- Aug 21, 2007
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Example 1:
Broadbent kicks to Frampton who is one on one with Frawley. What does Frampton do in this situation? Instead of leading to the ball like any key forward would, he instead tries to engage with Frawley in a wresting contest, holds his arm and allows Frawley to gain separation and take an easy intercept mark. This is not fixed with AFL experience. Get to the fall of the ball.
That's not what happened at all. Frampton is anticipating the kick up the line and positioning for it. Broadbent kicks to the inside of the contest, behind Frampton and to Frawley's advantage, and Frampton only tries to engage with Frawley once it's clear that the ball has been kicked to Frawley's advantage.
Example 2:
Here we have Sam Gray kicking towards the hot spot where Frampton is again in a one on one contest. Frampton has nice separation here - but instead of making it hard for his opponent to get a feel for where he is, he moves towards him and allows the defender to engage and get an easy spoil on the ball. Stationary and stagnant. Should have waited and come in from the side to take the easy mark in front.
Frampton has nice separation because you can see him moving away from the hotspot to the left of screen immediately prior to the ball spilling to Gray. Gray then snaps a ball which is curving away from Frampton and to the Hawthorn player's side of the contest, which meant Frampton had to go through the defender to get to the fall of the ball. The defender wasn't going to simply stand there and let Frampton go past him to take an uncontested mark.
Example 3:
Everyone's favourite half-back, Matthew Broadbent, delivers a nice pass to Frampton on the lead. If a key forward gets two hands to the ball in this situation, it should be a mark. But Billy spills it. AFL experience isn't going to help with this.
He got to the fall of the ball here and would have marked it on the 2nd grab if Robbie didn't take it out of his hands. Not really sure he can be criticised for a skill error in not taking it one grab, but he'd protected the fall of the ball and controlled it, exactly what you've been criticising him for failing to do.
Example 4:
Because Frampton is more worried about wrestling with his opponent instead of actually making it difficult for him to engage by moving around to generate separation, he's not on the move when Gray delivers a ball into the forward 50, the ball hits the ground around 2 feet in front of him and Frampton ends up getting done holding the ball. Jonathon Brown blames the kick, but the reality is that if Frampton wasn't busy trying to outmuscle his opponent he would have got to that kick no problem.
Again, this isn't what happened at all. Frampton is held as he begins his lead which is both good defending and bad umpiring, but the uncontested kick still wasn't to his advantage. He delays his lead as the ball is clearly going to get to him on the half volley and is wrapped up as he takes possession by a far more experienced player. If you don't think more experience against AFL level defenders matters here, I don't know what to tell you. SANFL defenders wouldn't be good enough to get away with the hold to begin with.
Example 5:
Once again, Frampton is caught wrestling with his opponent, because his stagnant approach to the ball means it makes him very easy to engage by a defender. If he had been on the move, Rozee would have hit him with a lace out pass, but that would be all too hard, so Connor is forced to kick it long and deep and Billy gives away a dumb free kick. Again. Could have used the miles of free space in front of goal on the lead.
Again, this is just not what happened. Frampton did have separation and was leading across the face of the goal to open space. He doubles back because Rozee's kick goes behind him instead of in front of him, and then should have received a free kick for front on contact before being judged to have given one away. If Rozee kicks to Frampton's advantage, he takes an uncontested mark 15m out. Once Rozee has put the kick in the wrong spot, all he can do is try to protect the space and take the front on contact.
Bullshit free kick against regardless.
Example 6:
Frampton leads to the ball, but has zero separation on his opponent who is right on his hammer, hence why he spills the mark. Generating separation is about making dummy leads and being constantly moving in the forward line to catch your opponent flatfooted. That's why key forward is the hardest position on the ground.
He leads to the ball, but it's kicked to his right, which means he breaks stride and the defender makes contact. Should he have marked it anyway? Probably. Would an SANFL defender have been right on his hammer and in a position to spoil? No chance. This is another example of Frampton doing the right thing but being caught a bit by high quality defenders. He'll learn from contests like that. Regardless, he presented well to the ball and brought it to ground.
Example 7:
Here we see that the defender has over committed and all Frampton has to do is set himself with an arm bar to protect the space and he'll take an easy mark. Did he do so? Nope. No amount of AFL experience is going to help with this.
He loses his footing briefly under a high ball, which is the only thing that stops him from taking the mark. But the idea that positioning and bodywork experience at AFL level wouldn't have helped with this contest is silly.
Here's a great example of what I'm talking about. Example 8:
See Butters with his hand up in the air? See Frampton running a good 20 meters ahead of Butters? If Frampton had been closer, he could have brought the ball to ground for Butters. Instead, it's Butters who brings the ball to ground for Frampton...who ends up getting done holding the ball. Absolutely ridiculous.
The kick wasn't even to Frampton, and if it was it wasn't long enough, but it's another example of him generating the sort of separation you're talking about, he'd gotten miles ahead of his defender and took possession in the pack with his attach on the ball, leading to a HTB, which is a speed of the game and experience issue.
Ask yourself: if Dougal Howard or Charlie Dixon were in the positions that Frampton found himself in the first quarter, would we have gone scoreless? The answer is **** no.
Again, you're comparing a 3 gamer to guys with 39 and 126 games respectively. He wasn't perfect in these contests but watching the footage instead of looking at stills shows that he was generally presenting reasonably well and didn't get great delivery. Should he have held a mark or two in the forward line? Absolutely, but was his performance droppable when compared with say, Bonner's first several weeks? Howard's nightmare game? Are we a better football team now for having dropped him? Will we be a better football team moving forward for leaving him on 3 games instead of getting more experience into him?
(We would have scored in that quarter with a 2016 John Butcher in Frampton's position as well, but we decided to cut him and not have anyone else on the list who can do a job for us with Dixon out.)
If you don't think that experience made a difference here you are absolutely kidding yourself. The only way Frampton gets that experience is to be backed in at AFL level. Because of our poor key forward development, Frampton was generally matched up on a 200 gamer and previous All Australian in Frawley. If you don't think that experience makes a difference at the contest, I don't know what to tell you.