First Crack showed Rankine going into the middle and stood on Cripps. Crows won the ball, Rankine pushed forward and got away from our captain who was right on his tail but too slow to stop him.
Next time Hewett picked him up but then just let Rankine go by himself inside 50.
Sure, its not great and will be harshly judged, but do we actually have anyone that could catch him?
As K pointed out, VFL good form does not automatically transfer to good AFL form. And this applies, especially, to the perplexing selection of Pitto... to replace a mid... WTF! I don't care how well Pitto played in the Magoos, his selection unsettled our side. Another sentimental selection?
Personally, I think Binnsy is close but his light body still concerns me... needs more strength in the contest. When the going got really hard and tough in the VFL Rottingwood game, especially in the second half, Binnsy went missing.
Ollie hasn't been down on form, he's been ordinary. Reality. Tries his heart out, but tackle failures and fumbles worry me. I'd definitely give him a spell in the Magoos to regain touch and work on hurting the opposition with possessions... not to mention much needed confidence.
Acres and Cotters are our best wingmen... both can run all day, defend well and then hit the scoreboard.
I called it before the game. "There goes our team balance".....and it was obvious once the final siren went, if not before, that i was right.
Only question i have is WHY did they 'pull that reign'? If for some reason nobody else was available to be sub, then put Pittonet as the sub and hope you don't get an injury. Really like to see what happened with Cincotta being MIA. Really like to hear the justification for Cerra <> Pittonet.
re Hollands.... I don't think he has been as bad as some are making out. You are correct that Cottrell and Acres can run all day.....but so can Hollands. FWIW.... Distance covered.... Cottrell ran 15.5km in our game vs the Crows, to lead everyone else on the ground. Hollands was second with 15.0km. 3 adelaide players manged 14km+ to round out the top 5.
Distance covered at high speed.... Hollands lead the rest of the ground with 3.7km Crows 2+3 Acres 3.1 Cottrell 3.0 In terms of sprints from last game... Acres was #1 with 31. O.Hollands was 3rd with 27 (adelaide 2, 4 and 5).
Work rate (average km/h in attack).... O. Hollands was ground leader with 9.1. Walsh 8.8 Solijo 8.6 E. Hollands 8.4 Cottrell 8.3 ***5 adelaide players made up the top 5 in defence.
So 'out of form' is subjective. One thing for certain is he is certainly trying and putting in the hard yards and that won't be replaced in a hurry
Kicking for goal was simply atrocious, 14.14 to 16.4 cannot be tolerated.
In fairness, we did have 5 rushed behinds (they had 0) So it was essentially 14.9 to 16.4, and we had at least 1 hit the post, and 1 go down as touched when it was a goal. So its not so bad when you dive down into it.
It was more of a case of them not being able to miss more than it was our bad kicking.
Agree with that, KP players should be on the agenda as a priority, need some more speedy ball winning mids but given we have the Campo kids on the way that might cover that area although I wouldnt mind a taller/stronger young mid or two to future proof the list as Hewett, Kennedy and Cripps get older.
Yep. We are chasing the same players. What often gets overlooked is a) How easy is it to get them? Supply vs Demand b) How much does it cost to get them in terms of picks/players when it is i) Through the draft ii) Via trade c) How long before they are AFL ready once we do get them.
In terms of good KPPs Easiest way to get them is via trade, but that will cost you BIG time. Next best way is via the draft, but you have to be proactive as it is usually years before you see if they are up to scratch. Which, in the meantime means you could miss your (next) window if you get a bad batch and are not continually drafting them.
Tend to agree on Lemmey, he should be doing better given he had some senior SANFL experience and seems very mark and kick but not much else. He could be a player who needs a taste of senior footy to take the next step and VFL footy may just see him plod along at that lesser standard without challenging himself too much. Id like to see him run on the ball a bit more in the ruck and get more involved....Okeefe is a good blue collar kid but is another who seems to be showing little improvement after a good start last season.
So, we could, be going back to the draft to chase some genuine KP players for the future. Something we should've been doing for years. Unless we find one soon, we'll have Charlie, Harry and Weitering (and Jack) all over 30 without a genuine replacement on the list.
Binns running power is outstanding he is perfect runner for transition play like Cottrell. He finds plenty of the ball through pure work rate. But what impresses me more is that work rate he also adds tackles and clearances to his game. 25 touches, 4 tackles 3 clearances from the young fella is fantastic for a wingman.
First of all, VFL form doesn't mean AFL form. Plenty of great VFL players haven't made it at AFL level.
Secondly, where do you want us to play Binns? Acres, Hollands (x2), Cottrell all play similar position and all are doing well enough in those positions so far. So we drop a regular AFL player for a rookie because......why?
I've got nothing against Binns. Honestly, i couldn't pick him out of a crowd, i just don't understand why we are pushing for a bloke when he doesn't fill a position we need filling. Its like if a ruck was the most in form player in the VFL and dominating all comers. Do we introduce him to the 1's when we have TDK (and now Pittonet) playing decent enough footy? No, there isn't a spot, no matter how well he might be playing.
GWS copped as many injuries as we did. Haven't heard the latest update, but there was a concussion, Coniglio had a knee scare and someone else was hurt.
The two Ruck option is not just a matter of replacing a tall for a more mobile mid/forward/defender. It's a little more complicated than that. There are a number of other variables that come into play. There is a flow on effect for multiple other positions. The roles played by TDK, Harry, even Kennedy change to some extent. Of course that can have an impact on performance Initially that can be unsettling to a side. If it's to be persisted with it's something that would take time to fine tune. The alternative is to scrap it completely and consign one ruck to a season of VFL
Given all that. And also given the understanding that a ruck on the bench reduced mid-field rotations, which was further complicated by injuries.
Pittonet played 50% of the game. TDK played 75% Was there a difference in our effectiveness or style of play in the lengthy times when one ruck was off the ground? For much of the game we did play only one ruck.
Firstly, given the injuries we had, and still only played 2 rucks for a half and 3/4's of a game, it showed how little we used 2 rucks at once.
There was a ruck off the ground for 3/4's of the game. The question should be, watching the game, can you tell if/when we had 2 rucks on the ground? There didn't appear to be any on-field benefit to having 2 rucks. Its hard to quantify how much it hurt us by having 2 rucks. But, what is clear is that we took up a large part of the game, 3'4s to be exact, with a ruck on the pine. That time would've been better suited to a smaller (mid/flanker type) as that 50%* game time would've been better off sharing between 10 other mid/flanker types. (*50% rather than 75% because TDK would still have 75% game time, so we only gain Pittonets time on the bench).
I must have missed something Thought Cincotta would have been a better option to replace Cerra rather than Pittonet but....
Wasn't picked. Not Playing VFL Not on the injury list.
He was an emergency. I thought he HAD to be picked as our 24th player (instead of Pittonet) because you couldn't include Pittonet.
....and yes, i did crack it when i heard.
In the end, i don't know what happened to Cincotta, so maybe he had a late injury?
Going back to who should've played instead of Pitto.....play Carroll as the 22 and bring in a different sub. I think Cowan was the 3rd option from our emergencies and if Cincotta wasn't available, then Cowan should've been it. Would've been perfect in the end since we lost a HBF.
Only because of injuries, but that can happen for any position on the ground.
Fans seem oblivious to the risk of a single point of failure, which is the one ruck scenario, at least with Mids you have multiple points of failure so it's much easier to cover the loss of one.
We literally won game(s?) last year without a recognised ruck.
You, among others, have pointed out how pointless some ruck stats are.
You, amonth others, have pointed out that the around the ground work is more important than what happens in the ruck.
So why are you, among others, so fixated on the need for a second ruck in the side?
For the record, Harry did not attend a single ruck contest.
I'm not blaming forwards and have spent a lot of time pointing out the good that is often missed by them.
However, when we have 3 of them who had 4 tackles between them, and were lower half of the pressure acts each.....you gotta start asking some questions.
I think we pick a side this week based on who is left.
Taking out injured players who not up to standard players eliminates a large chunk of players - 16 Silvagni Docherty Cerra McGovern Saad Fogarty Motlop Cuningham Martin M. Carroll Mirkov Akeiu Monaghan Marchbank (?) Lemmey O'keefe
That leaves a team looking like this.... FB - Newman - Weitering - Boyd HB - Williams - Kemp - Cincotta W - O.Hollands - Cripps - Acres HF - Cottrell - Curnow - Fantasia FF - Owies - McKay - C. Durdin R - De Koning - Walsh - Hewett INT - Kennedy - E. Hollands - J. Carroll
....and pick 1 more interchange and 1 sub from the remaining players.... Pittonet - Best player not picked, but don't need 2 rucks. S. Durdin - Probably need a key back, but is he good enough Young - See Durdin above. Cowan - Could swap instead of Cincotta who i've brought into the team, but i wouldn't. Could play last spot on the bench, but i wouldn't. Moir - He may be injured too?? Wilson - untried, but fit Binns - Untried, but fit.
Just on the two- ruck situation. It’s not as cut and dried as some believe. The replacement of a ruck/tall with a small mid-field running player has to be viewed in terms of plusses and minuses. The gain of the running player must be seem in terms of the cost of what you lose by omitting the tall/ruck. There may be an advantage…but the gap may not be as huge as we may think. Pittonet gave us a bit especially early on…but yes, it may have cost us later in the game.
This is always the debate, and it is clearly not as difficult as some are trying to make out. TDK rucks for 75% game time when sole ruck. He played 75% game time when he has a backup ruck. He doesnt play more or less, just the position he played. Harry didn't get a chance to ruck and as a result, went missing for large parts of the game. Despite kicking more goals than normal, he had less influence on the game than more recent efforts. This is a knock on for playing that second ruck. I've already shown that a ruck took up a spot on the bench for 3/4's of the game. That 75% game time is a full time mid....on light duties - eg Walsh had 76% first game back, Cripps, Hewett, 79%, 80%. Pitto was off the ground a full quarter more than anyone else (besides injured/subbed players) and TDK was actually next for least amount of game time.
It puts more on the shoulders of others as a result, and the benefit we get from it is not worth it. Pitto had 6 clearances, only beaten by Walsh (8 ) and Cripps (7). He even kicked a goal. Put Cerra back in the side and he'd get the same amount of clearances (if not more), more possessions and is more likely to kick a goal most weeks as well. So what benefit did we get from Pitto? A few extra hitouts to advantage....most likely leading to clearances.....which could've been equalled by having another pure midfielder in the team. So what were the disadvantages....more gametime required by others, less run and pressure around the ball.....which is our strength.
Its nothing against Pitto, same could be said for TDK. Either play Pitto for the whole game, or play TDK for the whole game. No point playing both. There were 97 ruck contests yesterday. Including the ball hitting the deck and getting a clearance, each one of them probably takes about 10 seconds on average to work itself out. That equates to just over 16 minutes of game time. What benefit are we getting from the 2 rucks for the remaining 104 minutes of game time? Especially since they one of them are on the bench for 76minutes of that time.
The numbers just don't stack up.
The biggest plus is 'wearing the ruck down'. Which i get and i agree with. However, our midfield is so good, we can go in there with Jack Silvagni, Harry McKay, Lewis Young, and still draw level (or better) with the clearances. So how much benefit is 'wearing the ruck down' really giving us?
