Always Right Match Committee Round 12 v Geelong

[GVGjr]

Key forwards are like Gold. Anyone can defend

I'm not sure it's quite that simplistic.

[Jasper]

Surely it has to be Treloar in for ODonnell at the very least.

[Critter]

Great post.

We're too big like that mate. WAY too big. Lobb, Sweet, Gardner, Jones, Jamarra and Jones would be lucky to have 25 touches between them...we need either more talls like Naughton and English who will get the ball and contribute in ball movement OR we need more running players who can do the same...

As an aside, you'll never convince me moving Naughton is a good idea but I appreciate the post. :-)

Fair call, I expected many wouldn't agree.
Interestingly, both Saturday's side against GCS, and the side I have put up, have 8 talls. I get your point about mobility but my reasoning relates to all over effectiveness as being the measure of value. I've replaced O'Brien and O'Donnell with Sweet and Darcy and I argue their inclusion would make us a better side. O'Brien and O'Donnell may be more mobile but they deliver marginal value. I believe Sweet's inclusion and the use of English as a Ruck/Rover type would improves the effectiveness of our mid-field significantly.

I see two core midfield groups - maybe Bont, Treloar and Libba/ English, Smith and Macrae - swapping around whenever, and with Daniel popping in from time to time. Sweet would carry the rucking load with relief from Lobb. I think this structure would significantly improve our CBA, ball-up and boundary throw-in performance in terms of hit-outs and clearances.

I believe Darcy to be a highly talented forward, who reads the flight of the ball particularly well. I think he could deliver around 2 goals a game. (For what it's worth, I wouldn't have Lobb in my team. However, I understand the emotional and perhaps contractual difficulties with that move.)

The move of Naughton to defence goes to the priority you (the general "you") place upon defence over attack. I come from the camp that prioritises defence. After all, we did win a premiership with Zaine Cordy as centre half forward.

[Critter]

If anyone says we should move Chris Grant from the forward line to CHB then they?re crazy. Moving a proven goal kicker like him into defence would be crazy. What?s he going to do, suddenly become the best CHB in the game capable of nullifying everyone including Wayne Carey? Moves like this never ever work.

Who?s then going to kick our goals, Darcy? Croft? West? A 30+ Liberatore after an ACL?

I'm thinking your tongue is firmly planted in your cheek. From the WB website:

"...Grant showed his versatility when he moved to centre half-back in 1996 and fell just one vote short of winning the Brownlow Medal.

[Mantis]

Fair call, I expected many wouldn't agree.
Interestingly, both Saturday's side against GCS, and the side I have put up, have 8 talls. I get your point about mobility but my reasoning relates to all over effectiveness as being the measure of value. I've replaced O'Brien and O'Donnell with Sweet and Darcy and I argue their inclusion would make us a better side. O'Brien and O'Donnell may be more mobile but they deliver marginal value. I believe Sweet's inclusion and the use of English as a Ruck/Rover type would improves the effectiveness of our mid-field significantly.

I see two core midfield groups - maybe Bont, Treloar and Libba/ English, Smith and Macrae - swapping around whenever, and with Daniel popping in from time to time. Sweet would carry the rucking load with relief from Lobb. I think this structure would significantly improve our CBA, ball-up and boundary throw-in performance in terms of hit-outs and clearances.

I can't see what the obsession is with Sweet and how his relatively poor form in the VFL will translate to him being effective against the competitions best ruckman? Many have the view that he is a superior stoppage ruck compared to English, which might be somewhat true, but in the VFL game against GC, and comparing only the 1st rucks Sweet lost the HO count 21 to 32... so how is he going to somehow beat Witts who is just about the best stoppage ruck in the comp in conditions that totally suited him when he gets out-pointed by Ned Moyle?

And I'm a huge no on English playing purely as a mid.

I believe Darcy to be a highly talented forward, who reads the flight of the ball particularly well. I think he could deliver around 2 goals a game. (For what it's worth, I wouldn't have Lobb in my team. However, I understand the emotional and perhaps contractual difficulties with that move.)

Darcy gets moved off the ball way too easily at the moment.. he's still a couple of years a couple of years away from being effective.

The move of Naughton to defence goes to the priority you (the general "you") place upon defence over attack. I come from the camp that prioritises defence. After all, we did win a premiership with Zaine Cordy as centre half forward.

We almost lost it because of him too.

[1eyedog]

Key forwards are like Gold. Anyone can defend

I don't agree with this entirely.

Forward craft is an ability you can certainly develop and I get why you think forwards are like gold because the best forwards have a high level of natural craft that is really hard to replicate if you've played a heap of footy elsewhere. It's hard to just replicate playing like a forward from any other position on the ground. That's why more forwards go back than backs go forward, although there are exceptions like David Neitz and Alastair Lynch but they are truly great players who clearly had high forward-craft acumen. I guess that's what you're saying. It's harder to find a good key forward than it is to find a good key back because of their innate natural ability that others lack.

I agree that anyone can defend to a point and there are certainly AFL players identified easier through the draft and State leagues who can defend 'well enough' but there's Ryan Gardner and there's Liam Jones isn't there. A question for you is who has been more important to our fortunes this year Naughton or Jones? I have my opinion.

I reckon it takes a very specialist key defender to be able to stifle and beat a very good key forward. It's almost like the immovable object vs the unstoppable force. Like for like and both are equally valuable and hard to find. You can't just find a defender and play them on the best key forwards, well you can but you need a heap of support from your 2nds and 3rds and your midfield so you need alot of resources.

Also, big key forwards are not what they were in the 90s or even over the past 20 years. They aren't kicking as many goals in a season as they did (Franklin is the exception but he's a generational player), and teams are finding more avenues to goal than ever before with smalls, game plan tweaks or with hybrids like Miocheck and Fritsch. Collingwood and Melbourne don't have a really good key forward and they're 1 and 4 on the ladder. Even Sydney reached a Grand Final last year without a decent marking key forward, preferring to roll out a cooked Franklin (who still managed 50 goals cause he's Buddy Franklin). We didn't have one either in 2016.

I don't know what I'm saying. I guess I'm saying for me, key forwards aren't as important as they were and you can definitely find really good ones outside of a top 10 pick (Marshall and Allen around pick 20), Larkey and Walker pick in the 70s, Mihocek rookie draft etc. so they're not the rolled gold they once were.

Really good key defenders are just as important as really good key fowards. Another question, would you pick Curnow who is leading the Coleman over Moore?

[Danjul]

Key forwards are like Gold. Anyone can defend

Is Naughton gold yet? In half of his games this year he has kicked only 1 goal. Ten years ago a burnt out reject called Barry Hall managed over 80 goals by kicking multiple goals almost every week. Admittedly, in those days there was an emphasis on kicking properly that applied to the whole team.

[Danjul]

I can't see what the obsession is with Sweet and how his relatively poor form in the VFL will translate to him being effective against the competitions best ruckman? Many have the view that he is a superior stoppage ruck compared to English, which might be somewhat true, but in the VFL game against GC, and comparing only the 1st rucks Sweet lost the HO count 21 to 32... so how is he going to somehow beat Witts who is just about the best stoppage ruck in the comp in conditions that totally suited him when he gets out-pointed by

In that vfl game the comparison was

Sweet: disposals 11. Tackles 5. HO 22. Points algorithm: 79

Moyle: disposals 7. Tackles 2. HO 33. Points algorithm: 71


for comparison with another ruckman

Lobb: disposals 14 Tackles 2.HO 10. Points algorithm: 62

Or a known player in the same game
Bruce: disposals 11. Tackles 2 HO 0. Points algorithm: 42


Obviously, not everyone saw Sweets game as all that bad. Certainly not great but it does support Critter when he refers to his ground level pressure.

[JanLorMill]

I can't see what the obsession is with Sweet and how his relatively poor form in the VFL will translate to him being effective against the competitions best ruckman? Many have the view that he is a superior stoppage ruck compared to English, which might be somewhat true, but in the VFL game against GC, and comparing only the 1st rucks Sweet lost the HO count 21 to 32... so how is he going to somehow beat Witts who is just about the best stoppage ruck in the comp in conditions that totally suited him when he gets out-pointed by Ned Moyle?

Didn't Sweet play against Witts last year in Ballarat? From memory Witts got at lot of taps but Rowell hardly touched it

[Rocco Jones]

In that vfl game the comparison was

Sweet: disposals 11. Tackles 5. HO 22. Points algorithm: 79

Moyle: disposals 7. Tackles 2. HO 33. Points algorithm: 71


for comparison with another ruckman

Lobb: disposals 14 Tackles 2.HO 10. Points algorithm: 62

Or a known player in the same game
Bruce: disposals 11. Tackles 2 HO 0. Points algorithm: 42


Obviously, not everyone saw Sweets game as all that bad. Certainly not great but it does support Critter when he refers to his ground level pressure.

Out of interest Danjul (and I sincerely hope this doesn't come across as an attack) but you seem to value raw stats hugely. Do you value things other than total disposals, marks, tackles, hitouts etc highly or do you feel if you are getting more of these you must be better?

For example, a guy like Matthew Crouch isn't getting a game for the Crows. He would probably get more disposals than whoever he replaces if Crows gave him a game. Would you play him? I think Crozier would get it more than a few guys in our team too.

[Mantis]

Didn't Sweet play against Witts last year in Ballarat? From memory Witts got at lot of taps but Rowell hardly touched it

In last year's game Witts won the HO count against Sweet 55 to 27, but we won the clearances 49-36. Rowell had 6 touches and 1 clearance.

On Saturday Witts won the HO count against English 51 to 22, clearances were equal with 42 apiece. Rowell had 29 touches and 16 clearances.

[mjp]

Fair call, I expected many wouldn't agree.
Interestingly, both Saturday's side against GCS, and the side I have put up, have 8 talls. I get your point about mobility but my reasoning relates to all over effectiveness as being the measure of value. I've replaced O'Brien and O'Donnell with Sweet and Darcy and I argue their inclusion would make us a better side. O'Brien and O'Donnell may be more mobile but they deliver marginal value. I believe Sweet's inclusion and the use of English as a Ruck/Rover type would improves the effectiveness of our mid-field significantly.

Yeah - but 8 was too many on Saturday night as well.

We need 2x key backs and a defender who can play on both. Right now, we have Jones, Gardner and TOB.
We need 2x key forwards. Right now we have Naughton and JUH.
We need 1x ruckman and another player who can help out. Right now, we have English and Lobb.

We simply don't need O'Donnell right now and he makes 7. I'm not sure who else we played on the weekend to make 8 but my maths are often wrong. We can't be adding Sweet and Darcy to that group without leaving some out...happy for you to propose messing with the magnets but if we go into a game with 8x talls most of who barely touch the footy we are gonna get killed.

Sweet simply doesn't get the ball.
Nor Jones.
Nor Gardner.
Nor JUH (though to be fair he did in the first q last week vs GC).
Nor Lobb.
Nor TOB.
Nor Darcy (he's only a baby to be fair).

English is good for 16-20, Naughton 12-15 - even those aren't great numbers.

Again, happy for the magnets to spin and if you recall I suggested recruiting Lobb when we already had Darcy was folly...but now we've made our bed we need to live in it. I do get frustrated when Naughton takes ruck contests in the forward line when Lobb is RIGHT THERE doing nothing but that's a coaching call...Naughton does occasionally pluck one and get a shot on goal (but that's undemocratic in my eyes and the ruckman should be focussed on bringing the ball to ground, keeping it inside the contest and allowing our mids to go to work...and the rest of the forwards should get the hell outa the way unless they are better clearance players than the mids are...totally another story).

English as a mid? A full strength Geelong with Dangerfield, C. Guthrie etc would make a mockery of him in that role...hell - he wouldn't chase Xavier O'Halloran a couple of weeks back in Canberra so I can't imagine he wants to chase the best gut running mids in the game around the field...

I 100% LOVE your post by the way 'cos I like the idea of thinking differently and looking at what we have but we cannot play 8x talls and we cannot play English as a mid...

[JanLorMill]

In last year's game Witts won the HO count against Sweet 55 to 27, but we won the clearances 49-36. Rowell had 6 touches and 1 clearance.

On Saturday Witts won the HO count against English 51 to 22, clearances were equal with 42 apiece. Rowell had 29 touches and 16 clearances.

To me that says Sweet did better nullifying Witts and the gcs midfield than English, we also won the game.
ok we had Treloar and Dunkley but they had Miller.

[bornadog]

To me that says Sweet did better nullifying Witts and the gcs midfield than English, we also won the game.
ok we had Treloar and Dunkley but they had Miller.

Sweet is way off being an AFL ruckman at this stage

[hujsh]

Yeah - but 8 was too many on Saturday night as well.

We need 2x key backs and a defender who can play on both. Right now, we have Jones, Gardner and TOB.
We need 2x key forwards. Right now we have Naughton and JUH.
We need 1x ruckman and another player who can help out. Right now, we have English and Lobb.

We simply don't need O'Donnell right now and he makes 7.

BTW you have 7 and he makes 8. Got all the players, just miscounted I guess.