Options on the second tall forward?

[Rimmer]

The cupboard is pretty bare.

Our small forward line has been ferocious with their tackling and keeping the ball in our forward 50 but the fact is we are kicking 12 goals a game with Jack as the loan pivot and our mids too kicking 2 or 3 of those goals each game.

We don't have a second tall target and with great respect to our fast developing army of small goal kicking forwards none of them is yet an eddie betts who can kick us 4 or 5.

Griffiths and Elton are both injured and in truth neither of them is yet a proven second tall forward who can consistently kick a couple of goals a game.

Soldo is a developing ruckman, Choi is green. Hampson can kick goals in the daytime when he can see the ball to mark it but he is broken.

Could Maric pinch hit as a full forward? He is a good mark and fairly mobile and I think a reasonably kick.

Do we take a chance on unsettling our brilliant backline by rotating Astbury into the forward line occasionally as a plan B? He is tall enough and kicked a few goals on occasion early in his career.

It is going to be hard at the business end of the season if we can't kick a few more goals in games.

Heaven help us if Jack were to go down (touch wood 50 times)

Do we have some Ace up our sleeve?

 

[_Cayz_]

What about Garthwaite? Kicked 100 goal season prior to being drafted.

I personally think we should throw the kitchen sink at Rory Lobb come trade week.

 

[biaseddustyfan]

we cant rotate astbury out for any more than 5 min here and there. you don't mess with the best/maybe second best backline in the comp..us especially dont need to mess with something we're actually good at

soldo needs to do it, not maric. we are not really going for the premiership exactly this year so there's no point playing maric. he wont be part of our real go at the premiership next 2-3 years. soldo might actually go well if he plays with Nank also in since he wont have to ruck the whole game. he got tired in those games he played

see how garth goes in that role in vfl for a bit longer. not an option yet

then of course we need to get someone at years end. I'm not fussed if its Reid, Casboult etc. Someone in the mid range not crazy expensive but not cheap shit and not kert tippitt

 

[Phar Ace]

Not suggesting it is adequate, but we should experiment with Maric at Forward Pocket changing with Nank for a few chop outs and rucking the forward line. Maric is a big body, slower than before but plenty capable enough to bring ball to ground for the smalls. Most teams play a plus one in defence and Maric could try and 'punish' this player a few times early to create some concern.

We need another option come finals, presuming we make it, and it needs a few games to tweak it up a bit.

Not ideal, but considering the other options, it's not the worst - it's a step back in time, but so are other successful strategies sometimes.

 

[RememberRoyce]

Not suggesting it is adequate, but we should experiment with Maric at Forward Pocket changing with Nank for a few chop outs and rucking the forward line. Maric is a big body, slower than before but plenty capable enough to bring ball to ground for the smalls. Most teams play a plus one in defence and Maric could try and 'punish' this player a few times early to create some concern.

We need another option come finals, presuming we make it, and it needs a few games to tweak it up a bit.

Not ideal, but considering the other options, it's not the worst - it's a step back in time, but so are other successful strategies sometimes.

Maric can't get more than 6 inches off the ground. Might as well keep playing Grigg...at least he can run even though he doesn't jump at centre bounces either. Or should we stick with Caddy as the centre bounce specialist?

 

[TRUMAN#1]

Back up Ruck or 2nd key fwd

These are both Big issues, but for mine the Back up Ruck to give Nank a chop out is our Number 1 issue. Hes getting smashed and is tired from it.

It will kill our year eventually if this problem isn't remedied.

Our 2nd tall fwd is an issue, but a resting Ruckman could help us out there, so we could get away with only bringing 1 tall in.

So my preference is to bring in someone who has the ability to play ruck as the priority, who could go fwd.

1. Soldo, but give him a few games
2. Maric - Not ideal as hes shot, but I would rather him, then not brining in a tall at all.
3. Chol

 

[Grrr]

Soldo only because Nankervis run the risk of breakdown.

 

[TigermanM2]

What about Garthwaite? Kicked 100 goal season prior to being drafted.

I personally think we should throw the kitchen sink at Rory Lobb come trade week.

Dream - Rory Lobb
Reality - Matthew Lobbe

 

[theyellowsash]

Yet noone at the club seems to have been held accountable for such bad drafting and list management

 

[Gosha]

Yet noone at the club seems to have been held accountable for such bad drafting and list management

This. What a mess our list is in. Melbourne have been missing Gawn and Hogan for most of the season and have covered for them both brilliantly because they have adequate depth. We are running our only AFL standard ruckman into the ground and are butchering our forward fifty entries because we've only got one tall target who cops three players every week.

The lack of depth in this positioning is concerning, especially now that our smalls are become less effective as each week goes by. We can get away with it against sides like North and Carlton, but we were found out against quality like Adelaide and Sydney. This week is another strong opponent. I wonder if they'll figure out a solution.

 

[Dr Tigris]

I would also go the Soldo/Maric option. Gives Nank a chop out and we get another tall forward. very much second/third best. But it gives us structure.

The option of trying Lennon as a marking forward could work. He's nowhere near a genuine KPF, but can mark and kick.

Or we just continue to use medium/smalls as marking options. If they could kick straight it wouldn't be such an issue.

No good options. Just variations of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
1) Bring in a ruck and lose mobility and defensive pressure
2) Bring in Lennon and lose speed, whilst not having a genuine tall forward
3) Stay as is and risk blowing up Nank and being vulnerable to good teams due to limited ruck and forward presence.

Injuries suck - when they are concentrated in one area.

 

[This Is Anfield]

Hawthorn have a decent prospect running around at Box Hill. Kicked 4 on the weekend, I believe.

 

[Hank Heavenly]

For what we have it has to be Soldo or Garth... And they have to start FWD

The role required is Fwd with a stint in the ruck.

For all those people saying Play Nank at CHF, or Swing astbury forward, you do realise that a lot of our improvement this year has come on the back of their form IN THOSE POSITIONS.
Nank, for what he doesn't offer (compared to Hampson, our 2016 ruck) in Hit-outs, he more than makes up for in his around the ground play, which is clearly more valuable to helping out our midfielders.
And Astbury being able to take the oppos best Key Fwd, and winning that contest most times, has allowed Rance to influence more contests in our back half, leading us to the second best defence in the comp.

Maric is too far cooked to offer anything as a fwd, and then still is not 1/2 the player he was if he ventured into the ruck.

 

[Dr Tigris]

Yet noone at the club seems to have been held accountable for such bad drafting and list management

I sort of agree, but don't really. We have a heap of injuries to our talls. And you cannot really hold onto extra mature talls like you can smaller players.

Firstly, why do want to have only a limited supply of mature talls. You can only play 5-7 talls in the firsts. Ruck, FF, CHF, CHB, FB, plus extra talls if they are mobile/2nd ruck. If these guys stay fit your depth mature talls have to play seconds. If they are any good they will want a trade, and beig mature will have options. If they aren't much chop then they are list cloggers. And you need a good list of young talls coming through; 1) because you have to continuously rebuild the list, and 2) talls take longer so you have to just soak up a bunch of list spots to have the same rotation of players to try out, and 3) talls seem to be more risky than smaller players so you need relatively more draftees. All of which means that talls tend to be tilted towards first team players and younger developing players. The more marginal AFL quality players that most teams have plenty of in mediums/smalls re logically rarer in talls. So, the RFC had about the right(ish) mix of talls in terms of number and quality (you always want more quality)

Secondly, we have a focus on injuries to ruck and KPFs. Hammer would change our situation totally if fit. He is an AFL quality ruck, not great but capable. That would allow Nankervis to be our CHF and 2nd ruck. We lose around the ground a bit, but gain a lot in structure. Losing Griff and Elton means we are into the developing KPFs. Just the way it is. We could move Astbury forward. Good move, but would disrupt a fantastic backline, where he must be borderline AA squad (not AA team though).

So, IMHO, given the logical poor depth in most AFL squads in ruck/KPFs we have been unlucky more than poorly managed. We had 4 mature KPFs (Jack, Grif, Elton, Nank) and are effectively down 3 due to Hammer forcing Nank to be full time ruck.

 

[TRUMAN#1]

Yet noone at the club seems to have been held accountable for such bad drafting and list management

100% its a disgrace that we can't comfortably bring in a tall to our line up.


Proof 1: to back you up. - Elton still on the list.

 

[BKM78]

There is something i like more about Reid than Casboult. Maybe its the quality around him.

 

[NaturalDisaster]

Bring in soldo pop Nank at chf imo

 

[NaturalDisaster]

It's easy to bash our tall drafting but it achieves nothing. the club have talls first on its agenda, as long as they follow through on that I don't care what happened before

One myth is that we have completely neglected talls which is wrong, we have drafted a few options they just didn't work out. Recruiters can't always see that ahead of time.

 

[Roachy8]

Soldo only because Nankervis run the risk of breakdown.

I reckon Nank has started to look a little tanked the last couple of weeks actually.
Ryder is gonna jump all over him on Saturday- I'm worried.

 

[TigermanM2]

There is something i like more about Reid than Casboult. Maybe its the quality around him.

One has been involved with a successful club and is just starting to hit his straps, the other is lucky to still be on the list of a bottom 4 club.

If we are aiming at being a top 4 side then you have to ask if Casboult has what it takes to be best 22 in that side. I don't think so.

 

[BKM78]

One has been involved with a successful club and is just starting to hit his straps, the other is lucky to still be on the list of a bottom 4 club.

If we are aiming at being a top 4 side then you have to ask if Casboult has what it takes to be best 22 in that side. I don't think so.

I tend to agree. I guess it comes.down to dollars and cents and if they want out of Syd/Carl. I see Casboult as a guy that will contest honestly and take some decent contested marks. I see Reid doing the same but with game breaking matches. He seems a more attractive prospect but would be asking for more $$$ i would think.

 

[theyellowsash]

I sort of agree, but don't really. We have a heap of injuries to our talls. And you cannot really hold onto extra mature talls like you can smaller players.

Firstly, why do want to have only a limited supply of mature talls. You can only play 5-7 talls in the firsts. Ruck, FF, CHF, CHB, FB, plus extra talls if they are mobile/2nd ruck. If these guys stay fit your depth mature talls have to play seconds. If they are any good they will want a trade, and beig mature will have options. If they aren't much chop then they are list cloggers. And you need a good list of young talls coming through; 1) because you have to continuously rebuild the list, and 2) talls take longer so you have to just soak up a bunch of list spots to have the same rotation of players to try out, and 3) talls seem to be more risky than smaller players so you need relatively more draftees. All of which means that talls tend to be tilted towards first team players and younger developing players. The more marginal AFL quality players that most teams have plenty of in mediums/smalls re logically rarer in talls. So, the RFC had about the right(ish) mix of talls in terms of number and quality (you always want more quality)

Secondly, we have a focus on injuries to ruck and KPFs. Hammer would change our situation totally if fit. He is an AFL quality ruck, not great but capable. That would allow Nankervis to be our CHF and 2nd ruck. We lose around the ground a bit, but gain a lot in structure. Losing Griff and Elton means we are into the developing KPFs. Just the way it is. We could move Astbury forward. Good move, but would disrupt a fantastic backline, where he must be borderline AA squad (not AA team though).

So, IMHO, given the logical poor depth in most AFL squads in ruck/KPFs we have been unlucky more than poorly managed. We had 4 mature KPFs (Jack, Grif, Elton, Nank) and are effectively down 3 due to Hammer forcing Nank to be full time ruck.

Nice apologist post but no offence, its total crap. Jack is a genuine quality KPF, Griff is a kpf/ruck who is average at best and we have known that for years, Elton is just crap (4 games in 6 or so years) who has been trained as a defender most his career, and Nank is a ruckman who could rest forward (he is nowhere near athletic enough as a true kpf). Hammer is average at best but competes with Nank as neither can play true kpf. You say losing griff and elton means we are into the developing players, well griff hasnt cemented his place as a decent afl player and elton has barely played so they were both still developing themselves. You also say that talls are risky and take longer, so why do we have so few? We are basically relying on the few talls we have to become good because we have noone developing beneath them as a backup plan.

No amount of fancy words and excuses can hide the fact that we have NO kpp depth, yet noone seems to have been held accountable.

 

[SplintWhisky]

I would also go the Soldo/Maric option. Gives Nank a chop out and we get another tall forward. very much second/third best. But it gives us structure.

The option of trying Lennon as a marking forward could work. He's nowhere near a genuine KPF, but can mark and kick.

Or we just continue to use medium/smalls as marking options. If they could kick straight it wouldn't be such an issue.

No good options. Just variations of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
1) Bring in a ruck and lose mobility and defensive pressure
2) Bring in Lennon and lose speed, whilst not having a genuine tall forward
3) Stay as is and risk blowing up Nank and being vulnerable to good teams due to limited ruck and forward presence.

Injuries suck - when they are concentrated in one area.

One option is to lose lloyd and replace him with the second tall. He is slow to mid paced anyway and doesnt appear to be applying much pressure. That way we can keep the small 4

 

[juss]

The cupboard is pretty bare.

Our small forward line has been ferocious with their tackling and keeping the ball in our forward 50 but the fact is we are kicking 12 goals a game with Jack as the loan pivot and our mids too kicking 2 or 3 of those goals each game.

We don't have a second tall target and with great respect to our fast developing army of small goal kicking forwards none of them is yet an eddie betts who can kick us 4 or 5.

Griffiths and Elton are both injured and in truth neither of them is yet a proven second tall forward who can consistently kick a couple of goals a game.

Soldo is a developing ruckman, Choi is green. Hampson can kick goals in the daytime when he can see the ball to mark it but he is broken.

Could Maric pinch hit as a full forward? He is a good mark and fairly mobile and I think a reasonably kick.

Do we take a chance on unsettling our brilliant backline by rotating Astbury into the forward line occasionally as a plan B? He is tall enough and kicked a few goals on occasion early in his career.

It is going to be hard at the business end of the season if we can't kick a few more goals in games.

Heaven help us if Jack were to go down (touch wood 50 times)

Do we have some Ace up our sleeve?

Sorry, I stopped reading when you said Maric was "fairly mobile"

 

[tigerT]

Give Chol a run and if he is wayyyyyy off it, then give garthwaite a run and ask reiwoldt to step into the ruck a little bit more short term to give nank some relief. Personally I dont see how we can play soldo and then talk about Chol being too green...