Midfield strength

[Little Goffy 14,793]

All our mids are up-and-down in effectiveness, which to me speaks of youth (obviously) but also fitness and the old problem of doing the small things right consistently.

As others have already pointed out, there is also a problem where players aren't alert to what to do 'next, next, next', there tends to be a half-moment of idleness in between actions, instead of a natural flow of activity. The other thing missing is situational awareness, the intuitive (yet somewhat trainable) understanding of where everyone around you is now and is about to be in a moment.

For both these things the current example would be the poise of Pendlebury, with the pinnacle I've ever seen being of course James Hird as a player. Just google that final quarter vs West Coast to see example after example of zero hesitation and incredible awareness. Dare I say... if only we could bottle some of that.

Haaa ha ha haaaaa. I'm going to make a few people here vomit by suggesting we bring in Hird as a specialist coach. In football terms it absolutely makes sense but the publicity would be something awful. Or, the ultimate redemption character arc.

Less vomitoriously, in the legendary words of a cliche gap-toothed grey-faced and completely plastered Collingwood supporter;  'Bwett Watten! Bwett Watten! Bwett Watten!'.

[DeeSpencer 26,493]

3 hours ago, jnrmac said:

Our mids when the get it are rarely running fwd. They are running backwards and trying to kick around their body more often than not. The midfield set ups are bewildering.

Agree. Viney does a bit, the others don't seem to. For some reason we've trained or allowed Oliver to give hot potato handballs rather than drawing a man and dishing off. Gawn's not jumping as much because he knows follow up is so important so he stays down, hits it backwards and then we've got the ball but not the momentum.

Last year we put 1 or 2 off the back of the square so we could be more aggressive with the hit outs and mids running forward. 

For some reason we can't execute one of the most basic centre square plays: Gawn taps forward to a strong bodied midfielder facing away from goal who then dishes a handball to a runner dashing through.

[Diamond_Jim 12,719]

3 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

For some reason we can't execute one of the most basic centre square plays: Gawn taps forward to a strong bodied midfielder facing away from goal who then dishes a handball to a runner dashing through.

say it again please