TDK tackles and takes marks and restricts opposition from winning quality clearances. He is Kreuzer on steroids except very durable. You can't play talents like that in other positions other than their preferred and most dynamic,
Implying that he must play #1 ruck because he does that and Pittonet doesn't?
Last week Pittonet had 20 touches and 11 clearances. That was better than TDKs best in both touches and clearances before this week....and is still better in clearances after this week......and this was after having surgery during the week as well.
For all this talk about contested marking between the 2 as well. Pitto averages 0.83 CMs per game this year. TDK averages 0.7 CMs per game this year.
People constantly overlook what Pitto has given us since returning fit this year.
I don't care who takes the #1 ruck role in the side, i just want it to be the best player available.....and i don't think its clear cut.
The problem has never been AI, and the problem has never been technology, the problem is always and will always be human.
They are one and the same though.
Humans create AI. Humans are fallible. Thus AI is fallible. In what way is the issue. The smarter we think we are, the bigger te issues that AI can create.
The folly of rucking BigH by default was exposed in the commentary when Brown started banging on about TDK going solo.
King rightly came in and described why solo rucking TDK is not sustainable season long, then there was a suggestion to ruck Charlie and King nearly fell out of his chair, and he describe why you don't ruck Charlie ever, and the same applies to overuse of BigH in the ruck, the risk is too high relative to the benefit.
The BigH to the ruck is an occasional pinch hit option, not a default tactic.
If our MC aren't smart enough to make use of Pitto and TDK sensibly, as required, we have an MC problem it's not the players.
I'm a bit over the hysteria and dangers of rucking players.
Around the ground, ball ups and throw ins, the rucks are coming at the ball together, starting 1m apart and closing that well before the ball arrives. Risk of injury, basically 0%.
The risk comes at centre bounces. Now we have 1 for every quarter and 1 for every goal. As an example, yesterday we had a total of 30. 15 goals to us, 11 to gold coast, 1 for each quarter. If we only have 1 ruck, they are basically rucking for 80% of the time. So that would mean your #1 ruck is rucking for basically 24 of that 30, meaning your backup ruck is taking 6 centre bounces. Harry is in more marking contests than that where he can get hurt. Perhaps we shouldn't play him as a forward in case he gets hurt too??
For those 6 centre bounces, i'd happily tell him not to jump, but rather line up side on (like wing-side of the circle) and come at the ball side on to eliminate any inury risks.
Now the reality is, that after a goal, or at the start of a quarter, your #1 ruck has plenty of time to make it in for the centre bounce and will attend more than the 80% of the centre bounces, making the risk to backup ruck even smaller.
Add to that the fact that our backup ruck will most likely come up against their backup ruck who also doesn't want to get hurt and will try a similar tactic to what i suggested.
So can we give up the chance of injury from backup rucks please?
Credit to TDK. He put the disaster that was last week behind him and put in one of his best games for us. With a lot of PBs to his name.
First time of over 20 touches, had 25! 15 contested possessions beats his previous best of 14. 10 clearances for the game. Previous best 9. 15 handballs beats his previous best of 11. He also had 9 hitouts to advantage with you can't find bests for, but that would have to be right up there with his best if not his best as well.
That being said, he still had potential to do more. His opponent Witts couldn't keep up with him, so could've become more of a marking target around the ground for us by running off him a bit more.
It has reopened the old debate though. What do you do when you have 2 #1 rucks who don't have a second position. TDK up forward last week was embarrassing. Pitto has definitely played more consistently as the first ruck.
If Pitto is right next week, what do we do? Both deserve #1 ruck. Both don't deserve to be relegated to the 2's. Both in the side is far from ideal.
Some free kick numbers. At 3/4 time it was 4-14 (I screenshotted to a friend) It was then 5-15, 6-16 and then we got the last 5 jn a row to 'even it up' to 11-16....and some of them were definitely not there.
I've never heard the crowd chant "bull-$h!t" so many times in a game. At least 3 times it was loud and clear and directed at the umps. There was also the 'umpire is a wanker' chant that was brought out of retirement too. When you have 40k at the game and a coach talking about the umps you know something needs to be looked at.
Thankfully, we managed to come out of it with a win anyway.
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.
