Re: Marc Murphy launches a defence of his season and vows to break free of tags
Reply #55 –
On a different tact, assuming that Murph is not fit enough to run out four quarters, but given he still wracked up 13 touches and was effectively minding Crowley, is that a bit of a win for us?
If a tagger is going to Murphy when he cant really contribute, lets assume for a moment, Murphy didnt come up. Crowley sits on Judd instead (assumption) and we struggle even more, unless someone steps up in a big way (Lucas? Graham?).
It seems to me, that Murphy wearing the tag, without being able to beat his opponent might still have given us a valuable contribution. I know Im happier with Juddy running around without an opponent.
If Lyon's intentions were to have Crowley get 30 touches, then I guess you can look at it that way but I doubt Lyon had any such delusions. Crowley's job would have been to stop Murphy getting the pill and that's exactly what happened.
I guess the other side of the coin is if MM wanted Murphy to stop Crowley getting the ball and sacrifice his own game. If that was the case, I'd wonder if the coach has lost the plot ;-)
Not exactly. I think you missed what i meant. If Murphy doesnt play, Crowley would shift to a different midfielder. I chose Judd because he is the next logical choice. So Judd gets the Crowley treatment instead, and might fare better in this battle due to his relative fitness, but we lose more elsewhere than we make up here.
I think coaches are prepared to accept that one player may be shut down on condition that they contribute in a way other than accumulating possessions; tackling, a couple of goals, etc. The other mids have to step up and make up for the tagged player's lower possession count. It was probably the lesser of two evils when Crowley went to Murphy - I'm sure Judd was pleased as well.