Our Midfield

[My Cotchin Rules]

2021 off season trade targets we didn't enquire about or missed out on that would of been pretty handy this season....

• Lipinski (went to pies)
• Hewitt (went to blues)
• Cerra (went to blues)
• Tom Mitchell (all talk, no action)
• Dunstan????
• Why weren't we part of the GC fire sale??? Brodie, Greenwood......

What about even looking a year earlier and how we let B.Crouch slip to the saints when they already had Z.Jones.

 

[richoplzbreed]

Hey it's hard for the club to go after the

2021 off season trade targets we didn't enquire about or missed out on that would of been pretty handy this season....

• Lipinski (went to pies)
• Hewitt (went to blues)
• Cerra (went to blues)
• Tom Mitchell (all talk, no action)
• Dunstan????
• Why weren't we part of the GC fire sale??? Brodie, Greenwood......

What about even looking a year earlier and how we let B.Crouch slip to the saints when they already had Z.Jones.

Hey it's hard to go after any of them when $1.7 mil is tied up in Caddy, Cotchin and Riewoldt this year. Thank f@$k alot of posters on here aren't in charge of contracts or Riewoldt and Cotchin would've been signed til 2024 because they deserve it!

 

[prodigy1311]

Its 0-1 not 0-5! Lets have some faith. Surely the focus will be the kids once our season is shot! Till then its fair for dimma to challenge the veterans and give some if the kids a go. We had gibcus n hugo playing and rcd to join next. Enjoy the ride! Lets not forget the jiurney this gun side went through before getting to glory. Go tiges

 

[mauricerioli]

More focus needs to be on our coaching at stoppages and Centre bounces.

I haven’t looked at the around the ground stoppages but I just went and watched all the centre bounces and when we went man on man we were winning the clearance most of the time.

Whenever we let one of their players free at the Centre bounce Carlton would usually win the clearance.

We always had 2 midfielders manning their Carlton opponents and our 3rd midfielder guarding the space on the Carlton goal side of the circle, for the first 3 quarters Carlton mostly manned that 3rd player up but in the last quarter they tried something different and left our 3rd midfielder by himself and positioned themselves free on the side of the circle and flogged us in the centre clearances.

 

[Maurice Mitchell]

I still don’t understand why we drafted so many defenders last year. Gibcus I understand but I was spewing we didn’t trade up to get Hobbs as well. Drafting Banks and Clarke was baffling, we could’ve used those picks to get a big inside mid or two.


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I guess we don’t know what may be in the pipeline mid-wise but grabbing Hobbs, even if possible won’t help us this year.

So, doesn’t get us across the line Thursday.

I know we should always be planning for the future but the discussion here has been what we needed against Carlton.

I’m actually more concerned with attitude than anything else. We threw in the towel pretty early in games last year and the 50 metre penalties and last quarter fade out have me wondering if we are switched on or want it enough.

If any of the older players are ‘cooked’ as some of you say, it maybe as much as mental as physical.

Ps. I understand how frustrating some of the adjudication would be, and probably moreso since I’ve seen plenty of leniency given in the games since.

 

[tigerfan1961]

He was awful. Anytime he tried anything he turned it over and then padded his stats with sideways and short kicks. Poor handballer as well.


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What did you think of Ralphsmith then? Many singing his praises on here but he was much much worse than Jack Ross in terms of disposal. I’m not even close to being convinced Hugo will make it as a player

 

[beema limapep]

Its 0-1 not 0-5! Lets have some faith. Surely the focus will be the kids once our season is shot! Till then its fair for dimma to challenge the veterans and give some if the kids a go. We had gibcus n hugo playing and rcd to join next. Enjoy the ride! Lets not forget the jiurney this gun side went through before getting to glory. Go tiges

GWS will destroy our midfield round 2.
Stkilda is a 50/50 game at best.
Bulldogs will destroy our midfield round 4.

 

[Grrr]

you failed to mention jack graham as well in that good summery. I would like to see Nick Vlossy have another crack as a mid, we have an abundance of back flankers.

Jack Graham is not really an inside mid as he doesn't hunt the ball, he mainly hunts the man which is not a bad trait but it doesn't help with clearances much. Plus he is pretty slow over a short distance and gets most of his ball on the run on the break. Not sure he is the answer in the middle but I guess we will find out more in the coming weeks.

 

[Tony Stark]

Jack Graham is not really an inside mid as he doesn't hunt the ball, he mainly hunts the man which is not a bad trait but it doesn't help with clearances much. Plus he is pretty slow over a short distance and gets most of his ball on the run on the break. Not sure he is the answer in the middle but I guess we will find out more in the coming weeks.

He was clocking up some quite big numbers in the midfield when he first joined the club and debuted in the 2s.

Dimma then brought him into the side and changed his role and it seems thats been his role ever since. He seems more concerned about using his body to prevent others getting the ball or tackling once they have it more so than focusing on getting it himself.

Maybe they need to have him focus purely on getting the ball in the first instance, seems to be a negative use of him currently when it's bigger bodies we need in there.

 

[Karp3_dm]

How much is Tom Green

12

Tom Green

Age

25

Ht

192cm

Wt

92kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

11.5

3star

K

4.3

2star

HB

7.3

5star

M

1.8

2star

T

2.3

4star

CL

2.8

4star

D

11.5

3star

K

4.3

2star

HB

7.3

4star

M

1.8

2star

T

2.3

3star

CL

2.8

4star

D

11.5

3star

K

4.3

2star

HB

7.3

5star

M

1.8

2star

T

2.3

4star

CL

2.8

5star

gonna cost us?
My god he looked good vs swans
Might be better than Cripps
ELITE!

 

[Grrr]

Ross was sh*t on the wing, it was stupid to not put him in the guys ahead of Aarts for Christ sake. At the least he could made life a bit more difficult.


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Ross had 6 score involvements, we had only 21. 35% for a wingman is not sh*t no matter how hard you try to swing it.

 

[fargothegreat]

Yep, there’s a real deficiency in that high half forward, small forward area. Aarts and Castagna should not be in the team but there is no pressure on them from others in that position.

Parker should be doing this but instead they are trying to play him as a winger.

And MJ looks a long way off.

Perhaps Stack could be trialled there, I’m not sure.

Agree on Aarts, but so far this year George has been in fantastic form.

There's no way Parker should ever make the team if we want to go anywhere. You can't carry blokes with such poor skill level, no matter how hard they try.

 

[fargothegreat]

How much is Tom Green gonna cost us?
My god he looked good vs swans
Might be better than Cripps
ELITE!

He's almost getting too good. Starting to look like like they'd be demanding two firsts for him. Has the potential to be their best player.

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

No I wouldn't but I would have tapped Cotch & Jack on the shoulder and called it quits.

Great for the culture.
We treated our stars like this in the early 80’s.(offering crap contracts).

 

[Grrr]

Great for the culture.
We treated our stars like this in the early 80’s.(offering crap contracts).

Agreed. It wasn't Cotch's fault that he was asked to play against the most powerful midfielder in the comp, it was a hiding to nothing. Graham took him for a bit, but Cotch had him most of the night. Nor was it Jacks fault that they tried to use him up the ground at CHF like he was still the player that got us over the line in 2017. Jack is still dangerous, but not as a CHF, closer to goal and use his smarts. Cotch should be freed up a bit to hunt the loose ball, especially after a good preseason and not carrying injuries not used as a tagger.

First game ironing out of a few things. We will be better next week.

 

[Rocco sifreddi]

Jack Graham is not really an inside mid as he doesn't hunt the ball, he mainly hunts the man which is not a bad trait but it doesn't help with clearances much. Plus he is pretty slow over a short distance and gets most of his ball on the run on the break. Not sure he is the answer in the middle but I guess we will find out more in the coming weeks.

Thats spot in assesment on graham, his role isnt helping us at the minute.

 

[Grrr]

Thats spot in assesment on graham, his role isnt helping us at the minute.

To be fair he hasn't been asked to play that role much, so maybe he can. See ball, get ball.

 

[Rich01]

2021 off season trade targets we didn't enquire about or missed out on that would of been pretty handy this season....

• Lipinski (went to pies)
• Hewitt (went to blues)
• Cerra (went to blues)
• Tom Mitchell (all talk, no action)
• Dunstan????
• Why weren't we part of the GC fire sale??? Brodie, Greenwood......

What about even looking a year earlier and how we let B.Crouch slip to the saints when they already had Z.Jones.

How do you know we didn’t enquire about these players?

There would be rationale as to why we may not have got them.

Hewitt- can’t see him and Graham in the same team. Both play the same role. Carlton brought him in after missing on Graham last year. Wouldn’t have been on our radar.

Lipinski- looks good offensively and will rack up the stats and fantasy points. Talk to any Bulldogs supporter and they will tell you he lacked pace but more importantly the two way running and team oriented mentality that kept him out of the bulldogs side. I wouldn’t have been against us picking him up but there’s red flags there and I understand not doing so was backing in RCD who plays the same role. There were whispers we had some initial interest.

Cerra - Heard we were initially keen but he wasn’t the contested inside mid we craved. Still a good player but is he really worth Gibcus and Sonsie?

Tom Mitchell - gee this bloke would slot right into our side. Just what we need. But we would probably get two really good years out of him and then not much. This would have been us putting all our chips in for one last push at the expense of the future. I’m not sure how I would have felt about this.

Dunstan- Can get the ball but doesn’t run two ways and butchers it. There’s a reason the Saints let him go and he wasn’t in favour. No thanks.

Brodie- $600k? No thanks. How is this guy any better than our youngsters?

Greenwood- Tough no nonsense mid who has just turned 30. North prised him away offering good dollars and a three year contract. Not sure he’s the way forward for us.

Crouch- I did think the Saints did well with this one. We were right into him apparently but the Saints offered more cash. You can’t win them all.

I’m not sure we did too much wrong with the above?

 

[Rich01]

Agreed. It wasn't Cotch's fault that he was asked to play against the most powerful midfielder in the comp, it was a hiding to nothing. Graham took him for a bit, but Cotch had him most of the night. Nor was it Jacks fault that they tried to use him up the ground at CHF like he was still the player that got us over the line in 2017. Jack is still dangerous, but not as a CHF, closer to goal and use his smarts. Cotch should be freed up a bit to hunt the loose ball, especially after a good preseason and not carrying injuries not used as a tagger.

First game ironing out of a few things. We will be better next week.

The criticism of Jack, Cotch and Graham is ridiculous.

Jack played the game with a broken thumb. It affected his performance which wasn’t up to scratch but he was injured.

Cotch was out gunned in the middle. We simply should not be playing him as our number two mid (after Dusty) anymore. But with Dion out he had to play the role. He should be getting more easy ball this year and letting the younger guys be the prime movers but they haven’t stepped up. He should be part of our second midfield rotation and that should be the expectation of him, and the opportunity for our kids to step up and take the prime role. RCD this is your time.

Graham was simply underdone. Well short of match fitness and it showed. Hardwick admitted after the game they took a gamble on him and it didn’t pay off. He really should not have played with his current conditioning. He needs another couple of weeks to get up to speed.

 

[NZ_Tiger]

What did you think of Ralphsmith then? Many singing his praises on here but he was much much worse than Jack Ross in terms of disposal. I’m not even close to being convinced Hugo will make it as a player

Hadn’t seen much of him, but I wasn’t impressed. He seems a poor kick, and lacked impact.

I was hoping for an upgrade on macintosh and Pickett kicking wise but he’s about on their level.


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[banzai]

What about even looking a year earlier and how we let B.Crouch slip to the saints when they already had Z.Jones.

How were we adding B Crouch to a premiership team when the salary cap was dropping?

 

[cairo tiger]

How much is Tom Green gonna cost us?
My god he looked good vs swans
Might be better than Cripps
ELITE!

as much as cotchins contract

 

[Rich01]

as much as cotchins contract

Yep. If he ends up an All Australian and Brownlow Medalist that leads the team with intent for the next ten years I’m ok with paying him Cotchin dollars.

 

[banzai]

Green couldnt do a lot to stop the sydney onslaught late in the game btw.

Would be great addition but we need so much more than him, we cant be trading first round picks.

 

[beema limapep]

Agree on Aarts, but so far this year George has been in fantastic form.

Wow. FANTASTIC form? Sounds like he has been in extraordinary nick.

Should even get in the brownlow votes too.

What a joke.