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

Kapow!!!

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#26
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?
This is where it gets more clouded and, in turn, more needed for Johnno to gather more experience. Currently pretty much all of the defenders have both roles. Johnno however seems to be the commanding defender whose natural football smarts set up the play which tends to say to me it may be a little more long-term and that we want a quick yet precise movement out of defence.

Conversely: Some may see it as part of his natural development because he was a marking forward/ruckman when he was first picked up in the rookie draft. This left him behind in his pre-AFL development in defence. The fact is he will put on natural muscle from gameplay let alone gym work and his one on one ability will inevitably improve from this and experience (especially with the likes of Parker giving helpful words).

The saying: A little from column A, A little from column B is quite apt here. It's what the coaching staff need/want him to be. He will definitely improve one on one but whether he adopts that as a major role from CHB or play off the Flank is a different question. He has the potential to be a champion either way though. I'm very interested to see how he develops over the next two years.

Some people tend to forget that big men take far longer to develop and the fact that Johnno has developed this much in a couple of years is nothing short of amazing. Now he just has the one major aspect to work on and improvement in consistency of his kicking (which won't take that long at all, if he hasn't already near perfected it). Time will tell....
 

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ImperialPurple

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#27
Great posts Kapow!!! A lot of insight for me - cheers. Anyone who wants to "have a go" at Johnno needs to remember that he's ony 22 and has played less than 50 games. Very few talls develop and dominate at a rate that Pav and Jono Brown did. Johnno is coming along very nicely! :thumbsu:
 
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#28
... 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.

Well put but I thought his problem was his take off speed.
 

theGav56

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#29
As well as his closing speed, or his take off speed (to be honest I have no idea but agree "speed" is an issue in the mix somewhere with him) I think he does not have the body strength at the moment to match up on guys of a similar stature to him; Hall, Gherig, Brown even Reiwoldt. These are the lugs that we want to beat, and while in their current form and stages of career grover seems to be doing okay, Johnson seems better equipped to me.
 
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