Who killed Bambi?

[Red and Blue realist 2,026]

9 minutes ago, Roost It said:

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

You'd kill the morale of the club for years if you did that, the players, staff and supporters would be devastated. Your journey would have us on the quest to be relocated to Tassie!

[Swooper1987 2,724]

Wow - just caught up on this thread.  2018's AA ruckman, most likely AA again this year on the bench.  The AFLCA player of the year in 2018 and again in the top echelon this year only a handful of votes behind Grundy who many have said is the best in the league.  The player Max comprehensively destroyed in the QB game earlier in the year. He is the most important player in our side - he can mark down the line, behind the ball and in attack. His field kicking is actually very good, his shots at goal are poor.  He tackles, he chases, he covers ground, he is a genuine superstar of the competition. He has done all of this with practically zero support from his team mates.  Just bizarre!!

[Roost It 1,434]

10 minutes ago, Swooper1987 said:

Wow - just caught up on this thread.  2018's AA ruckman, most likely AA again this year on the bench.  The AFLCA player of the year in 2018 and again in the top echelon this year only a handful of votes behind Grundy who many have said is the best in the league.  The player Max comprehensively destroyed in the QB game earlier in the year. He is the most important player in our side - he can mark down the line, behind the ball and in attack. His field kicking is actually very good, his shots at goal are poor.  He tackles, he chases, he covers ground, he is a genuine superstar of the competition. He has done all of this with practically zero support from his team mates.  Just bizarre!!

You trade him because you realise that he’s not going to part of our next Premiership

[Swooper1987 2,724]

1 hour ago, Roost It said:

You trade him because you realise that he’s not going to part of our next Premiership

With that logic who do we keep? Trading him puts a flag further away.  He's irreplaceable unless you are trading him for Grundy.

[Roost It 1,434]

12 minutes ago, Swooper1987 said:

With that logic who do we keep? Trading him puts a flag further away.  He's irreplaceable unless you are trading him for Grundy.

I totally get the love for him.

[Graeme Yeats' Mullet 6,267]

Max Gawn tradebait....? FMD ?‍♂️

[Demon17 4,531]

8 hours 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. 

This season absolutely proves the misconception that is the importance  of hitouts advantages etc. 

 

[jumbo returns 6,484]

3rd rounder at best

[Wadda We Sing 10,685]

7 hours ago, dl4e said:

Trading Gawn ????? Seriously.

How about we trade some of the posters on here......

[Whispering_Jack 27,918]

The entire premise of coaching is the ability to enable each individual and the team as a whole to perform at optimum effectiveness.

Max Gawn has been one of the top two or three in his field this season whilst playing in a team that has had its effectiveness severely curtailed by the sheer inability to get enough of its best performers on the ground. That’s a fact that is provable on the basis of statistics of games played. 

Max wins at the stoppages, his midfield gets the clearances and the ball enters the inside 50 arc more often in most games than it does inside that of the opposition. We break down at that point by failing to convert, by failing to retain possession up forward, by turning the ball over and then by allowing them to successfully convert into goals. 

I don’t believe that the club’s failures this season are related in an any significant way to the efficiency or lack thereof of the player who is a shoe in to win the Bluey again in 2019.

One can always wish for someone to do better at any given time. You might be able to say that about the league’s leading goal kicker expecting him to kick more goals in a season but I wouldn’t be laying anything down to our ruck division, other than that Max didn’t receive much back up in the ruck from those key forwards who filled in for him and were all ultimately injured or from Braydon Preuss who wasn’t selected often and when he was, the coaches couldn’t find a niche for him. The exception to that was the Carlton game in which Max didn’t play and Preuss toweled up Kreuzer. 

Perhaps we would be best off today by giving Max a well deserved break and playing Preuss, first ruck and Declan Keilty (who I suspect has already had his cards marked) as back up/key forward.

Of course, the nuff nuffs in the media would accuse us of tanking for a priority pick if we did that, so we probably won’t do it.

[beelzebub 22,225]

40 minutes ago, Whispering_Jack said:

 

Of course, the nuff nuffs in the media would accuse us of tanking for a priority pick if we did that, so we probably won’t do it.

Again the premise of tanking supposes we can win if we want to. Nahhhh

Rest Max...yes... But he might like to play with Lewy just one last time.  It's vexed... Outcome assured either way

[Smokey 4,112]

Of all the craziness that gets written on this forum - the thought of trading the best ruckman in the game is right up there. 

Whether or not you believe his ruck craft benefits us significantly or not doesn't change the fact he is highly mobile, of elite fitness and clunks important marks in our back half week after week. The words trade and Gawn should never be uttered in the same sentence. 

If we had better midfielders that were able to take advantage of his tap work this convo wouldn't exist. I'd rather focus on surrounding him with better players. 

[Age 379]

Knowing our list managers, we will want two first rounders for max but settle for a third rounder 

[Smokey 4,112]

Maxy currently showing anyone talking about trading him to be a damn fool.