Player Watch Rory Laird

[BRL121]

Or when every Crows midfielder that doesn’t have the ball refuses to block and give space to any Crows midfielder that gets the ball

Yes. It was an eye opener at the start of the Showdown. After the first bounce, Wines got the ball and waltzed through a few waving hands, thumping the ball forward. After the second bounce, I think it was Laird who got the ball just as well, but was immediately wrapped up in the tackle. What a contrast.

 

[Concussion test]

I called for us to trade Laird or Smith last year for another top pick. Laird has been great this year, and Smith has stepped up his leadership big time.

Could you please add Fogg and McPherson to your trade list, we could really do with some uplift in their performance asap.

 

[glengowan]

He’s a gun. Most consistent performer for the last 5 years. Stepped up from back pocket, to rebounding back, to very good midfielder (unlike someone like Brown who remains a back pocket forever). Doesn’t fumble, unlike the rest of the team. His contract not a problem at all.

 

[Ramify]

It wasn't too long ago people here were calling to trade out Laird and take anything they could get. Line up one and all with your second and third round picks.
He came off one average season where teams had worked out that he was the driving force from half back for the Crows and tries to tag him out of the game.
Now BF posters are known for jumping on early to call players the next big thing, and jumping off early after one average game.
Laird has shown juat how good he is. Off half back, in the middle, he's a little freak.
Time to own up those who wanted to cut him loose.

Still have a love/hate thing with Laird.
Love the way he hunts the ball.
Hate the way he butchers it a lot of the time.

 

[Cleric]

Still have a love/hate thing with Laird.
Love the way he hunts the ball.
Hate the way he butchers it a lot of the time.

Lots of inside players either have high handball ratios, or hack it forward by foot. There's not much time in those packs to take your time and lace someone out.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

The issue was/is contract length.

has it been shortened in recent weeks?

No, the issue is his total contract value & we are not exactly playing overs for one of our best players.

We need core quality experience in our side & Rory fits the bill.

Meanwhile we have plenty of cap space to sign up our best young talent to longer deals... & still have plenty of cap space.

Hanging on to Laird was the correct list management decision

 

[Ramify]

Lots of inside players either have high handball ratios, or hack it forward by foot. There's not much time in those packs to take your time and lace someone out.

Of course, but watch closely how often he instantly slams it on the boot without looking and whilst under little pressure if any. Its a clearance won but a wasted stat/opportunity most of the time.
I wouldn't single him out for this if it wasn't an obvious and annoying flaw(to me at least) in his game.
The burst speed and power is there in him as we can see when he is trying to gain possession or working to link up in a chain. If he could learn to use it more often once he's taken possession , especially around the stoppage as opposed to feeling a perceived pressure and insta-slamming ball onto boot , he would take his game to another level.

You can be an inside mid and not treat the ball like a hot potato.

 

[BunjiMac]

Just can't remember many times Laird has hit someone lace out on the lead.

He's probably in the same category as Keays in terms of blindly bombing long and when compared to the rest of our midfielders, they are probably the two worse offenders.

Yes, I understand there isn't a lot of time, but we keep complaining about mediocrity as a club. This mediocrity only goes away if you lift your levels of acceptance.

This is not a knock on Laird, but I simply want more from a prime midfielder.

 

[BronCrow]

It wasn't too long ago people here were calling to trade out Laird and take anything they could get. Line up one and all with your second and third round picks.
He came off one average season where teams had worked out that he was the driving force from half back for the Crows and tries to tag him out of the game.
Now BF posters are known for jumping on early to call players the next big thing, and jumping off early after one average game.
Laird has shown juat how good he is. Off half back, in the middle, he's a little freak.
Time to own up those who wanted to cut him loose.

Tell me, are you willing to own up to jumping the gun on this thread in a few years time if his form goes downhill and his body lets him down and he has to retire prematurely before his contract runs out and we have to continue to pay him whilst he is no longer on the list, ALA Bryce Gibbs?

I don't wish this to happen to him, and he may be playing well at the moment, but this thread is a little premature at the moment.

 

[Damp Squarie]

Laird finished with a whopping 36 touches, two goals, one goal assist and 10 score involvements tonight.
Carried the side in the last quarter.
3 Brownlow Votes

 

[Sanders]

Laird finished with a whopping 36 touches, two goals, one goal assist and 10 score involvements tonight.
Carried the side in the last quarter.
3 Brownlow Votes

Wow. Must’ve been impressive to be given the votes already

 

[Murray2503]

Has been our most consistent all year. Could tidy up his disposal but one of the best mids going around this year

 

[CrowsB4hoes]

Genuine Smokey for the AA. A lock for the squad at least. If at any other team would be a favorite for the Brownlow.

 

[Crowbots are dead]

Cleric , an apology thread should be one where you own up to calling it wrong and not asking others too

 

[Crowbots are dead]

The "doesn't look where he kicks it" criticism gets levelled at every engine-room midfielder. They're surrounded by players and have a fraction of a second to use it, so yeah, they're going to do some blind kicks sometimes. It's up to the rest of the team to structure up in a useful and predictable way so the likes of Laird have a good backup option when there's no time to spot someone up and they're forced to just hack it forward.

When he gets time and space he generally uses the ball very well. He's been great

Post of the thread. Laird is often surrounded and goes in to get the hardest balls .

 

[UcantCme]

His clearance work is elite, his ability to get to the loose ball first is uncanny

On SM-G973F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[thebirdman 24]

A truly good game. Damaging posessions, goals and running away from clearances cleanly which we haven't seen heaps of this year.

We have seen him have similar numbers most weeks but not be damaging but last night there was no silly 30cm handballs or 3 posession handball chains that lead to nothing.

On SM-A205YN using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[40porpoise]

I don’t understand those that say he’s not not an AA calibre midfielder. I would rather he hack a kick forward out of a stoppage compared to losing it all together.

For a guy his size he has an amazing ability to extract the ball. His hands are clean and super quick with the handpass

 

[goyoucrows]

Jeez, 5 minutes ago people saying we had the worst midfield in the league (they're right) and that Laird isn't effective and a stat padder (they're right). Now you're talking AA midfielder? Lmao give me a break.

 

[FR0GGY]

Jeez, 5 minutes ago people saying we had the worst midfield in the league (they're right) and that Laird isn't effective and a stat padder (they're right). Now you're talking AA midfielder? Lmao give me a break.

Different people

 

[BunjiMac]

Everyones comments were that Laird can do fine against average sides and gets shown up by elite midfields, due to his poor disposal.

This is still true.

People think this is an indictment on Laird, when it's not. We all know he tries his hardest but the fact he is our Prime midfielder is a problem.

Let's see how effective he is against the WB.

 

[thebirdman 24]

I don’t understand those that say he’s not not an AA calibre midfielder. I would rather he hack a kick forward out of a stoppage compared to losing it all together.

For a guy his size he has an amazing ability to extract the ball. His hands are clean and super quick with the handpass

I wouldn't go that far and say he is AA quality midfielder. We still have one of (if not) the worst midfield going around and he has had plenty of games with similar stats and low to medium impact.

Last night was an exception to that where he was very damaging. See how he goes against the Bulldogs next week and a good midfield setup. Last night was very low pressure and hard to gauge our performance.

On SM-A205YN using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[cmndstab]

Having one midfield player who is almost (probably not quite) AA caliber, and having the worst midfield in the league, are not incompatible statements.

 

[1970crow]

Having one midfield player who is almost (probably not quite) AA caliber, and having the worst midfield in the league, are not incompatible statements.

Individually our mids are all good enough, assuming not carrying injury. But combined they form a poor group. They’ll still rack it up, it’s the quality and damage caused differential from their touches that is league worst.

 

[ContrarianCrow]

Our anaemic midfield has some issues, but Laird isn't one of them. He's the extractor and a very good one at that - top 5 in the comp for avg. clearances. Out of the top 5, he gains less metres than Oliver & Parish but more than Liberatore & Cunnington. I wouldn't rate any of those 5 as elite users of the ball, but they shouldn't have to be. The absolute priority needs to be a dynamic midfielder who can use the ball for Lairdy to feed the ball out to - at the moment he's generally feeding it out to Keays who is arguably a worse kick, with the added crutch of an out of form and hobbled Sloane who is almost a non-entity at the moment. Schoenberg is showing some signs of hopefully becoming that type of player, but another one certainly wouldn't hurt.