Player Watch Welcome to Hawthorn, James Worpel, pick #43 2017 - Peter Crimmins medalist 2019

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toomanysquibs

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They need to share it better. Dogs have 6 mids running through there all getting plenty of touches.

It shouldn't keep being a one or the other thing


Those guys probably a touch more versatile, but it does seem hard to fathom.

Maybe Worpel is being played out of position to try and develop him into something that he's just not been able to adapt to. Our coach is a genius, but can be stubborn about getting what he wants with guys.

The Dogs mids definitely do better away from the coalface once they're having a spell. Worps has gone from a PCM medalist to a fringe player in output, but the talent to win the ball in the middle is clearly still there.
 
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Those guys probably a touch more versatile, but it does seem hard to fathom.

Maybe Worpel is being played out of position to try and develop him into something that he's just not been able to adapt to. Our coach is a genius, but can be stubborn about getting what he wants with guys.

The Dogs mids definitely do better away from the coalface once they're having a spell. Worps has gone from a PCM medalist to a fringe player in output, but the talent to win the ball in the middle is clearly still there.
In my view, this is the biggest failure of the current coaching group. We have good individual midfielders, but they haven't found a way to get all of them to work together.
 

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TylerDurden

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In my view, this is the biggest failure of the current coaching group. We have good individual midfielders, but they haven't found a way to get all of them to work together.
Correct. Imagine had we paid for Shiel or Cogs. Would they too have ended up at half fwd due to Jom and Tom being the ball winners? We have to find a way to make this work.
 
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Got a lot of the footy, his effort was good winnning contested touches and clearances. I won't say much about his dispoasal but yeah obviously it was his best performance of the season.
 
Correct. Imagine had we paid for Shiel or Cogs. Would they too have ended up at half fwd due to Jom and Tom being the ball winners? We have to find a way to make this work.
I'm interested to see what it will look like by the end of the year. I'll cut them some slack that they haven't played much together. But after a full year, we have to get them all humming along.
 
Correct. Imagine had we paid for Shiel or Cogs. Would they too have ended up at half fwd due to Jom and Tom being the ball winners? We have to find a way to make this work.

Shiel I would never have wanted in our side, but Coniglio is different. Coniglio is versatile, defensively accountable and doesn't go to ground. The major issue for us is that Mitchell and Worpel all go to ground excessively and get drawn into the contest.

It's not so much that they're all ball winners, the problem isn't that we have players who do the same thing well. The problem is that we have too many in the midfield that do the same things badly.
 

Jazzfan

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Unfortunately Tom Mitchell is a massive issue in a rebuilding team, just like the Crouch brothers are/were in Adelaide. Mitchell is ineffective in any other part of the ground and isn't exactly a selfless midfielder.

Worpel simply has to play inside mid next to O'Meara for the remainder of the year. Wingard offers a point of difference and we should probably
see more of Impey in there for the same reason. Maginness, Howe and/or Shiels provide that more defensive mid that you need to roll through there also.

We seem to have so few numbers roll through the midfield compared to the better sides, a large part of this is Mitchell and O'Meara's inability to play in other positions. I think this is a big reason why we have massive lapses whereby our mids get destroyed in clearances.

This will only be more frustrating when we draft one of the best mids in this years draft and refuse to play them in the middle at points next year...
 
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Unfortunately Tom Mitchell is a massive issue in a rebuilding team, just like the Crouch brothers are/were in Adelaide. Mitchell is ineffective in any other part of the ground and isn't exactly a selfless midfielder.

Worpel simply has to play inside mid next to O'Meara for the remainder of the year. Wingard offers a point of difference and we should probably
see more of Impey in there for the same reason. Maginness, Howe and/or Shiels provide that more defensive mid that you need to roll through there also.

We seem to have so few numbers roll through the midfield compared to the better sides, a large part of this is Mitchell and O'Meara's inability to play in other positions. I think this is a big reason why we have massive lapses whereby our mids get destroyed in clearances.

This will only be more frustrating when we draft one of the best mids in this years draft and refuse to play them in the middle at points next year...
Does Mitchell have an inability to play other positions though? I struggle to recall any game with us where he has been trialed in a different part of the ground for any significant period of time.
 
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Unfortunately he was also playing in JOMs and Mitchell’s preferred position.
I don’t think Mitchell is playing the same role anymore. He tends to sit outside the contest a bit more and pick up the spills out or the quick hands out of the contest. Someone has to play defensively and omeara can do it but he is our best ball winner. Got to share the load better, I guess.
 

Jazzfan

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Does Mitchell have an inability to play other positions though? I struggle to recall any game with us where he has been trialed in a different part of the ground for any significant period of time.

I'm not sure where else you can play him. Any ideas?
 

toomanysquibs

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Correct. Imagine had we paid for Shiel or Cogs. Would they too have ended up at half fwd due to Jom and Tom being the ball winners? We have to find a way to make this work.


I've already chimed in on this thread, but it is kind of baffling that we can't find a way to throw him in there, or school him on some blocking or defensive work, or have one of them rest on the bench or run off the edge of the square like other teams do.

I think Shiel and Cognilio would do OK on the half forward line for what it's worth. But they wouldn't exactly be left there to go completely cold, even if they didn't at a guess.
 
I'm not sure where else you can play him. Any ideas?
Could play in the forward line. Help lock it in the forward 50, win the ball and dish it out to other forwards, and seems alright at finding goal with quick snaps out of packs.

Other than that, not much jumps out. But that's why we should trial him elsewhere. You just never know how it will turn out in practice. It's easy to assume he'd do no good in the back line because his kicking, marking and foot speed aren't his best traits but those are currently the best traits of our collective backline, so perhaps his addition there could cover a weakness or provide some new angle.

And just to keep things on topic. This all applies to Worpel as well.
 

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I don’t think Mitchell is playing the same role anymore. He tends to sit outside the contest a bit more and pick up the spills out or the quick hands out of the contest. Someone has to play defensively and omeara can do it but he is our best ball winner. Got to share the load better, I guess.

he isn't, Clarko addressed this on his pod before the season started

he still wins the ball a lot but more focus has been put on his defensive work (playing across the D50), getting involved in scoring chains (his real value which isn't being shown because we have very few line-breaking I50 threats) and letting JOM do more of the inside work

I get the feeling he would be racking up 40+ pretty commonly if he was still playing his 18 role.
 
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Could play in the forward line. Help lock it in the forward 50, win the ball and dish it out to other forwards, and seems alright at finding goal with quick snaps out of packs.

Other than that, not much jumps out. But that's why we should trial him elsewhere. You just never know how it will turn out in practice. It's easy to assume he'd do no good in the back line because his kicking, marking and foot speed aren't his best traits but those are currently the best traits of our collective backline, so perhaps his addition there could cover a weakness or provide some new angle.

And just to keep things on topic. This all applies to Worpel as well.

That's the only other spot IMO. He's pretty good around the goals in contested situations.
 

Simon_Nesbit

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The problem with moving Mitchell more outside, is that while he can run all over the park and rack up possessions better than JOM/Worpel, he really doesn't do much with it by foot and is exposed defensively.

He doesn't create overlap run through creative disposal, a chip'n'charge for the 1-2, he doesn't have depth or creativity in his kicking, and he doesn't run with the ball. Any time he touches the ball in transition, it seems to result in stagnant chip-mark play.

We could maybe turn him into a Tim Clarke-esque small hit-up forward but that's a pretty low ceiling for someone with elite attributes.

Everything he is elite at is at the coalface. He needs to be there or he's just another vanilla B-grader.

Until we can work out how to play the three together, (or get a dominant tap ruck to utilise their ball-winning abilities) we are going to struggle.
 
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there's been a lot of criticism of Titch this year and to be honest I think it's been unfairly directed at him instead of the rest of the midfield group, particularly Worpel. I've been extremely disappointed with Worpel's year, however acknowledge that he is still performing well for his age and there are many strings he can add to his bow. His stats and age aren't really that far off Cerra's, and people are clamouring to get their hands on him (yes, I'm aware Cerra is the far smoother, classier player, but I would argue Worpel is a better contested player).

It is also worth giving credit where it's due — he has certainly turned around his form to an extent.


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Now, some of this uptick is no doubt due to a change in role, but it is still pleasing to see him start to regain a bit of form. He needs to work on his kicking (oh god he needs to work on his kicking) and his defensive accountability, but he has time on his side. Hopefully in 2-3 seasons with some midfield depth, personnel restructure he can build on the last two seasons, work on the deficiencies that have been exposed and become the player we, Sam and the club knows he can become.
 
Worpel has now kicked 6 goals from his last 7 games. He also seems to be having a greater impact in the front half of the ground now just in general. Great to see him out of his rut.
 

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