Analysis Lack of genuine midfield depth. No half back accumulators.

[DarwinRoo]

So we need a chipscab seagull?

 

[kaboom kid]

Exactly, while it was a courageous performance, it was a night where someone could have written a new chapter to their career.

At one stage we had an injured Dal and Cunners in the centre square while Danger and Selwood just waltzed out of the place.

LMac might be worth a try in a run with type role? He has the defensive and midfield (at underage level) background... Would give us extra flexibility if it works. Plus we have an army of half back flankers to take his spot....

It's time we backed some of the players to go to another level.

 

[Angus1]

I can't work out how a clearly injured Cunnington was supposed to play in the middle against an outstanding Danger and Selwood.
Surely sitting him in the goal square was the best option.
I don't think we could have beaten Geelong once Swallow and Cunners went down but it certainly was a good opportunity to try something different.

 

[Benno_900]

I would've liked to see the result if we played against a concussed Dangerfield, a crocked Selwood and a hampered Guthrie.

Perspective.

 

[The_Ru]

This loss isn't the end of the world BUT the game was decided in a 10 minute period in the 3rd quarter when Cunnington was inexplicably in the middle despite being unable to run. Dangerfield and Selwood murdered us with spread and pace and it was embarrassing. I said at the time it would have been worthwhile throwing Atley in the middle and just telling him to go flat out in whichever direction the ball travelled. At the very least Danger and Selwood would have had to kick under pressure. i also couldn't believe we didn't throw someone (Drew? Wood?) back into defence after their second centre clearance. At least try and stem the bleeding for a while until we could regroup.

 

[Caracas]

I'm not sure parking two injured players in the forward line would have worked very well. Cunners could barely run and Nicky Dal was restricted. In the event that the ball went in their direction, the opposing defenders would have easily outpointed them in the race for the ball and then run off them and created more attacking options for the Cats.

Yep, exactly, but you can't let the truth get in the way of a good rant, can you? Unfortunately, we can never know what the outcome of the game would have been if Swallow, Cunnington, Dal Santo and Nahas had survived the first quarter. However, we can all agree that it must have had a BIG EFFECT. The best thing is to just park this game in the "tough night out" basket and look forward to next week.

 

[Hearts to hearts]

At 10-2 and after two PFs I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but we do not have coaches that grow the magnets around between games, let alone in games. Gibson wing to mid is a big move for them. LT higher up the ground sometimes, and tall forwards helping out in defence as needed. A bit of HB wing shuffling. That's it. It's the same approach that saw us face Swans at the MCG with three tall forwards to their one. We practice and play our way. Which is fine except when the injuries pile up - and we'd play our sixth best small forward rather than change the structure.

As I say, no value judgement, especially as the big picture still looks pretty good. But I am surprised anyone was surprised.

 

[lockheed]

It does all start in the middle but what happens when it goes forward where a injured Cunnington or Dal Santo is playing? I'll tell you, it gets rebounded at a rapid rate from half back. There was no fixing or solution to what happened last night.

We saw the result of Cunnington playing in the midfield during the first part of the third quarter. It wasn't all down to him, and I'm not blaming him, but Geelong broke the game open during those few minutes. It was the wrong call to have him in the centre square, and if he couldn't play up forward, then perhaps he shouldn't have been on the field.

 

[Only Forwards]

At 10-2 and after two PFs I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but we do not have coaches that grow the magnets around between games, let alone in games. Gibson wing to mid is a big move for them. LT higher up the ground sometimes, and tall forwards helping out in defence as needed. A bit of HB wing shuffling. That's it. It's the same approach that saw us face Swans at the MCG with three tall forwards to their one. We practice and play our way. Which is fine except when the injuries pile up - and we'd play our sixth best small forward rather than change the structure.

As I say, no value judgement, especially as the big picture still looks pretty good. But I am surprised anyone was surprised.

Not surprised.

I do however thing sometime going off script may show us things we may not have known were there.

There are two moves I think we should have had a crack with.

Atley or Luke into the middle.

They may have had no impact, or they may have halved some contests and gotten some pill.

Either way we don't know now and we missed the opportunity to try it.

 

[Gasometer]

Turnovers from front to back are our achilles heel.

 

[Hearts to hearts]

Not surprised.

I do however thing sometime going off script may show us things we may not have known were there.

There are two moves I think we should have had a crack with.

Atley or Luke into the middle.

They may have had no impact, or they may have halved some contests and gotten some pill.

Either way we don't know now and we missed the opportunity to try it.

I actually agree with you - it was an extraordinary situation, the usual wasn't working, and there was an opportunity to try something really different, even for ten minutes, to try to slow the avalanche. Really couldn't have turned out worse than what happened in that short burst.

And I agree with the premise of the thread, that we could be an even better team if a bit less rigid with roles.

But experience suggests the coaches we have know something about what they are doing, so I can wait to see how their plan works out.

 

[The_Ru]

Not surprised.

I do however thing sometime going off script may show us things we may not have known were there.

There are two moves I think we should have had a crack with.

Atley or Luke into the middle.

They may have had no impact, or they may have halved some contests and gotten some pill.

Either way we don't know now and we missed the opportunity to try it.

Even Waite into the middle might have been worth a try. He was doing eff all up forward.

 

[Rockstar6]

We saw the result of Cunnington playing in the midfield during the first part of the third quarter. It wasn't all down to him, and I'm not blaming him, but Geelong broke the game open during those few minutes. It was the wrong call to have him in the centre square, and if he couldn't play up forward, then perhaps he shouldn't have been on the field.

We were still on track for a loss if Cunners played in the midfield like he continued to do, play forward or sat the game out.

 

[Caracas]

We saw the result of Cunnington playing in the midfield during the first part of the third quarter. It wasn't all down to him, and I'm not blaming him, but Geelong broke the game open during those few minutes. It was the wrong call to have him in the centre square, and if he couldn't play up forward, then perhaps he shouldn't have been on the field.

I'm sure Brad and the coaching staff backed Cunnington in at the start of the 3rd, in the hope that he would fire up like Wells did against St Kilda. I know, at the game, when I saw Cunnington come back on the ground, it gave me a bit of a lift at the time. Unfortunately, it backfired big time. There you go.

 

[Viper2Jester]

Add a fully fit Swallow, NDS and Cunnington to stop the ball getting out so easily and Jacobs to tag and it's a different story. Selwood and Dangerfield basically took turns spreading hard from a stoppage, knowing we couldn't really do much about it.

I agree. I think our midfield is fine and deep enough when fully fit.....

........but when you take out 4 of our best 10 players (and a very important tagger) we are stuffed

BUT i'd say pretty much any other team would be also. I posted in the other thread take out 4 of their best players and lets see how they go. No team can cover that, especially when it happens during the game.

Get fit and key players back i'm confident we can beat the Cats.

 

[Viper2Jester]

What's funny is I was told that BMac's low double digit possessions is more important than having Swallow out there getting 10 clearances, 10 tackles and 20 odd which we know he can.

How'd that work out?

 

[TruRoos7]

I can recall a sad day that a certain chicken winging penishead was injured and sat parked in the pocket and kicked several goals against us. The problem goes back to the coach, he didn't try anything different not even for a second. Just expected Cunners and co. to chase and run as if they were fit. Whilst we would more than likely still have lost anything is worth a shot when you are players down.

 

[deano28]

I would've liked to see the result if we played against a concussed Dangerfield, a crocked Selwood and a hampered Guthrie.

Perspective.

Pretty much it in a nutshell .

 

[Tas]

No sides are going to be able to cope with the number of injuries during a game when they are playing a decent team that is playing well, just forget about that fantasy. If they were playing s**t (ie how they played against Carlton and Collingwood) then perhaps, but not the way they played on Friday night. You just have to accept it is not going to end well.

We had Jacobs, Higgins, Garner and Anderson down before the game, not sure which sides are going around you think have 10 good quality AFL standard midfielders sitting in their second division. Nobody does.

My disappointment was that we flogged Cunnington and Dal Santo and both had no impact on the game after their injury, so what was the point? Make sure Cunnington missed another important game? Good job.

Just throw McDonald, McKenzie, McMillan, Mullett, etc on the ball, push Wood down, even stick spud in the middle at center bounces to put some physical pressure on Danger at stoppages, bring Waite down back and open up the forward line. We weren't going to win irrespective the changes we made, but we shouldn't have flogged injured players, we should have given under-utilised midfielders more of a go and it was a perfect opportunity to experiment.

 

[Tas]

Bastinac played 17 games last year, wanted to go for more opportunity. Greenwood played an entire season, left for more opportunity. What kind of donkeys do you think we would have sitting in the VFL? We couldn't even hold a B-Grader ruckman in Currie due to how bad the league is in general. There is NO way we can have the kind of depth people are dreaming about. You have to rely on the young kids to fill in the catastrophe level of injury depth.

 

[koshari]

Some of the opinions here suggest problems wirh midfield depth but in reality i beleive we have done a fair job of shoring up the issue.

-you cannot make players come to the club.
-Hibbert and Clarke were obviously drafted to address this issue but will take time to come on. Few of the more fancied midfielders other clubs have drafted recently have stepped straight in and owned the middle. Even Billings with so much high end class is going through a grey patch.

 

[Donkey Chop]

Bastinac played 17 games last year, wanted to go for more opportunity. Greenwood played an entire season, left for more opportunity. What kind of donkeys do you think we would have sitting in the VFL? We couldn't even hold a B-Grader ruckman in Currie due to how bad the league is in general. There is NO way we can have the kind of depth people are dreaming about. You have to rely on the young kids to fill in the catastrophe level of injury depth.

I can't speak/write for everyone but I think the idea is that we don't have enough players running through the middle in general.
We leave it to a small group and that's it. It's frustrating.

 

[Tas]

I can't speak/write for everyone but I think the idea is that we don't have enough players running through the middle in general.
We leave it to a small group and that's it. It's frustrating.

Who's going to run through the middle that currently isn't? There is a reason they are not. Atley isn't, Mullett isn't, McDonald isn't, MacMillan isn't, McKenzie isn't. They have been given the opportunity and haven't been as good as the guys currently playing those roles.

There is a reason we have been interested in Boak, Caddy, Treloar and any other A grade mid or potential A Grade mid who is keen on moving, because we are deficient in A-Grade midfielders. We have an overwhelming number of B-Graders. Depth is B-Grade. No team has mature and experienced A-Graders waiting for injuries to get a crack. If the argument is we have a lack of A-Grade mid talent then sure, I would agree with that analysis.

But what can we realistically expect to do about it? Anyone we chase would cost a mint and there is a lack of free agent options. Other than Mullett and MacMillan, the others I have mentioned are 1st round picks, they haven't lived up to expectation to date so are playing lesser roles.

 

[Donkey Chop]

Who's going to run through the middle that currently isn't? There is a reason they are not. Atley isn't, Mullett isn't, McDonald isn't, MacMillan isn't, McKenzie isn't. They have been given the opportunity and haven't been as good as the guys currently playing those roles.

There is a reason we have been interested in Boak, Caddy, Treloar and any other A grade mid or potential A Grade mid who is keen on moving, because we are deficient in A-Grade midfielders. We have an overwhelming number of B-Graders. Depth is B-Grade. No team has mature and experienced A-Graders waiting for injuries to get a crack. If the argument is we have a lack of A-Grade mid talent then sure, I would agree with that analysis.

But what can we realistically expect to do about it? Anyone we chase would cost a mint and there is a lack of free agent options. Other than Mullett and MacMillan, the others I have mentioned are 1st round picks, they haven't lived up to expectation to date so are playing lesser roles.

When have McDonald, Atley or MacMillan been given a go on the inside? Not some quasi midfield/wing/defender role but a centre square inside role? I'm guessing we could count on one hand the amount of times they've started in the centre square, let alone playing a game or even a quarter in there.

I'm not suggesting they'd be the next Ablett or whatever but surely they'd (and North) be better for the experience.

It's my opinion that McDonald will be a mid eventually. I always had hopes that Scott would play Atley in bursts through there but they're all but dead after Saturday night.

I don't know man, I might be just annoyed after the game, but please, why the hell would they rotate other blokes through there? Instead they just worked any mid still standing into the ground. It's just odd.

 

[TruRoos7]

That's the issue entirely, we just flogged a dead horse. No doubt made Cunners and co. feel like s**t in the process, yeah I know I can't know this, but as performance athletes I would take it they would want to perform in the role tasked to them as best they can, not hobble to the next contest, or half jog after a sprinting danger or duckwood.