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The Midfield

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It is silly to think we can make a killer midfield from what we now have. We haven’t had a top notch midfield since 2003 and even then it was working class.

Yeah true, we are definitely at the crossroads with our midfield. However I'm hopeful that most of the class we are looking for is already at the club. I expect Swan H Shaw Egan Pendlebury and Thomas can develop into the core of a killer, midfield for years to come. All we need is a Cook, Stanley, Iles, Goldsack, Clark etc to develop, and of course experienced players like R Shaw and Holland and Didak still have plenty of football left in them.

The glass is half ful but we definitely need to draft more next year. We went pretty top heavy in this years draft.
 
Cole was rated just as highly, in fact higher than Dal Santo by most judges. Even St.Kilda picked Xavier Clarke before Dal Santo, WCE picked Sampi, Bulldogs S.Power. Just be thankfull we didn't pick Ashley watson the pick after Dal Santo or Luke Molan at pick 9.

At least Cole was trade value when we got rid of him so it wasnt a total loss.
 

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I don't think that Collingwood's midfield has a significant pace deficiency. What we undoubtedly have is a middle-tier experience deficiency.

Experienced - Buckley, Burns, Licuria, O'Bree, Johnson, Rhyce Shaw

Middle Tier - Didak, Heath Shaw, Dane Swan, Leon Davis (? even a midfielder), Lonie

Developing/No Experience - Pendlebury, Thomas, Egan, ****, Goldsack, Clarke, Wellingham, Davies, Nicholls.

I would say of our middle tier, only Didak and Heath Shaw show the potential to become A-grade. Lonie is nearly a lost cause, Leon may never even become a midfielder let alone A-grade, and Swan's had one good season coming off the bench.

As it stands, once Bucks, Licuria, O'Bree and Burns retire or their output drops significantly, we're going to hit on tough times until our developing players can really step up.

The promising thing is that the last two years, I have liked the players we've picked up despite not getting a midfielder with one of our high picks in 2006. Thomas, Pendlebury have shown plenty, and ****, Clarke and Wellingham all look like projects with potentially high return in the longer term (perhaps even sooner for Wellingham).

We just need to continue recruiting well so that the mids can gel along with the developing talls in Cloke, Rusling, Brown, Reid, Dawes and Anthony. We also desperately need to take a developing ruckman, either high in the draft or with a trade at the end of the year.
 
we got pick 21 in the 2005 draft which was stanley

Actually I think it was cook who we got with that pick. Pick 18 we used for stanley. It doesn't really mater who we got with the exact pick for Richard Cole but because some people are prematurely labeling stanley a dud whereas cook seems to be progressing a little quicker it gives less ammunition to the tiring 'we should have got dal-santo instead of cole if they had have used my super 50-50 hindsight drafting machine' brigade. :)
 

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Among others.

You realise im referring to them "filling their holes" with star recruits such as J.Rawlings, Hay, L.Brown, Green and McConnell. Only positive trades i could see is Sinclair and also Thompson but i cant see them delivering a premiership for the roos in their careers.
 
All the finances and greatest resources for our recruiting guru`s and they go for Richard Cole instead of Dal Santo,what a shambles.
Absolute gun`s those recruiters of ours,i suppose when you have the loyal followers such as us year in year out,accountability doesn`t come into the equation.
Only consolation is that at least Del Santo and co haven't won the Saints a Cup yet. Coles at Brissy now yeah?
 
Stevens is overated and only slightly more productive than Scotland, and if we did have him we wouldn't have Didak:eek:.

I'll rather have O'Bree and H.Shaw than Corey and Bartel.

Crawford mostly plays at half-back, sweeping.

Bell and Harvey are 35!

Fletcher is not a top-line midfielder, he's just got talented mates.


I believe we are about middle of the table.

i was just listing names off the top of my head

i also think stevens is over-rated, but he is still a good front running link man with decent pace and great disposal

gee big call regarding h.shaw and o'bree vs corey and bartel, id take bartel and corey

crawford plays a similar role to b.johnson, and he was the dominant midfielder for a couple of years, still goes alright and the hawks have mitchell and hodge

bell and harvey would have been top line midfielders for us last year

fletcher would be as good as our best in o'bree or johnson

the problem is we dont have any big reputation players, who would u tag in our team??

perhaps johnson, perhaps h.shaw if he plays in the middle, perhaps swan

that sums us up

we need two of those three to become a-grade midfielders next year

and then need quick development from pendles, thomas etc

one of the poorer midfields going around at the minute we have
 
Just like Mckee ,what did we give up for him! thats right a guy by the name of pavlich.incompetency reigns supreme,at least get a ruckman that can tap to advantage to our midfielders if we are going to pass on the PAV.

u do realise that

freo went for hasleby before pav
richmond went for fiora before pav

pav wasn't a stand out choice based on his junior performance, pies easily got the best junior in 99 in J.Fraser, he was miles ahead of the rest at junior level
 
All the finances and greatest resources for our recruiting guru`s and they go for Richard Cole instead of Dal Santo,what a shambles.
Absolute gun`s those recruiters of ours,i suppose when you have the loyal followers such as us year in year out,accountability doesn`t come into the equation.

do you know who the recruiting bloke was back in 01??

he is not the same bloke who we have now, so he was held accountable

recruiting isn't an exact science, cole looked a very likely prospect early on, but then he lost his way, appeared to lose the desire to play....how is a recruiter meant to know that down the track???
 
first time posting on this thread and can i just say it frustrates the living piss out of me how we have passed up chances to improve. As stated on earlier posts we didn't have a go at del santo who in my eyes is a star. why didn't we try and recruit gardiner this yr? surely would have been better than richards and would have complimented fraser.

Think our midfield is developing very nicely indeed. Pendlebury, thomas and heath shaw will be stars and add didak and even swan who i think is underrated i think we have the basis to a very good midfield. I personally think our forward line is our problem!
 

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There is a big difference between being quick and being evasive. Pendlebury can run, but he isn't quick - he is evasive. The same goes for Leon Davis.

Davis and R Shaw are the two very quick fellas on our list for mine, and maybe Lonie. Pendles and Thomas have some toe but run out of puff so they look slow eg Thomas vs Fiootscray in the finals (his injury didn't help).

If you work your way through the midfield some players have got question marks over their name, and others are past their best. We will have to rely on the same old, such as Burns and Licuria...again, this year, not unless Davis and Shaw/s can step up and fill their shoes - hope for the best, I spose! :thumbsu:

We've got a heap of mid-paced fellas. Burns is slow, so is Lockyer, but Holland, Licca, Buckley, O'Bree, Swan, and H Shaw are none of them snails. Fitness helps Licca and Bucks to outpace opponents late in the game.

Aside from the quicks I mentioned above, I'd say Egan and Ben Johnson are fast runners, and Johnson has the fitness to stay fast for 3 or even 4 quarters.

u do realise that

freo went for hasleby before pav
richmond went for fiora before pav

pav wasn't a stand out choice based on his junior performance, pies easily got the best junior in 99 in J.Fraser, he was miles ahead of the rest at junior level

At the time Pavlich was rated the next best after Fraser, with Haselby in the mix with Fiora and others IIRC. Pies were interested in big men, Richmond small men (hence they made Stunner available). It was put about that Freo would take Pav if we kept pick 3 and would take Haselby if we traded to Richmond.

Pies didn't "overlook" Pav, we were bluffed into trading down, and we traded down to turkeyville. Outsmarted by Freo and Richmond , thats shameful:(
 
You realise im referring to them "filling their holes" with star recruits such as J.Rawlings, Hay, L.Brown, Green and McConnell. Only positive trades i could see is Sinclair and also Thompson but i cant see them delivering a premiership for the roos in their careers.
I said premierships. They won theirs with some good recruiting backing up their other qualities. That doesn’t make trading a guarantee any more than drafting does. Measuring action by low standards is just silly. If you want to win premierships you don’t refuse to do something because some else did it badly.
 
You know who we need, Adam Cooney. He is the sort of midfielder who will improve our midfield - quick, long kick, and carries the footy. He would be a ready-made replacement for Nathan Buckley. We should try and lure him to Collingwood this year while he is still young.
 
I'm pretty sure is secured with a few years to run. I'd love to get him but it aint gunna happen. All we can do is look at who is nearing the end of their contract and try and poach. We had a crack at Power adn Dal Santo without success. We couldn't get a deal done for Stevens although he not at the elite level anyway. He would slot into our midfield though. We should have kept Scotland when it comes down to it though. There are plenty of quality and quicks mids around. Getting them isn't easy but we should try very hard IMO. The next Kane Johnson or Nich Stevens should be very dopable if we are prepared to give up a something. Still keep reaching for a Judd.

It's guys like Blakey, Scott, Chick, Stenglein, Williams, Davis, Pickett etc have slotted into midfields, have filled holes and been contributors to premierships. Judd and co are very hard to move and then very hard to win over and that's before the deal gets done with thier old club. Even Brisbane with all the zone and merger players still traded for a Caracella and punted on a Pike. Essendon picked up Barnes who was important in 2000.
 
I think the verdict with our midfield is that we don't have a proven match winner in the middle anymore. Bucks is pretty much a pinch hitter in the middle and the rest of the guys we have are solid contributors that do well. That may change with Thomas and Pendlebury though. When I look at our midfield I see a lot of quality players and some excellent spark players, but I also see some old slow legs. I don't think we can afford to play O'Bree, Licura and Burns in the same side and yet we will. But in saying that I look forward to see how Swan and H.Shaw back up an impressive 2006, the improvement of Thomas and Pendlebury, the return of R. Shaw to being a regular in the side and to see what Leon Davis turns up to play this year. I think that although our midfield may not be as impressive looking as others (hello West Coast...when Cousins was allowed to play on the drugs...), but I think ours is more interesting as we have the potential tag hanging over a number of players.

As for the Pies draft history...god is frustrating to look back over the past drafts. I picked up the AFL record 2007 book from the Newsagency that has a list of the teams draft history and when you look over it you're depressed. So many times you go "Who the hell is that guy?". I think we have got much much much better in the drafting side of things. I still think we need to pick up a talented midfielder in any upcoming drafts.
 
Collingwood midfield may not be the quickest, but it's far from the worst in the comp. The game is changing so fast that slow teams will be left out in the future, what collingwood did was great during the draft.

They got two super quick KPP in brown and reid which are like hen's teeth. Don't worry about collingwoods future they draft very well.
 

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