The Centre Square

[Weedster 174]

Among the myriad of things that went wrong on Sunday, is there any chance Mark Jamar might actually time his leap to meet the ball, instead of going early, going late, or just making contact with the opposing ruckman. Any chance at all that he might actually direct a hit out to a midfielder. I don't think we won a single centre clearance the whole game. We're on the back fot every time.What the hell is the set-up in there ?

[monoccular 16,381]

...but his stats show that he 'won' 35 hitouts and is 4th in the competition!!!

Which just shows how useless is that particular stat - I don't recall even one resulting in a clearance.

[Jens Lehmann 75]

Not resulting in clearances, but I saw him win plenty of taps.

I think it had more to do with the blokes who were meant to be at his feet.

[Waltham33 409]

hit outs is one stat, hit out efficiency is another

[ucanchoose 1,804]

I wish I knew how to upload photos I have some good examples

[Allen Jakovich 516]

We won a few in the first team but there were not many of them. It's really disapointing. It's like we're too reactionary at stoppages. Even if we get the thing we can't move it forward with any purpose.

[ucanchoose 1,804]

[DeeSpencer 23,417]

The big Russian plays like a big girl.

He needs to jump into people and attempt to win the hitout. None of this staying down and trying to out fox his opponent.

In 2010 he was fearless and put his body on the line attempting to win the ball. Now he is painful to watch.

I know he is still out there trying which is more than some, but it's hard to watch.

[Deecisive 1,658]

I would love to see some proper stats not just hand passes, kicks, hit outs, but effective kicks, hit outs, etc, and ineffective as some players may look to have reasonable stats until you see their efficiency or clangers resulting in goals kill us.

Jamar did hit it down but invariably to the opposition, which means he either cannot control it or our guys are just not in the right spot. Given our poor mid field may Jamar should try punching the ball Forward, it cannot be worse than loosing it all the time at center square ball-ups.

[Demon_Tingles 211]

Let's recap basically every centre bounce from the weekend. Jamar/Port Adelaide ruckman tap out .. boak clearance. Seriously happened that many times me and the cheer squad would say before every bounce .. watch this go to Boak .. AND IT DID how the hell did the players not realise that. Can't blame Jamar for that.. even if he lost the tap how can one player get the clearance that many times in a row ?? That's the midfield group as a whole .. not just Jamar. As for around the ground .. well he's less than useless there.

[stuie 7,374]

Martin would have been 10x better in the ruck for us this year.

[norwood_demon 196]

I'm still fuming from Sunday. Haven't slept properly for 2 nights. I'm not a fair-weather supporter Don!

The OTC thread showing Frawley's "chase" re-ignited my rage. And the instructional photo above cannot pass without comment. Who is the only Melbourne player in front of their man where it counts? N Jones. How many players are running to the contest? At least 2 Port players followed a respectful 1-3 metres behind by Dunn & (I think) Pedersen.

Living in Adelaide, I could attend only one training session this year. It was last week. A very professional event timed to the second. The only quibble I had was with the mid-field scrimmage at the end. It appeared shambolic to me. No structure; no method; no teaching; a few breakaways, a few blind kicks forward then it was all over. I shouldn't comment based on one observation. But I had hoped that our "engine room" that has done nothing but splutter for seasons needed more than that.

[Weedster 174]

Martin would have been 10x better in the ruck for us this year.

Mystified how we offload Martin, effectively for nothing, and pick up Pederson

[stuie 7,374]

Mystified how we offload Martin, effectively for nothing, and pick up Pederson

We offloaded our 1 athletic ruckman right when they changed the rules to give an advantage to athletic ruckmen.... Ughhhh...

[rpfc 27,633]

Martin would have been 10x better in the ruck for us this year.

We offloaded our 1 athletic ruckman right when they changed the rules to give an advantage to athletic ruckmen.... Ughhhh...

Yeah, wasn't he great for the Lions on Saturday...

Jamar is a dominant tap ruckman with no-one but Jones to tap to.

[stuie 7,374]

Yeah, wasn't he great for the Lions on Saturday...

Jamar is a dominant tap ruckman with no-one but Jones to tap to.

I never rated Martin up forward, he's hopeless there, but IMO he's a much better ruck option than Jamar. He actually tries to tap it to people rather than to his own feet, and he can make it out of the centre square during play, unlike Jamar.

[titan_uranus 22,731]

Martin would have been 10x better in the ruck for us this year.

Rubbish. Martin is hopeless. What a stupid, anti-Melbourne/Neeld/our current situation comment.

Jamar is almost identical in form, ability and type to Ivan Maric, and everybody loves him (my vote for most-over-rated player in the competition, btw). The difference is Maric has decent midfielders at his feet, ready to do the hard work of actually going to get his hit outs. Jamar palms the ball down, our players grab it, and are tackled, failing to get it away.

There is, or used to be, a statistic called 'first touch', which was players getting their hands on the ball at a stoppage first, but not necessarily being the player to get the clearance. I wouldn't be surprised if our 'first touches' were high-ish on Sunday, but we continually had the ball stripped away or stolen from errant handpasses, to give Port the clearances.

[stuie 7,374]

Rubbish. Martin is hopeless. What a stupid, anti-Melbourne/Neeld/our current situation comment.

Jamar is almost identical in form, ability and type to Ivan Maric, and everybody loves him (my vote for most-over-rated player in the competition, btw). The difference is Maric has decent midfielders at his feet, ready to do the hard work of actually going to get his hit outs. Jamar palms the ball down, our players grab it, and are tackled, failing to get it away.

There is, or used to be, a statistic called 'first touch', which was players getting their hands on the ball at a stoppage first, but not necessarily being the player to get the clearance. I wouldn't be surprised if our 'first touches' were high-ish on Sunday, but we continually had the ball stripped away or stolen from errant handpasses, to give Port the clearances.

I spent the whole game on Sunday watching Jamar. He gives us nothing at the moment. He's had 1 excellent year, that's it. He taps it to his feet or to an opposition player. Sure he "wins" the tap but they have no effect. I would rather come even win the hit outs but have them actually go to one of our players. Plus, he lumbers around the ground, struggles to make contests and has 0 impact after the tap.

Averaged 8 disposals and 2 marks last year. Not good enough.

Martin averaged 14 touches and 4 1/2 marks.

Edited April 2, 2013 by stuie

[Gorgoroth 12,351]

At boundary throw ins he is decent. At centre bounces he either jumps so early he could nearly jump again and get the ball or he ran himself so far under the pill he was leaning back so day to try and get a hand on it!

His centre clearance work needs drastic improvement from last week

[rpfc 27,633]

I spent the whole game on Sunday watching Jamar. He gives us nothing at the moment. He's had 1 excellent year, that's it. He taps it to his feet or to an opposition player. Sure he "wins" the tap but they have no effect. I would rather come even win the hit outs but have them actually go to one of our players. Plus, he lumbers around the ground, struggles to make contests and has 0 impact after the tap.

Averaged 8 disposals and 2 marks last year. Not good enough.

Martin averaged 14 touches and 4 1/2 marks.

What about rucking? Any rucking in those stats? You have your pre-concieved notions and you are using last week to buttress them.

That doesn't convince me, you should have said "despite of what happened last week I still believe Martin > Jamar."

Edited April 2, 2013 by rpfc

[Jack7 463]

Stef Martin isn't a great footballer,we know that but he's BETTER than Sellar and Pederson.

Ask 17 other AFL coaches which of the 3 they'd take if they had to and I reckon 15 would take Martin out of those 3 and we just gave him away and pick up those 2 spuds.

[stuie 7,374]

What about rucking? Any rucking in those stats? You have your pre-concieved notions and you are using last week to buttress them.

That doesn't convince me, you should have said "despite of what happened last week I still believe Martin > Jamar."

I believe that especially with the new ruck rules, Martin would have been a better option than Jamar.

Jamar is slow and relies on his big body, exactly the thing the new rules goes against.

[rpfc 27,633]

I believe that especially with the new ruck rules, Martin would have been a better option than Jamar.

Jamar is slow and relies on his big body, exactly the thing the new rules goes against.

I ddin't see anything like that over the weekend. Over the ONE weekend.

You can have your beliefs, stuie, but like you have been saying in other threads - don't give me truths that are far-from-established and imply I am misguided for not accepting the far-from-accepted.

Edited April 2, 2013 by rpfc

[stuie 7,374]

I ddin't see anything like that over the weekend. Over the ONE weekend.

You can have your beliefs, stuie, but like you have been saying in other threads - don't give me truths that are far-from-established and imply I am misguided for not accepting the far-from-accepted.

I watched Jamar closely all last year and all of last Sunday. He's lost the little pace he may have once had. He's struggling big time.

I provided you with facts in the form of last years stats, they prove Jamar is struggling to impact play.

I'm not going by ONE WEEKEND, I'm going by at least 12 months of form.

[Deecisive 1,658]

When the whole team apart from Jack and a couple of others stink its a bit hard to get a true estimate of people value especially Pederson and other first gamers for us. Jamar got the taps but if it goes to the opposition then it is a meaningless stat. Our guys were in the square why did not they get it... was it not hit to them, was it taken off them. what was the problem. From looking at the stat sheets 2 Port players were responsible for most of the damange, what sort of pressure did our mids put on them to stop them.