How do you rate the Dogs' attacking firepower?

[PR0408]

Clarke is a very smart footballer with a great goal sense. He will surprise a few this year especially having a full pre season. As I've said previously he would have gone a lot higher in the draft had he come from a private school and not left school after year 9. Quite happy we took Sanders and not Watson as Clarke could be just as good.

Couldn?t agree more about the private school comment.
Clarke not only seems fitter but a little quicker also not sure if it?s fitness or being more confident or understanding his role a bit better. Hopefully he comes back after the Christmas break in even better shape and has a brilliant 8 weeks and continues to improve and puts pressure on the likes of VDM and Scott as the think Clarke is the final piece of the forward half puzzle for me.
I?m also confident that Marra naughts and Cody will be even better in 2024 with that little bit more of experience. All 3 are still very young.
I also expect Lobb to have a huge season. Finished last year well and another pre season together with this group he will go from strength to strength.
Really excited what this forward group can do this year.

[FrediKanoute]

Couldn?t agree more about the private school comment.
Clarke not only seems fitter but a little quicker also not sure if it?s fitness or being more confident or understanding his role a bit better. Hopefully he comes back after the Christmas break in even better shape and has a brilliant 8 weeks and continues to improve and puts pressure on the likes of VDM and Scott as the think Clarke is the final piece of the forward half puzzle for me.
I?m also confident that Marra naughts and Cody will be even better in 2024 with that little bit more of experience. All 3 are still very young.
I also expect Lobb to have a huge season. Finished last year well and another pre season together with this group he will go from strength to strength.
Really excited what this forward group can do this year.

If he comes on this year it will be a real big plus for the team and balance overall. I think he will play a few games, but we really wont see the impact until 2025 from him.

[Uninformed]

Any word on the new Goalkicking coach? Wonder if Jarryd Roughead would be of interest. Great bloke and Saints goal kicking accuracy improved when he arrived as an assistant, might?ve been more about player positioning than goal kicking technique, but we could do with some of that too

Roughead would be a really good get I think.

[Mantis]

Roughead is heavily involved with list management at the Saints so would think there is **** all chance he drops this to become a goal kicking coach.

[D Mitchell]

Roughead is heavily involved with list management at the Saints so would think there is **** all chance he drops this to become a goal kicking coach.

According to Yahoo, Reddit and Ch 7 News, Roughead resigned from St Kilda before Xmas, replaced by Simon Dalrymple.

[GVGjr]

Couldn?t agree more about the private school comment.
Clarke not only seems fitter but a little quicker also not sure if it?s fitness or being more confident or understanding his role a bit better. Hopefully he comes back after the Christmas break in even better shape and has a brilliant 8 weeks and continues to improve and puts pressure on the likes of VDM and Scott as the think Clarke is the final piece of the forward half puzzle for me.
I?m also confident that Marra naughts and Cody will be even better in 2024 with that little bit more of experience. All 3 are still very young.
I also expect Lobb to have a huge season. Finished last year well and another pre season together with this group he will go from strength to strength.
Really excited what this forward group can do this year.

Like Busslinger and Gallagher, Clarke really struggled through the preseason last year getting any continuity with his training so is a now a long way ahead of where he was. I think being confident in your ability to push yourself in training is one of the reasons he's starting to stand out and that is the same with the other two.
I also agree about Lobb potentially being a better contributor to the forward line.

[Grantysghost]

Couldn?t agree more about the private school comment.
Clarke not only seems fitter but a little quicker also not sure if it?s fitness or being more confident or understanding his role a bit better. Hopefully he comes back after the Christmas break in even better shape and has a brilliant 8 weeks and continues to improve and puts pressure on the likes of VDM and Scott as the think Clarke is the final piece of the forward half puzzle for me.
I?m also confident that Marra naughts and Cody will be even better in 2024 with that little bit more of experience. All 3 are still very young.
I also expect Lobb to have a huge season. Finished last year well and another pre season together with this group he will go from strength to strength.
Really excited what this forward group can do this year.

Loving this. Hope you're right is a very exciting group. I'm on the fence re Clarke (I get it's early) so I'm rapt he's showing more this pre-season.

[Can Bar]

Our main Forwards are still very young, 21-24, with the exception of Lobb. We may still be a couple of years away from our Forwards dominating all teams week in week out.

[Grantysghost]

Our main Forwards are still very young, 21-24, with the exception of Lobb. We may still be a couple of years away from our Forwards dominating all teams week in week out.

Yep CB, will be hot and cold still for a while but crikey I don't think we've ever had a better crop of young forwards.
I'm hoping we can lock away Marra soon. I'm pretty confident he will stay, we might just have to offer a lot of years.

[Mantis]

According to Yahoo, Reddit and Ch 7 News, Roughead resigned from St Kilda before Xmas, replaced by Simon Dalrymple.

Well there you go!

Dalrymple hasn?t really replaced Roughy as the Saints head of recruitment also quit, but it seems he is available.

[GVGjr]

Our main Forwards are still very young, 21-24, with the exception of Lobb. We may still be a couple of years away from our Forwards dominating all teams week in week out.

Agree, it's a young forward line but potentially a very potent one. If we get just a bit more out of Naughton, Marra and Lobb it will create more opportunities for the smaller players as well. Sure it would have been nice to add someone like Nick Watson but I think we have enough players capable of kicking us winning scores.

[ledge]

We have a great forward line, the problem is the connection from the mids and making sure the talls don?t get in each others way. If we get that right it will be hard for teams to stop us.

[Countrydog5]

I think we just need to be a little smarter with who attacks the ball in the air and who blocks / stays down and we'll see a huge lift in our ability to convert I50s to scores. It seems far too often we have 2 or 3 talls all flying for the same ball, and sometimes even Weightman, West, Vandermeer etc.

All of our guys are capable of taking strong grabs in a pack, so you want them to attack the ball in the air, but we do need to be better at blocking or staying down if out of position and not able to be first to the drop of the ball.

I can't recall how many times last year I put my head in my hands because Naughts spoiled Mara, or Vandermeer stood in the leading lane disrupting what should have been a clear run and jump at the ball.

Fingers crossed our forward setup and coaching is working hard to improve those areas. Our poor goalkicking is often a direct result from taking shots too close to the boundary because our forward setup only clears space in those areas.

[Bulldog Joe]

I think we just need to be a little smarter with who attacks the ball in the air and who blocks / stays down and we'll see a huge lift in our ability to convert I50s to scores. It seems far too often we have 2 or 3 talls all flying for the same ball, and sometimes even Weightman, West, Vandermeer etc.

All of our guys are capable of taking strong grabs in a pack, so you want them to attack the ball in the air, but we do need to be better at blocking or staying down if out of position and not able to be first to the drop of the ball.

I can't recall how many times last year I put my head in my hands because Naughts spoiled Mara, or Vandermeer stood in the leading lane disrupting what should have been a clear run and jump at the ball.

Fingers crossed our forward setup and coaching is working hard to improve those areas. Our poor goalkicking is often a direct result from taking shots too close to the boundary because our forward setup only clears space in those areas.

This is the biggest issue.

We have the personnel to worry any defence, but we need them to work as a team rather than all try to be individually brilliant.

If they work together to create space and separation they will also make it easier for players upfield to put it to the advantage of one of them.

[mjp]

...I put my head in my hands because Naughts spoiled Mara, or Vandermeer stood in the leading lane disrupting what should have been a clear run and jump at the ball.

I do understand this but would you prefer:

1/. Our forwards to bring the ball to ground no matter what.
2/. Sam Taylor, or Jake Lever, or Darcy Moore, or whoever else - take an intercept mark.

I think there are levels here and whilst I get the frustration with forwards not being fully in sync, man-o-man when we played the Giants in Ballarat I was praying for us turn the Taylor contest into a 2v2 S&^T show versus a Taylor marking clinic...