Sliding doors - worrying signs and the way ahead

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bigman

Premiership Player
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Mar 29, 2004
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AFL Club
Adelaide
Worrying signs

Thinking our rebuild has finished
Tex looking for the body again rather than attacking the ball
Filthy playing soft and bruise free football
Resorting to Sloane in middle
Probably losing our first touch mid at end of year because of stubbornness of coaches eg crouch
Defence allowing ball out back time and time again
The same players missing crucial goals game after game
Not trusting Pedlar Harry and Soligo in middle
Fog not providing the focal point we need

Way ahead
Start next week by dropping a few and make a statement that their effort is not good enough eg filthy
Play some of the youngsters in the middle for longer periods of time
Give gollant a go he deserves his chance for the inanimate object Thilthorpe
Bring back Nankervis who did not deserve to get dropped
Sloane never should play large minutes incentre square again
Make midfield and key backs priority for our draft and trade plans
Select players who can kick and hit a target
 

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Worrying signs?

2nd toughest draw in the league and we are an incorrect goal umpiring decision away from finals, in a season I don’t think any of us were super confident of finals.

Lost to Collingwood by 1 and 2 points
Beat Brisbane at home and lost by 6 points away
Lost to Melbourne by 4 points away
Thrashed Port twice
Thrashed Saints at home
Thrashed Carlton at home

I would call that a good record against the top 6 for any club, let alone for a team coming off 8 wins last year.

Need to start winning games we get good starts in (Giants and GC away) and win at least half of our close ones and top 4/6 is achievable. Turning AO into a fortress again is a good start, winning a few away is the next big step.

On team selections/makeup:

Rachele and Pedlar need to continue building their fitness bases over pre season so they can play at least 2/3rds of the game in the midfield, it’s clear the club sees them both as midfielders and we have seen enough this year to know they will be quality in there.

Sloane needs to be either sub or in the SANFL next year, he can’t be starting games, his first halves are putrid.

Keane and Murray should be our number one defensive duo by mid 2024, with Worrell as the 3rd tall.

Dawson, Laird/Crouch and Soligo/Rachele/Pedlar should be our starting midfield combos.

Our forwardline is obviously already elite, but if there is an understandable drop off with Tex (even just 10%), then we need RT and Fog to lift their games even further. RT 30+ goals and Fog pushing 50 are well within their talents. Rankine kicking 50 isn’t out of the question either.

TLDR; we should not be accepting any less than top 4/6 in 2024, we are good enough, the time is now.
 
BunjiMC said:
Who. Bloody. Cares.
Click to expand...
I do .
Lots of exciting games where showed a lot this year.
But
DRAFT
How far would we be if got top draft picks right
Butters for Jones
McHenry ---Why
McAsey. -- What can you say
Thillthorpe. --- we saw last night what would have been better pick. ( Can only hope toughens up and uses talent has )
Cook --- Obviously very talented, and from pick selection and feedback expected lot but just not putting in.
Rachelle. --- Ego obviously affected this player but what else gone wrong . Last night dropped marks fumbles, poor kicking efforts etc
( hopefully someone sits him down to forget all the crap and produce to the value of his long and very good contract)
What are coaches, Jackson and Edwardes there for.
SELECTION
Enough on here been said about selection with kids only given games and proving themselves , then dropped as soon as experienced player available .
Kids with talent have shown that can rise to level of AFL but we persist with battlers .
Sloane --- Wow --- words fail me . It obvious from early rounds not up to it in all areas . Keep selecting for experience yet no-one has made more errors than him.
MOVING FORWARD
Here is the big worry . Giving Sloane another year has meant to have any chance of trading for needs and too many rushed decisions on contracts looks like having to pay out contracted player , but worse losing one of non- contracted players like McAdam and Crouch , Doedee .
Our needs far out way the vacancies we will have .
Ruck. -- desperate for . Although some talented in draft our needs might be more urgent .
KPD -- again desperate for and maybe our needs are before draft pick can assist.
Much as Borlase done great job unfortunately too slow and not quite good enough for AFL especially with Butts and Keane in side .
MIDS. -- Need top line mid and now out of finals race should get decent pick to get . For crying out Hamish get it right .
Think a 2 nd round pick for Stephens or Hollands certainly worth a try . Hollands had good game yesterday .Cant have lost all that talent.
Make some tough decisions Nicks etc at last to give room to replenish our needs.
 
Mutineer said:
RT lift his game further?

He's hardly got off the ground yet...needs a big injection of hardness if he wants to be the player he should be with his talent base.
Click to expand...
Has kicked 18 goals for the year and is top 10 in contested marks. Helped win us a Showdown. The consistency is not there yet, but he’s a 3rd year tall with oodles of talent.

I am frustrated with some of his efforts in marking contests though, that absolutely needs to improve as he has the talent to be the best contested mark in the comp.
 
To be honest, a lot of this is just jumping at shadows at this point. Yeah, Tex and Thilthorpe had rough moments, but that's going to happen. The only difference is Tex is at that champion key forward level and his rough days still result in a goal or two. Thilthorpe hasn't quite worked that out - and no, I'm not an advocate for dropping him, that achieves nothing. Sloane in the midfield is just denial from the coaches, but equally, it's not hurting anything from a development standpoint seeing how generalised inside midfield is as a role and he's going to be somewhere in this lineup this year. It's just hurting the 'now' by kneecapping our midfield, but that should correct itself in preseason as that is the main thing that develops kids.

There really isn't anything worrying about this year, it's more a story of the offense is there to push deep, if we can fix the defensive side of the ball. You're just not going to transition into a finals side if you're conceding as much as we are, especially when we're on offensively.
 
Last edited:
craig crowing said:
I do .
Lots of exciting games where showed a lot this year.
But
DRAFT
How far would we be if got top draft picks right
Butters for Jones
McHenry ---Why
McAsey. -- What can you say
Thillthorpe. --- we saw last night what would have been better pick. ( Can only hope toughens up and uses talent has )
Cook --- Obviously very talented, and from pick selection and feedback expected lot but just not putting in.
Rachelle. --- Ego obviously affected this player but what else gone wrong . Last night dropped marks fumbles, poor kicking efforts etc
( hopefully someone sits him down to forget all the crap and produce to the value of his long and very good contract)
What are coaches, Jackson and Edwardes there for.
SELECTION
Enough on here been said about selection with kids only given games and proving themselves , then dropped as soon as experienced player available .
Kids with talent have shown that can rise to level of AFL but we persist with battlers .
Sloane --- Wow --- words fail me . It obvious from early rounds not up to it in all areas . Keep selecting for experience yet no-one has made more errors than him.
MOVING FORWARD
Here is the big worry . Giving Sloane another year has meant to have any chance of trading for needs and too many rushed decisions on contracts looks like having to pay out contracted player , but worse losing one of non- contracted players like McAdam and Crouch , Doedee .
Our needs far out way the vacancies we will have .
Ruck. -- desperate for . Although some talented in draft our needs might be more urgent .
KPD -- again desperate for and maybe our needs are before draft pick can assist.
Much as Borlase done great job unfortunately too slow and not quite good enough for AFL especially with Butts and Keane in side .
MIDS. -- Need top line mid and now out of finals race should get decent pick to get . For crying out Hamish get it right .
Think a 2 nd round pick for Stephens or Hollands certainly worth a try . Hollands had good game yesterday .Cant have lost all that talent.
Make some tough decisions Nicks etc at last to give room to replenish our needs.
Click to expand...
Holland's a good game?
So did almost all the Sun's players in a team full of AFL listed players against a Carlton AFL team full of suburban level top ups. Don't think you'd want to put too much weight on that game.

Scoreline :
GC Suns VFL : 23.11 - 149
Carlton VFL : 2.10 - 22
 
Mutineer said:
Thilthorpe out 3 disposals ain't cutting the mustard
Gollant in

Sloane out
Hately in for one last throw at the stumps to see what he's got.

Hinge out not fit
Nankervis in

Maybe Neddy in for anyone else that didn't perform, at least he can spot up a leading forward regularly.
Click to expand...
Given it's a dead rubber, instead of Hateley, who we know isn't AFL standard, why not bring in Dowling and give him a taste of senior footy?
 
Mutineer said:
Field icking is going to need a lot of work before he's going to be a threat at AFL level IMO, short passing is a work in progress and a fair way off it currently.
Click to expand...
It's a nothing game.

Play all the AFL listed guys who played SANFL this week.


A trip to Perth and reward for a good SANFL season.




On SM-A325F using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
BACCS said:
Rachele and Pedlar need to continue building their fitness bases over pre season so they can play at least 2/3rds of the game in the midfield, it’s clear the club sees them both as midfielders and we have seen enough this year to know they will be quality in there.
Click to expand...

I remember Port fans saying that Rozee and Butters didn't have the tanks to go into the middle, they seemed to go fine when they were put in. We seriously need to change up our midfield and prioritize outcome over accumulation. We also need to run a deeper midfield than we do now, that is our next step
 
spenze said:
I remember Port fans saying that Rozee and Butters didn't have the tanks to go into the middle, they seemed to go fine when they were put in. We seriously need to change up our midfield and prioritize outcome over accumulation. We also need to run a deeper midfield than we do now, that is our next step
Click to expand...

I don't remember Port fans ever saying that with Butters. The dude was playing midfield in his first season.

Rozee they did, and likelihood they were correct until his 3rd preseason.

Though I see comments like this and wonder if some of you live in a groundhog day where it's always the middle of June 2017. We don't accumulate enough to be able to have a choice to prioritise it over outcome in the first place, and it's a key part of what has killed our inside midfield this year, as we've lacked those reliable contested ball/clearance winners to be competitive/dominant on the inside game-after-game.
 
spenze said:
I remember Port fans saying that Rozee and Butters didn't have the tanks to go into the middle, they seemed to go fine when they were put in. We seriously need to change up our midfield and prioritize outcome over accumulation. We also need to run a deeper midfield than we do now, that is our next step
Click to expand...
They didn’t in the first couple of seasons, but with more pre seasons under the belt were able to go in there. There’s obviously zero doubt Pedlar, Rachele and Soligo are all seen as pure midfielders. Took Butters and Rozee until season 4 to go full time, and I think our 3 are tracking on a similar path. Schoenberg’s late season form also has me bullish on his potential in there heading into season 5. Dawson and Laird/Crouch can be the mainstays, with those other 4 rotating through. No more Sloane, he’s not needed!
 

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Golumless said:
I don't remember Port fans ever saying that with Butters. The dude was playing midfield in his first season.

Rozee they did, and likelihood they were correct until his 3rd preseason.

Though I see comments like this and wonder if some of you live in a groundhog day where it's always the middle of June 2017. We don't accumulate enough to be able to have a choice to prioritise it over outcome in the first place, and it's a key part of what has killed our inside midfield this year, as we've lacked those reliable contested ball/clearance winners to be competitive/dominant on the inside game-after-game.
Click to expand...
Butters did play a bit of midfield season one, but not really anymore than Rachele or Pedlar are now. He played a fair bit at half forward.
 
Cyclonus said:
I worry we will go backwards next year if Tex can't carry us again.
Click to expand...
Carry us? He’s kicked 67 for the year, but Larkey has kicked over 60 for North and they’re terrible. We are number one for goals scored and have got 20+ from 6 players (Tex, Fog, Rankine, Rachele, Pedlar and Keays) and then 19 from RT. McAdam probably kicks 30+ in a full season. It’s an extremely potent forwardline, even if Tex drops off 10-20%, you would expect improvement from a number of those guys.
 
Cyclonus said:
I worry we will go backwards next year if Tex can't carry us again.
Click to expand...

I don't, because it's not a carry, it's just a number one forward going gangbusters in a fantastic forward line structure.

After all, below Tex, we've got 69 goals out of our 2-3 forwards in Fog/Rankine (only Brisbane and Geelong have got more out of their 2nd and 3rd forward slot) on top of 98 goals out of the rest of our best 22 forwards for this campaign in Pedlar, Keays, Rachele, Thilthorpe and one of Murphy or McAdam (I'll let you choose your own adventure here, both have kicked 12 this year). So, we've got a super productive 1, a really strong 2-3 and a productive bottom of the order. The depth side is a strong indicator, seeing it's not uncommon for that part to become barren with a really strong top-end if teams are really reliant on a handful of players to score goals. The only real issue is we aren't getting a lot of goals out of our midfield, though that's in part due to Dawson being strangely bad at goal kicking this year.

Equally, a lot of the players we're reliant on to drive our outside game are 22--27 and you know, Dawson, so likelihood is this is going to be a strength for a long while seeing we've worked out that part to a very high level. It's just fixing our inside group and our defense getting better. Heck, the amount of trouble we've found on the defensive side of the ball (which is both issues with our inside and defensive unit), fixing that could counter whatever impact Tex output decreasing before we factor that Thilthorpe, Fogarty and Rankine becoming more important in our structure and any increases to their own production levels.
 
Last edited:
BACCS said:
Butters did play a bit of midfield season one, but not really anymore than Rachele or Pedlar are now. He played a fair bit at half forward.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just flicked through CBAs in 2020--2021 and that's spot on. I thought both came into the league later than they did seeing it took both four years to start getting consistent minutes in their inside group.
 
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