Playing a role

May 04, 2025, 07:00:40 am

We often see a player who doesn’t appear to have made a huge impact statistically on a game excused by the saying…
”He played a role for us!”.
Fogarty is probably a good example of this, and we’ve become more accepting of that role as we understand why he is in the side.
The other ‘old chestnut’ we hear is …
“Voss didn’t make any moves!”

A couple of questions that stem from those two comments are these-

-Are our role players one trick ponies?
-If they aren’t fulfilling their role on a given day, then where else can they be used?
-Even if they are doing their job, would they be more valuable elsewhere?
-Do our role players lack versatility, and do we have too many of these in a team on any given day?
-Voss might not make many moves but what does he have to work with (that probably comes back on him anyway in terms of experimentation and player development).

Just off the top of my head…Jack Silvagni is a truly versatile player, Kemp may have been developing into one. Harry can probably play a few different position-key target, link man, ruck.

Who else, and what are some of the other positional options for our role players, or in fact any of our players?

Re: Playing a role

Reply #1 – May 04, 2025, 09:23:38 am

Quote from: Lods – on May 04, 2025, 07:00:40 am

We often see a player who doesn’t appear to have made a huge impact statistically on a game excused by the saying…
”He played a role for us!”.
Fogarty is probably a good example of this, and we’ve become more accepting of that role as we understand why he is in the side.
The other ‘old chestnut’ we hear is …
“Voss didn’t make any moves!”

A couple of questions that stem from those two comments are these-

-Are our role players one trick ponies?
-If they aren’t fulfilling their role on a given day, then where else can they be used?
-Even if they are doing their job, would they be more valuable elsewhere?
-Do our role players lack versatility, and do we have too many of these in a team on any given day?
-Voss might not make many moves but what does he have to work with (that probably comes back on him anyway in terms of experimentation and player development).

Just off the top of my head…Jack Silvagni is a truly versatile player, Kemp may have been developing into one. Harry can probably play a few different position-key target, link man, ruck.

Who else, and what are some of the other positional options for our role players, or in fact any of our players?

Depends on what we need.

Shuffling the magnets has multiple flow on effects hard to measure.

Sometimes a player is needing to catch some form by being involved elsewhere and a move might be temporary.

Sometimes they'll perform more reliably elsewhere.

For mine games like yesterday aren't about moving things around.

The crows played at frenetic speed, and scored fast putting speed on the ball and we couldn't go with it.

This is a template on how to best us, and teams that can play this way will keep hurting us. How can we stop it? We need to sap their energy which likely requires a couple of things. Getting first use. Then making the opposition chase ball which means less aggressive quick football and more chip pass keep possession and make them reactive until we can arrest the momentum.

We have quite a few versatile players but their strength isn't versatility, and our bigger problem is team composition to allow versatility. Motlop on ball seems to be a thing. Thing is, he isnt the right size and shape, and doesn't really use it well enough. Lacking explosive wheels isn't helping.

Re: Playing a role

Reply #2 – May 04, 2025, 09:57:58 am

Crows have more depth and looked bigger, stronger and quicker in a lot of the one on one duels.
We rely too heavily on Cripps, TDK, Hewett and Walsh...if that group can't dominate we cant win.
Voss and Nicks didn't have much to do with the win/loss, neither are master tacticians on their best days IMHO.
Theme to our losses is TDK, Cripps etc held to ordinary games....Role players only come into it when your big guns are firing...