One thing that I think has gone a little un-noticed, and has been a large key to our success so far this year, has been our terrific spread of goal kickers this season.  At the moment we have these players in double figures:

Jeff Garlett - 37

Christian Petracca - 23

Tom McDonald - 22

Jack Watts - 20

Mitch Hannan - 19

Jesse Hogan - 14

Jake Melksham - 13

Nathan Jones - 10

James Harmes - 10

Alex Neal-Bullen - 10

One positive that has come out of a year without having Hogan for large parts and missing Watts for a month is that we've had to adapt and learn to find other avenues to goal.  Mitch Hannan, outside of a very quiet day yesterday, has been a great acquisition to our side and we've been getting more out of our high half forwards as well.

The challenge we now face is being able to learn to play smart, offensive football with Jesse in our side.  Some of our best football this year has been without him in the side (Crows at AAMI, Eagles at Domain) and we need to make sure we are not just trying to bomb it on his head all the time.

Regardless, it's terrific that we've been able to see this improvement and it certainly holds us in good stead for the years to come.

 

Wow.

Not only is that a high number of goals but an awesome spread as you say.

TMac has been a revelation. It is encouraging for teams to have so many goal kickers.

I'm surprised ANB has that many. I notice Kent isn't there and Weids has probably only 1 or 2 to his name.

 

Dean Kent has eleventy hundred behnds though....

We still don't get enough goals from our midfield, and most of our midfielders are pretty ordinary kicks from set shots. 

Compared to our 2000 side, which got around 90 goals from Yze, Powell and Woewodin, this is the missing link between us being an average side and a top side.

And yes, we need to learn to function better with Hogan in the side. 

Surely you are not trying this say our spread of goalkickers is better than 2014!?

Dawes: 20

Tyson: 16

Frawley: 15

 

that is all

33 minutes ago, poita said:

We still don't get enough goals from our midfield, and most of our midfielders are pretty ordinary kicks from set shots. 

Compared to our 2000 side, which got around 90 goals from Yze, Powell and Woewodin, this is the missing link between us being an average side and a top side.

And yes, we need to learn to function better with Hogan in the side. 

Think that's the next steps in the evolution of our team, Oliver, Viney, Tyson, Jones, Lewis and Salem need to occasionally have a game where they kick 2 or 3 goals, and average at least 3 collectively per game. So far only Jones and Lewis have kicked multiple goals in a game.  

Gawn has only kicked the 2 goals this year whereas last year he kicked 16. 

4 hours ago, ucanchoose said:

Dean Kent has eleventy hundred behnds though....

Buggy has kicked another eleventy hundred behinds as well!

2 hours ago, poita said:

We still don't get enough goals from our midfield, and most of our midfielders are pretty ordinary kicks from set shots. 

Compared to our 2000 side, which got around 90 goals from Yze, Powell and Woewodin, this is the missing link between us being an average side and a top side.

And yes, we need to learn to function better with Hogan in the side. 

I agree poita, and as you say it's the next step for us as a side.  Guys like Viney, Tyson and Oliver probably don't hit the scoreboard enough during a season.  We're certainly heading in the right direction, though.