Your biggest POSITIONAL concern heading into 2025 is:

[mjp]

Now the first Intra-club is done (we WON! Yah!!) what would you say your #1 biggest positional concern going into 2025 is?

Ruck? (AKA 'I don't trust Tim when the heat is on')
Small forward? (I mean, we have guys who play there. I guess.)
Lock down small defender? (AKA the "If Duryea gets injured I'm booking an overseas holiday" group).
3rd tall defender (AKA can someone just move those deck chairs around for me just ONE more time)
Outside Mid (Well, on the wings were gonna have Williams...and some other bloke).

[The Underdog]

I said small forward. I get the Tim angst and it feels like you’re either with him or against him. But he is a super talented footballer who is an average ruck. Feel like injury held him back last year but he can be a huge weapon when fit.
Lack of small forward impact is a problem (and that includes high half forward). I’m kind of in on McNeil. Think his 1% work is hugely underrated but he needs to get his hands on the footy more and hit the scoreboard.
Outside mid is pretty up there as an issue.

[hujsh]

TBH I am maybe most concerned about what happens with our inside mids this year. Yes Tim let us down in the finals but so have the mids and Libba looks old now (despite being in his prime years of course, 32 is the new 21). Treloar had a great year and is also old with a history of injuries. Bont and Ed are good but we've relied on our inside mids dominating and if one of both of the old brigade decline I don't know that Kennedy or Sanders or Garcia quite fill that gap. Maybe it presents an opportunity to rotate players more again.

[Bornadog]

I went with outside mid. I am happy with defence and the forward line as proven last year being number 1 and 2 respectfully. Too many of our mids are same and inside, and we really need that outside player to break from stoppages with second possession - ie win the stoppage and then the next possession.

[mjp]

TBH I am maybe most concerned about what happens with our inside mids this year. Yes Tim let us down in the finals but so have the mids and Libba looks old now (despite being in his prime years of course, 32 is the new 21). Treloar had a great year and is also old with a history of injuries. Bont and Ed are good but we've relied on our inside mids dominating and if one of both of the old brigade decline I don't know that Kennedy or Sanders or Garcia quite fill that gap. Maybe it presents an opportunity to rotate players more again.

Geez.

When we're rolling out 2 of the AA inside mids from last season as well as Richards who was a revelation in that role...I mean, balance might be a problem but quality isn't.

In 2014 we had 5 of the top 100 possession winners.

Macrae (who was a baby - lead the way for us at #20 in the league)
Liber (who was a baby - 35th in the comp)
Murphy (who wasn't a mid - 3rd for us, Bernie Quinlan in the comp)
Boyd (rolling in at 83/100)
Griffen (injured and rolling in at 97/100)

If you're worried now I can only imagine where you were at pre-Bevo/Bont.

[josie]

Lockdown small defender if Duryea cannot maintain form.

Then small forward with great tackling & accurate goal kicking ability.

I’m hoping Matt Kennedy can be a lockdown mid when top oppo mid goes nuts.

Also hoping L Jones doesn’t have a rapid decline. There were some worrying signs last year after he returned from injury.

[hujsh]

Geez.

When we're rolling out 2 of the AA inside mids from last season as well as Richards who was a revelation in that role...I mean, balance might be a problem but quality isn't.

In 2014 we had 5 of the top 100 possession winners.

Macrae (who was a baby - lead the way for us at #20 in the league)
Liber (who was a baby - 35th in the comp)
Murphy (who wasn't a mid - 3rd for us, Bernie Quinlan in the comp)
Boyd (rolling in at 83/100)
Griffen (injured and rolling in at 97/100)

If you're worried now I can only imagine where you were at pre-Bevo/Bont.

Call it trauma from 2023 maybe. The players on paper are good but it feels like the group performance is often found lacking. They were instrumental in our fantastic form and elite statistical performances 2nd half of last year but then the final undid a lot of that from my mind. And again the drop off is a concern as much as anything especially with Libba

[Mofra]

I voted for the lockdown small defender - we have a Duryea that looked like he was struggling towards the end of 2023, and not too much else.
JJ is 'ok' but more of a rebounder (if his calves hold up), Bramble our designated 'runner' out of defence. Small forwards could kill us if Duryea slows down, let alone misses games.

I hoped Gags would be developed in this role but he seems to be thrown everyone on the ground, has a genuine nose for goal but misses target by foot which is a concern around the ground.

[Jackodog]

Hi guys and girls, new to the forum.
definitely a small lockdown defender in my opinion. If Duryea goes down injured or falls off a cliff form wise, I’m not sure who we turn to.
I was hopeful it could be Cleary, but I’m not sure he’s quite going to get there.
Potentially Jacques, or if we can find a couple of guys to hold down spots on the wings (Arty, Davidson, Poulter etc.) could we send Bailey Williams back there to play a lock down role? I still remember one of his best games when he played on Liam Ryan against the Eagles at Marvel a few years back..
cheers, Jacko

[Mofra]

Hi guys and girls, new to the forum.
definitely a small lockdown defender in my opinion. If Duryea goes down injured or falls off a cliff form wise, I’m not sure who we turn to.
I was hopeful it could be Cleary, but I’m not sure he’s quite going to get there.
Potentially Jacques, or if we can find a couple of guys to hold down spots on the wings (Arty, Davidson, Poulter etc.) could we send Bailey Williams back there to play a lock down role? I still remember one of his best games when he played on Liam Ryan against the Eagles at Marvel a few years back..
cheers, Jacko

Welcome, and quality first post

[Miti-Dog5]

I've gone for 3rd tall defender, but its more our key back stocks in general, the emergence of Lobb last year was great, but if Jones gets injured or his form declines then we're really relying on Lobb, and then JOD or Khamis, both who have good and bad games, Buss is maybe the answer but we'd have to get games into him to find out.

[Smads57]

I voted 'something else'. The OP states a positional concern GOING INTO THE SEASON which I read as a 'concern' within the first few rounds. With Marra and Naughton having 'truncated' pre-seasons, my concern is around the KPFs. We have enough players on the list (whether good or ordinary), that can fill the other positions of concern raised by MJP for the time being.

[GVGjr]

Now the first Intra-club is done (we WON! Yah!!) what would you say your #1 biggest positional concern going into 2025 is?

Ruck? (AKA 'I don't trust Tim when the heat is on')
Small forward? (I mean, we have guys who play there. I guess.)
Lock down small defender? (AKA the "If Duryea gets injured I'm booking an overseas holiday" group).
3rd tall defender (AKA can someone just move those deck chairs around for me just ONE more time)
Outside Mid (Well, on the wings were gonna have Williams...and some other bloke).

I was only talking to Smads about this earlier today and I mentioned I think we have 4 spots I wish we had some better options for.
3rd tall defender - I like JOD but I wonder given how he has filled out if he still offers us an ability to play on a wide range of opponents.
He still should be our first choice but maybe Khamis is the more flexible option.
Winger - We have Williams locked an loaded and a wide variety of options that haven't quite grasped their chances or are still unproven. This is very much a wait and see.
Small forward who plays like a small forward.
We have a variety of role playing small forward in West, McNeil and Vandermeer who are earning games because they stick to their assigned tasks more than really being dangerous.
We also have Weightman who is flying for a few more marks than he should ideally do for us so this is an area of need.
2nd match day Ruckman - Please hear me out on this one. On paper we could be the best placed of all the teams for this role given Lobb and Darcy are exceptionally talented.
Darcy - with some doubts on Marra at the moment and they way Darcy is rapidly improving my strong preference is to play him forward as much as we can.
Lobb - we saw the impact he made last year to our back line and that was without training for the role much. He somehow found a way to thrive in the role.
If we can leave him there for the vast majority of the season it could be a real bonus for us.
Gardner might come in to some calculations if Marra doesn't play a lot given we have pretty much given him the back-up ruck man role. Could he play FP or come off the bench to provide Tim with a chop out? It sounds a bit far fetched but if we really want to keep Naughton and Darcy forward as much as we can we might have to get inventive.

I'm not that concerned about our midfielders inside or outside and we will figure that out with what we have,
English doesn't concern me. We are chips is with him as the #1 man and we will just have to wear they occasional disappointing performance.
JJ, Duryea and Bramble should be able to hold down the lock down defenders role and perhaps Gallagher or Jaques are tried there during the season.

I don't know if we have any one position that we are lacking or weak in which supports my indecisive "something else" rating but I suspect that the small forward role might be more pressing in the short term.

Many thanks MJP, I love this type of thread and thought starter.

[jazzadogs]

I'm not sure who is playing on Stengle, Hill, Rioli, Papley, Watson etc if Duryea is out. and given he is 34 next year it would be a surprise if he plays every game.

I think we have plenty of players capable of playing small forward at varying levels, but only one Duryea.

[Jumping Jones]

Outside mid for mine