Analysis Mitch Duncan to HB.

[Turbocat]

I've said it for ages. Id give cockatoo a crack down there.
Has the pace to limit damage when the ball gets out the back.
Could provide good offensive run.
Loves a tackle. He's a hunter. I reckon it would work.

I have not been an advocate as i don't think his kicking is a scythe like as Duncan's but he does have that body hunt streak ... add that he needs games and a lot of them in a row. I think it would be worth a go now. He is such a talent and if we do not get something out him soon we will feel pressure to move on.

 

[Turbocat]

Everything you say is sound, except that BS will have seen that Duncan was our playmaker, and we know historically, when Duncan is heavily tagged, he handles it poorly. We do need a Mackie-like playmaker, and I've felt for a long time he would be very difficult to replace, as was Boris.
Thurlow was the hope, but he has not recovered form, confidence since the ACL.
CGuthrie also could be that player.
But rather than have one designated player, which worked against the listless GC team, we can have many players to share the load, on a week to week basis, and that's what we're doing well this year.

I think you need football intellect to match with the ability to run forward. Bartel was tried..and really did not have the athleticism to do the role , someone like Blitz may lack the footy smarts. I wonder if GA could do it... not in the same style as Mackie but perhaps somewhere between Mackie and Wojo. They way forwardlines pressure now you really need to be evasive and have the ability to handle heat and get the ball to the next in chain. Other have said Cockatoo and he would be a more aggressive version.

 

[JohnZ]

A chaos pressure player who doesn't kick goals.
Let's try him off half back. It's all I'm suggesting.

It may round him off. And he definately has that offensive gene.

I love this idea. Would be great to try it v Richmond @ the G. Big game, never before seen tactic, catch them off guard.

 

[Daniel McL]

I love this idea. Would be great to try it v Richmond @ the G. Big game, never before seen tactic, catch them off guard.

Hardwick probably has a secret Bigfooty account so now it won’t catch him off guard

 

[geelong_crazy26]

Not at all. Stupid thing to assume to be honest. And it’s absolutely nothing like your examples. Anyway this isn’t about Danger, it’s about Duncan.

That’s exactly what you said and meant.

“Seeing Danger go forward at the start of last years prelim after we did it the week before still haunts me. It Was never going to work”

 

[geelong_crazy26]

Geelong_crazy26,

Okay if we take Tuohy out of it, there’s a guy named Tom Stewart who’s currently in the All Australian team who’s averaging 21.5 touches (as a defender), 402 metres gained, 7 intercept possessions and 6 rebound 50’s a game.

As I said, if Duncan is playing as a spare man in defence I have no issues with it, but I don’t want him playing on an opposition forward and actually having to try to defend in 1-on-1 contests & on the lead etc.

Leave Duncan spare in defence to help set up an attacking play alongside Stewart & Tuohy, or leave him on the wing to do some pinpoint passes inside 50 to a teammate.

I’m not too worried about it. Blicavs, Kolodjashnij & Henry know what they need to do, stop their opponent & take as many intercept marks as they can. Then when they have the ball they either give it to the more attacking defenders in Tuohy, Stewart, Bews, or do a safe short pass outside defensive 50 to someone like a Duncan, Menegola, Parfitt etc who’ve worked hard pushing up the field to provide an option, or if they can’t do any of that they go long down the line to Hawkins / Stanley / Buzza / Esava etc

Ah yes Stewart.

So that gives us from our back six a total of two play setters and ball accumulators. Tuoey I can’t recall doing a lot of attacking either this season. Can’t think of the last time tuoey cane running off the back flanks penetrating the lines. He is often caught defending quite deep in the pockets.

Reason I say this and bring it up as a discussion is because against quality top sides we struggle massively to get the ball out of our defence and transition under pressure.

I want to see something shaken up and changed.

Bews Blicavs Henry kolo are not big accumulators or attackers. They are all lock down players.

I want us to get the balance right between defence attack and play making from the backline.

Just remember that during our premiership golden years we had a very aggressive attacking defence filled with stars who could gather 20+ disposals on a regular basis for us.

We have a surplus of quality midfield depth, we can afford to make some magnet shuffles to as quality A grade talent down back.

I will ask you also like I asked daz,

Who then would you like to go back to ad A grade talent and movement from defence? Or are you completely confident our defence will be able to hold up against Richmond at the MCG and transition without a problem?? If your answer is yes then we probably have different views on it.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

I've said it for ages. Id give cockatoo a crack down there.
Has the pace to limit damage when the ball gets out the back.
Could provide good offensive run.
Loves a tackle. He's a hunter. I reckon it would work.

His second spot is down forward. we need elite forwards as well. Don’t think his suited to defence at this point.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

Everything you say is sound, except that BS will have seen that Duncan was our playmaker, and we know historically, when Duncan is heavily tagged, he handles it poorly. We do need a Mackie-like playmaker, and I've felt for a long time he would be very difficult to replace, as was Boris.
Thurlow was the hope, but he has not recovered form, confidence since the ACL.
CGuthrie also could be that player.
But rather than have one designated player, which worked against the listless GC team, we can have many players to share the load, on a week to week basis, and that's what we're doing well this year.

My concern is that as our defence is right now, it is not good enough attack wise to handle Richmond at the MCG or even Melbourne on current form.

I want to ad some A grade class down back to ad some drive and extra class.

Are you confident the way our defence is that it could transition the ball out against Richmond’s pressure at the MCG??

I’m not.

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

That’s exactly what you said and meant.

If you say so

 

[geelong_crazy26]

If you say so

You said it was never going to work in the prelim because we did it the week before.

 

[Daniel McL]

Ah yes Stewart.

So that gives us from our back six a total of two play setters and ball accumulators. Tuoey I can’t recall doing a lot of attacking either this season. Can’t think of the last time tuoey cane running off the back flanks penetrating the lines. He is often caught defending quite deep in the pockets.

Reason I say this and bring it up as a discussion is because against quality top sides we struggle massively to get the ball out of our defence and transition under pressure.

I want to see something shaken up and changed.

Bews Blicavs Henry kolo are not big accumulators or attackers. They are all lock down players.

I want us to get the balance right between defence attack and play making from the backline.

Just remember that during our premiership golden years we had a very aggressive attacking defence filled with stars who could gather 20+ disposals on a regular basis for us.

We have a surplus of quality midfield depth, we can afford to make some magnet shuffles to as quality A grade talent down back.

I will ask you also like I asked daz,

Who then would you like to go back to ad A grade talent and movement from defence? Or are you completely confident our defence will be able to hold up against Richmond at the MCG and transition without a problem?? If your answer is yes then we probably have different views on it.

I will say that right now I’m happy with the defensive balance and I don’t see why we should change a winning formula for the sake of it.

IF we get smashed by Richmond and they score 100+ points then I will agree with you that we might need to look at the defensive setup and tweak it.

Even against Essendon when they dominated us they only scored 84 points, it’s not like they scored 120+. So our defence held up okay against the Dons onslaught. The problem there is not enough pressure up the field from both our forwards & midfielders to give our defence more time to setup correctly which is what our defence relies on.

That’s why guys like McCarthy, Cockatoo, Parfitt, Fogarty, Jones are so important because of their consistent pressuring around the wings + inside forward 50. If they stay fit, we pressure more up the ground, it gives more time for the midfielders to catch their breath for a second which allows them to pressure more when they need to in the middle of the ground. If our forwards aren’t pressuring enough & the opposition are running it out of their defence easily then our midfielders are absolutely exhausted trying to win the ball themselves while also trying to chase & pressure as much as possible because the forwards aren’t doing it well enough, this then catches our defence off guard when the opposition cut through our forwards & mids.

So at the moment I’m happy with the defensive setup, there haven’t been many games at all this season where after it I’ve thought to myself “our defenders were poor today”, they’ve held up very well considering how different the setup is because of retirements/injuries back there.

 

[Vdubs]

I will say that right now I’m happy with the defensive balance and I don’t see why we should change a winning formula for the sake of it.

IF we get smashed by Richmond and they score 100+ points then I will agree with you that we might need to look at the defensive setup and tweak it.

Even against Essendon when they dominated us they only scored 84 points, it’s not like they scored 120+. So our defence held up okay against the Dons onslaught. The problem there is not enough pressure up the field from both our forwards & midfielders to give our defence more time to setup correctly which is what our defence relies on.

That’s why guys like McCarthy, Cockatoo, Parfitt, Fogarty, Jones are so important because of their consistent pressuring around the wings + inside forward 50. If they stay fit, we pressure more up the ground, it gives more time for the midfielders to catch their breath for a second which allows them to pressure more when they need to in the middle of the ground. If our forwards aren’t pressuring enough & the opposition are running it out of their defence easily then our midfielders are absolutely exhausted trying to win the ball themselves while also trying to chase & pressure as much as possible because the forwards aren’t doing it well enough, this then catches our defence off guard when the opposition cut through our forwards & mids.

So at the moment I’m happy with the defensive setup, there haven’t been many games at all this season where after it I’ve thought to myself “our defenders were poor today”, they’ve held up very well considering how different the setup is because of retirements/injuries back there.

That TC is the complete and utter problem with our team. We are potent with those mentioned but our reliance on them is our undoing because at least 2 of them are horribly frail, undependable, mostly unavailable, much more so than the premiership team, and they are the Gold Standard so far.
Will be good to see how WCE go without Darling, away from WA.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

I will say that right now I’m happy with the defensive balance and I don’t see why we should change a winning formula for the sake of it.

IF we get smashed by Richmond and they score 100+ points then I will agree with you that we might need to look at the defensive setup and tweak it.

Even against Essendon when they dominated us they only scored 84 points, it’s not like they scored 120+. So our defence held up okay against the Dons onslaught. The problem there is not enough pressure up the field from both our forwards & midfielders to give our defence more time to setup correctly which is what our defence relies on.

That’s why guys like McCarthy, Cockatoo, Parfitt, Fogarty, Jones are so important because of their consistent pressuring around the wings + inside forward 50. If they stay fit, we pressure more up the ground, it gives more time for the midfielders to catch their breath for a second which allows them to pressure more when they need to in the middle of the ground. If our forwards aren’t pressuring enough & the opposition are running it out of their defence easily then our midfielders are absolutely exhausted trying to win the ball themselves while also trying to chase & pressure as much as possible because the forwards aren’t doing it well enough, this then catches our defence off guard when the opposition cut through our forwards & mids.

So at the moment I’m happy with the defensive setup, there haven’t been many games at all this season where after it I’ve thought to myself “our defenders were poor today”, they’ve held up very well considering how different the setup is because of retirements/injuries back there.

I agree it has held up from a defensive point of view but does our defence set up enough attacks from the back half for scores??

My question is about our ability to set up and attack from our back fifty, not our ability to defend.

In the final against Richmond we couldn’t even move the ball past the centre square and had great difficulty getting any fluent movement from the back half.

Is the back six this year going to be able to run and carry and set up strong attacking rebounds out of Richmond’s forward half?? You believe they will, but I have my doubts to be honest.

I hope you are correct and I am wrong in two weeks on that, but we will have to see

 

[Footy Smarts]

I agree it has held up from a defensive point of view but does our defence set up enough attacks from the back half for scores??

My question is about our ability to set up and attack from our back fifty, not our ability to defend.

In the final against Richmond we couldn’t even move the ball past the centre square and had great difficulty getting any fluent movement from the back half.

I think this is a direct result of the finals last year and a decision not to allow teams like Richmond to play their own game. Richmond love it when teams take them on from defence because they pressure, force turnovers and then score easily the other way. They killed us and Adelaide in finals that way.

We've decided this year we're not going to let them score easy goals this way by not taking as many risks coming out of defence. It means we shouldn't concede as many easy goals because or defence is well set and we should have more space in our forward line to be more efficient since we're not pushing as many numbers forward. But if you lose the clearances and contested ball it becomes hard to transition the ball from defence.

I think our entire aim this year has been to not concede goals from turnovers. Richmond and others may well be too good for us in contested work but I doubt we'll get beaten by their pressure because we won't be taking the risks that allow pressure to create goals. It means our struggles in the ruck and midfield have been shown up though.

 

[Mr Meow]

My concern is that as our defence is right now, it is not good enough attack wise to handle Richmond at the MCG or even Melbourne on current form.

I want to ad some A grade class down back to ad some drive and extra class.

Are you confident the way our defence is that it could transition the ball out against Richmond’s pressure at the MCG??

I’m not.

Duncan shits the bed under pressure so for starters he's the wrong man to solve rebound issues when under duress. Dishes up some unthinkable clangers in finals or when the opposition is ferocious (and I am a fan of his). No different to Touhy.

 

[00VicWard001]

I love this idea. Would be great to try it v Richmond @ the G. Big game, never before seen tactic, catch them off guard.

I would love to see Cockatoo one on one with Dustin Martin. Martin is the best at what he does, but both Selwood and Danger marvel at Cockatoo's sheer athleticism and that's saying something. Who knows, maybe Dusty will brush him off and wrong-foot him, or maybe just maybe Cockatoo will launch that extra half meter that only he can and tackle and ragdoll him.

 

[00VicWard001]

I think this is a direct result of the finals last year and a decision not to allow teams like Richmond to play their own game. Richmond love it when teams take them on from defence because they pressure, force turnovers and then score easily the other way. They killed us and Adelaide in finals that way.

We've decided this year we're not going to let them score easy goals this way by not taking as many risks coming out of defence. It means we shouldn't concede as many easy goals because or defence is well set and we should have more space in our forward line to be more efficient since we're not pushing as many numbers forward. But if you lose the clearances and contested ball it becomes hard to transition the ball from defence.

I think our entire aim this year has been to not concede goals from turnovers. Richmond and others may well be too good for us in contested work but I doubt we'll get beaten by their pressure because we won't be taking the risks that allow pressure to create goals. It means our struggles in the ruck and midfield have been shown up though.

Someone else pointed out that we are happy for the opposition to have shots from angles and shallow entries into their 50, meaning that it will be points, not goals scored. A version of 2008 Hawthorn walking it across the goal line to reset play and take possession without pressure.

Buckley pointed out that by design, we move the ball up the field very slowly to ensure that we have strong defensive support when turning it over.

I can now see our midfield streaming back to support the defence and for a while I thought it was higher work-rate, but now I can see that when we turn it over, we are structurally sound, so it gives our midfielders time to run back in support. Other teams that move fast and have strong ruck-setups are complacent with their attacking prowess and are very often caught out when its turned over.

Something else to think about:

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2018-06-05/the-stats-files-the-three-keys-to-winning-games-in-2018

We rate number 1 in one category 'Retention rate on kicks inside 50'. We also rank 5th in contested possessions. So we win the ball, get it into our 50 and keep it there to score. I suspect that we'd be high up in the 'Time in Forward Half' stat and the '% of inside 50s for goals'. I think this year is also about our field position and scoring effectively (a continuation and improvement on last year).

As it was noted the 100% guarantee of victory stat is - higher score than the opposition.

 

[Mr Blicavs]

played off the back square running from half back to set up play and penetrate the lines for us. Was absolutely brilliant at it and played the role with twice as much effect on the game as any other player in the back half has done at all this season for us.

We have greatly lacked a play setting general down back who can dictate and set up attacks with the ball aka Luke hodge style. Duncan can do exactly this.

Tuoey and bews simply don’t do this, tuoey is always caught playing defensively too deep in the back half and gives nothing in terms of setting up attacks, and bews doesn’t read the play well enough or accumulate.

This is what we need to balance our team and give something we have sorely missed against quality sides.

When Guthrie comes back, move him to midfield and shift Duncan to his defensive role.

Others thoughts??

Let’s hooe Guthrie NEVER comes back

 

[Mr Blicavs]

I would love to see Cockatoo one on one with Dustin Martin. Martin is the best at what he does, but both Selwood and Danger marvel at Cockatoo's sheer athleticism and that's saying something. Who knows, maybe Dusty will brush him off and wrong-foot him, or maybe just maybe Cockatoo will launch that extra half meter that only he can and tackle and ragdoll him.

That’s a terrible idea Vic. Martin is a running beast and Cocky breaks down at the smell of linament.
No thanks, Dusty would break him.

 

[00VicWard001]

I agree it has held up from a defensive point of view but does our defence set up enough attacks from the back half for scores??

My question is about our ability to set up and attack from our back fifty, not our ability to defend.

In the final against Richmond we couldn’t even move the ball past the centre square and had great difficulty getting any fluent movement from the back half.

Is the back six this year going to be able to run and carry and set up strong attacking rebounds out of Richmond’s forward half?? You believe they will, but I have my doubts to be honest.

I hope you are correct and I am wrong in two weeks on that, but we will have to see

We don't do running rebounding attacks so much this year because of exactly what happened last year. That's why Tuohy is further back. Of course, if the opportunity is there, then players do it, but I think we're much more focused as a intercept-kick-mark team now from the backline.

The antidote to Richmond's high pressure forward line is not to challenge the pressure by running through it - we'll lose. It's too dangerous a spot to make one mistake, because it will be going through the goals 6 out of 10 times. The ideal method of beating a mosquito fleet of fast high pressure forwards is... playing keepings off by marking it. That's where they are vulnerable - and that's where guys like Nankervis with his exceptional around-the-ground involvement creates a contest and bring the ball to the ground for them to scrub forward, hassle and harass enough to keep it in play until they can pick it and take a shot.

Duncan is great coming off the back of the square when the ball is in the centre. Likewise, Ablett and Tuohy can do it. Kolo also do it and has done so in a few games.

 

[00VicWard001]

That’s a terrible idea Vic. Martin is a running beast and Cocky breaks down at the smell of linament.
No thanks, Dusty would break him.

Speculative idea I would say... but you're likely right, Martin is indestructible and Cockatoo cannot stay uninjured. I'm just curious about his pure athleticism and aggression against a topline player. Elliot Yeo was more than happy to go for Martin, as was NickNat. Both are physical players.

 

[Mr Blicavs]

Speculative idea I would say...

Either way mate. I hope that never happens. I have a feeling we’ll be nursing Cocky a lot. Taking on Dusty is just a bridge too far for his physical capabilities ........from what I’ve seen

 

[Vdubs]

I just dont see the utensil as an elite set up player, He is more of a chaos/pressure player on exposed form.

I don't see him as a player we can rely on anywhere yet; so fragile, injury prone, and unlucky. Whatever we get from him in any position, is a bonus, but seeing a whole string of games from him has rarely happened if at all.

 

[you pick one]

Scott has used Ablett and now Duncan off the back of the square both to great affect and that's because they both have terrific football nouse,timing, delivery skills and stamina as well as pace.Cocky has pace to burn energy, youth and enthusiasm,if he could time his run at the bounce he could be dangerous as well but my preference would be for the other 2 for now.

 

[My Tilly]

Duncan shits the bed under pressure so for starters he's the wrong man to solve rebound issues when under duress.

I'd actually be for seeing him play across the half back flank and try to see if Constable & Parfitt can improve through the middle. Now that Guthrie is playing the best footy of his career, Duncan's elite foot skills could really be a bonus down back at the moment.

What do you think?