Our Shocking Lack of Depth

[Maddog37]

Re: Our Shocking Lack of Depth

Aussie cricket team lacked depth in pace bowlers three months ago. Things change quickly when you give youth a go.

[ledge]

Re: Our Shocking Lack of Depth

How can anyone know we have a lack of depth at this time of year?
Someone has a crystal ball and no confidence in the players coming through.
Pre season training, new players, new positions, new coach, new game plan, no idea how this conclusion has come 1 month before a season starts.

[Sedat]

Re: Our Shocking Lack of Depth

Where do you think Addison could play?

Same too with Gilbee who was tried as a forward last yera for mixed results?

Addison could play a poor man's inside midfield role in the event of a Boyd or Cross going down with a LTI. Otherwise he will see a lot of the Pt Gellibrand Oval in 2012.

Gilbee is still an elite kick which will always give him an advantage over his competitors for a spot in the best 22. Realistically he will be competing with Howard for a spot in the team, and whilst Howard has shown some promise, I'm still far from sold on him as a long term proposition.

[Nuggety Back Pocket]

Re: Our Shocking Lack of Depth

Addison could play a poor man's inside midfield role in the event of a Boyd or Cross going down with a LTI. Otherwise he will see a lot of the Pt Gellibrand Oval in 2012.

Gilbee is still an elite kick which will always give him an advantage over his competitors for a spot in the best 22. Realistically he will be competing with Howard for a spot in the team, and whilst Howard has shown some promise, I'm still far from sold on him as a long term proposition.

The big test for players like Gilbee, Howard and add the likes of Higgins, Grant,Gia, Sherman and Moles is whether they have the mental fibre that the new coach will demand. A disappointing feature of too many of our players that BMcC identified in our team during his time at Geelong.

[Guido]

Re: Our Shocking Lack of Depth

The passing over of experienced delisted players like Setanta O’hAilpin, Mc Qualter, John McCarthy (Coll), Ed Lower, Ric Ladson, etc, etc (there was a lot of them, all shapes and sizes, available) for those 3 picks was a mistake given this appalling lack of depth..

We've recuited about 30 recycled players over the past 16/17 years. I can count the ones that went on to play more than 50 quality games on one hand.

Assuming a conservative 30% strike rate at the draft table had we kept the majority of the selections pissed away on these recycled players, then this strategy has clearly cost the club some A grade talent over the years and most likely a premiership.

In particular the selections of Dickson, Pearce and Fletcher look very questionable.

On the other hand, if I was to do an analysis of mature aged second tier comp recruits across the league, I reckon I could almost muster up a premiership team.

Boyd, Morris, Harry Taylor, Sam Mitchell.. there's probably another half dozen who either have AA, B&F or permiership medallions around their necks, and there's probably at least another dozen solid 150+ AFL gamers picked up from the WAFL/SANFL/VFL over the past 7-8 years.

We've played the percentages. No guarantee of it succeeding, but IMO history suggests the path the club has chosen has more chance of delivering players that can consistently contribute to a top 4 side than O'Hailpin, McQualter, McCarthy, Stack and Barlow would have.

[Cyberdoggie]

Re: Our Shocking Lack of Depth

Coons is a week by week proposition who may never recapture his best, Lake is an uncertainty at this stage, Murph's body is not something I'd want to rest our fortunes on.

Our depth is ordinary, IMO.

Perhaps you could rephrase that by saying we have a possible depth issue with our A graders, which is true. If Cooney and Lake don't play good regular football then we don't have too many A grade game winning footballers that we can see.

However we have a pretty good list and it's fairly balanced other than the injuries to the stars. Our kids have potential and although we are inexperienced up forward there are some positives with the young talls. There are several possible tall options up forward that look promising, i doubt you could say that about bulldog sides in years gone by.

Maybe i'm just a glass half full kind of guy but i expect to see a dramatic improvement in our players this year.

[AndrewP6]

Re: Our Shocking Lack of Depth

Perhaps you could rephrase that by saying we have a possible depth issue with our A graders, which is true. If Cooney and Lake don't play good regular football then we don't have too many A grade game winning footballers that we can see.

However we have a pretty good list and it's fairly balanced other than the injuries to the stars. Our kids have potential and although we are inexperienced up forward there are some positives with the young talls. There are several possible tall options up forward that look promising, i doubt you could say that about bulldog sides in years gone by.

Maybe i'm just a glass half full kind of guy but i expect to see a dramatic improvement in our players this year.

Having depth refers to having players that you can call on if your top liners are unavailable. If Cooney/Lake/Murphy go down, I'm not sold on their replacements (Markovic for Lake OK). The inexperience up forward will be very tough for us IMO, I can't see us kicking a winning score enough. And potential is, as the young kids say "Meh". Shaun Higgins had (has?) potential.

Maybe I'm a glass half empty kind of guy.

[Mantis]

Re: Our Shocking Lack of Depth

However we have a pretty good list and it's fairly balanced other than the injuries to the stars. Our kids have potential and although we are inexperienced up forward there are some positives with the young talls. There are several possible tall options up forward that look promising, i doubt you could say that about bulldog sides in years gone by.

Maybe i'm just a glass half full kind of guy but i expect to see a dramatic improvement in our players this year.

Really?

How many players do we have in the 21 to 28 yo age bracket who play regular senior footy? How does this compare to other teams?

Without knowing I would say we wouldn't stack up all that well as we have a lot of older guys, a lot of young guys, but not much in the middle.

[Cyberdoggie]

Re: Our Shocking Lack of Depth

Really?

How many players do we have in the 21 to 28 yo age bracket who play regular senior footy? How does this compare to other teams?

Without knowing I would say we wouldn't stack up all that well as we have a lot of older guys, a lot of young guys, but not much in the middle.

Balanced as in talent wise we are fairly even, certainly we are missing players in the middle age group of experience.

[stefoid]

Re: Our Shocking Lack of Depth

Really?

How many players do we have in the 21 to 28 yo age bracket who play regular senior footy? How does this compare to other teams?

Without knowing I would say we wouldn't stack up all that well as we have a lot of older guys, a lot of young guys, but not much in the middle.

Well... true. But we have a lot of tall timber of all kinds on the list these days, which is a refreshing change. Surely some of them will make it. We will know more in 6 months time, but Im pretty confident our ruck and keypo situation is in hand. And we know we have more than enough big bodied inside mids now.

Add a few silky mids to the mix and we will be doing allright.

rucks: minson, roughy, cordy, cambell, (hill?)
key backs: marco, williams, talia, roberts ( I expect him to play defence), austin
key forwards: jones, panos (ff), hill, redpath

With the exception of fletcher, these guys are all physically ready to play seniors as soon as they can put the form together. (I hear cordy is big enough these days?)

[always right]

Re: Our Shocking Lack of Depth

Having depth refers to having players that you can call on if your top liners are unavailable. If Cooney/Lake/Murphy go down, I'm not sold on their replacements (Markovic for Lake OK). The inexperience up forward will be very tough for us IMO, I can't see us kicking a winning score enough. And potential is, as the young kids say "Meh". Shaun Higgins had (has?) potential.

Maybe I'm a glass half empty kind of guy.

Really? Seems as though we each haeve a different view as to what depth means. The vast majority of clubs can never cover their stars so rating a club's depth IMO is more about how deep you bat to cover your middle rung players if they are injured.