Injury Nat Fyfe: Not Suffering "serious" back injury. "Ruptured disc" during general training drill.

[yoong]

I take your point yoong, but I think there are multiple benefits in putting Fyfe forward.

Without taking a negative viewpoint, we have tried all of Clark, Hannath, Taberner, Hannath and Griffin forward - results have been mixed. These guys will hopefully improve, and we also have some possibilities in Apeness, Hurley and some of the young kids we have recruited. I don't class Yarran as a key forward, at best he is a Mayne / Walters type.

In addition, we need to start getting some games into some / all of:

• Bennell
• Blakely
• Langdon
• Weller
• Gray

It's not like taking Fyfe out of the midfield will leave us short - and to be honest I think after the first half of last year teams had pretty much worked out the Sandi to Fyfe centre strategy and it was becoming less effective and much harder on Fyfe, as he was just getting banged up all the time.

The midfield is one small part of a full-ground strategy. The really good teams will stop a star like Fyfe, even if it means corking him or sliding into his legs.

Are you prepared to say it's season gone if Fyfe get's a serious injury next year, or if his back really is a problem that has to be managed? We will still find a way to win or at least halve the midfield battles without him, whether he is injured or kicking a shedload of goals up forward. For mine I'd love to see him "preserved" somewhat in the forward line and give the opportunity for some more stars to develop in the midfield.

Last I checked, Suban and DeBoer is still running in the midfield. I'll drop them first to make way for Bennell et al.

I think our disagreement come from how productive Fyfe will be up front. If he is better that Riewoldt as full forward then yeah of course we should put him there.

 

[PurpleWizard]

Thanks for your contribution to the discussion mate, it has been interesting seeing the different viewpoints.

For me the trouble with trading Fyfe for Hogan is that Hogan will only ever be a power forward.

We already have one guy who has been all-Australian backman, midfielder and power forward - I think we have another with the potential to be more than a one-trick pony...

You're a poster I always agree with so it's nice to have a debate. I'm sure RTB is struggling with what to do with Fyfe this year as well and it'll be interesting to see how he plays him.

Regarding Hogan for Fyfe, I think that probably deserves it's own thread, especially next year after Pav retires.

 

[DannyTheDoorman]

If possible I rather we manage fyfe injuries well in 2016 whether he play forward or mid does not matter as long as the role he play got lesser chance to injured him further. If playing him forward or not play him at all ,will give our baby player mature in afl (Weller ,grey ,Langdon and blakely) I would rather forget about 2016 and got a healthy fyfe in 2017.sorry pav

Fyfe didn't look injured at all today when he trained. He twisted and turned in his running pattern when doing laps and did kick the footy with one of the trainers.

 

[sherrif]

If possible I rather we manage fyfe injuries well in 2016 whether he play forward or mid does not matter as long as the role he play got lesser chance to injured him further. If playing him forward or not play him at all ,will give our baby player mature in afl (Weller ,grey ,Langdon and blakely) I would rather forget about 2016 and got a healthy fyfe in 2017.sorry pav

The 'seriously' injured back stuff is a load of deadset rubbish exaggerated media beat up. Sorry, but you don't have to be a medical expert to work out the if a bloke is running, twisting and doing the things E shed described two weeks after apparently injuring his back it is a very minor back injury at worse. If it was anything remotely near a serious back injury everything he is doing would be in a pool out of sight. Rest is actually the main method of overcoming back injuries without surgery. The idea that we should rest for a year is absurd.

 

[meima]

Fyfe didn't look injured at all today when he trained. He twisted and turned in his running pattern when doing laps and did kick the footy with one of the trainers who needs lessons on how to kick.

Hi Danny , the thing in afl is opposition will try to send player to hurt fyfe in mid due to congestion , umpire already bias against us using only the left eye to judge with excuse in stopage umpire basically close both eye without protecting fyfe.

 

[DannyTheDoorman]

Hi Danny , the thing in afl is opposition will try to send player to hurt fyfe in mid due to congestion , umpire already bias against us using only the left eye to judge with excuse in stopage umpire basically close both eye without protecting fyfe.

So your another young conspiracy theorist.

 

[sherrif]

Hi Danny , the thing in afl is opposition will try to send player to hurt fyfe in mid due to congestion , umpire already bias against us using only the left eye to judge with excuse in stopage umpire basically close both eye without protecting fyfe.

Thinking before you post would be a great idea.

 

[meima]

So your another young conspiracy theorist.

You are the doorman once close the door what run behind the scene nobody know. Also please don't leak too much information that fyfe is running freely , I would rather we got some surprise for our media come 1st half of the season.

 

[Fred Ziffel]

You are the doorman once close the door what run behind the scene nobody know. Also please don't leak too much information that fyfe is running freely , I would rather we got some surprise for our media come 1st half of the season.

Too late. TV Crews were at Freo Oval this morning.

 

[meima]

Seriously, can you at least put some effort into making sense. Im not joking when I say the amount of threads you have derailed with posts that don't even have a coherent argument in them is ridiculous.

You are in my ignore button sorry for my nonsense. So obvious that I don't reply to you but other after you posted. The title of the this thread is serious injury ,yet you mention media create ,then go and create you sheriff no serious injury thread theeeee.

 

[sherrif]

You are in my ignore button sorry for my nonsense. So obvious that I don't reply to you but other after you posted.

It would actually be pretty difficult to respond to my post if I was actually on ignore I would have thought.

 

[meima]

It would actually be pretty difficult to respond to my post if I was actually on ignore I would have thought.

 

[DudleyDocker]

Don't worry meima, we know what you mean. At least you have a go and I think your English is definitely improving

 

[Clems Knee]

It would actually be pretty difficult to respond to my post if I was actually on ignore I would have thought.

When you have a poster on ignore, a little message comes up stating that ignored members have posted on that page. So Meima, if you keep checking who posted, maybe you have too many on ignore?

I would suggest that Sherrif makes some good points on this board, So you may be better off not ignoring him.
Similarly, Sherrif, a bit of patience reading Meima's broken English would reveal he makes decent points too.
Rainbows all round.

 

[not_working]

Mr Wizard, you make some very challenging observations, and I think they have a lot of merit.

I'm not one of those who thought last season was a disaster, and I realize that we were within cooee of a flag, as we were in 2014 and also 2013. My point really was that Ross has proven over and over that he can GET a team to the finals, but as yet he has not been able to snag the big one.

At what point do we stop saying he's unlucky and acknowledge that something needs to change? All teams have injuries, and next year it is inevitable that we will have injuries, and Murphy's law says they will be at the worst possible time!

For me this issue has been and will continue to be, goal scoring capability. We can't really hope to restrict really good sides to low scores on a consistent basis - there will always be the possibility of a Rioli, Gunston or Franklin who has a blinder and scores heavily - if we can't score heavily we lose. Simple as that.

I think swinging Fyfe forward is a lot less of a change than you seem to think it is. Fyfe is one star in a midfield full of stars, Pav is one key forward in a forward line of... one key forward. I think we can cover (and have covered in the past) for Fyfe in the midfield with the guys we have, without even factoring in the boost we will get from Bennell.

For mine it's worth a try - I would rather go down trying something different than sit back at the end of 2016 and say "if only we hadn't had injuries and suspensions we might have got there".

Great topic and food for thought (even if it takes us slightly of topic).
I think there is always a need for a bit of change even without minimising the achievements of 2015, as the competition never stands still. But I think the discussion is a little too black and white for me, in that it is very much based on traditional positional patterns. I think that the stack of mid-fielders and potential lack of forwards should allow us to innovate a bit and mix things up - for example, I would like to see Fyfe and Bennell constantly rotate positions based on situation, opponents personnel and tactics; they are similar enough players to be able to support out structure in either positions, but different enough players to give opposition coaches headaches if they don't know who will go where? And they will both be threatening goals in either position ...

 

[sherrif]

When you have a poster on ignore, a little message comes up stating that ignored members have posted on that page. So Meima, if you keep checking who posted, maybe you have too many on ignore?

I would suggest that Sherrif makes some good points on this board, So you may be better off not ignoring him.
Similarly, Sherrif, a bit of patience reading Meima's broken English would reveal he makes decent points too.
Rainbows all round.

Fair point.

 

[meima]

Too late. TV Crews were at Freo Oval this morning.

Aii no wonder tommorow time trial somewhere else.

 

[meima]

Great topic and food for thought (even if it takes us slightly of topic).
I think there is always a need for a bit of change even without minimising the achievements of 2015, as the competition never stands still. But I think the discussion is a little too black and white for me, in that it is very much based on traditional positional patterns. I think that the stack of mid-fielders and potential lack of forwards should allow us to innovate a bit and mix things up - for example, I would like to see Fyfe and Bennell constantly rotate positions based on situation, opponents personnel and tactics; they are similar enough players to be able to support out structure in either positions, but different enough players to give opposition coaches headaches if they don't know who will go where? And they will both be threatening goals in either position ...

Thanks not working that what I am trying to said but due to my broken english.

 

[Mr Peabody]

So let's say Fyfe kicks 50...we then take off Mayne's ~30 goals in a season plus the ~20 Fyfe would have kicked as a midfielder and what's the outcome? Zero net gain.

Now maybe I am wrong and Fyfe shifting forward opens a position for another midfielder to enter our B22 that can kick a goal a game as well but I am not aware we have someone like that on our list who is ready yet.

Great work. Really good debate this one.

Subjective but I'm counting on Mayne's 30 goals staying in the mix and ideally improving (whether it's by him or Taberner for example).

So for me it's Fyfe Forward(50) - Fyfe Mid(20) = 30 to which I'd add the ready made mid Bennell(20) + Walters/Ballaz(20) as a by product of a more potent forward line.

That's an extra 70 goals equating to an incremental 3 goals a game taking us from 12 to 15 goals per game and up towards the top offensively.

I get the concerns about compromising the midfield without Fyfe but recruiting Bennell is hopefully the masterstroke that permits the luxury while also throwing down the gauntlet on the likes of Weller, Blakely and Langdon to make their mark.

As an aside, in addition to the need to kick more goals, the chatter out of the Club is a focus on kicking more in general which would be in pursuit of the Hawks' stats/model with the assistance of Messrs Hale and Guerra. Intriguing to see whether the kicking skills can markedly improve during the preseason games as they were relatively poor compared to the opposition in that last final both in ground kicks and kicking for goal.

 

[DannyTheDoorman]

You are the doorman once close the door what run behind the scene nobody know. Also please don't leak too much information that fyfe is running freely , I would rather we got some surprise for our media come 1st half of the season.

It was on Channel 7 News tonight with vision so what are you on about keeping things quiet. Maybe the door should be shut on you ha ha

 

[DannyTheDoorman]

Too late. TV Crews were at Freo Oval this morning.

I reckon the 7 crew came back later and got a very short clip but I reckon Fyfey dropped back to the ground for that.I was there from 8.35/8.40 and left at 11.00 when the Ch 9 and 10 crews had packed up. All the other old and young boys (the regulars) left at the same time.

 

[meima]

It was on Channel 7 News tonight with vision so what are you on about keeping things quiet. Maybe the door should be shut on you ha ha

But I thought your said don't trust the media especially eagle 7 .

 

[wayToGo_]

Great work. Really good debate this one.

Subjective but I'm counting on Mayne's 30 goals staying in the mix and ideally improving (whether it's by him or Taberner for example).

So for me it's Fyfe Forward(50) - Fyfe Mid(20) = 30 to which I'd add the ready made mid Bennell(20) + Walters/Ballaz(20) as a by product of a more potent forward line.

That's an extra 70 goals equating to an incremental 3 goals a game taking us from 12 to 15 goals per game and up towards the top offensively.

I get the concerns about compromising the midfield without Fyfe but recruiting Bennell is hopefully the masterstroke that permits the luxury while also throwing down the gauntlet on the likes of Weller, Blakely and Langdon to make their mark.

As an aside, in addition to the need to kick more goals, the chatter out of the Club is a focus on kicking more in general which would be in pursuit of the Hawks' stats/model with the assistance of Messrs Hale and Guerra. Intriguing to see whether the kicking skills can markedly improve during the preseason games as they were relatively poor compared to the opposition in that last final both in ground kicks and kicking for goal.

View attachment 204707

If only this could happen this season! If these figures were to become reality we would easily win the premiership imo. The good news is that Bennell should hopefully give us an extra goal a game (~20+ goals in a season) regardless of where Fyfe plays. Speaking purely mathematically... The question I still have is who comes out of our forward 6 to make room for Fyfe? Walters,Pav,Mayne,Ballaz,Tabs or Griffin? Also forgetting Crozier and Yarran for the moment. And if we play Bennell on the HFF as well who else comes out? Whoever it is, our predicted points per game differential for 2016 from 2015 needs to be adjusted accordingly.

I personally think midfielders who can score regularly are gold. They aren't taking up one of your forward 6 slots but are still contributing to the scoreboard. If you could keep adding people to the forward line without taking anyone out then highly inflated numbers like yours would make sense. But someone has to make room. Which is why you can't look at the impact of shifting a player in isolation and instead need to assess the impact it has on the team's statistics holistically.

The most important stat in all this though is inside 50 entries. Last season we were pretty ordinary at getting the ball in to the forward 50 (14th in the league) - not even close to Hawthorn and the other attacking teams. Not surprisingly you need to have the ball in the forward line before forwards can score from it no matter how good they are. One thing I think many would be surprised at is that when we did get the ball i50 we weren't actually that bad at scoring from it (still not great but better than most teams). So perhaps our forward line isn't as terrible as many think - it's just they don't get enough supply So I suspect the main problem we really need to address is inside 50s and that has far less to do with our forward line personnel. Once we are getting good supply then if our forwards still aren't kicking winning scores then perhaps the personnel need an overhaul.

 

[Sweetback]

I feel like one of the big reasons our inside 50s are bad is because the players don't have confidence in the forwards to take the grabs in the first place. Pav wasn't much chop after round 9 last year. Tabs hasn't ever been good at it. Mayne is dicey at best. Sonny only started pulling down the speccies in the last half dozen games of the regular season.

 

[wayToGo_]

I feel like one of the big reasons our inside 50s are bad is because the players don't have confidence in the forwards to take the grabs in the first place. Pav wasn't much chop after round 9 last year. Tabs hasn't ever been good at it. Mayne is dicey at best. Sonny only started pulling down the speccies in the last half dozen games of the regular season.

Confused? So our players deliberately didn't kick it inside 50, they just played "keepy off" around the arc? I get what you mean but I am not sure that should impact i50 numbers. I personally see it from the other p.o.v., our forwards must surely have been sick of getting slow and poorly executed "kicks to disadvantage" from our deliverers. The number of times Pav would lead and the kick to him was poorly executed drove me nuts. But I still think it comes down to slow ball movement overall. When the ball moves slowly down the field the deliverer and the receiver will both tend to be under far more pressure. We seemed allergic to uncontested possessions for a large chunk of the season... Great that we are the best at contested football but it'd be nice if we didn't have to work so hard all the time.