket for this, only game all season that'll have my beloved standing room.

There’s standing room at the MCG - granted you mean out on the grass hill like back in the day? I have opposition standing room behind my member’s seats - because they’re usually drunk and surly it makes for great geeing up when we win.

 

[Hawk_francais]

Burger has always played pretty much anywhere. Mitchell went to a back flank to distribute the footy. Lewis spent years refining his running style, shedding kilos to play a running game.

O'Meara and Mitchell are going to multi-skill where? What skills do they have outside of being an inside ball gatherer?

O’Meara has plenty of skills, you’re being incredibly pessimistic. He runs well enough to play wing, can snap goals and knew how to fly for a mark when he was younger at least. Has been forced into a grunt-work role, but in my opinion he’ll be better in space.

I also have reservations about the positional merry go round, but Jaeger is one where I’d welcome it. He has serious athleticism and I want to see it.

 

[Ned Ryerson]

Tom Mitchell isn’t the worst goal kicker either - if we wanted more midfield rotations I could see him taking on the role Taz had later in his career resting on the half forward line. I probably wouldn’t utilise him off half back like Sammy did later in his career as he doesn’t quite have Sam’s vision and kicking - but he’s not completely without additional roles outside of the grunt work.

 

[Boxhead182]

There’s standing room at the MCG - granted you mean out on the grass hill like back in the day? I have opposition standing room behind my member’s seats - because they’re usually drunk and surly it makes for great geeing up when we win.

Mate security are going to be red hot this year. Covid marshals you name it. Security will have the same vibe as Essendon 2019 at Marvel when security went nuts. I highly doubt standing room will be available this year and you’ll be muzzled up in your seat being covid safe. I’d rather go to a pub and be with mates with atmosphere tbh.

 

[Bugs1977]

Tom Mitchell isn’t the worst goal kicker either - if we wanted more midfield rotations I could see him taking on the role Taz had later in his career resting on the half forward line. I probably wouldn’t utilise him off half back like Sammy did later in his career as he doesn’t quite have Sam’s vision and kicking - but he’s not completely without additional roles outside of the grunt work.

Agreed. He played forward a fair bit in the 2016 GF and kicked a couple of goals. He was the Swines best on that day too.

 

[StillAtLarge]

Agreed. He played forward a fair bit in the 2016 GF and kicked a couple of goals. He was the Swines best on that day too.

Better than JPK?

 

[StillAtLarge]

O’Meara has plenty of skills, you’re being incredibly pessimistic. He runs well enough to play wing, can snap goals and knew how to fly for a mark when he was younger at least. Has been forced into a grunt-work role, but in my opinion he’ll be better in space.

I also have reservations about the positional merry go round, but Jaeger is one where I’d welcome it. He has serious athleticism and I want to see it.

I love Jaeger but he's a butcher

 

[Judd2Sewell]

Better than JPK?

Nope, he wasn't

 

[Judd2Sewell]

Mitchell is good at sharking it out of the pack and snapping it around goals.

 

[Brant]

Mitchell is good at sharking it out of the pack and snapping it around goals.

Is a handy skill to have, but hard to structure a team around

 

[Nastyfish]

Is a handy skill to have, but hard to structure a team around

Mitchell is a Brad Sewell type, not versatile like the other mids from that era, but outstanding at what he does. Worpell a bit the same, also shiels and cousins - all of them likely wasting time and not scaring oppo in the least if put on the wing, HFF or FP. Omeara more strings to his bow. Wingate the most versatile of the lot. We do need much more tricks to our bow in the guts.

 

[Brant]

Mitchell is a Brad Sewell type, not versatile like the other mids from that era, but outstanding at what he does. Worpell a bit the same, also shiels and cousins - all of them likely wasting time and not scaring oppo in the least if put on the wing, HFF or FP. Omeara more strings to his bow. Wingate the most versatile of the lot. We do need much more tricks to our bow in the guts.

Sure do.
JO’M can play the full suite of roles: inside mid, defensive mid & burst/outside mid & HFF - but Wingard does both outside mid & HFF roles better (probs - will be interesting to see JO’M playing more outside this year).

Definitely need probs 2x more dynamic/outside mids come season’s end - guys that can play HFF as well.

 

[WWSD]

None of our current inside midfielders are elite kicks. Hopefully Downie can change all that soon.

 

[The Spirit of Cricket]

Mitchell is good at sharking it out of the pack and snapping it around goals.

he's a good tackler too (hopefully with his shoulder reco he'll be back to his normal self this year) and has some of, if not the fastest/best hands in the AFL which makes me think he would actually be quite effective as a resting small fwd, just without the leg speed to apply a huge amount of pressure

but in stoppages he would be really dangerous setting up other fwds or as you say, kicking them himself

for all his lack of versatility i think people seem to forget he won a brownlow in 18 and is one of the best mids in the comp. Not on the Bont, Cripps etc. level but definitely alongside Zezz, prime Sloane, Parker etc. and as good as Sewell was Titch is pretty clearly a level above that. He just lacks the breakaway speed and size that allow those game-breaking mids to rest fwd and take contested grabs etc. Outside of Dusty none of those mids are particularly outstanding kicks either

 

[KermitJagger]

We weren’t particularly crash hot in clearances during our golden era either. I think what Clarko was saying was that our best midfields at our peak were multi faceted and unpredictable, where we could rotate 8 or 9 players through in any given game. We’ve lost that a bit over the past few seasons and to help bring that back, Tom and JOM need to be able to play elsewhere at times.

Clearances and contested possessions weren't important during those eras. Particularly because clearances are pointless unless they're to advantage, and contested possession mainly mean you're getting more ball under direct pressure and you can't break away from the contest.

We tracked a lot of more advanced metrics, and were among the first to do so - ground ball gets in lieu of contested possessions, clearance to advantage in lieu of clearances, forward half pressure acts, forward half intercepts etc. So when pundits talked about things like Hawthorn having poor clearance differentials, they never brought out that opposition clearances were rarely to advantage. When they talked about us getting less contested ball, they never brought out that our on ball pressure acts were far higher.

The issue at the moment is that we're getting less clearances, but we're not getting clearances to advantage or spreading either - with guys like Titch they tend to stay in close to the contest so oppo midfields can say "well, we'll leave Tom alone and cut off the guys on the outside". That's where variety in the midfield comes in handy, as it's very difficult to plan each player's opponent when their opponent is likely to change - it's why guys like Dusty and Danger can be such good goal kicking mids, but if they played exclusively up forward they would likely drop off in output as clubs could better prepare for them.

 

[Bugs1977]

Better than JPK?

IMO yes Mitchell was their best. Titch did more in less time on the ground but that's just my opinion from watching the game. JPK had a good game too so I'm not taking anything away from his performance.

I'm not angry with the way things worked out with the Swines anyway because its obvious that they had a log jam with on ballers with delivered us Titch.

 

[OnTheRocks]

he would actually be quite effective as a resting small fwd, just without the leg speed to apply a huge amount of pressure

His pressure wouldn’t be from the chase, run down type play like Jr.Boy or Poppy but perhaps more of pressure by accumulation of possessions. He would definitely get his fair share and create scoring opportunities

 

[KermitJagger]

Tom Mitchell isn’t the worst goal kicker either - if we wanted more midfield rotations I could see him taking on the role Taz had later in his career resting on the half forward line. I probably wouldn’t utilise him off half back like Sammy did later in his career as he doesn’t quite have Sam’s vision and kicking - but he’s not completely without additional roles outside of the grunt work.

Titch isn't the worst kick in general IMO. He clearly suffers by playing an inside role in that regard. When he gets it in general play he has a very reliable left foot kick, keeps it low and to advantage.

 

[HODGEYROAD]

Mate security are going to be red hot this year. Covid marshals you name it. Security will have the same vibe as Essendon 2019 at Marvel when security went nuts. I highly doubt standing room will be available this year and you’ll be muzzled up in your seat being covid safe. I’d rather go to a pub and be with mates with atmosphere tbh.

This Ned Ryerson

 

[Blackhawk42]

IMO yes Mitchell was their best. Titch did more in less time on the ground but that's just my opinion from watching the game. JPK had a good game too so I'm not taking anything away from his performance.

I'm not angry with the way things worked out with the Swines anyway because its obvious that they had a log jam with on ballers with delivered us Titch.

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I've watched that game back about 10 times. JPK put in probably the best non-Norm Smith effort i've ever seen for a losing grand final side. Single handedly brought Sydney back into the game in the second quarter.

Titch would have been close to their second best on the day though.