Only 3 teams kick more goals than us. Only 4 teams concede more goals than us.
Sydney kick the most goals and concede the least.
I'm not going down the defending debate as we can save that for another thread. But in terms of attacking numbers.
Why do 3 teams kick more goals than us? We have the best 2 key forwards in the game. They have won the last 3 coleman medals between them. Charlie is =1st currently and Harry is 6th (i think) so they are continuing to do their job.
The fact that somehow 3 teams are still outscoring us is backing up my point. We need to find more avenues to goal. We need to be less predictable. Everygame we have lost has been when those 2 key forwards have had their worst games. Stop Charlie+Harry stop carlton.
.......unless we get smarter and start using other players and.....yep....SPREAD THE LOAD.
The problem with those simplistic analyses is that they don’t take into account goals that aren’t scored by Charlie, Harry or Tom but are the direct result of balls kicked to them, that is, the crumbing and scrambling goals scored after a marking contest.
Not entirely true.
If we target TDK, and Charlie crumbs the ball and kicks a goal. That goes down as goal scored from a TDK target, even though he may have had little bearing on the contest.
As mentioned earlier, its as much about not being outmarked as much as anything.
In fact, Charlie has kicked quite a few goals after crumbing marking contests.
...and that is shown in the stats. It doesn't matter if he marks and goals after he is targetted. It doesn't matter if he doesn't mark but goals. It doesn't even matter if he doesn't mark and someone else kicks a goal. It all goes down as a goal from targetting him.
One thing that has struck me this season is how often we’ve targeted players other than Charlie, Harry and Tom inside 50. Owies with a total of 15 from both inside 50 targeted kicks and opportunistic goals is our third highest goal scorer.
Ahead of all is the cumulative total of 60 goals from kicks targeting Cripps, Cottrell, Kennedy, the Hollands brothers, Martin, Durdin, Fantasia, Hewett, Walsh, Acres, Cerra and Pittonet as well as goals arising from their crumbing and pressure applied to lock the ball inside 50.
We don’t need another forward 50 target. We need a small forward who can make the most balls targeting our key forwards that go to ground and who can force turnovers and stoppages inside our forward 50.
As mentioned, some of those goals are already included. We are not simply counting 'Tony Lockett goals' ("Lead, mark, kick a goal" - thank you music men) We are counting goals from targets regardless of how it happens.
The last point you made, and one i made above, is i'm ignoring the small forwards, but its equally as valid as medium forwards. We need more talent in this area. We need to SPREAD THE LOAD from our 2 key forwards. When we go elsewhere, we are better off. Stats show this.
“ 49 - 43 - 73 - Targets leading to shots on goal (%)”
Is this the % of times these 3 are the target and we get a shot on goal as a result ? If so, I’d read that as no one crumbing Charlie and H ‘cause they don’t drop many but they are roving to TDK because he seems to spill most of his chances ?
Yes....but not necessarily by the player we target.
TDKs could be so high, not necessarily because he takes marks, but because he doesn't get outmarked. Crumbing goals count if/when we target any player Harry and Charlie may get outmarked more as a result which will never lead to a shot on goal.
It's not really feasible to make conclusions about the absence of presence of SoJ or Martin unless the same analysis is done when they were available, and in context the circumstance is not the same season to season, so I doubt it holds much relevance.
Sigh, you've completely missed this point.
I'm not doing a comparison to TDK vs them. What i'm saying is we don't have a fit 3rd tall forward apart from TDK. What i'm saying is more talented forward options available clearly means we have more genuine targetting options to choose from, making us less reliant on Charlie and Harry.
Its the same thing when we had Fev. We didn't have many other genuine options over the years that we could target, so opposition knew where the ball was going and it made it easier for them. Unpredictability to the opposition is your friend. Being able to capitilise on that unpredictability is what we are lacking without other talented forwards in the team.
I've ignored small forwards in this debate, but same can be said for them as well.
Marchbank managed after 1 game back. No surprises there!
We can all laugh and joke, but it is the right thing to do....for a couple of reasons.
1. Who does he play on? Is there a matchup for him? No.....so why play him? 2. We need to be smarter with our player managing after coming back from injuries. Look at all the 're-injuring' we've had lately. Cerra, Williams....a couple others....have injured themselves in the 2nd game back....or 3rd game back. Ease them back into it and you'll have them available longer.
Looking at some other stats on our big 3 forwards... Charlie - Harry - TDK 29 - 24 - 7 - Goals 18 - 12 - 8 - Behinds 50 - 45 - 16 - Shots on goal 3 - 9 - 1 - Complete misses 58% - 53% - 44% - Goal accuracy % (from total shots on goal, including misses)
28 - 29 - 10 - Marks inside 50.
49 - 43 - 73 - Targets leading to shots on goal (%) 31 - 29 - 33 - Targets leading to goal (%) 29 - 35 - 48 - Targets leading to marks inside 50 (%)
OK, so thats the facts. What does it all mean.
Lets make a couple observations - Charlie is our best shot on goal. Harry has improved remarkably, but still misses completely more than he should, but even with those misses, is more likely than TDK to kick a goal once he has a shot. - Despite being targetted less, we are more likely to get a shot at goal, an actual goal and a mark inside 50, when we target TDK. This should be common sense really. Everyone knows we go to Harry and Charlie the most, so they get the best defenders and they get the 3rd man in helping out as well. So, by default, TDK (and everyone else in the team) get lesser defenders and less attention paid to them.
So, my take home point is this. SPREAD THE LOAD! Our scoring will be better if we learn to target other players.
Stop directing the ball to Harry and Charlie constantly and try and use some other forwards more often. We have been lacking a 3rd tall most of the year (remembering TDK playing #1 ruck first half of the year) and not having Jack Silvagni available....and not having Jack Martin available much either. I'd really like to see us target this area ASAP or shoehorn someone into this role ASAP - Kemp, McGovern, Marchbank is 1 too many '3rd talls' to play down back. Try one up forward??
If there is enough interest, i might do some comparisons of other forwards (teams?) and see how we compare.
I expected to see an injured ruck out this week. Was not expecting it to be Pitto. Wonder with the injury cloud over Weiters (and TDK) they decide to bring in Young.
I think Boyd is a good kick but is better when he is in the clear and heading forward, for a VFL unknown player I have warmed to Boyd and think he is in our best 22/23 and happy to give Austin a tick for his recruiting.
This.
I feel the same way and my issues with him initially was that he folded under pressure and his kicking suffered.
As you mention, it's still a bit of a worry, but he has improved a lot in this area.
If we had someone else capable of negating small forwards, I'd be keen to get him further up the ground and help our connection between mids and forwards and also between forwards and the big sticks.
I saw one part where he was 'chasing' Warner down the wing, and he was truly in second gear at best.
That's the problem with so many of the team atm - not bad when they've got the ball, but almost disinterested when they don't.........
Without knowing the incident you are talking about i can't really comment too much.
However, i do know that Hollands (with Walsh and Cottrell) do more km's a match than everyone else in the team. Same group do more 'repeat sprints' than anyone else as well. So its definitely possible that that what you witnessed could've come after some big runs/sprints that took a bit of the sting out of his legs and did not have a chance to recover.
Had you pointed the same out about just about anyone else, then more than likely it would be nothing more than effort. With Hollands though, it could be more about exhaustion more than effort.
Perhaps he needs to be smarter with his running and running patterns so he does not fall in a hole when we need him, not sure.
I just know that i'd be pointing the finger at plenty of others before i got to him.
For a team that has consistently lacked run and effort lately, i'm not sure why people feel the need to drop Ollie Hollands.
He gives 100%, 100% of the time. He is not the problem.
If we start dropping people based on output, how far down our team do we get before we get to Ollie Hollands.....and how far down are VFL team to do we get before we find a replacement. I'll save the effort. There is nothing better below. Ollie stays.
Agree anyone defending him Is conceding we are not a top 4 team. His finished and was finished 3 years ago.
I've been super critical since day 1. I've given him the benefit of the doubt early. I gave him the benefit of the doubt before tonight as well. If ever there was a time for him to prove himself, it was a game like tonight. But no.....still SFA.
Stamp his papers. File it under biggest duds recruited in the last 10 years and move.
