AFL great urges Dogs to switch Naughton back as current mix ?can?t win finals?

[kickit2Koly]

To me we have signed Naughton to be our key forward and he does appear to have a great synergy with Marra so I can see why we are chips in to try and maintain that. Largely because of Darcy's development I do however, think we should be open to use him as a defender a couple of times during the season if we have some injuries that need to be covered and this week could be one of those weeks.

I agree with this. Although I think it should be considered in game also. If he's not getting a kick up front(like on Sunday) let him play as the spare defender for 10 mins or a quarter. This could possibly solve 2 problems, stop run ons and help him get into the game.

I don't get with why our "flexibility mantra" only seems to apply to some players.

[Danjul]

To my mind Naughton finished 2023 poorly. He was unable to contribute much when we needed him in the last dozen games. In the games against Hawthorn and west coast he got a total of 1 goal. The club desperately needed a champion to stand up and help soothe open wounds. Not Naughton. Only Geelong did anything to give us some relief by fielding a reserves team.

But I don?t blame Naughton. I blame the game plan (too focused on minding grass), the selections (out of form players) and the inflexibility of those driving things.

Naughton only scares quality opponents when he has space and too often the two competing sides combine to deprive him of that.

If he is not generating a million dollars worth of goals put him where he might deprive the opposition of them.

May couldn?t have run with Naughton on Sunday. We made sure he didn?t have to.

If we had swapped Naughton and Khamis the result might have been significantly better, at least not seen as a continuation of last season.

[mighty_west]

I have huge concerns with Naughton's field kicking if he was to play in defence.

And I don't feel we would be having this conversation if one of JOD or Keath were available on the weekend.

Might be a conversation worth having when Jones departs, but I feel we are better suited with Naughton in attack.

And May is an absolute gun defender, especially if you stand shoulder to shoulder with him like Aaron does... Curnow is the best key forward in the comp and he was held to just 4 kicks by May in last year's SF.

All the more reason why i believe Aaron should stay forward but further up the ground, use his pace to run his opponent around, be that link man from defense to attack and being that more traditional CHF which also opens the forward line up for Marra and Lobb and our small jumping key forward Weightman, make the Demons continually change match up's if they preferred to keep May on him, it would keep Naughton in the game.

Just a thought but maybe the coaching staff were happy to have May continue on Naughton and leave him closer to goal to be more of a decoy for Marra, the ball was hardly kicked to Naughton anyway (conspiracy theory).

[JanLorMill]

I have huge concerns with Naughton's field kicking if he was to play in defence.

And I don't feel we would be having this conversation if one of JOD or Keath were available on the weekend.

Might be a conversation worth having when Jones departs, but I feel we are better suited with Naughton in attack.

And May is an absolute gun defender, especially if you stand shoulder to shoulder with him like Aaron does... Curnow is the best key forward in the comp and he was held to just 4 kicks by May in last year's SF.

Do we have a good kick that can play key defence?
Jones is only ok but he is 33. Keath not great but also old. Gardner forget about it. Jod has hardly played.

[Danjul]

Do we have a good kick that can play key defence?
Jones is only ok but he is 33. Keath not great but also old. Gardner forget about it. Jod has hardly played.

JOD has had 2 concussions in 6 months. Should we be playing him at CHB?

[Mofra]

What is the downside to playing Naughton down back for 6 weeks?

In 2023 we really struggled to win the ball back and 2024 has started off the same way.

I'm not sure about 6 weeks, but he was getting a bath from May in Round 1 so perhaps 5 minutes or so to get the ball in his hands and break up our structure, and try something different?

[EasternWest]

I'm not sure about 6 weeks, but he was getting a bath from May in Round 1 so perhaps 5 minutes or so to get the ball in his hands and break up our structure, and try something different?

Spot on. Can't get near it? Go where it is.

[Go_Dogs]

I have huge concerns with Naughton's field kicking if he was to play in defence.

And I don't feel we would be having this conversation if one of JOD or Keath were available on the weekend.

Might be a conversation worth having when Jones departs, but I feel we are better suited with Naughton in attack.

And May is an absolute gun defender, especially if you stand shoulder to shoulder with him like Aaron does... Curnow is the best key forward in the comp and he was held to just 4 kicks by May in last year's SF.

That?s all fair enough, however I think most advocating for this would say Naughton as a key defender is a JOD/Keath ++. Structurally yes, another ?key? would?ve helped but it?s the ability to be dominant like a May does, or a Moore, or Sam Taylor etc that we would really benefit from in the immediate term. Jones does a fantastic job at this already, however we don?t have the luxury of having someone able to do what they want at will because we can?t structure the backline to support it.


On Naughton v May, I suspect we had a plan and it wasn?t executed well. We really needed Naughton to either play much higher or play a decoy role / defensive role on him once he started chopping us. We?ve got 3 keys, let?s get a plan which creates the right time/space for the collective more often.

[Go_Dogs]

On the broader concept, I’ve long been a “Naughton is a forward” thinker

I guess I still am, however with Gardner and JOD out, it seems like a reasonable time to see if there’s buy in to try something different and see if it helps us get a different result. In some ways a player like Naughton saying “I’m going to do this for the team, it’s not my favourite role or where I personally want to play, but for the team, let’s give it a go” would be massive for this group. Shit, Naughts is sacrificing his game for the team!

More broadly, when Naughton is being beaten / having limited impact, I’d love to see him go into the centre square for a few clearances. Just shake it up a bit, have him stand next to and apply a few big tackles on their number one midfielder and then work forwards to create a mismatch.

[Critter]

On the broader concept, I’ve long been a “Naughton is a forward” thinker

I guess I still am, however with Gardner and JOD out, it seems like a reasonable time to see if there’s buy in to try something different and see if it helps us get a different result. In some ways a player like Naughton saying “I’m going to do this for the team, it’s not my favourite role or where I personally want to play, but for the team, let’s give it a go” would be massive for this group. Shit, Naughts is sacrificing his game for the team!

More broadly, when Naughton is being beaten / having limited impact, I’d love to see him go into the centre square for a few clearances. Just shake it up a bit, have him stand next to and apply a few big tackles on their number one midfielder and then work forwards to create a mismatch.

That kind of thinking calls for agility and flexibility in the coaches' box. Doesn't seem to be our DNA.

[hujsh]

On the broader concept, I’ve long been a “Naughton is a forward” thinker

I guess I still am, however with Gardner and JOD out, it seems like a reasonable time to see if there’s buy in to try something different and see if it helps us get a different result. In some ways a player like Naughton saying “I’m going to do this for the team, it’s not my favourite role or where I personally want to play, but for the team, let’s give it a go” would be massive for this group. Shit, Naughts is sacrificing his game for the team!

More broadly, when Naughton is being beaten / having limited impact, I’d love to see him go into the centre square for a few clearances. Just shake it up a bit, have him stand next to and apply a few big tackles on their number one midfielder and then work forwards to create a mismatch.

Bevo used to supposedly want versatility from his players. Naughton is one such player yet we seem super reluctant to ever utilise it.

[Grantysghost]

On the broader concept, I’ve long been a “Naughton is a forward” thinker

I guess I still am, however with Gardner and JOD out, it seems like a reasonable time to see if there’s buy in to try something different and see if it helps us get a different result. In some ways a player like Naughton saying “I’m going to do this for the team, it’s not my favourite role or where I personally want to play, but for the team, let’s give it a go” would be massive for this group. Shit, Naughts is sacrificing his game for the team!

More broadly, when Naughton is being beaten / having limited impact, I’d love to see him go into the centre square for a few clearances. Just shake it up a bit, have him stand next to and apply a few big tackles on their number one midfielder and then work forwards to create a mismatch.

Yes I think it's entirely ok to use him as a swing man.

[soupman]

Naughton is gonna stay forward. He's good at it, and is not infrequently great at it, and that is no small feat. This isn't even a Beveridge thing, Balta under two different coaches at Richmond is doing the exact same thing. He is an awesome key defender, and influential in the ruck, yet they are still intent on starting him as a key forward.

This "Beveridge just assigns random positions" meme is a little overblown, he has made some bold changes (Boyd to defence being one of the more inspired), but most of the moves have been in line with what literally every other club is doing. Really of the players on our list only Dale, Daniel, Naughton, JJ and maybe Richards count as proper moves, as in they had all shown they were best 22 quality in one spot, and then were switched to a vastly different role despite things largely being fine.

The other position changes happen everywhere, most draftees are some variation of midfielder or playmaker, but you can't pick 22 of them, so players need to be moved into different roles for opportunity.

Bevo used to supposedly want versatility from his players. Naughton is one such player yet we seem super reluctant to ever utilise it.

This is where I think we are kind of bad. We aren't actually versatile in games, and rarely change things up to try to spark a change. I don't really expect a fully fledged plan B, but often it feels like we don't want to change anything even when plan A isn't working because we are waiting for it to work again.

This is particularly evident with our forwards. How many games have we seen Naughton, Weightman, Bruce, Lobb, yes Vandermeer and McNeil play where we just do nothing to try to change their fortunes.

They can get zero touches for two quarters, and as Naughton on May demonstrated not even perform a task well, and we will refuse to entertain the idea of trying to ge them into the game.

Naughton last Sunday is such a good example. Would trying him in defence for 10 minutes to help steady us when they were surging and he was doing nothing helped us and gotten his hands on the ball and maybe some mojo going....maybe. When they were killing us in the middle would putting Naughton in there with the intention of using his big body to compete with Oliver have helped....maybe. Would just simply pushing him up the wing a bit to provide a marking target and make May choose between following him or hanging back have helped...maybe. Maybe nothing changes, but at least we ask a question.

The point is aside from maybe one established player a year getting a role change, and a few fringe guys being given a different position as an opportunity to get some AFL time (Khamis, Scott, Vandermeer etc.), we don't really throw guys around much at all. If anything we are super rigid with our lineup, even though training reports indicate we do try this stuff in not the real thing.

Regardless of whether they or the team is doing good or bad Weightman never actually plays midfield, West never gets time on ball, Naughton never gets swung back, Lobb doesn't really see any ruck time, Dale doesn't play forward, literally no one ever tags, JJ doesn't get swung forward, Richards never does anything but defence, English never plays not ruck. With the exception fo Cody all of those guys have proven in multiple games they can perform in those different roles, but the only player we actually seem happy to try in different roles mid game is Caleb Daniel.

I think based on the evidence we have seen the versatility mantra is a myth, what we actually want is players that will perform in a specific role and if they aren't we will wait them out until they do, even if that isn't until the next round.

[bulldogtragic]

Lobb seems to have played well in the VFL. The way WCE worked over English last year, he needs back up beyond Darcy.

Richards & Coffield are out.

Darcy needs to play ongoing.

JOD & Buss are not match fit.

Gardner not the answer. Keath not really either.

Naughton relatively quiet so far this year.

If ever there was a set of things simultaneously occurring to move Naughton back, even for a week or two, then they’ll never be a time to trial him back.

Not the cliche move him back and fix everything. But rather it might be the best move for the next game per all the above.