We need a SERIOUS injection of PACE

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Pace is good, but Atley is fast in a straight line and we rarely see him chase down opponents, he lacks the agility, he has the turning circle of an ocean liner at speed and so his pace isn't as valuable where there are zones or congestion or playing on someone who can change direction at speed.

Boomer and Wells weren't super fast in a straight line but they had cat-like agility, Usain Bolt in his prime wouldn't be able to catch Boomer or Wells in their prime if they are zig zagging. I would target agile players and develop them on acceleration off the mark and hone their ability to get off the mark and change direction quickly, in footy it is the ability to get separation which is critical.

Too much is made of our lack of speed, you don't need to be super quick to move the football quickly. Port are a quick side and we made them look slow because we used the corridor and we made the effort to move the ball quickly rather than fart arse around with the ball. Sides that look quick tend to have an aggressive game plan.

I'd love if we had Willie Rioli, Liam Ryan and Lewis Jetta in our side, they are very agile players, they aren't slow either but more importantly they have extremely good skills. They are light of frame though and they generally do not accumulate a lot of the footy, they can do damage without getting a lot of the ball but you need to have the right players around them as well. When we had Boomer running with Wells, Campbell and Harper we were one of the highest scoring sides in the competition but we lacked balance and these players weren't raised on defensive mantras and executing zones, presses, etc so when we didn't win enough of the ball we often lost, and sometimes lost badly.

Since then we have been gun shy about recruiting smaller frame, faster/agile players. I think the majority of our rookie spots should be used on indigenous players, bring back some of our retired indigenous players, put them on the payroll and setup an indigenous program here which helps players who struggle when moving to Melbourne by having the support structure here in place to help them. I'd love to see LT back at the club in a leadership role, he is a great guy and would be a wonderful role model. I think indigenous players naturally have the kind of traits we are lacking as a club and it isn't a surprise as we have moved away from recruiting as many indigenous players as we used to that it has become a problem for us now.

I was going to give you a 10/10 for this post, and then added an extra mark for bringing back LT.

Absolutely on the money.
 
I think indigenous players naturally have the kind of traits we are lacking as a club and it isn't a surprise as we have moved away from recruiting as many indigenous players as we used to that it has become a problem for us now.

We have 5 blackfellas who all played senior footy last year - Jed, Jy, the kid young man in your avatar, Paul Ahern and Kyron Hayden. They are all pretty agile and good movers tho not necessarily typically fast.

What you mean is a typical indigenous small forward.

I tend to agree with the rest of your post tho.
 
We have 5 blackfellas who all played senior footy last year - Jed, Jy, the kid young man in your avatar, Paul Ahern and Kyron Hayden. They are all pretty agile and good movers tho not necessarily typically fast.

What you mean is a typical indigenous small forward.

I tend to agree with the rest of your post tho.

I think I said the smaller/lighter frame players who are agile. I think Anderson and Jy are the only lighter frame players and of those I would only call Jy agile. I mean like the players that you typically see in the NT local comp, they play a more dynamic brand of footy and the skill level is quite high for an amateur grade comp, they show a lot of agility traits that most of our boys are lacking.

I think they would be speculative type of inclusions, most who will probably not adjust to the AFL, but I think we could probably turn some into the kind of players we are lacking if we put the effort into it. I'd be surprised if any of our recruitment people have set foot in the NT. We quite often use our rookie list to dump senior listed players there and I don't think anyone who has been demoted to the rookie list has made it back to the AFL list, it seems a waste of opportunity.
 
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Probably being harsh but I reckon Hall is an example of someone being fast but running (literally) into trouble.

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Possibly. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt given he walked into the absolute worst of the Brad Scott era.
 
I know Hall has had his issues both mentally and physically, but I'm wiling to give him a chance under Shaw to be one of those explosive agile players.

Will be interesting to see how Shaw defines his role - because I don't think BS ever did...

Happy to give him half the year to see what he can do with a well-defined role.
 
Probably being harsh but I reckon Hall is an example of someone being fast but running (literally) into trouble.

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For mine that was a coaching issue more than Hall's.

Time is not on his side, but a fit and firing Hall could be damaging (in a good way).

I note Pittard had similar issues until he understood where his mates were and kept improving.
 

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For mine that was a coaching issue more than Hall's.

Time is not on his side, but a fit and firing Hall could be damaging (in a good way).

I note Pittard had similar issues until he understood where his mates were and kept improving.

I hope so. Tom Dyson probably suffered from that as well.
 
I hope so. Tom Dyson probably suffered from that as well.

Whilst i'm not a huge fan (too slow, we already are slow enough), your view may be correct as i felt harshly treated.

If nothing else it's great Shaw can view with fresh eyes and as supporters we go from there.
 
We have 5 blackfellas who all played senior footy last year - Jed, Jy, the kid young man in your avatar, Paul Ahern and Kyron Hayden. They are all pretty agile and good movers tho not necessarily typically fast.

What you mean is a typical indigenous small forward.

I tend to agree with the rest of your post tho.

Just curious, why is Bont a dog?
 
Wing is a position for high footy IQ players. There is a reason why Gibson and Dumont could make it there while Atley and Wood couldn't.
Under the Scott era I can’t remember Atley ever really being tried on the wing.
He played high hbf when he seemed to be unstoppable but opposition backmen seem to work out if they dragged him to the goal line they’d neutered his run and carry.
I always assumed it was a Scott problem not shifting him up the ground when this happened, not a footy IQ thing.
 
Under the Scott era I can’t remember Atley ever really being tried on the wing.
He played high hbf when he seemed to be unstoppable but opposition backmen seem to work out if they dragged him to the goal line they’d neutered his run and carry.
I always assumed it was a Scott problem not shifting him up the ground when this happened, not a footy IQ thing.
We tried him on the wing at the start of '13 or '14 I think.
 
Pace is only good if you are peripherally aware and a good ball user to boot.. you can always appear quick if you hit blokes on the run and not sell a team mate under pressure.. Hall has the ability but his decision making was very poor and did not do the 1% very well.. it takes a champion team to win the thing and not a team of champions
 
We tried him on the wing at the start of '13 or '14 I think.

Atley epitomises our failure in development. We have kept moving him around, not developing his basics, refusing to give him time in the VFL to hone his abilities. Brad sacrificed a lot of individual accountability in order to play his convoluted game plan which bloats space, we never gave Atley the toolset to be better than he has been for us.

We have produced a legion of Shannon Watt like players who have never surpassed being a solid workhorse during their career, whilst being someone nobody else wanted to recruit. Watt played 155 games but Ziebell is on 210 and the captain, Atley 197, Macmillan 148, McDonald 109... we can't keep producing footballers nobody else wants. It is the reason we have a warchest.

All the players I listed, including Atley, should have been better players if we developed them better.
 

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