News Welcome to Hawthorn Jon Patton : Retired

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Mojo

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I’m personally looking to Easter Monday when he rag dolls a completely cooked Harry Taylor. Similar to Hawkins on Schoenmakers.
For all the great forwards we’ve recently had, none of them were the overpower you type that decimate a defenders confidence.
Buddy was an athletic beast with freakish goal sense, Roughy the most agile big forward going around below his knees and Gunston touched you up with forward craft as game sense.

Watching Patton throw blokes around will be fun.

When was the last time we had any forward who could rag-doll a defender?

In fact, the most prominent player in recent years to rag-doll anyone, from memory, was Brian Lake.
 
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The exciting thing is most teams will need a dedicated defender to wrestle with Patton. Guys like Andrews/Rance are fantastic defenders when peeling off due to their superior judgement and aerial abilities but can often struggle when locked 1v1. There aren’t many players left like this - Hawkins is probably the only real one. Mason Cox can also do it due to his sheer height. Brisbane could try use Adams instead but he’s too undersized.

Then teams will need to deal with Mitchell Lewis who is a fantastic contested mark, a big unit but also mobile. He’ll drag opposition defenders up and out of their comfort zone. I think he’ll be playing a similar role to Shoey while also helping out in the ruck.

And then teams will still have to deal with Gunston/O’Brien or maybe even both. Imagine having to use an undersized defender on either of them. And neither of them are slow either so while the team is tall it’s not overly slow. Gunston could kick 50+ in this setup.

At the very least the ball should be brought to ground giving Bruest/Poppy/a resting Wingard the opportunity to pounce. Imagine if we still had Cyril :(

I’m very optimistic about our forwardline in 2020. Our defence was already fantastic (and is getting stronger) while our inside midfield is bolstered by the return of Mitchell. If the forwardline clicks I think we could blow teams out of the water.
 
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Conventional wisdom would suggest that for every tall you add to your forward structure you sacrifice run and forward pressure
(all be it to achieve an aerial advantage)
This is where someone like Lewis becomes an absolute wild card in that he combines contested marking with excellent recovery / leg speed.

As indicated by others, the introduction of Patton provides the missing piece of Clarko's forward structure.
Isolated in the square opposition clubs are going to have to stretch their defensive structures to cover him.
Choose to double team him and your faced with a raft of mobile marking targets across half forward.

I think of it in these terms - A fit and firing Patton will attract a quality tall defender.
This in turn reduces the quality of defender available to play on Lewis, Gunston and TOB.
Provided they don't get in each other's way, we will have an additional option other than to bomb it to the top of the square, force a spoil, and hope for a crumbing goal.

All of this is dependant on the opposition, ground and weather conditions, but given the proven IQ of our coach, it's going to provide him with a serious new forward option.
 

Carl Spackler

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Conventional wisdom would suggest that for every tall you add to your forward structure you sacrifice run and forward pressure
(all be it to achieve an aerial advantage)
This is where someone like Lewis becomes an absolute wild card in that he combines contested marking with excellent recovery / leg speed.

As indicated by others, the introduction of Patton provides the missing piece of Clarko's forward structure.
Isolated in the square opposition clubs are going to have to stretch their defensive structures to cover him.
Choose to double team him and your faced with a raft of mobile marking targets across half forward.

I think of it in these terms - A fit and firing Patton will attract a quality tall defender.
This in turn reduces the quality of defender available to play on Lewis, Gunston and TOB.
Provided they don't get in each other's way, we will have an additional option other than to bomb it to the top of the square, force a spoil, and hope for a crumbing goal.

All of this is dependant on the opposition, ground and weather conditions, but given the proven IQ of our coach, it's going to provide him with a serious new forward option.

Good post.

A gorilla forward, or similarly dominant sort like Roughie, forces the defense to follow the offensive structure. If all the forwards are mobile and none of them demand a named defender with periodic double teams then a defense can float a zone all over, handing off offensive players as they move. Clog the lanes and you're golden defensively. But with a player who demands a named matchup (and Hodgey isn't there yet but fingers crossed we have two this year) then the defense has much less latitude to zone effectively. One, sometimes two, defenders are not free to zone as they must stay with their named target. Now the target can stay put or the target can move, pulling a defender with him and opening a lot of space.

So I hope we see our forward line looking even more dangerous than it did in the final six weeks of last year. I think we're reaching the point again where we get to dictate the how play up forward will unfold, rather than the opposition defense. Who knows. Fingers crossed.
 
Conventional wisdom would suggest that for every tall you add to your forward structure you sacrifice run and forward pressure
(all be it to achieve an aerial advantage)
This is where someone like Lewis becomes an absolute wild card in that he combines contested marking with excellent recovery / leg speed.

As indicated by others, the introduction of Patton provides the missing piece of Clarko's forward structure.
Isolated in the square opposition clubs are going to have to stretch their defensive structures to cover him.
Choose to double team him and your faced with a raft of mobile marking targets across half forward.

I think of it in these terms - A fit and firing Patton will attract a quality tall defender.
This in turn reduces the quality of defender available to play on Lewis, Gunston and TOB.
Provided they don't get in each other's way, we will have an additional option other than to bomb it to the top of the square, force a spoil, and hope for a crumbing goal.

All of this is dependant on the opposition, ground and weather conditions, but given the proven IQ of our coach, it's going to provide him with a serious new forward option.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that you get goals from two main avenues. You either get goals from marking, or you get goals from ground balls and general play.

Considering the fact that a team is likely to average 50+ inside 50s a game, but only about 10 marks inside 50 a game, maximising the scoreboard impact comes predominantly from general play and ground level football.

It's a lot easier to stop someone from taking a mark than it is to take a mark.

Being too tall is more of a negative than a positive, which concerns me about a tall forward set up. That being said, there's a combination of size with pace, athleticism and ground level ability that excites me when it comes to O'Brien and Nash more than Lewis. Ability overhead combined with pace and pressure is what made Puopolo and Cyril so deadly, hopefully that ability overhead can be replicated or maximised with O'Brien and Nash.
 
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Conventional wisdom would suggest that you get goals from two main avenues. You either get goals from marking, or you get goals from ground balls and general play.

Considering the fact that a team is likely to average 50+ inside 50s a game, but only about 10 marks inside 50 a game, maximising the scoreboard impact comes predominantly from general play and ground level football.

It's a lot easier to stop someone from taking a mark than it is to take a mark.

Being too tall is more of a negative than a positive, which concerns me about a tall forward set up. That being said, there's a combination of size with pace, athleticism and ground level ability that excites me when it comes to O'Brien and Nash more than Lewis. Ability overhead combined with pace and pressure is what made Puopolo and Cyril so deadly, hopefully that ability overhead can be replicated or maximised with O'Brien and Nash.

Absolutely agree with the point you make RB

This is not a one size fits all scenario but an option not previously available.
For example there's no point having potent marking forwards when its snowing

Yep - flexibility is the go here.
Opposition, ground and weather conditions will dictate the combination but the inclusion of Patton ticks a box we may not have previously.
 

burner1

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Our issue in previous years has we have been almost too ground ball focused - with forwards not looking to mark (but palm it down) and us getting picked off in the air by the better intercept teams when they can pressure our forward entries. The long kick into forward line gets picked off far too often.

Patton and Lewis provide us some balance - while we lose a little ground ball pressure (although Lewis is rapidly improving) the aerial threat keeps defenders honest and makes the long ball dangerous. There’s nothing like a few big contested marks to send a defence into disarray and cause additional defenders to get sucked into the contest leaving our smalls free.
 

Hawk Dork

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So where does Nash fit in this forward scenario ? Cant see us having 5 talls in there. No room on the wings either with Smithy, Scully and Hendo.

Hawthorn problems.
Nash plays small
With his spped tackling and quick hands but if he can learn to mark and kick it will require a tall defender on him
 
Nash plays small
With his spped tackling and quick hands but if he can learn to mark and kick it will require a tall defender on him
Any chance Frost plays as a small as well? Him and Nash would be a new breed of super quick tall smalls...
 

CHUBBSS

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Nash is the ultimate miss match. Playing Patton, obrien, Lewis and Nash seriously stretches a team and then have a floating gunston.

As long as the delivery is good and it will be, welcome back higher scores in 2020.
 
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