Midfield depth

[lunacy]

Last nights game was in terrible conditions as we all know. Looking at our team last night most of our better senior players as well as our promising young players are/were mostly talls. The majority of players we had missing were good small players eg vince, VB, Symes, Porps, Knights, Otten, Martin, Burton (pretty good at ground level), and Dangerfield.

We had a surplus of talls some of which are really good but were completely nullified by the conditions ie Tippett, Walker, Hentschel, Bock, Rutten, Stevens, McKernan, Davis, Sellar, Griffin. Way too many talls for the conditions.

Collingwood were missing a lot of best 22 players as well but it was a great proportion from the tall category which didnt really matter given the conditions such as Anthony, Cloke, Jolly etc. Where as they had a good percentage of their top midfielders/small running players in the side such as Swan, Didak, Davis, Shaw, Sidebottom, Beams, Pendlebury, Thomas, O'brien.

The conditions nullified a lot of our good players. On a dry day our forward line of Tippett, Walker, Hentschel would have been far more impressive than their combo of Dawes, Brown, etc.

I'm not saying we can only perform in dry conditions I'm just saying the 26 we had in yesterday (largely due to injuries) was not conducive to wet weather footy.

If we had Danger, Vince, Porps, Knights, VB, Symes, Burton to join Thompson, Mackay, Sloane, Doughty, Mcleod, Edwards, Goodwin etc we would have measured up against Swan, Davis, Didak, Sidebottom, Pendlebury much better than last night.

Which leads me to wonder? Yes our midfield is pretty good when on the park, but we dont have a great lot of depth of running players. This is largely because of our large percentage of talls on the list. I dont mind this as I think we have a very impressive list of talls I just hope the likes of Patrenko, Cook, Armstrong, Sloane develop quickly. Pity Cook and Armstrong didnt show a bit more last night.

 

[spexau]

So your point is that if we didn't have injuries to our best midfielders we may have won? I don't think our midfield depth is as bad as you are making it out but we can't expect to have our 2nd tier midfield beat a 1st tier midfield can we?

Petrenko*

 

[lunacy]

So your point is that if we didn't have injuries to our best midfielders we may have won? I don't think our midfield depth is as bad as you are making it out but we can't expect to have our 2nd tier midfield beat a 1st tier midfield can we?

Petrenko*

Thats right. However I'm not at all saying our midfield isnt up to scratch I'm saying compared to other teams at the same level as us we probably have more depth than them in KPP both forward and defense. Where as most other clubs on par with us (top 5-6 teams) would have more midfield depth.

 

[Allbetsroff]

I disagree.

 

[spexau]

Thats right. However I'm not at all saying our midfield isnt up to scratch I'm saying compared to other teams at the same level as us we probably have more depth than them in KPP both forward and defense. Where as most other clubs on par with us (top 5-6 teams) would have more midfield depth.

As far as depth is concerned I think we have above average but our top tier isn't as good as other teams but still developing. We'll get there.

But I do agree we have some of the best KPP stocks in the league.

 

[lunacy]

I disagree.

I did specify less midfield depth than other top 5-6 sides. So you obviously think we have more midfield depth than St Kilda, Geelong, Bulldogs, Collingwood, Hawthorn?

No offense but you may need to take your red, blue and yellow glasses off .

These sides all have extremely strong and deep midfields. Our strength is an even contribution across the ground but probably most notably forward and defense. Midfield is good but not extremely deep.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

No doubt we're light on for creative, clearance winning midfielders.

 

[jackster83]

Been thinking this for a while now.

 

[Riggy1]

lunacy, Allbetsroff and Riggy1 in the same thread
the only thing that could make this worse is if relapse comes in

fwiw."Last nights game was in terrible conditions as we all know."

I thought they were good conditions because it allowed us to prepare for something that we dont experience all too often [ps. I felt like being a smartarse there]

if we had a game like this against West Coast last year would the experience in this weather of helped us more when we played Melbourne or North Melbourne last year?

 

[Kickin_Goals]

I did specify less midfield depth than other top 5-6 sides. So you obviously think we have more midfield depth than St Kilda, Geelong, Bulldogs, Collingwood, Hawthorn?

No offense but you may need to take your red, blue and yellow glasses off .

These sides all have extremely strong and deep midfields. Our strength is an even contribution across the ground but probably most notably forward and defense. Midfield is good but not extremely deep.

When did Hawthorn sneak in to the top 5-6 they have depth where? the fact that they have been dismal and didn't make the 8 shows their actual lack of depth since they lost players to retirement.

Take away three of these teams best mid-field they have no replacement. Even bloody 3 players being out would severely hamper a side, but your talking about 6 starting 22.
Not a single team can cover that not one, you basically drop down to a reserves side patchwork engine room as if the replacements were good enough to be fielded and compete at the highest level in place of the lost players they would at least be getting a look in each week, where as the most competitive sides have obviously less injuries and so go unchanged.
Many of the teams you mention play through seasons with much unchanged lineups covering one player here and there.
If teams had so much depth of skilled players to replace them those players would and have moved on to where they can get a game instead of waiting with these top 5-6 of yours.

The difference in size between mids and talls gap is not a great deal these days, as long as a player is athletic and skilled their height shouldnt matter and there have been quite a few examples of putting KPP/Utilities in the engine room and it working out their height and size/body strength making the difference at stoppages breaking open packs.
Perhaps the holes could be filled based on ability rather then supposed archetype in this way.
We do seem to lack the players with the ability to fill holes at the highest level or are we just unwilling to try unorthodox positions.

What has actually kept our midfield competetive is it's depth with the very good players throughout but not stars like other sides rely on.

 

[amer]

Internally Otten is rated as a future top line midfielder. You just wonder how much of an impact he might have made there this year.

 

[lunacy]

When did Hawthorn sneak in to the top 5-6 they have depth where? the fact that they have been dismal and didn't make the 8 shows their actual lack of depth since they lost players to retirement.

Take away three of these teams best mid-field they have no replacement. Even bloody 3 players being out would severely hamper a side, but your talking about 6 starting 22.
Not a single team can cover that not one, you basically drop down to a reserves side patchwork engine room as if the replacements were good enough to be fielded and compete at the highest level in place of the lost players they would at least be getting a look in each week, where as the most competitive sides have obviously less injuries and so go unchanged.
Many of the teams you mention play through seasons with much unchanged lineups covering one player here and there.
If teams had so much depth of skilled players to replace them those players would and have moved on to where they can get a game instead of waiting with these top 5-6 of yours.

The difference in size between mids and talls gap is not a great deal these days, as long as a player is athletic and skilled their height shouldnt matter and there have been quite a few examples of putting KPP/Utilities in the engine room and it working out their height and size/body strength making the difference at stoppages breaking open packs.
Perhaps the holes could be filled based on ability rather then supposed archetype in this way.
We do seem to lack the players with the ability to fill holes at the highest level or are we just unwilling to try unorthodox positions.

What has actually kept our midfield competetive is it's depth with the very good players throughout but not stars like other sides rely on.

Your point on Hawthorn is out of context. Their lack of depth and reason for losing was primary their injuries to defenders. Remember we're talking midifeld .

Your point about taking 3 best mids from any team? What the? We dont/havent had our best 3 mids out at the same time at any stage. Why bother bringing that up?

Your point about the talls vs smalls on our list... I've taken all that into account. I've included Otten, Gunston, Shaw etc as running players. The fact is, and I'm not against it I just see it as a challenge, we have I think the largest % of GENUINE talls who will only ever be talls (yes I'm not including the above players), and as a result we dont have as many running type players. Considering the majority of positions in the team and bench are running positions we may be tested if we lose 5-6 running players at any one time. Now we've already lost 2 for the season.

So all I'm saying is its a reality and it will be a welcome challenge.

 

[Kickin_Goals]

Any midfielder that is in the side is one of the best in the squad, midfield strength and weakness is felt all over the ground the back line these days becomes part of the mid-field with flow of play.
Poor mid-field pressure begets poor defense. Mid-field turnovers stoppage breakaways and poor inside 50 penetration causing backline rebounds are the best potential ways to score these break downs are in the mid-field.
Hawthorns inside 50s against in 2009 were double the average of 2008 many times, their forward 50 entry fell away and their marks inside 50.
These stats relate to the mid-field performance and have a large impact on the scoring potential of sides for and against, when their back line is getting double the regular traffic they cant expect to be restricting the score to the same extent.


Westhoff is having an interesting impact on the port game atm, I'm sure some of our talls have enough aerobic capacity to play there. The talls that we have been picking up do seem to have outstanding ground skills really.