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Dry Rot said:
If only we could have picked up a gun tall defender in the 2017 draft, he would have been cherry ripe for us now.

Oh well, hindsight....
Click to expand...
Pretty sure we picked up a handy forward that equalled Carey’s record for contested marks against a team that won 3 of the last 4 premierships so pretty happy with our selection
 
bresker said:
Gardiner’s inclusion is a result of shoddy list management. We have a wealth of medium sized mid/small forwards - Scott, West, Cavarra, Weightman and maybe McLean competing for one spot ; Roarke Smith and Will Hayes adding little needed depth to our midfield; but since we usually play Gardiner and Cordy together that leaves Young as the only tall pushing for a place. Since Young was a speculative underage pick in the 40s he was only ever a long shot of being the answer.
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it’s been widely reported we have chased several KPD backs and even in this year’s draft (when our picks were matched) but reality is the good ones don’t grow on trees

Any list will have more small medium players as that’s the reality of the talent pool
 
For a start
Scott out Gardiner out jong out
Schache, cordy, mcrae in

Treloar (fitness? ) Richards and cavarra next to find spots for
 
Had a better look at the 3 O'Brien goals to see how Gardner was positioning himself. First Gardner had swapped over to Lewis as Keath is pushed up the ground to try and intercept. Second JJ gives away a free for in the back. You can see Gardner pick up the ball before in pans away then a few Hawks players throw up their hands. You should be able to see if he throws in to the wrong player from that shot so I think he picks it up and then just drops it which is unbelievably stupid. Third Gardner has pushed up to half-forward to try and stop their rebound which is how O'Brien as well as two other Hawks are by themselves.

I know this is an unpopular opinion but I'm only blaming Gardner for one goal which is the 50. Both Gardner and Keath are caught up the ground trying to defend the turnover unsuccessfully which is just what happens in our system. Sometime early in the week I'm going to try and look at every defensive contest, not just the ones that were goals, to get a better idea of how we look overall.
 
Here we go dogs said:
The biggest issue was getting beaten on transition and hawthorns spread from the contest which is a question mark on system.
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The system definitely has a lot of flaws in my view.

To me it seems like we've continued with the same defensive structure from when Beveridge first arrived to press high to lock the ball in and get multiple inside 50s, leaving the opposition room out the back. The problem is we had:
  1. Forwards that were really good at pressuring to stop the clean rebound
  2. Mids that were better two way runners
  3. Wood as in intercepting machine
  4. Morris able to win or half way more contests than should be fair
And then in the finals we also had Hamling doing extremely well in the last line of defence. We could do better now to tailor the gameplan for the team we have. With English, Naughton and Wallis we have some pretty good marking power. When you go for multiple entries you need ground ball wins instead which we can do moderately well, but I'd rather us go for precision kicks to our best forwards which needs a forward line the opposition hasn't had time to flood. So if we instead try and win the ball in our defensive 50 we stretch their defence, get the ball forward quickly with our quick rebound and have the good users in the midfield and half-forward deliver the ball to our best forwards in 1v1s. Of course that means we need to be better at winning the ball deep which we struggle with. I'd hope that by keeping our defence deeper we'd win just by having more numbers than them, and might free Keath up to intercept more. I could be way off though as this seems like a pretty bland system opposed to our very specific style we have now.
 
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Strangely it is our much vaunted midfield that I am more concerned about than other positions on the ground. In both of our recent failed finals appearances, our midfield has not lived up to its reputation. It was hammered by GWS in 2019 and beaten for most of the game against the Saints before making a late charge in last year's final. There have been several lapses in their performance in games against opposition midfields they would be expected to dominate in Home and Away games also, most noticeably against Carlton and Saints (Rd 2) last season.
'Easing off' for periods in games and allowing opposition midfields to gain the ascendancy has been a feature of our play on numerous occasions. This is supported by the many comments on this forum that we very rarely 'kill' our opposition to maximise percentage.
So, apart from a lack of killer instinct and a tendancy to apply the brakes what else is going on with our midfield that prevents them from living up to their reputation? The lack of fast, burst players who can spread and cover ground quickly when the opposition marches through our centre corridor is a feature often mentioned. This is where the recruitment of Treloar could be a deal breaker; he is the ideal type of outside, breakaway player we need in our midfield. I also like the potential of McNeill to be a fast link player who can run both ways. The other necessity is for our players to sustain their effort for longer so that we don't have damaging lapses. Undoubtedly, we have enough of them to achieve this! The potential is there for us to truly be the best midfield in the comp and we need this potential to be fulfilled in order to be a top 4 and premiership contender.
 
DognBones said:
Strangely it is our much vaunted midfield that I am more concerned about than other positions on the ground. In both of our recent failed finals appearances, our midfield has not lived up to its reputation. It was hammered by GWS in 2019 and beaten for most of the game against the Saints before making a late charge in last year's final. There have been several lapses in their performance in games against opposition midfields they would be expected to dominate in Home and Away games also, most noticeably against Carlton and Saints (Rd 2) last season.
'Easing off' for periods in games and allowing opposition midfields to gain the ascendancy has been a feature of our play on numerous occasions. This is supported by the many comments on this forum that we very rarely 'kill' our opposition to maximise percentage.
So, apart from a lack of killer instinct and a tendancy to apply the brakes what else is going on with our midfield that prevents them from living up to their reputation? The lack of fast, burst players who can spread and cover ground quickly when the opposition marches through our centre corridor is a feature often mentioned. This is where the recruitment of Treloar could be a deal breaker; he is the ideal type of outside, breakaway player we need in our midfield. I also like the potential of McNeill to be a fast link player who can run both ways. The other necessity is for our players to sustain their effort for longer so that we don't have damaging lapses. Undoubtedly, we have enough of them to achieve this! The potential is there for us to truly be the best midfield in the comp and we need this potential to be fulfilled in order to be a top 4 and premiership contender.
Click to expand...
Treloar should hopefully go a long way to fixing this. We just need to balance with some defensive running players in there as well.
 

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I want a statue of Bevo installed near EJ's in the carpark. Then at the unveiling, I want him immediately sacked, then just as quickly reinstated. Just to show him that he may have delivered a flag, but that is pretty much cancelled out by recruiting and playing Gowers, Hayes, Gardner, R Smith and possibly now Scott.

To paraphrase the official at South who Bob Pratt asked at the end of 1934 why 150 goals for the season wasn't enough to even go close in the BnF
"You're spectacular Luke, but not very effective."
 
This is not going to be a popular suggestion.

We now have one major weakness in this side - we are missing a quality tall defender. We all know it. Even the defenders of Gardner - god bless them - are entirely focused on highlighting the errors he didn't make. Even if he improves and can hold down a spot, we still lack a quality tall defender. He is never going to be that, nor is Ace or Lewis.

What to do?

Well, when I look at our forward line, I see a ripped Bruce. I see English spending extended periods up forward, who is a genuine marking threat and a horrible match up for any defender. I see an absolute natural in JUH and a Schache pressing. If Bruce can duplicate the same intent he showed last year, this leaner and stronger looking version is going to be all we need.

So, you know where I am heading. Naughton is a proven defender. Yes, he is a proven forward too. However, I am starting to suspect he is going to consistently acquire injuries as a forward. It's a different gig. As a forward, you don't often know what defenders are coming from what angle. As the gun forward, they are all targeting you. And then as you charge to meet the ball you've got to turn towards goal and all at maximum intensity because you can never be sure that a defender isn't going to pick you off.

Back in defense, Naughton in his first year proved to be a natural. He could beat his own man and run off to intercept and create play. He can still be used on occasion to move forward and change a game not going our way. With Naughton back, our defence has that Premiership look about, everyone will walk taller and be more confident.

I can hear the objections, that we finally have a quality forward and they are so hard to find and develop. Yep they are. So are quality tall defenders.
Premiership teams are miserly. There are many Premiership teams that didn't have a great forward line. I can't think of one that wasn't good defensively and right now ours leaks badly.

I am reminded that Geelong in 2007 won a flag with a great defense and one real tall in Mooney and a resting Ruckman in Ottens. Geelong won again with Mooney and Podsiadly - neither world beaters. Collingwood won in 2010 with just Cloke. We won in 2016 without a Key forward at all. The recent Premierships teams Richmond and the Westcoast obviously both have multiple good tall marking forwards. So the argument is not airtight. Obviously, in an ideal world, we would have two Naughtons. I suspect this question is going to loom very prominently this season. I'm not necessarily even convinced by my own arguments but I can't easily dismiss them either.
 
ScragCity said:
I'm not too concerned about our poor performance today. We have performed pretty poorly in our preseason matches for the last few years. We then carry that poor form into the start of the main season before turning things around mid-season, spending all of our petrol tickets scraping into finals and then summarily getting booted out week one. No reason to think we can't accomplish that again this year!
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Charlie Bucket said:
Are we really going to dissect the fu** out of a PRE SEASON SCRATCH MATCH and write off the playing list and coaches already?!?!?

A few of you need to shaft a couple of Bex’s I reckon!!
Click to expand...
I don’t know what you mean 😉
 
Charlie Bucket said:
Are we really going to dissect the fu** out of a PRE SEASON SCRATCH MATCH and write off the playing list and coaches already?!?!?

A few of you need to shaft a couple of Bex’s I reckon!!
Click to expand...
You know what they say, “practice like it’s a game,” - in reference to our posting not the football.
 
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yebiga said:
This is not going to be a popular suggestion.

We now have one major weakness in this side - we are missing a quality tall defender. We all know it. Even the defenders of Gardner - god bless them - are entirely focused on highlighting the errors he didn't make. Even if he improves and can hold down a spot, we still lack a quality tall defender. He is never going to be that, nor is Ace or Lewis.

What to do?

Well, when I look at our forward line, I see a ripped Bruce. I see English spending extended periods up forward, who is a genuine marking threat and a horrible match up for any defender. I see an absolute natural in JUH and a Schache pressing. If Bruce can duplicate the same intent he showed last year, this leaner and stronger looking version is going to be all we need.

So, you know where I am heading. Naughton is a proven defender. Yes, he is a proven forward too. However, I am starting to suspect he is going to consistently acquire injuries as a forward. It's a different gig. As a forward, you don't often know what defenders are coming from what angle. As the gun forward, they are all targeting you. And then as you charge to meet the ball you've got to turn towards goal and all at maximum intensity because you can never be sure that a defender isn't going to pick you off.

Back in defense, Naughton in his first year proved to be a natural. He could beat his own man and run off to intercept and create play. He can still be used on occasion to move forward and change a game not going our way. With Naughton back, our defence has that Premiership look about, everyone will walk taller and be more confident.

I can hear the objections, that we finally have a quality forward and they are so hard to find and develop. Yep they are. So are quality tall defenders.
Premiership teams are miserly. There are many Premiership teams that didn't have a great forward line. I can't think of one that wasn't good defensively and right now ours leaks badly.

I am reminded that Geelong in 2007 won a flag with a great defense and one real tall in Mooney and a resting Ruckman in Ottens. Geelong won again with Mooney and Podsiadly - neither world beaters. Collingwood won in 2010 with just Cloke. We won in 2016 without a Key forward at all. The recent Premierships teams Richmond and the Westcoast obviously both have multiple good tall marking forwards. So the argument is not airtight. Obviously, in an ideal world, we would have two Naughtons. I suspect this question is going to loom very prominently this season. I'm not necessarily even convinced by my own arguments but I can't easily dismiss them either.
Click to expand...
Our depth up forward is striking. Bont, English, Marra, Schache, and Bruce can all be very damaging and difficult to match up on. If we can get a few more smalls/mediums firing...say Wallis, Cavarra, Dale and Hannan all chip in 15 goals, then they move Naughton back without a blink of an eye. We havent quite convinced ourselves that our complete lack of an avenue to goal re 2018 has been solved.

but your absolutely right, Naughton goes back and we are immediately a premiership threat. Would he be happy to suck it up for the team?
 
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Cordy has been gifted games out of faith and because we are pretty bare for kpds.

Hell, Kyle Hartigan would have been a decent pick up.
 
dergert said:
Cordy has been gifted games out of faith and because we are pretty bare for kpds.

Hell, Kyle Hartigan would have been a decent pick up.
Click to expand...

I asked the question here 6 months ago and was shouted out the door. If Clarko thinks he’s worth a punt, it can’t be the worst suggestion.

I think Majak would also have been worth a try. The west contains the largest population of African Australians anywhere in the country, would have been a great connection with the community as well.
 
ScottyDogg said:
I asked the question here 6 months ago and was shouted out the door. If Clarko thinks he’s worth a punt, it can’t be the worst suggestion.

I think Majak would also have been worth a try. The west contains the largest population of African Australians anywhere in the country, would have been a great connection with the community as well.
Click to expand...
Clarcko thought Tyrone Vickery was worth a go not to mention Scully and Paton
 
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