Revamped Midfield

[foj1]

Went to the AFL coaches conference at the weekend and listened to Jason Berry who has started at Essendon as a high performance coach. He went through a lot of drills that Essendon are moving towards at training and spoke about what Essendon identified as 'flaws' in their side/list and what the club needs to do to arrest their descent and catch up with the Eagles and Swans.
The first obvious answer was speed. We specifically set out to recruit speed.
The second focus was the number of players who can run through the midfield. Berry believes that almost every player besides key positions need to be able to run on the ball and cited our minimal use of the bench last year and highlighted how many members of sydney, Adelaide and west Coasts sides spend some time on the ball. Without mentioning names I thought he made it quite clear he thought players such as Solly were in danger of extinction in the current AFL game.
Our fitness focus has been on developing lean muscle that holds some power but can sustain 120 minutes worth of running.
Interestingly as a side note went to a lecture by John Turnbull who is an ex-AFL recruiter and works as a consultant to Melbourne and the AFL. Using champion data which has a history of real accuracy (apparently) Matthew Leuenberger should have been this years first draft pick. Interestingly Richard Douglas from Adelaide should have been last years according to the champion data. Scott Gumbleton was mentioned as a strong draft pick due to his ability to take contested marks.
Apparently Essendon have employed several other 'no name' behind the scenes people to beef up our footy department which I think is a good sign.

 

[Darealrath]

The bit about our use of the interchange is very interesting. I remember Judd pretty much saying he thought our regular midfielders like JJ were getting run into the ground by the last qtr.

Will be difficult for Sheedy to change his ways regarding this. I think he might have a bit at the end of last season but they weren't must win games.

Good to hear we've identified weaknesses and are working on it though. Only problem is that every other club is probably doing the same thing.

 

[Crave]

The Doggies recruited a High Performance Coach back in 05. I attribute a great deal of their improvement from this appointed specialist. We're well and truly on the right track now.

 

[Longy413]

The Doggies recruited a High Performance Coach back in 05. I attribute a great deal of their approvement from this appointed specialist. We're well and truly on the right track now.

But wasn't he an ex-employee of Essendon FC?

 

[Crave]

But wasn't he an ex-employee of Essendon FC?

Yeah, same guy who ditched WBFC after one year for Aussie Cricket Team I believe. Correct me if Im wrong.

 

[Crave]

But wasn't he an ex-employee of Essendon FC?

Justin Cordy.

 

[Longy413]

Yeah, same guy who ditched WBFC after one year for Aussie Cricket Team I believe. Correct me if Im wrong.

Yep. Justin Cordy.

So effectively the Bulldogs didn't really do anything differently to us, they just gave him a different title. Cordy to the Bulldogs was effectively at the Dog's performing the same role as John Quinn does at Essendon.

With Berry, Essendon have extended their fitness department. A very good move.

 

[Shane Hird]

Speed and pace is one thing,but its nothing without skill.

Young players like Watson,Stanton,Lovett,Dyson,Winderlich,Dempsey,Nash and Monfries will all spend time in the guts this year you would reakon,but we need their disposal of the ball to hit the targets more often..less turn-overs.
We need all these blokes to step up and tackle more,win more ball and pump it inside the forward line more often.

Interesting Inside 50 stats for the top 5 players for us last year-
in order...

Stanton
Lucas
McVeigh
JJ
Hille

and Tackles..Heff,Watson,Mr Sunbury,McVeigh and McPhee

and Clearances..Jobe,JJ,Hille,Pev and Heffernan!

Hopefully most of those young players can lift their game and get more involved in the play. Watson is the only one so far who has done his job and stepped up his skill level.Lets see if he can add goal kicking to his good form now.

 

[macca69]

Hey foj1, can you remember any other draftee ratings based on Champion Data?

 

[Merv]

Speed and pace is one thing,but its nothing without skill.

Young players like Watson,Stanton,Lovett,Dyson,Winderlich,Dempsey,Nash and Monfries will all spend time in the guts this year you would reakon,but we need their disposal of the ball to hit the targets more often..less turn-overs.
We need all these blokes to step up and tackle more,win more ball and pump it inside the forward line more often.

Interesting Inside 50 stats for the top 5 players for us last year-
in order...

Stanton
Lucas
McVeigh
JJ
Hille

and Tackles..Heff,Watson,Mr Sunbury,McVeigh and McPhee

and Clearances..Jobe,JJ,Hille,Pev and Heffernan!

Hopefully most of those young players can lift their game and get more involved in the play. Watson is the only one so far who has done his job and stepped up his skill level.Lets see if he can add goal kicking to his good form now.

IMO, Watson,Dempsey and Monfries are the ones of that group that need to improve disposals.
The others are fine and Nash, from my memory has very good disposal and is quite composed.

 

[dave_27]

Wouldnt have Monfries in that group Merv, Gus has a beautiful disposal.

I'd attribute any footskills error to basically fatigue, lacking match fitness.

Something he really needs to work on because besides the blokes drafted in the years before him that are obviously fitter than him, he'd be behind Slattery fitness wise aswell.

 

[Audemars Piguet]

I cant work out why we havn't had these specialist around for years already.

The richest club, with arguably the most old-fashioned management.

 

[foj1]

Hey foj1, can you remember any other draftee ratings based on Champion Data?

The only other one I know was McLean was rated number 1 in his year marginally ahead of Cooney and Sylvia.
I would love to see data on this years draft. I would suggest Dean Kelly would be pretty stiff according to the data.

 

[foj1]

I cant work out why we havn't had these specialist around for years already.

The richest club, with arguably the most old-fashioned management.

My opinion is we rested on our laurels a bit and other clubs copied us and then went ahead of us. Losing Cordy and Drain hurt the club significantly imo.

 

[Longy413]

My opinion is we rested on our laurels a bit and other clubs copied us and then went ahead of us. Losing Cordy and Drain hurt the club significantly imo.

I think you are right about resting on our laurels, but it's good to see we are now doing something about that.

Drain was a big loss.

Cordy left us to go to the Bangladesh cricket side, he then left that to go the Dogs and left them to go to Cricket Australia. He's never seen out a contract from what I can gather and he's been replaced. Not sure if he was a loss at all.

 

[macca69]

The only other one I know was McLean was rated number 1 in his year marginally ahead of Cooney and Sylvia.
I would love to see data on this years draft. I would suggest Dean Kelly would be pretty stiff according to the data.

Yeh Dean Kelly was very stiff to not get picked up IMO.

Interesting McLean was ranked higher than the likes of Cooney and Sylvia, as IIRC most clubs didn't have him in their top 10 or 15 and were surprised he went at #5.

I'd also love to see the champion data of any draft of years gone by. Are you aware of any way to access this?

 

[Smyth94]

I'm curious as to what criteria Champion Data use to figure who 'should have' been the No. 1 draft pick... Is it just purely statistical? Because in that case that kid Fortunato Caruso should've been up there in the draft

 

[Ants]

The thing with the data, is it is probably retrospectively adjusted. So for example, you have the 2000=>2005 drafts, you'd look at who has been successful, and calibrate it so that the traits associated with guys who are successful will be used to identify future talent.

The side effect of this though is that if you then apply it to the past data, because you've used the successful guys to say "what to look for", they'll automatically be pushed up the draft order since they're certain to have some of those traits. So it may not be a surprise that McLean is now ranked number one.

Personally, anyone who didn't rate Murphy as #1 is in my view an idiot. That kid has "champion" and "class" written all over him. But then, maybe in a year or two they'll use his success to help 'recalibrate' the system, and then they will rank him #1.