Reality Check

[rgauci]

I was pretty chuffed with the effort from the youngsters today. They were exceptional. Mark Harvey has got the list playing with tenacity and flare.

There is one thing creeping into the team which has got me worried.

Our overall skill level has been traditionally poor. It is slowing turning around with the introduction of Hill and Suban. Hasleby, Ibbotson and Duffield have good disposal. Duffield can have a problem with picking the right target and having his kick intercepted, but it generally goes where he wants.

Now to talk about those with below average disposal. Crowley is one i'll target. Some will say im being unfair. But he is below average by hand and foot. His disposal efficiency his whole career is quite terrible. He has trouble 'racking' up the numbers and isn't your in and under type of player. To his credit he has credentialled himself as one of the AFLs best taggers. He goes forward regularly and kicks goals. He regularly curtails the influence of his opponent. IMO someone like Crowley is easily replaced.

DeBoer is also quite poor by foot but from his limited time so far he seems well above average by hand. His natural game plays to his strengths where he handballs more often than he kicks. In every game so far he has handballed more than kicked. He is growing into a decent tagger. IMO he is potentially better than Crowley because he is better by hand. He is also a better extractor than Crowley.

Schammer is a good accumulator and is very clean by hand. His kicking leaves a bit to be desired, he does lack penetration, but he finds a target more often than not. He is improving every year and i think the year he matures in terms of core strength is the year he'll really explode. Averaging 23disposals per game this year, he's become a key ingredient in our midfield.

Palmer is sitting sidelined at the moment but is easily our 2nd best midfielder behind Hasleby. The guy was a gun from the get go. His one weakness is his kicking which IMO was talked about far too often.

Here comes the conclusion; a midfield made up from Crowley, DeBoer, Schammer, Palmer is not going to cut the mustard. Adding in classy players like Hill, Ibbotson and Pavlich to a midfield rotation has really shown us the path.

Im not saying i dont like Crowley, DeBoer, Schammer or Palmer. They are all well above average players in their own right. But im saying that team balance going forward needs to be dealt with very carefully.

Next season will be very interesting. Personally i think we should be climbing back up the ladder next season. A top 8 finish is not out of the question if injuries are kind.

Our spine is very stable;

Tarrant
McPharlin
Sandilands
Pavlich
Johnson

Next year will still be about giving young players experience, but i think results will need to start falling our way. If we continue to lose games because of skill level the balance of skilled players versus unskilled will need to be questioned.

Personally i would trade Crowley. A team like Collingwood who lack a decent tagger could benefit from his services. A pick in the 20s could net us another youngster which would do wonders for our rebuilding.

Also i would be dissapointed if Fremantle didn't target more midfielders in the coming draft. Particularly ones with good skills. Our midfield is far from finished. Yes we have Hill, Ibbotson and Palmer to build around. But we need to add more class around the stoppages.

I appreciate the deft of talls in our list. But right this minute we've got an exceptional tall forward (Pavlich) running around in the midfield because most of our midfielders lack the body strength to extract the ball from stoppages.

Improving the midfield will improve the forward line.

 

[longsuffreosupp]

I'd make Crowley a permanent forward that can do midfield jobs if need be. Cant be any worse than Murphy or Kiwi. Be almost like a Chapman type.

 

[Sandi2Palmer]

Crowley would be worth a late first rounder imo. He's shut down the best midfielders in the league for the last 2 years. No way Harvey would let him go.
With Solomon 28 and only 2 years at best in the game we'll need more hardness in the next few years. He's a lock I'm afraid RG. I'd personally prefer Peake or Shammer to be traded while they're at the top of their games.

 

[Lach72]

Crowley would be worth a late first rounder imo. .

Can I just say that is so far off the mark it can't even see the mark any more

 

[Alfonz]

Can I just say that is so far off the mark it can't even see the mark any more

I agree. At the trade table, considering the unknown of how he would recover from a serious foot injury (think about what has happened to Egan and to a lesser extent Croad), plus the GC arrival, plus his poor disposal ... I doubt we could get anything more than a pick in the 40s or 50s.

 

[Lach72]

I agree. At the trade table, considering the unknown of how he would recover from a serious foot injury (think about what has happened to Egan and to a lesser extent Croad), plus the GC arrival, plus his poor disposal ... I doubt we could get anything more than a pick in the 40s or 50s.

I'd keep him and ditch Mundy.

 

[bigpav]

I'd keep him and trade schammer - would get top 25 pick from port or adelaide for sure - his disposal and decission making is below par - but he's hard at it with a big heart

 

[Dr Ralph Dagg]

I reckon a pre-season where all this years 14 new picks are doing 75% will see a big improvement in strength, and fitness. We covered our tracks slightly in this regard by picking some older recruits in ballantyne, Broughton and Van Berlo.

Rgauci's got some very good point about foot skills but I don't think its the whole picture. No point having skilled players if you can't win the ball. Crowley cannot only win the ball but can stop others getting it. He is decent mark and a reasonable shot. All of these would rate him above Schammer.

You need some inside players and you need outside players. Inside we have Hase, Palmer, De Boer, Schammer. Oustide, as in good ball users, are Ibbotson, Headland, Hill, Hayden, Johnson.

Like l;achy, I think the guy under the pump is Mundy. When the trade talk came up last year he was kept on because he is great ball user. But he can't win the ball, isn't taking marks, doesn't tackle, and doesn't have enough speed to make an impact. But most of all all lacks the intensity for AFL. Compare him to Solomon. I reckon a trade for a 2nd round pick.

 

[Chops_a_must]

You need some inside players and you need outside players. Inside we have Hase, Palmer, De Boer, Schammer. Oustide, as in good ball users, are Ibbotson, Headland, Hill, Hayden, Johnson.

The two bolded are severely under rated on the inside. They are all round players: they can do your grinding 'til your miller man comes, 'cause they're all round men, oh they're all round men, they're all round men they can do almost all things that come to hand.

They both just look outside because they are so devastating when they've got space.

 

[Kickett Punches Read]

crowley would be a fantastic defensive forward, in fact he would kick scotty the friendly ghost out of the side if he was to play that role.

id trade peake if anyone would have him, depending on what people offer for schammer id look at it, but i think schammer is only getting better so would prefer to keep him, letting a guy go who we have developed, just as he is about to enter his prime seems silly to me, and something that previous dockers administrations would have done

 

[Selggad]

We also have to get rid of more dumb-arses and deadwood so we may be a little limited in how much trading we can do. Trading for picks will see us with a very inexperienced and physically undeveloped team. We will need to hang on to experienced guys for youth/experience balance. Trading for players is unlikely to net a big return. If we could trade one skill set for another, e.g. tagger/ stopper for outside runner to improve our balance ala rgauci's idea, fine, but it would be a matter of finding the right trade and then it still entails a substantial risk.

 

[greenred]

Personally i would trade Crowley. A team like Collingwood who lack a decent tagger could benefit from his services. A pick in the 20s could net us another youngster which would do wonders for our rebuilding.

Collingwood's 2nd pick will be closer to being in the 30's than the 20's (Melbourne will get two top 3 picks and West Coast are highly likely to do whatever it takes to make sure they get an additional first rounder). I highly doubt they will be eager to trade it for a 25 year old with a serious foot injury when it's the last decent draft before GC17 get the cream.

 

[Dock_king]

Re: poor kickers

Watch Brett Kirk closely. He wins the hard ball and then dishes it off to a designated kicker at the back of the pack to kick to a target.

He knows his limitations and so do his teammates.

Mundy should be our designated kicker but fails to get into position often enough.

 

[paul8241]

Let's just hang on to Mundy, Crowley etc and develop the younger players to put pressure on them to lift their games to a higher level. If they know their AFL career will end with Freo either as an end season delistee or retiree, that may make them choose to work harder for a longer career. As we bring through the younger guys with better skills, the guys that have brain farts will find themselves soul searching in the wafl and eventually delisted with no future at the top level.

Too many careers are resurrected after leaving Freo, it's high time the club send a message that there is no green grass on the other side of the fence. Likewise, if they don't want to re-sign or choose to leave us they should play out their contracts in the wafl. This is the hard line other clubs would take, so why don't we?

There is rarely any trade value in a player that wants to leave, but playing them to increase their trade value just sends a bad message to the other squad members, can extend their career and increases the value of any contract they can get.