Melbourne midfield needs help

[green_machine 36]

Lots of people are claiming we have a surplus mids. They do it heaps of threads, with no real justification of why we have enough mids.

Before launching an examination of our mid list in 3 years times (when it matters) I thought it would be useful to put some starting assumptions out there.

1) You need a minimum of eight mid fielders. At any point of time you have six back man, six forwards and six in the middle (5 mids and one ruck). If that is your running stock you need at least three mids on the bench for rotation purposes.

2) Geelong at various points of time have had four backman, two forwards, two ruckman and everyone else rotating through the midfield. That adds up to 14 midfielders.

3)For this analysis I am going to assume you want at least 10 top midfielders and preferably 12. That basically corresponds to 8 in the guts and bench and 3 to 5 rotating through the forward / back positions on the field.

4)I am also going to assume that Scully and Trengove make it into a suitable category to fill two of these spots.

5)I am also going to assume that as great as Bruce, Mcdonald and Green are they will be fringe by the time we are challenging for the premiership.

6) The mfc midfielder this year was our worst performing. Backline stood up across the board and forward line stood up on efficiency stats.

Now we need to look at Melbourne's existing list

A grade. Davey, Sylvia (included with some trepidation after all he has played maybe 6 A grade games all in 2009 but still only 6). Morton (he will make it but probably more useful in forward line / backline)

Good midfielders. Moloney, Jones

Showed something. Grimes, Bennel, jetta (showed stuff but not neccessairly midfielders)

Unknown. Picks 11 to 50, blease, strauss, Maric, bail (statistically one or two might be a midfielder)

Doubtfuls: Bell, Bartram, dunn, petterd, wonaeamiri , cheany (good players but not suited to midfield.)

Based off this list you have 4 to 5 A grade mid-fielders, 2 good mid -fielders. That gives you 6-7 known midfielders.

The question is are we going to get the required (4-5 extra) midfielders that we need? If 50% of early non top 5 picks make it as a midfielder than we should get two more good to A - Grade mid-fielders from our listed unknowns ( blease, strauss, Maric, bail ). Even if they come on we are well short of a benchmark like Geelong with 15 players rotating through the midfield and potentially short of even the 12 benchmark that we are aiming for.

I am a fan of picks going to the best available rather than recruiting for needs but I reckon our midfield needs the picks thrown into it.

[dee-luded 2,959]

Lots of people are claiming we have a surplus mids. They do it heaps of threads, with no real justification of why we have enough mids.

Before launching an examination of our mid list in 3 years times (when it matters) I thought it would be useful to put some starting assumptions out there.

1) You need a minimum of eight mid fielders. At any point of time you have six back man, six forwards and six in the middle (5 mids and one ruck). If that is your running stock you need at least three mids on the bench for rotation purposes.

2) Geelong at various points of time have had four backman, two forwards, two ruckman and everyone else rotating through the midfield. That adds up to 14 midfielders.

3)For this analysis I am going to assume you want at least 10 top midfielders and preferably 12. That basically corresponds to 8 in the guts and bench and 3 to 5 rotating through the forward / back positions on the field.

4)I am also going to assume that Scully and Trengove make it into a suitable category to fill two of these spots.

5)I am also going to assume that as great as Bruce, Mcdonald and Green are they will be fringe by the time we are challenging for the premiership.

6) The mfc midfielder this year was our worst performing. Backline stood up across the board and forward line stood up on efficiency stats.

Now we need to look at Melbourne's existing list

A grade. Davey, Sylvia (included with some trepidation after all he has played maybe 6 A grade games all in 2009 but still only 6). Morton (he will make it but probably more useful in forward line / backline)

Good midfielders. Moloney, Jones

Showed something. Grimes, Bennel, jetta (showed stuff but not neccessairly midfielders)

Unknown. Picks 11 to 50, blease, strauss, Maric, bail (statistically one or two might be a midfielder)

Doubtfuls: Bell, Bartram, dunn, petterd, wonaeamiri , cheany (good players but not suited to midfield.)

Based off this list you have 4 to 5 A grade mid-fielders, 2 good mid -fielders. That gives you 6-7 known midfielders.

The question is are we going to get the required (4-5 extra) midfielders that we need? If 50% of early non top 5 picks make it as a midfielder than we should get two more good to A - Grade mid-fielders from our listed unknowns ( blease, strauss, Maric, bail ). Even if they come on we are well short of a benchmark like Geelong with 15 players rotating through the midfield and potentially short of even the 12 benchmark that we are aiming for.

I am a fan of picks going to the best available rather than recruiting for needs but I reckon our midfield needs the picks thrown into it.

I am in agreement with your thinking, but, if we spend another 2 or so years guaranteeing our mids are the best, then we'll have fallen out of kilter with the timing of our next window of opportunity. We need 2 more tall forwards, so we have a developement future for the next 3 or 4 seasons.

With Newton potentialy gone, we have no one but Zomer, if he's still there?

Not much quality there.

I'd like Talia, Craig, Grimes, & Daw or Temel.

[Adzman 2,154]

Scully an Trengove with the first 2 picks will be enough to lift our midfield. Still have a developing list so we could still see some big improvement with our current young mids. The talent will be picking up a solid mid with 1 of the remaining 3 draft selections. Pick 11 could be used on a mid. Use the final 2 picks on bigs.

Needs some quality bigs asap!

[green_machine 36]

It is all about getting good talls in. Everyone is deluding themselves with this concept. It is not about getting a tall it is about getting a brown (FS) or pavlich(4) or a franklin(5) or a roughie (2) or a Riwolet (1). Getting a kozki(2) or a Anthony or Hawkins (fs top 5) or an Edwards is just blah (and they are the good ones if you do not have a top 5 pick). Useless in the extreme, we do not need ok tall like players who might be able to crash packs. It just will not help us.

It is about midfielders. We need three or four more good quality midfielders. The might come from our existing list but they probably will not. 11 and 18 (historically... through I know everyone discounts stats and magically assumes that this year with only eight months of age range, will be stronger than any draft in the past) you have a bloody good chance of getting a good small player. I am talking about 50% plus chance and if it hits then it will pay off when our eleventh midfielder can play rather being a depth hack.

Midfielder depth counts in GF. You power forwards mean [censored] all on the big day as they rarely win the game.

[e25 5]

Bigs take longer to develop and capable mids are easier to pick up with later picks imo.

Either way, we have the raw materials for a decent list; we just need to make sure we develop them correctly and cross our fingers a bit of luck comes our way...

[Dee Fan 3,247]

Barry Predergast said on 3AW tonight you can never have too many good mids and I agree with him. I would like to see us take a mid/forward like Tapscott/Melksham/Lucas/Jetta or perhaps Bastinac at 11 and if there is another good mid at 18 take him as well. There will be plenty of Talls at 34 and 50.

[Akum 2,660]

Surprisingly good OP. I say "surprisingly" because my first reaction to it was "no, that's not right!" but looking into it further, you're definitely onto something.

From the current list, I could add to your list of midfielders only Jordie McKenzie (who I liked the look of last year) and Bate, who was great when he went into the midfield late last year.

Trengove & Scully are certainly going to be great, but I agree that they are unlikely in themselves to boost us from the worst midfield to the best, which is what we need. We'll probably pick up Joel MacDonald in the PSD, but you're right, we'll need to pick up at least 2 quality mids with picks 11,18, 34 & 50. Ok, I'm convinced!

In fact, this line of thinking could well be in the minds of the FD in their decision-making about Ball. If so, it would completely reverse our thinking about pick 11 - they'd have their eye on the second-tier (TS & JT being first-tier) very good mids (I'd be guessing Jetta, Morabito, Melksham, Cunnington) and:

* Plan A: If one is available at 11, we'll take him and the best available tall at 18 and not worry about Ball;

* Plan B: If none are available at 11, we'll take the best available tall, and then Ball at 18.

They could well be more intent on picking up another highly-regarded mid (if not a young one at 11, it'll be Ball at 18) than on whether we get Talia or Black or Griffiths or Vardy as the tall.

And we'll need another reasonable mid at 34 or 50.

[deeees_13 0]

good point akum makes, i thought the same thing he did at first....

but i would still disagree

sylvia

davey

jones

moloney

morton

trengove

scully

grimes

Those are the players that will be running through our midfield next year (excluding junior, bruce green and anyone else who wont be around come of flag tilt)

add to that blease, mckenzie also jetta and wona as potentials (i remember bailey saying that he was keen for davey and wona to play simlar midfield roles in 09)

also people always seem to forget that we have another 2-3 years of drafting before we are at our best. these years can be used for mids.

talls take longer to develop which is why we should start developing them now

Edited November 23, 2009 by deeees_13

[hoopla 418]

Lots of people are claiming we have a surplus mids. They do it heaps of threads, with no real justification of why we have enough mids.

I am a fan of picks going to the best available rather than recruiting for needs but I reckon our midfield needs the picks thrown into it.

Well ..if you right we are in heaps of trouble. You are effectively saying that despite all of our efforts over the last three years , we still haven't got the right mix of small and mid -size running players on our list. You want us to concentrate on mid-fielders again - which means waiting until the Gold Coast and West Sydney have all the early picks before putting a few young talls into our development program.

I'm actually a lot more optimistic than you are - particularly knowing that we're picking up the two best 18 year old midfielders around anyway

[Footynut 302]

Well ..if you right we are in heaps of trouble. You are effectively saying that despite all of our efforts over the last three years , we still haven't got the right mix of small and mid -size running players on our list. You want us to concentrate on mid-fielders again - which means waiting until the Gold Coast and West Sydney have all the early picks before putting a few young talls into our development program.

I'm actually a lot more optimistic than you are - particularly knowing that we're picking up the two best 18 year old midfielders around anyway

If you read my thread on the history of the picks we have GMs arguement is backed by the data. The likelihood of getting a good mid at these picks is far higher than a tall....

[1858 285]

We need three or four more good quality midfielders.

I agree with this although I can't see the club going for mids with the first 4 picks which means BP may be earning his money with the later picks.

I read somewhere Schwab (i think it was) mention that at least 12 good midfield options was important which I agree with and I also agree with the crux of the OP. We definitely don't have a surplus of mid options with respect to this criteria at all and we do need more quality mids on top of Scully and Trengove.

If we can manage to add say at least 3 good prospects (Scully + Trengove + Other) then I would be quite happy with that. I get the feeling if 11 goes tall then 18 will go mid or vice versa. I think we need to be mindful though that we don't get "mid happy". IMO there reaches a point where you can have so much raw talent that it becomes less than optimal in developing them with so many potentials competing for game time. We definitely don't need to extensivley add ball carriers to flood the list like last year, now is the time for quality not for diluting our stocks and making the development process harder than it has to be.

Edited November 24, 2009 by 1858

[DeeM 42]

also people always seem to forget that we have another 2-3 years of drafting before we are at our best. these years can be used for mids.

talls take longer to develop which is why we should start developing them now

Very true, except with the GC17 and GWS coming in to the draft. IF we finish next year 14th the best pick we will get will be some were round 15-18. And thats if we have a bad year, im guessing we will finish 12-10. This will result in us getting a pick some were round 25ish. Its going to be harder to find good players

[Little Goffy 14,447]

HF/MID - various levels of roatation of course

Bate, Sylvia, Trengove, Jetta, Maric, Petterd

HB/MID - various levels of Rotation

Grimes, Strauss, Blease, Bennell

Followers & Wing-

Moloney, Jones, Scully, Davey, Morton

Plus taggers Bartram and Dunn, and the primarily forward pocket Wonaeamirri, and of course the occassional run on the wing from Watts, and back pockets like Cheney, Bell, Bail, to whatever extent you see their future.

In amongst all that mix, it should be reasonably easy to find 12 quality players to run through the middle or play the tagging role. In fact, you line up all of them in their various parts of the field, we have more than covered the possibility that a few wont make it at all. In the short term, Bruce, McDonald and Green fills spots while development happens, and hopefully at least Green will still be with us for some years yet.

Also, we're looking at four extra players from the draft, plus one PSD, next week. It's not like all five of them will be key position players.

And next year, another four or so, and the year after that, another four. Even if only one good and one depth player come to us from those drafts to replace any of this wave of kids that simply aren't up to it, we'll be well and truly set long term. (time for a 'Jack Viney Grin', too)

[H_T 3,043]

Lots of people are claiming we have a surplus mids. They do it heaps of threads, with no real justification of why we have enough mids.

Really ? I haven't read much on "we have surplus mids", I've read the odd post on needing a KPP via the draft, but never "we have surplus mids"...

Even if they did, they couldn't realistically justify that we have, given our recent form.

I am a fan of picks going to the best available rather than recruiting for needs but I reckon our midfield needs the picks thrown into it.

I'm with you. I want an A-grade midfield to contend for a "you know what"....I'd like 5 out of 6 of our picks to be mids, skillful by foot/hand and pacey. But that's me. All about the "best available" pick and as BP said last night on 3aw, you can never have enough mids.

[Gooner 9]

We'll get some more midfielders in the next couple of years, and we will only lose Bruce, Green and McDonald, so that will add a bit.

Plus the existing midfield will come on a bit.

[H_T 3,043]

We'll get some more midfielders in the next couple of years, and we will only lose Bruce, Green and McDonald, so that will add a bit.

Plus the existing midfield will come on a bit.

Well, the existing one (minus B.McLean) as it stands, better come on alot. Because they've been getting crucified out in the middle against opposition.

[Gooner 9]

Most sides only need a few key midfielders and the remainder tend to be running half backs or half forwards.

Premiership sides are usually built around 2-3 top quality midfielders.

I don't rate Hawthorn's midfield particually highly, and they've already won a flag, so a team full of midfielders isn't essential, but it definitely helps.

We need to add at least 3-4 quality midfielders and ideally at least one more top quality midfielder along the lines of a Kerr, Mitchell or someone similar - not the best player in the team, but close to the best midfielder.

[rpfc 28,261]

Most sides only need a few key midfielders and the remainder tend to be running half backs or half forwards.

Premiership sides are usually built around 2-3 top quality midfielders.

I don't rate Hawthorn's midfield particually highly, and they've already won a flag, so a team full of midfielders isn't essential, but it definitely helps.

We need to add at least 3-4 quality midfielders and ideally at least one more top quality midfielder along the lines of a Kerr, Mitchell or someone similar - not the best player in the team, but close to the best midfielder.

Mitchell, Sewell, and Hodge are stars of the game.

Davey is the only thing close to them and he is a receiver; they get their own pill.

For a flag you need top quality everywhere, but you especially need stars in your midfield, if you don't have that, you don't have a chance.

[Gooner 9]

Sewell had a great season last year, debatably Hawthorn's best player of the season.

My point was more based around hoping that at least two of Scully, Trengrove or Morton can become star midfielders and the remaining one will become a very good midfielder. Note that I'm using the term "star" for only the best players in the game. If that's the case, then we're well on our way to being a very competitive side.

I don't expect every high pick that we get will match the likes of Judd, Hodge, Bartel or Ablett, but I hope that most of them will.

[realist 2]

:

We'll get some more midfielders in the next couple of years, and we will only lose Bruce, Green and McDonald, so that will add a bit.

Plus the existing midfield will come on a bit.

Veterans are in excess of the 38 players on the list!

It is a bonus for us to have veterans.

You talk about new players!

They will not replace our veterans as our list would drop to 38!

The ignorance of most continues to amaze!

[45HG 1,539]

You may nominate two rookies to play on the main list if you don't have any veterans or 1 if you have 1 veteran. Not to mention Davey will be eligble at the end of this contract.

Oh, I forgot, (insert smart arse comment)

Edited November 24, 2009 by 45hotgod16

[Gooner 9]

I meant that the current squad is very young and will improve with age, whilst we won't lose too many players to retirement over the next few years.

It was referring to the age of the squad, not the number of spots on the list.

[realist 2]

You may nominate two rookies to play on the main list if you don't have any veterans or 1 if you have 1 veteran. Not to mention Davey will be eligble at the end of this contract.

Oh, I forgot, (insert smart arse comment)

Unfortunately ,your smart arse comment inserted, without veterans the list is only 38 and with veterans up to 40!

You lose the availability for 2 rookies but they would not be on the list!

No smart arse comment needed!

[1858 285]

Unfortunately ,your smart arse comment inserted, without veterans the list is only 38 and with veterans up to 40!

You lose the availability for 2 rookies but they would not be on the list!

No smart arse comment needed!

With or without veterans you still have a pool of 40 players who can play senior football as '45hotgod16' was pointing out with the nominated rookies reference.

Edited November 24, 2009 by 1858

[45HG 1,539]

Without veterans, the list would be 38 plus 8 rookies - two of whom would be "nominated" and able to play - as seen here. Anything else?