Analysis Mid-Game Fade Outs

[citizen-erased]

If any forward kicks 4.3 on you then it's fair to say you were beaten.

Hartley cant be held fully accountable for that though because as we have seen in pretty much every game, we ran out of legs towards the end and we weren't filling the gaps down there that we should have been.

Any full back would have been beaten when you have midfielders strolling through midfield and delivering into an open forward line.

Our midfield needs to put far more pressure on the ball carrier because as we saw against Adelaide, if our midfielders don't win the ball then they basically ineffective!

We need to find midfielders that can run all day and have something resembling a little pace or we will continue to get torched.

It is why Fantasia and Walla are getting midfield time because it at least makes the ball carrier look over their shoulder.

This is the key
Carbon copy was the JLT game. Blitzed them early, then the midfield stopped running and Hurley and Bags were smashed by Hawkins and Menzel.

We've gone from mid-game fade outs to 4th quarter fade outs the last 2 weeks.
Now we're seeing some clear air from the Anzac Day scheduling headache, it will be good to see if we can address that.
And during that time i'd like to see little tinkering with what looked our strongest side to date this season.

 

[Skipper_]

This is the key
Carbon copy was the JLT game. Blitzed them early, then the midfield stopped running and Hurley and Bags were smashed by Hawkins and Menzel.

We've gone from mid-game fade outs to 4th quarter fade outs the last 2 weeks.
Now we're seeing some clear air from the Anzac Day scheduling headache, it will be good to see if we can address that.
And during that time i'd like to see little tinkering with what looked our strongest side to date this season.

This. The fade outs seem to have gradually come later since Anzac Day. While short breaks are not entirely to blame it's quite interesting nonetheless. With the eight day break hopefully this is is not an issue anymore.

 

[citizen-erased]

This. The fade outs seem to have gradually come later since Anzac Day. While short breaks are not entirely to blame it's quite interesting nonetheless. With the eight day break hopefully this is is not an issue anymore.

I marked it early as a danger period for us and was quite disappointed we dropped the Carlton game prior to it.

Went to Adelaide on sat night, played the following tuesday, then sunday, then went to freo, came back to play saturday.
2 trips (one a long haul) plus our first game at the etihad deck in the middle.

we have 3 games in Vic now, and we're the sort of team who will worry GWS (they tend to perform poorly against quick sides).

A run of 4 wins is possible if we can recover enough to play out 3 & 1/2 quarters and explode out early.

I get the feeling Jobe turned a corner on the weekend with his fitness and Kelly is looking good now for most of the season
Add to that Goddard is in fine form & Myers is probably where Jobe was in the Freo game in his conditioning, we should see some clean air now.

 

[ant555]

Seems to be a trend around the leauge. Sides getting a massive run on at various stages.

 

[Killer_Mike]

This. The fade outs seem to have gradually come later since Anzac Day. While short breaks are not entirely to blame it's quite interesting nonetheless. With the eight day break hopefully this is is not an issue anymore.

I'm not convinced our midfield's going to be fixed this year so we will have to just ride it out.

I believe if you have to many slow midfielder's we will continue to be burnt.

Jobe in his best form is our best extractor but he's not in his best form and is unlikely to ever gain that sort of touch. His hands and vision were as good as anyone's and with that type of player you can release players from the congestion. He can't do that anymore. On top of that he cant get to as many contests as he would like which means again, you cant win clearances. Unfortunately other than Priddis he wouldn't be able to keep up with many midfielders in a foot race either so once the ball is clear of congestion he is out of the contest.

Goddard is clearly our best clearance player so he's playing his part.

Heppell is a great contested player and I've noticed he's lifting his intensity recently so I think he will play plenty of good footy in the second half! I would like to see him far more accountable though because you rarely see him chasing anyone down either.

Some believe Myers will be a good alternative once he regains his fitness. I really like Myers but my personal opinion is, he's very one dimensional and football has changed a lot since he played well in the midfield. Grabbing it and belting forward 60 meters isn't going to fit into our gameplan and I don't think that he has that handball/vision ability that Jobe has so I think he will get found out. Also his pace is another concern so adding him to an already slow midfield cant help.

I think Bird would be worth a go because his hands in close are good and also he chases the ball carrier. For me though he only comes in if Jobe is out because of the pace issue.

I think Parish has stagnated a little this year and although he's still on track to be great midfielder, I believe his outside work still needs refining. I would like to see him win a lot more easy ball and bring his possession average up a little before he's considered a full time midfielder.

What Woosha is doing with our squad this year though is the right play. He is challenging all the players to diversify their skills so that they can rotate through different positions and that way we should be able to run out four quarters much better. Fantasia was the spark on the weekend and other weeks it has been Walla or Colyer. We need these guys going through the middle because it makes their opponents aware of them and not just having free reign at the end of quarters or in the last quarter.