Strategy Midfield Crows Woes

[skam85]

ROB Very strong mark around the ground but a piss poor tap ruckman, particularly in the centre square. Unlikely to become a Crows Premiership ruckman unless in an Aaron Keating like role.

It would be interesting to see how our current maligned mids would go with a top quality tap ruckman, Jacobs in his prime, Clarke, Rehn, Ryder, NicNat

That is a shocking take.

 

[skam85]

Nope you're wrong, he played midfield for Launy Seniors and won plenty of the pill.

I don't think former AFL player and Launy coach Sam Lonergan at the time is a mug when it comes to assessing players.

View attachment 1068448

David Mackay, 220*..

 

[UcantCme]

ROB Very strong mark around the ground but a piss poor tap ruckman, particularly in the centre square. Unlikely to become a Crows Premiership ruckman unless in an Aaron Keating like role.

It would be interesting to see how our current maligned mids would go with a top quality tap ruckman, Jacobs in his prime, Clarke, Rehn, Ryder, NicNat

I think you find that there is a long list of elite ruckman that never became premiership ruckman

I think you will also find an equally long list of solid ruckman that have a primership medal around their neck.

The exam question is

Is the pure tap ruckman an absolute must to win a flag?

Recent premiership winners woukd suggest not.....

ROB is not an elite tap ruck, but he is not poor either but what he does bring is 2nd and 3rd efforts, he also wears down his opponent by pure work rate.

ROB's contested marking has also improved out of sight in the past 12 mths

On SM-G973F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Apsaalooke]

ROB Very strong mark around the ground but a piss poor tap ruckman, particularly in the centre square. Unlikely to become a Crows Premiership ruckman unless in an Aaron Keating like role.

It would be interesting to see how our current maligned mids would go with a top quality tap ruckman, Jacobs in his prime, Clarke, Rehn, Ryder, NicNat

Shaun Rehn was our universally accepted best ruckman, but while he was great around the ground, his tap work was pretty average too. Clarke and Jacobs were better tappers but not in the same league overall.

 

[Mutineer]

I think I know one pretty decent big bodied mid that can be nabbed next season, don't think he'll be too keen on the Bombers after they left him high and dry...

 

[Cleric]

Look.. at this point I couldnt give a flying fu** about winning games or our ladder position at the end of this year.. totally and utterly irrelevant.. Couldnt even care less if we end up with another spoon.

What I do want to see is 110% effort regardless of reward. I want to see improvement throughout the year and I want to see changes made throughout the season if things arent working..

If come the end of the year Sloane, Mcrouch, Laird and Keays are still getting more game time at the centre bounce than all our other mids and the results are the same as last year where we are getting towelled up in the clearances.. then I will be pissed off and worried.

In the next two to three years we will have Sloane, lynch, tex, talia, smith all coming out of contract and either going on far smaller contracts or retiring altogether.. that is going to free up a massive amount of coin in our salary cap.. we will have a war chest to play with.

Use our top 5 pick in this years draft to get the best midfield prospect available... Horne possibly.

Use our position in the preseason draft as leverage (as we did with Hately) to get other high potential youngsters looking for more opportunity.

Then end of next year maybe use the massive war chest we’ll probably have to throw a big money contract in front of an elite midfielder.

Who knows... those who desperately wanted us to pick Holland in last years draft... what if in two years from now he becomes a bit like Hately and Caldwell were at GWS.. high picks that got few opportunities due to being youngsters in a team stacked with top mids.. Gold coast will be struggling to fit all that talent in in a couple of years.. we could shake someone lose from their list.

So.. right about when our young forward and backline talent have developed nicely we all of a sudden get a massive boost in our midfield and, hey presto, our march up the ladder will happen.

And as for worrying about how we went in a trial match against the “March premiers”...

I'm the same.
I want to see the changeover from the old guard (Tex, Sloane, Mmkay, Talia, Lynch etc) to the next generation begin.
I want to see young kids given games, over the deadwood. I want to see the coach play for the rebuild rather than him trying to get as many wins as he can for his job security. The sooner we can get 50-100 games into these kids, the quicker our next tilt at the flag will happen.
I don't want to see a dead cat bounce.

 

[hey shorty]

Look.. at this point I couldnt give a flying fu** about winning games or our ladder position at the end of this year.. totally and utterly irrelevant.. Couldnt even care less if we end up with another spoon.

What I do want to see is 110% effort regardless of reward. I want to see improvement throughout the year and I want to see changes made throughout the season if things arent working..

If come the end of the year Sloane, Mcrouch, Laird and Keays are still getting more game time at the centre bounce than all our other mids and the results are the same as last year where we are getting towelled up in the clearances.. then I will be pissed off and worried.

In the next two to three years we will have Sloane, lynch, tex, talia, smith all coming out of contract and either going on far smaller contracts or retiring altogether.. that is going to free up a massive amount of coin in our salary cap.. we will have a war chest to play with.

Use our top 5 pick in this years draft to get the best midfield prospect available... Horne possibly.

Use our position in the preseason draft as leverage (as we did with Hately) to get other high potential youngsters looking for more opportunity.

Then end of next year maybe use the massive war chest we’ll probably have to throw a big money contract in front of an elite midfielder.

Who knows... those who desperately wanted us to pick Holland in last years draft... what if in two years from now he becomes a bit like Hately and Caldwell were at GWS.. high picks that got few opportunities due to being youngsters in a team stacked with top mids.. Gold coast will be struggling to fit all that talent in in a couple of years.. we could shake someone lose from their list.

So.. right about when our young forward and backline talent have developed nicely we all of a sudden get a massive boost in our midfield and, hey presto, our march up the ladder will happen.

And as for worrying about how we went in a trial match against the “March premiers”...

The issue with the first bit is it breeds a losing culture. Multiple wooden spoons harms development.

We wants to win games, but not at the expense of said development. if we win 5/6 games this year with the right mix then I'll be stoked.

 

[mattymac]

Stopped reading after writing off McHenry, who has been one of our better performers so far this pre season. These threads are also pointless in pre season, especially after unofficial trial games.

"Discussions like this are pointless in preseason after unofficial trial games"

"Watching the preseason unofficial trial games leads me to believe McHenry could be a midfielder yet"

 

[mattymac]

Of course last year has no relevance. That squad is done, and the remnants are largely marking time as the list gets turned over. I'm not sure even Matt Crouch and Laird are in our next contending team.

We seem to have nailed last year's draft and will have more currency this year. No point in assessing the midfield today. Wait 18 months.

But the midfield... is exactly the same as last year.

Waiting 18 months before assessing the midfield is how we got here.

 

[mattymac]

The Neales of this world aren't coming to us until we show we're moving upwards. It took Brisbane a year or two of pain before they were able to make that splash.

Hately, Pedlar, Berry and Schoenberg is a good start to this process. All talented kids who could make parts of a rather solid midfield cake (on top of other players around the traps who might start to click). I'm also not willing to write off Pedlar being more then that, once he had 4-5 years in the bigs. This needs to be a midfield draft though (with maybe 1-2 trades for kids who have been stymied), and unfortunately Ogilive track record is not hot when looking at midfielders who are more then mere inside brutes.

That said, the strategy needs to be in the middle of those two. Go hard at the draft next year (and maybe 2022), then start to use our position/salary cap position to bring in better players.

A good time to strike for a gun is when the list isn't worth the full salary cap. Brisbane did well paying out for Neale and Cameron.

People thought Brisbane couldn't attract anyone either. But money talks. Especially when you have so little on your list to pay overs on and you can spare 500k more than anyone else can.

 

[BACCS]

"Discussions like this are pointless in preseason after unofficial trial games"

"Watching the preseason unofficial trial games leads me to believe McHenry could be a midfielder yet"

I didn’t say he could be a midfielder yet, just mentioned he’s had a good pre season so far and has almost locked himself in for round one.

 

[mattymac]

I didn’t say he could be a midfielder yet, just mentioned he’s had a good pre season so far and has almost locked himself in for round one.

And I didn't say our midfield is a worry based on one preseason game.

This thread has nothing to do with preseason. The OP was about what strategy we should adopt to stop being the worst midfield in the league.

 

[mattymac]

So according to Roo, Berry is circled for half forward duties and they are going to be very conservative with Pedlar.

(Also confirmed that we asked Ross Lyon but he said no, but I think we all knew that.)

 

[mattymac]

What if we see how this year goes with Rozee and if he looks the goods in the middle then slide a cheque for 1.2 m across the table?

 

[hey shorty]

What if we see how this year goes with Rozee and if he looks the goods in the middle then slide a cheque for 1.2 m across the table?

Hope that foot of his holds up, then by all means test their resolve.

 

[hey shorty]

So according to Roo, Berry is circled for half forward duties and they are going to be very conservative with Pedlar.

(Also confirmed that we asked Ross Lyon but he said no, but I think we all knew that.)

Don't mind conservative approach with Pedlar. Bad shoulders with a game style like his, wouldn't hold him back for too long though.

 

[Crow till I die]

Don't mind conservative approach with Pedlar. Bad shoulders with a game style like his, wouldn't hold him back for too long though.

Same with thilthorpe. If there is even a sniff of sore groins with him..put him on the right program with rest and make sure he is 100%. We MUST NOT burn him or pedlar this year..its playing the longer game that is really important

 

[GROTTO]

A good time to strike for a gun is when the list isn't worth the full salary cap. Brisbane did well paying out for Neale and Cameron.

People thought Brisbane couldn't attract anyone either. But money talks. Especially when you have so little on your list to pay overs on and you can spare 500k more than anyone else can.

At the time I thought CC was a great buy, not so much on Neale.

Both were great buys given their outputs over the years.

Crows missed a trick in not getting Neale, given he was gettable at a price.

 

[MRB37]

So Nicks said we got smashed 6 to 22 on the CBA's against Port? That is 2020 levels of awful, they absolutely need to mix up the midfield if we're getting smashed like that again. I know Crouch was missing, but that will be a huge issue on winning games this year if it continues.

 

[Scorpus]

So Nicks said we got smashed 6 to 22 on the CBA's against Port? That is 2020 levels of awful, they absolutely need to mix up the midfield if we're getting smashed like that again. I know Crouch was missing, but that will be a huge issue on winning games this year if it continues.

Will take half a season because so far we've only been training against ourselves

 

[FR0GGY]

Remind me which team won the flag in 2018 again

We talking the March flag or September flag? Asking for a power mate

 

[Betts are off]

Will take half a season because so far we've only been training against ourselves

Having said that, playing Port's best 22 twice may actually be doing us a massive favour right now. Getting toweled up a couple times by a substantially superior stoppage team will definitely highlight and confirm our weaknesses before the season proper and allow us to make changes before round 1. A painful yet potentially very useful silver lining!

Might steer us towards some important corrections faster then if we were playing 2 or 3 different teams best 30 squad at 3/4 intensity.

 

[maxlilly]

So Nicks said we got smashed 6 to 22 on the CBA's against Port? That is 2020 levels of awful, they absolutely need to mix up the midfield if we're getting smashed like that again. I know Crouch was missing, but that will be a huge issue on winning games this year if it continues.

At least the alarm bells are ringing, hopefully we see some meaningful change

 

[Jinglebells32]

I think the issue us you and Mutineer saw him play younger and how good he was then. Assuming it translates to AFL and looking for excuses why it hasn't.


But in that bio Mutineer put up, the last line sums up the traits he has shown at AFL level. At AFL level he is best suited up forward.

An upgrade on Murphy. Who was also a good junior mid.

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Jones needs to get back to the natural instinct and attack on the ball that he showed in the game against the Western Bulldogs in Ballarat in his first season. He was Dangerfield like.

 

[Crow_Magnon]

You do all of the above. You play the best options available in our squad in the middle. In my opinion they are Crouch, Laird, Schoenberg, Keays, Pedlar, Berry, O'Connor?. You also continue to draft well. Horne thanks in a crows guernsey in 2022. You also trade in a Lachie Neale if you can get one. You also coach them well and focus on skills and fitness. Importantly you trade and draft players who are elite kicks. A player who can deliver precisely to a forward will help convert our inside 50's to goals. Also the modern mid must be able to rest up forward and kick goals.

Lastly you pick players who deserve to be picked regardless of name and age. If I see Sloane in the middle we are heading for a bad beating. You must have pace, hardness, an ability to 2 way run, skill and an ability to win your own ball in the middle. Lastly you don't persist with lost causes or offer big overpaid contracts to declining and aging players (Sloane). You pull the band-aid off and you move them out early and swiftly. Regeneration should always be the mantra.

This! He should only be in there as a last resort. Personally I'd prefer to see him play half back or back pocket - he's good overhead and puts his body on the line. Either that or pinch hit up forward. He just doesn't have the weapons to play midfield anymore - not strong enough, fast enough and has ordinary disposal. His gut running capability even tapered off. I agree with your first 6...not sure about O'Connor as yet....but anything's worth a try. I don't want to see Seedsman in our best 22, let alone in the midfield either.