Michael Johnson: great when he is the spare man, not so great when he has to be accountable

FootyEater

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Thread starter #1
look, johnno is a great player, but we are looking at having our best side playing in the next two to three weeks. michael johnson is a great spare man, but every time he plays on a man, he gets canned. we have tarrant, peake, sandilands to come back, and crowley sitting in the wafl. Johnno gets canned every time he has to be accountable and im sick of it, mcphee, croad, andrew walker etc all are "great player" but the moment they are out on a player they get flogged. i think MJ should get dropped so he learns to be able to beat an opponent for once. in: crowley sandilands peake and taz, out mcmanus gilmore johnson and parker.

very controversial i know but my opinion
 

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rgauci

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#2
wrong.

He plays loose, i agree. But he always gets hold of the ball much more than his opponent and his disposal is very damaging.

He beats them by hurting them the other way. A very smart player and not even close to being dropped.
 

David_Brent

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#3
MJ's (lack of) ability to play contested defensive roles is more than noted.

Remember when Brad Miller (one of the biggest duds ever) cut him up in a final. And there have been numerous other examples.
 

Bradesmaen

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#4
Brad Miller is the wrong sort of player for him to play on. He does play good contested footy. He's 100x better than Polak at it too.
 

bushie

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#5
look, johnno is a great player, but we are looking at having our best side playing in the next two to three weeks. michael johnson is a great spare man, but every time he plays on a man, he gets canned. we have tarrant, peake, sandilands to come back, and crowley sitting in the wafl. Johnno gets canned every time he has to be accountable and im sick of it, mcphee, croad, andrew walker etc all are "great player" but the moment they are out on a player they get flogged. i think MJ should get dropped so he learns to be able to beat an opponent for once. in: crowley sandilands peake and taz, out mcmanus gilmore johnson and parker.

very controversial i know but my opinion

You're avin a larf aren't ya??

Just tell me you're avin a larf.

And droppin Shauny Mac as well??

Ya gotta be avin a larf.
 

FootyEater

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Thread starter #6
You're avin a larf aren't ya??

Just tell me you're avin a larf.

And droppin Shauny Mac as well??

Ya gotta be avin a larf.
unfortunately not. im just looking for people to drop for crowley sandi peake and tz and i just think that johnno while he has damaging desposal, his man gets a fair bit of it too, just think he should learn to play on a man
 

Bradesmaen

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#9
Farmer had to earn his spot, so does Tarrant. There is no reason he should just jump straight back into a winning side.

Same with Crowley, just cause he was out one week ,doesnt mean he is back next week. He is young and has to earn his spot.

Peake back in 3? Didn't he break his collarbone? Thats a 6-8 week injury not 3, especially after he already did it.
 

dominguez

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#10
Johnson and Mundy are both unaccountable, the difference is that Johnson sometimes gets a quality opponent where as Mundy never does. Johnson is also a better mark and wins more contested possessions. If either of them are going to be dropped it certainly shouldn't be Johnson, who finished 2nd in our B&F last year.

How did we go in the 4 weeks that Johnson missed? I'd like him to be a better defensive stopper, but he's certainly in our best 18 and close to our best dozen.
 

estibador

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#11
I seem to recall MJ doing a pretty good job of being accountable on Aker in Darwin.

Drop Johnson indeed. Sometimes I worry about people, I really do.
 

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OTHER TEAMS???? As if!!
#12
look, johnno is a great player, but we are looking at having our best side playing in the next two to three weeks. michael johnson is a great spare man, but every time he plays on a man, he gets canned. we have tarrant, peake, sandilands to come back, and crowley sitting in the wafl. Johnno gets canned every time he has to be accountable and im sick of it, mcphee, croad, andrew walker etc all are "great player" but the moment they are out on a player they get flogged. i think MJ should get dropped so he learns to be able to beat an opponent for once. in: crowley sandilands peake and taz, out mcmanus gilmore johnson and parker.

very controversial i know but my opinion
Opinion noted FE BUT I believe magic has amazing foresight and fantastic vision downfield....No, I think we need to keep him right where he is :D
 

dugrene

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#14
He is our backline controller. He can feint, bawk, sell a dummy, is great below his knees as well as in a pack or one on one.
He sometimes is a bit too cute, but if you wanted to him control his flare he would probably freeze up.
Some of his kicks get intercepted which means other teams have worked out he often kicks low trajectory passes. This usually hurts us badly because when he is kicking everyone is running ahead of the ball.

Drop him ?
Not bloody likely !
 

Black Ball

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#15
He is our backline controller. He can feint, bawk, sell a dummy, is great below his knees as well as in a pack or one on one.
He sometimes is a bit too cute, but if you wanted to him control his flare he would probably freeze up.
Some of his kicks get intercepted which means other teams have worked out he often kicks low trajectory passes. This usually hurts us badly because when he is kicking everyone is running ahead of the ball.

Drop him ?
Not bloody likely !
What is a bawk??
 

Ysaye

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#18
Disagree that Michael Johnson is bad at actual defending. Last year his best games where early on in the season where he played on the majority of KP forwards. I think he could do more defending KP roles but they prefer to play him as a spare man instead.

Just my opinion though :).
 
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#19
Mundy is as far from being dropped as Pavlich.
... Mundy started on the bench this week didn't he? he was certainly named on the bench. I'd suggest it will be a while until Pav gets named on the bench.

The point in relation to this and other threads on players is that every player has strengths and weaknesses. You'll go crazy focussing on the weaknesses at the expense of the strengths. There was a thread in the middle of last year where we talked about how MJ can be towelled up by any decent CHF. His problem is his closing speed.

But can he defend. He certainly can. He reads the flight of the ball beautifully and can take a contested mark. He has superp balance and agility for a guy his size. He always stays in the contest and can beat a lot of players one-on-one. And once he has his hands on the ball, his lateral movement is like that other MJ and he's almost impossible to tackle. And can spot up someone frm 60m. He wasn't in the top 5 for the club B & F for nothing.
 

Bradesmaen

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#20
And starting on the bench means you are about to be dropped? Usually its all about Matchups. Ricciuto started on the bench today for Adelaide.. is he about to get dropped?
 

Borry

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#22
... Mundy started on the bench this week didn't he? he was certainly named on the bench. I'd suggest it will be a while until Pav gets named on the bench.

The point in relation to this and other threads on players is that every player has strengths and weaknesses. You'll go crazy focussing on the weaknesses at the expense of the strengths. There was a thread in the middle of last year where we talked about how MJ can be towelled up by any decent CHF. His problem is his closing speed.

But can he defend. He certainly can. He reads the flight of the ball beautifully and can take a contested mark. He has superp balance and agility for a guy his size. He always stays in the contest and can beat a lot of players one-on-one. And once he has his hands on the ball, his lateral movement is like that other MJ and he's almost impossible to tackle. And can spot up someone frm 60m. He wasn't in the top 5 for the club B & F for nothing.
Agree. Agsin nailed the target.

It shudders me to think how bad we would be if some of our supporters were in charge of the club.
 

theGav56

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#23
I am a big fan of Johnson learning to beat a player 1 on 1 as a traditional CHB. He is a fantastic player, and adding closer checking to his weaponary would help us enormously. MacPharlin and Grover were awesome on the weekend, but occassionally the extra height and agility of Johnson (as opposed to Grover) may work better for us.

And forget the wingman thing.
 

Kapow!!!

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#24
He is our backline controller. He can feint, bawk, sell a dummy, is great below his knees as well as in a pack or one on one.
He sometimes is a bit too cute, but if you wanted to him control his flare he would probably freeze up.
Some of his kicks get intercepted which means other teams have worked out he often kicks low trajectory passes. This usually hurts us badly because when he is kicking everyone is running ahead of the ball.

Drop him ?
Not bloody likely !
Johnno is perhaps the player I've been most interested in over the last year or so. Watching everything and even adopting his techniques to my game. With Johnno, even when he is beaten by his opponent convincingly he still does enough to either zone himself or command other defenders to zone off in the flight of the footy. He is by far the most footy-smart defender and demonstrates defensive leadership skills that most clubs would be salivating over. The only thing I could debate with Johnno is his one-on-one strength skills where he ends up being a little too easily beaten. However at this point in his career that can be chalked up to a development process which is solved by weights over time and experience.

Johnno's kicking action. That's quite an interesting area actually. To be honest, for a big man his kicking action could not be too much better. The long arms gives him a much lower drop of the footy for the more precise passes. Biomechanicallly he is sound and I'd encourage his style for upcoming ruckman to adopt or at least watch as he demonstrates the basics of passing (especially to leading forwards) with an ease that is rarely seen. However with that comes with length and height adjustment. Remembering he's still a youngen playing at elite level, he's 6'5" and he's been entrusted with a major structural role. The opposition will have a day when they work his kicking out and there will be the odd time at this point of his career where he will question himself and be 'too cute'. That's not going to improve with a stint in the two's. If anything that will probably detriment it and damage his confidence which is the last thing he needs.

He's developing into what can only be thought to be the AA CHB of years to come. He has all the traits of a champion, the only thing missing is about 25-50 games experience.
 

theGav56

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#25
He's developing into what can only be thought to be the AA CHB of years to come. He has all the traits of a champion, the only thing missing is about 25-50 games experience.
Very interesting post Kapow.

What's your take on his man on man defensive ability, which seems to be where the biggest question mark is? Do you think the strategy of giving hima bit of freedom to be a playmaker is awhere he will be longterm, or simply part of his natural development into a CHB?
 
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