once again we need to make Lever /may accountable dont let them zone off take easy marks with the stupid long bombs ,How smart are our Fwd line players.
It’s not the long bombs that they zone off on. It’s virtually every delivery into the forward line. And if they’re not zoning off, they’re double teaming our leading forwards.
Playing three tall forwards makes Lever play on an opponent. I’m more than happy for him play as a loose man and leave De Koning et al to do as they like.
We do need our small forwards to work harder at blocking the defenders’ run and crumbing halved marking contests.
What do we do when Cripps is getting beaten? Send him forward. However, we already have Charlie, Harry and now TDK forward....can we afford to have Cripps there as well? Probably not.
So who is the weak link in that chain?
Yep, going back to the 1 ruck debate. 1 less ruck in the team means an extra midfielder and more flexibility/versatility with making moves.
I've been against it, but maybe its time to try TDK as a key back? We have extra talls good enough to play 1's, but running out of spots to play them all.....yet we have a big opening at CHB that we can't nail down. Why not TDK?
We have been sending Cripps forward, and quite effectively too.
It really shouldn’t matter if the opposition sets out to limit Crippa’s influence. Our other mids, and rucks, should take up the slack and allow him to play a little more as an outside mid. His work as a link up player is invaluable and he can do that without having to get first hands to the ball at every contest.
It would be nice to see our rucks and other mids putting more pressure on Crippa’s opponents too.
The skipper is a big fan of the two rucks and I don’t think that he’d accept that one quieter game from him is any reason to change.
I don't really get the criticism of Lewis Young. He might provide a few heart in mouth moments but I thought that he defended very well against Collingwood and did the job on Cox and Cameron when they went forward.
Only two of Young's eight marks were contested but he led the way for us with nine 1%ers and only Nic Newman had more intercepts. On top of that, he only had one turnover for the game, not bad for a "panic merchant".
I imagine that Weitering will take Van Rooyen and we'll need another tall KPD to go with Petty and Gawn when he goes forward.
I wouldn't play Kemp on Fritsch. Fritsch is too elusive and would exploit Kemp when he provides the extra at marking contests.
Not sure what you expect from Fantasia. We only had 38 inside 50s and had 12 goals from it which is a good return.
Say you swap Martin for Fantasia last week. Jack might kick 2 but Owies might only get 1. Jack might be too gassed to chase his man meaning others have to leave theirs. Collingwood score more.
Not everyone forward is going to get lots of the ball and kick goals.
We didn't lose because of Orazio.
We lost because Collingwood had a plan.
They blocked Cripps at every stoppage. They showed this on the Sunday footy show.
David King showed how they dragged Weitering out of the play. Even showed him being held on the ground for just long enough do he couldn't get back to help his defenders.
And some critical umpiring decisions helped their cause as did an uncharacteristic lapse by Sam Walsh.
I wouldn’t rely too much on David King’s analysis. He does tend to take an isolated incident or two and concoct a convincing scenario. If we had won, he would have shown footage of our “tactics”.
The only criticism I have of Fantasia is for missing that shot at goal. He doesn’t get many opportunities and he should make the most of every one. Apart from that, he works hard, gets back in defence and makes his opponent accountable.
Let's not kid ourselves, Moir is 10,000 miles off. Needs a heap of development in so many areas and is being given time to do that. Fast tracking our high draft picks is 'old Carlton' done in desperation in the past (a small number of exceptions) and ruined a number of careers.
Yes, Moir needs to play more consistent footy before being considered for senior selection … and there’s no hurry.
Binns has benefited from being allowed to develop his craft in the Magoos and is way ahead of Moir.
OK, let me use real world examples to help push the point across.
Zac Williams. Long injury history. 2 weeks ago he was injured in the game and subbed out. He was picked last week. He got injured again. Now vossy is saying he'll be right for this week.
Why?
We keep pushing and pushing and we'll eventually break him again. You could argue that if we rested him last week the result would've been different. Do we need to say the same thing after this week? Rest him!
“Resting” Zac won’t improve his ability to stay on the park. He was subbed off for a corked calf one week and a corked glute the next week. Two impact injuries or Zac’s body saying enough is enough?
If we were to “manage” Zac, who comes into the team, Billy Wilson? Perhaps we could play Kennedy in defence and bring back Carroll?
Our situation is nothing like Geelong’s. They have almost a full list to pick from and half a dozen veterans who can benefit from an occasional spell. We have half a dozen players who probably aren’t up to the demands of AFL, several other injured players and no veterans who need an occasional spell.
Sure there is some colision injuries. Sure there is some 'dumb luck' injuries.
But the more fatigued you are, the more likely you are to get injured. Facts.
You can’t rest players who can’t get on the park.
The fact is that we have six senior players who are out injured more often than not. Then there’s the usual run of injuries that most clubs experience.
Replace most or all of those six injury prone players and we could be in a position to better manage the workloads of Cripps, Walsh, McKay, Curnow, Weitering, Newman and the newbies.
The point is, why do we play players until we break them. Yes, some are more fragile then others. Some are taller than others. Some are faster than others. Some are stronger than others.
Find out the attributes of the player and play to their advantages and cover their weaknesses. If a weakness is their longevity, or durability, cover for it. Rest them when you need too.
Both Martin and Marchbank are very good players when they are fit....we just don't see it enough. So rather than keep doing the same thing and expecting different results, change the way we approach them......and everyone.
Doesn't have to be limited to them. Many on here were suggesting we rest cripps a couple years ago when he was clearly injured. But the club kept insisting everything was fine, and we got a half-fit cripps for the whole year, rather than being without him for 2-3.....7 weeks or whatever it needed to be to get him back to a 'fit' level where he could perform.
I've heard Marc Murphy talk about this, and its something he didn't realise until later in his career. Players would have surgery as a 1st call to 'fix' something if it meant they could play a week earlier than had they simply sat out and rested. These surgeries can lead to further issues down the track and potentially do more harm than good in some instances. We are obsessed with getting back and playing THIS WEEK at the expense of next week, next month or next year. Why?
As mentioned, Geelong are leading the pack in this regard. Resting Danger, Hawkins, Cameron, Selwood......hard to find some bigger names in the comp than them, but they find a way to rest them and do ok......most likely because they rest them is why they do ok. So why do we think we know better than them?
Be smarter with how we deal with our players, our seasons depend on it!
That’s all true … but hard to put into practice when a lot of first choice players are out injured.
Geelong has enjoyed an almost injury free season and they can happily rest or freshen up players as necessary.
For whatever reason, we’ve ended up with some very good players who aren’t very durable. That limits our ability to (a) win games and (b) give our elite core group an opportunity to refresh.
I was surprised at how many here had Acres in their votes, I thought he made a lot of mistakes.
I think that there'd be no-one to vote for if mistakes meant disqualification.
I gave Acres a vote because I thought that his hard work far outweighed the times he was caught out ... and some of those were the result of teammates not doing their bit.
We play a fairly high risk, high reward game style and it's inevitable that we'll be caught out and punished. That's OK, provided we can limit how many times it happens.
We have few players who can walk straight back into the firsts. Cerra was clearly underdone last week and may have been better off having a run in the Magoos or as the sub.
Martin is one player who I would bring straight back in. He doesn’t need to get a lot of the ball to have an impact and we do need to get more out of our small forwards.
At the very least, the opposition defenders have to put work into him.
I haven’t seen the game but it seems that Kemp, Binns and Carroll did what players dropped from the firsts should do; show that they’re a class above the VFL blokes.
Not to mention TDK has been a very dangerous addition to the forwardline, and he has been scoring his 1 to 2 goals a game (should have had 3 against the Pies, but missed one that was gettable).
I think we just need to tidy it up a bit, and be a bit smarter and we will be fine. No need to panic, its not a personell issue, its an execution problem.
Yes, one goal in the four games BP and and five in the four WP games is a fair improvement.
I tend to agree that we're not doing too much wrong and a tweak here and there should get us back on the winning list. However, I do think that our personnel comes into it too. We've gone about as far as we can go with the "next man up" and need to start replacing some of those next men with the likes of Martin, McGovern and Motlop.
I lived in a house of serious domestic violence for 22 years. I would love to tell people what I experienced but some might not want to hear the reality of what takes place. How it has a long term effect on children. I am happy to tell the story if people want to hear it first hand. How it was resolved after a further 25 years later.
I'm really sorry to hear that Mantis. It's good to know that it was finally resolved even if it took such a long time.
If you're willing to share your story, I'm sure that many will be interested and willing to learn from your experiences. We probably should start a new thread though. Let me know and I'll split the last few posts.
