Over rated midfield

[Jack-Packenham]

Our so called star studded midfield was chopped up (mostly in the second quarter) by an average Sydney outfit on saturday night. Big names that we all rate highly like Bartel, Kelly, Ablett, Chapman, Milburn, Corey etc were completely outplayed by no names such as Matthews, Crouch, Ablett, Fosdike, Buchanan. Same happened against Freo,Brisbane and Collingwood. Maybe our "great young onballers" are just average.
James Bartel in particular is very ordinary at the moment and his asking price for a new contract must be declining as the weeks go.
Joel Corey gets a lot of the ball but so you should when you play 40 metres from your opponent.

 

[linga_is_no1]

I admit our midfield wasnt as good as it usually was against Sydney. This was probaly because the lack of ling. However going back to the topic our midfield is not over-rated if anything its under-rated. Our midfield won us every game we won last year because they were under-rated

 

[scottydeewah]

LOL...cluehaver!

 

[cats2rise]

Maybe our "great young onballers" are just average.

James Bartel in particular is very ordinary at the moment and his asking price for a new contract must be declining as the weeks go.

Joel Corey gets a lot of the ball but so you should when you play 40 metres from your opponent.

In no way do i think they are 'average' but it does seem at one time atleast one of them is out of form. I havnt seen much of a spark from kelly since his leg injury, and i think Ling has been a little bit inconsistant this year but recently he has been a gun and i think still one of the best midfielders in the league.

Bartells effort in the last half of last year was superb but again he hasnt shown much at all this year but i think that when in form we have one of the best midfields.

JC is one of my favourite players in AFL and i think it is unfair to say he plays 40m off his opponent when infact by doing that he creates himself as a loose man and a very stylish link up man who runs, chases and gets the hard ball.

 

[Belly]

You can not call Geelong an overrated midfield. You look at some of the teams at the moment, and they do not have the kind of depth the cats do. Ling, Kelly, Bartel, Corey, Enright, Ablett, Chapman, Byrns, Riccardi, D Johnson, Milburn, Ottens and King, they are all quality footballers. The Cats have a midfield depth only beaten by West Coast and Perhaps St Kilda.

If you look at some other midfieds, like Hawthorn, they have probably the best starting 4 in the game, Everitt, Hodge, Mitchell and Crawford. They lack depth, they only have Vandenberg who can play besides those four. Other teams have that problem too, and they are all in the bottom half of the ladder. Carlton, Fremantle and Collingwood also fall into that category.

Geelong have good players who perform, that is why we are third on the ladder, we can run lots of quality players into out midfield, so our midfield can not be called overrated because unlike many others, we have depth, not just a few stars and a few dropkicks

 

[catattack]

Nice post, Belly.

Our midfield minus Ling, Enright, Wojcinski and David Johnson - who all have stints in the engine room - does not have the full rotational luxury that has made it formidably renowned. Add to that Shannon was under the influence of some sort of virus and it looks quite susceptible to a team with a quality list.

A few players can make all the difference. There’s less respite for the blokes who run in excess of fifteen km's, and instead of spreading a workload over ten players, it falls onto only half a dozen so added effort is put in.

Sydney were then able to play the game on their terms as consequently we were playing reactive footy and chasing them before worrying about generating our own flow.

Maybe the reason why we played better in the first quarter and third quarter. Blokes in the midfield got a break and some respite at the breaks.

 

[And_ROOS]

Hmmm, Ablett was one of the higher ranked players in the game, yet was 'chopped up'. Did you pay Attention to the game at all?
Out of the midfield you listed there, Milburn spent more time down back, Chapman spent more time forward, Kelly and Ablett actually had good games and Corey held his opponent while getting kicks himself. Bartel is the only one in your list that struggled. And dont blame our midfield, its hard to win a game when the forward line doesnt convert. Add to the fact that if it wasnt for the second quarter it would have been much closer, and the game wasnt as bad as everyone thinks.

Hell, Thompson said that Byrnes only played because he was in slightly better condition then Ling, teams get hit with injuries and the flu, the Cats arent the first nor will be the last, Geelong just need to hold because in the next few weeks we will get back to full strength to have a tilt at the finals.