Max Gawn has had another great personal season and his performance is a highlight in an otherwise very disappointing year.  He deserves great credit for his preparation, the work on his game and his consistent effort from week to week.  He is the premier tap ruckman.

No doubt Max has a great personality and is a great leader around the club - he will probably be co-captain next year.

Who killed Bambi?

The problem is I think having Max Gawn play this way is a big part of our problems this year because he makes us too predictable. Last year this had the bonus of surprise when Oliver, Brayshaw and Harmes all made significant improvement, this year it's a liability.

I've never rated tap outs and have mixed views about taps to advantage - both the lynch pins of Max's game.  A contest in the ruck is vital because one-off matches with tap outs to advantage are very damaging, but consistent tap outs to advantage are very predictable and the opposition simply sweats on our first possession and tackles our inside midfield.  No surprise that we are 17th for tackle differential - that's the key tactic applied against our contest based game.

I rate around the ground marking and providing a marking target much more highly and I think this is where Max provides us with the most value currently.  But his kicking remains a liability and this is an issue when he drifts forward.  Quite frankly Grundy is a far more valuable player because he is an extra mid-fielder, can kick and can ruck and mark nearly as well as Max.

There's no way we would even consider trading Max but we need to give some thought to about how to use him effectively next year. 

No one killed bambi.

It was Bambi's mother who was killed

Have been saying the bolded bit for months

3 minutes ago, Fifty-5 said:

I've never rated tap outs and have mixed views about taps to advantage - both the lynch pins of Max's game.  A contest in the ruck is vital because one-off matches with tap outs to advantage are very damaging, but consistent tap outs to advantage are very predictable and the opposition simply sweats on our first possession and tackles our inside midfield.  No surprise that we are 17th for tackle differential - that's the key tactic applied against our contest based game.

I rate around the ground marking and providing a marking target much more highly and I think this is where Max provides us with the most value currently.  But his kicking remains a liability and this is an issue when he drifts forward.  Quite frankly Grundy is a far more valuable player because he is an extra mid-fielder, can kick and can ruck and mark nearly as well as Max.

 

The only positive I took away from this season was Gawn, now you’ve taken that away from me. 

4 minutes ago, Fifty-5 said:

Max Gawn has had another great personal season and his performance is a highlight in an otherwise very disappointing year.  He deserves great credit for his preparation, the work on his game and his consistent effort from week to week.  He is the premier tap ruckman.

No doubt Max has a great personality and is a great leader around the club - he will probably be co-captain next year.

Who killed Bambi?

The problem is I think having Max Gawn play this way is a big part of our problems this year because he makes us too predictable. Last year this had the bonus of surprise when Oliver, Brayshaw and Harmes all made significant improvement, this year it's a liability.

I've never rated tap outs and have mixed views about taps to advantage - both the lynch pins of Max's game.  A contest in the ruck is vital because one-off matches with tap outs to advantage are very damaging, but consistent tap outs to advantage are very predictable and the opposition simply sweats on our first possession and tackles our inside midfield.  No surprise that we are 17th for tackle differential - that's the key tactic applied against our contest based game.

I rate around the ground marking and providing a marking target much more highly and I think this is where Max provides us with the most value currently.  But his kicking remains a liability and this is an issue when he drifts forward.  Quite frankly Grundy is a far more valuable player because he is an extra mid-fielder, can kick and can ruck and mark nearly as well as Max.

There's no way we would even consider trading Max but we need to give some thought to about how to use him effectively next year. 

Grundy is a terrific player and does add that extra midfielder element to the Pies,  but there are not many ruckman like that, so it leaves him as fairly unique ruckman. Max would be the next best. His HO to advantage which i still think is the most important quality a ruckman can have is superior to any other ruckman, although our mids fail to capitalise on that this year.

Max is the least of our problems, his year is very similar to last year when he was AA, its our mid sthat need to be better.

 

 

All a ruckman has to do is halve the contest and prevent a perfectly accurate hit out to advantage.

Then it comes down to round the ground play. Some would say round the ground play comes first.

The tall who is good below his knees is probably the hardest player to find. Most are like giraffes. From the little I have seen of Bradtke he is of the giraffe family for example but hopefully he develops.

Max plays well but the fact that we cannot seem to leverage his dominance is one of the most frustrating aspects of our gameplan (mind you there are a lot of frustrations these days.)

A Tempting trade, if we could just get a top two pick for Max, it’s all true unfortunately, for all his prowess we can’t clear the ball cleanly from a balls up, and his kicking is diabolical , pushing thirty, would be a win win if he got to play with a decent team with a premiership prospect, if it happened we could be holding draft picks one and two, worth plenty of thought.

Edited August 22, 20196 yr by bluey
Bad spellin

14 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

The tall who is good below his knees is probably the hardest player to find. Most are like giraffes. From the little I have seen of Bradtke he is of the giraffe family for example but hopefully he develops.

Our hit out dominance together with what follows it has had me scratching my head for a while, with my thoughts being along the lines of 55 and DJ. 

Re Bradtke: I think one of his qualities is his capacity below his knees, for one who is so giraffe-like, given his young age. As is well appreciated, he's some years away from being a fully formed unit, but if the other elements of strength and ambition come together, there is something to work with apart from mere height.

Edited August 22, 20196 yr by Tim

Trade now is what a ruthless club would do

We’ll make him co captain and his form will drop away markedly

Tom McDonald should also go

We’ve got to get more top end talent in to get the best out of the quality we already have

2 minutes ago, Roost It said:

Trade now is what a ruthless  stupid club would do

Like St Kilda did with McEvoy...

Stupid move and left them devoid of leadership and ruck talent.

 

35 minutes ago, bluey said:

A Tempting trade, if we could just get a top two pick for Max, it’s all true unfortunately, for all his prowess we can’t clear the ball cleanly from a balls up, and his kicking is diabolical , pushing thirty, would be a win win if he got to play with a decent team with a premiership prospect, if it happened we could be holding draft picks one and two, worth plenty of thought.

Cat...amongst...pigeons

geez, we really are eating our own

1 hour ago, bluey said:

A Tempting trade, if we could just get a top two pick for Max, it’s all true unfortunately, for all his prowess we can’t clear the ball cleanly from a balls up, and his kicking is diabolical , pushing thirty, would be a win win if he got to play with a decent team with a premiership prospect, if it happened we could be holding draft picks one and two, worth plenty of thought.

Trading Max would indeed be shooting Bambi and her mum! To trade out your likely runaway B & F, the only player really who can hold his head up after the season from hell (others can be given pass marks), the one player who deserves to be captain, the one player probably more than any other holds the team fabric together - would be madness and stupidity.

The place would lose its heart and soul and team morale would sink even lower. You do not trade out your heart and soul players in the hope that whoever you may bring in will live up to the hype and expectation. As we well know, early draft picks are not necessarily the only recipe for success - for any club. 

This has been the season from hell and there are many reasons for it, lack of fit and available personnel being one, which started straight after last season finished. Changes are being made and will be made on and off the field. Give them a chance to reset in the off season and pre-season and go again. If by mid season next year nothing has changed, then the need for real change will start to snowball.    

But let's not throw out our one shining light for this year and hope that fixes everything - it won't.

    

Edited August 22, 20196 yr by Key Deefender

Imagine getting rid of the only player who knows what it takes and is willing to do everything he possibly can to be successful. 

I wouldn’t mind trading any player, if the deal was right, but we aren’t a Hawthorn or West Coast, we only have one real leader and that is Gawn. 

Edited August 22, 20196 yr by Ethan Tremblay

I’d be looking to trade Viney as well. I rate Bradshaw the better prospect by a fair way. Target what we need and get them. We need pace, class, skill on every line. Our smalls are a bust and our forward line needs a reboot. 

I think we use Max too much as a defensive saver than as an exit kick from defence.

We have had real issues trying to get link ups forward of the ball because of injuries to our key forwards and the lack of speed outside the contest. In addition we’ve had injuries to May and Lever all year, plus other issues in defence, so Gawn has played a lot as a kick behind play. I believe the idea behind getting May would have been to release Gawn to be a bit more unpredictable forward of the ball, and we can see him trying to do that a little more later in the season. His poor kicking is not an issue here, as the idea is to win the ball and move it quickly. A mark coming out of defence would result in a number of players moving past and the ball being run forward, rather than having to pinpoint a kick like you do in a slow play.

I think ruck dominance is important in stoppages. It’s not so much the hit outs to advantage, but it’s about being able to control the areas where you fight for the clearance. Sure, teams will try to defend it, but there’s a real advantage to getting the ball into an area where your team has an advantage. It’s not a specific advantage, but it’s an advantage that you have in the long run of a game.

2 hours ago, Roost It said:

Trade now is what a ruthless club would do

We’ll make him co captain and his form will drop away markedly

Tom McDonald should also go

We’ve got to get more top end talent in to get the best out of the quality we already have

 

18 minutes ago, Roost It said:

I’d be looking to trade Viney as well. I rate Bradshaw the better prospect by a fair way. Target what we need and get them. We need pace, class, skill on every line. Our smalls are a bust and our forward line needs a reboot. 

I agree, lets also get rid of Oliver, Melksham, Trac, Harmes, May and Lever May as well get as many draft picks as possible while we can, going to the draft has always been what this club is about. Last year was truly shocking and I for one never want to make finals again. I miss the 2009 to 2014 period where we had nothing but top end talent, the golden years of the club!

Trade Max Gawn?  For any sharks reading, consider yourself jumped.

Trading Gawn ????? Seriously.

Trade Max?  No.  He should be our captain.  He is one of the top 2 in his position in the comp, and will be for the next 3 years.

It raises some intersting concepts, though:

Preuss needs to seriously lift around the ground to add value to the team. If he can do that, then Max gets to play for longer, and the pair could be the scariest thing in football.  Preuss goes forward, Max drops a kick behind the contest.

The midfield need to be better co-ordinated to take advantage of the taps to advantage.  If Max gets 12 taps to advantage each game, and halves most of the rest, we should dominate clearances.  At the moment we are not.  We have no structure around the contest, just bodies thrashing about.  If we learned how to position ourselves to Max’s taps, and also how to hold position so we could have a player ready to go on the outside, imagine what it would be like with the ball far more often deep in our forward half?

We seem to be the worst team at contests inside 30m from goal.  In defence, we bleed goals, and in attack, we cant seem to capitalise and score.  Serious planning needs to go into our structures at these contests.

Max is not bambi, he is the goose that lays golden eggs.  We have to use his gifts better, not strangle him or sell him at the market.

 

His kicking is a liability? Maybe at goal but he's a better field kick than half our side.

4 hours ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

The only positive I took away from this season was Gawn, now you’ve taken that away from me. 

Exactly I liken this to George Lucas tampering with Star Wars and making Greedo shoot first.

The one thing I took from

There is some one here has good enough taste in music to link the Sex Pistols!

Imagine the signal it would send to our playing group if we go and trade one of our very few fully committed players while we let player x,y, z get away with the current sort of attitude to representing the Club. It could have repercussions for a very, very long time.

2 hours ago, Red and Blue realist said:

 

I agree, lets also get rid of Oliver, Melksham, Trac, Harmes, May and Lever May as well get as many draft picks as possible while we can, going to the draft has always been what this club is about. Last year was truly shocking and I for one never want to make finals again. I miss the 2009 to 2014 period where we had nothing but top end talent, the golden years of the club!

I’d trade Viney for a highly skilled, classy, fast forward any day of the week

Gawn for a top 10 pick and a solid running player

Very few untouchables in the quest to be the Premiers

Strangely predictable that a call to use Max more effectively turned into "trade him" - Demonland strikes.