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Dees Plan to Turbocharge the Midfield

Demonland
Demonland
in Melbourne Demons

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18 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

I fully understand why we recruited Langdon and Tomlinson and the benefit to the midfield.

The context of the post, you omitted important parts of, challenged the concept that TOG = hard running.  Jay gave no evidence to support that premise. 

And, I suspect a fair part of Tomlinson's TOG was not in the midfield, eg defence where 88%-95% of TOG is common.

To me it was a flaky article.

As I said in my earlier post, endurance and hard running will come from fitness and attitude.  Sure Tomlinson and Langdon may give other mids a minute or two more 'resting' time per game but if their fitness and attitude doesn't improve it won't help us one iota in two-way running and running out quarters/games. 

I'm an old fashioned coach 'Lucifer', I will use stats but mainly use my eyes to watch what happens on the ground.

Langdon and Tomlinson are hard runners who push back hard to cover.

Plus anything that helps bring back Gus into the middle and allows Trac more time on ball is a bonus.

I don't need Jay's flakey stats to tell me that and to be honest he didn't need them to back up his premise.

Maybe he's been David Kingised...

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    12 hours ago, Wiseblood said:

    Didn't tell us a whole lot we didn't already know, however:

    One thing that did stand out form the article is the 'time on ground' average for both players.  I think Tomlinson is around 85% and Langdon at 86%.  They compared this number to Scully, one of the hardest running mids around according to Jay Clark, and his TOG is at 84%.

    The idea here is that it will give our in and under mids more time to rest during a game, whether that be up forward or a spell on the bench, and will keep us fresher for longer, giving us the ability to play better footy for sustained periods rather than just short bursts.

    I feel we are splitting hairs if we are talking about a variance of  2/3 % in comparing TOG. Management of players and correct or best placement of players is more important. Hell, I could be on the ground 100% and have one touch and be at the top of the TOG tree. 

    Think the Journo was hard up for a story....

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    1 hour ago, Ohio USA - David said:

    I feel we are splitting hairs if we are talking about a variance of  2/3 % in comparing TOG. Management of players and correct or best placement of players is more important. Hell, I could be on the ground 100% and have one touch and be at the top of the TOG tree. 

    Think the Journo was hard up for a story....

    True.

    I think what stood out to me from it is the fact that we actually have wingers who can not only play the role well, but do so for extended periods of time.  It therefore allows us to rest other players and keep them fresh for longer, thus allowing them to have a more positive impact on a game for extended periods.

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    It's probably fair to say we lacked intensity for a large portion of this year, so having two new gun runners will allow the mids to actually rest in 2020.

    They may have only dropped off their intensity marginally during games due to fatigue, but that is the difference between a win/loss in today's game.

    Hope the plan works, but there is also a bit more work to do around the ground to get things humming.

     

     

     

     

    Edited by BW511

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    The running power of Langdon and Tomlinson will be huge for us and are exactly why we targeted them.

    One of the reasons we lost so much with Hogan going is he played that role.

    Only ANB (and tmac perhaps) has the capacity to run the sort of distances at a fair clip those two boys can. Which is why he kept getting selected and why he got recontracted.

    KK is probably the other one who can cover the ground, so let's hope he can get back.

    Of course all players will have to get fitter, and will if they can avoid interupptions. But even at peak fitness some players are burst players and simply can't cover 300 metres at the required speed. Gus, Jones and trac are three that come to mind. I reckon Oliver might get there though.

    Edited by binman

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    15 hours ago, Rednblueriseing said:

    Good article and love the optimism but now only actions will do, we have read enough 'pump up' articles over the years. Time for this club to win games consistently 

    I'm tired of reading these articles which are full of nothing but words.

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    6 minutes ago, chookrat said:

    I'm tired of reading these articles which are full of nothing but words.

    Would you prefer sign language?

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    43 minutes ago, chookrat said:

    Words

     

    41 minutes ago, chookrat said:

    I'm tired of reading these articles which are full of nothing but words.

    We have heard most of this repeatedly over the years ..... hopefully this time we will see actions.

    Facta non verba as they used to say in ancient Rome (way back when the Demons were a force to be reckoned with).

    Edited by monoccular

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    Adam Goodes used an interpretive dance to get a message across. Thought it worked well.

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    I agree with all of this in theory.

    Now we just need the boys to knuckle down in the preseason, and put it into practice, consistently in 2020.

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    It's been obvious to many on here for a long time that our two way running is below AFL standard. Our midfield is lazy, unfit or a combination of both. It's why teams play the chip and hold and switch game against us. You see how poor we are defending opposition transition very clearly when sitting up high at the MCG.

    Added to that we have been a very poor one on one defending team - hence the recruitment of May and Lever (not so much for one on one but intercepting transitional play).

    Some pointed to the pre-season injuries and lack of training as a reason we were particularly poor this year in this area. It's one of the reasons for sure but we haven't had the personal. The club has taken way too long to solve this issue - maybe they thought JKH and Stretch might fill these roles - but the recruitment of two gut runners in Langdon and Tomlinson bodes well.

    Let's hope the game plan under the new team of coaches is able to be carried out by the players at their disposal.

    Would still like to take 3 and 8 to the draft to get some silky delivery skills.

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    1 hour ago, chookrat said:

    I'm tired of reading these articles which are full of nothing but words.

    It's the off season.

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    6 hours ago, rjay said:

    I'm an old fashioned coach 'Lucifer', I will use stats but mainly use my eyes to watch what happens on the ground.

    Langdon and Tomlinson are hard runners who push back hard to cover.

    Plus anything that helps bring back Gus into the middle and allows Trac more time on ball is a bonus.

    I don't need Jay's flakey stats to tell me that and to be honest he didn't need them to back up his premise.

    Maybe he's been David Kingised...

    Langdon and Tomlinson have the endurance to push back to help out defenders, and push forward to be an option in forward 50.

    The width they provide will also be a boon for a player like Petracca who can win his own ball, and will have wide options in space to hit up by foot.

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    16 hours ago, Demonland said:

    Please don't post full articles. 

    i think the allowable max amount is 82% to 84%     :)

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    What a load of absolute nonsense - straight out of the Melbourne PR Dpt.  Tomlinson might be able to run 3 marathons in a row but he is still an average plodder.

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    4 hours ago, Cranky Franky said:

    What a load of absolute nonsense - straight out of the Melbourne PR Dpt.  Tomlinson might be able to run 3 marathons in a row but he is still an average plodder.

    A plodder who player all but a game or so over three years in a top 8 team.  If only we had some of those home grown plodders.

    Edited by monoccular

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    What happens when Tomlinson hurts his foot and Langdon gets concussed?

    Goodwin still needs a plan B. 

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    1 minute ago, praha said:

    What happens when Tomlinson hurts his foot and Langdon gets concussed?

    Goodwin still needs a plan B. 

    You could say that for any single team out there @praha

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    18 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

    You could say that for any single team out there @praha

    Yes. Ultimately, what separates the great, good and average teams is how adaptable their plan B and in some cases plan c is.

    Ability and/or foresight to adapt can make or break a season. 

    2019 basically told us we have zero depth, and could adapt. We've responded by hiring some pace by also dropping a lot of depth from the backend of the list. 

    So it may all work and I'm backing the club in at this point but I'm just playing devil's advocate. I think we're banking on a pretty good bill of health.

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    9 hours ago, loges said:

    Would you prefer sign language?

    Perhaps hieroglyphics, then he could f... off and look at stick figures kicking goals in caves.

     

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    Still need the class. The midfield needs a Judd, Buckley, Martin, Voss, Kelly, Pendlebury type player.   I’m after the Dees somehow having a star.  An absolute star.  Not since Robert Flower have we had a star of the competition and he was battling against the odds.   Hoping to see one emerge shortly.  

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    19 minutes ago, spirit of norm smith said:

    Still need the class. The midfield needs a Judd, Buckley, Martin, Voss, Kelly, Pendlebury type player.   I’m after the Dees somehow having a star.  An absolute star.  Not since Robert Flower have we had a star of the competition and he was battling against the odds.   Hoping to see one emerge shortly.  

    That's Oliver 'norm'...I reckon he had a down season in 2019 and he still tied for the B&F.

    He will take it by storm in 2020...

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    16 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

    I fully understand why we recruited Langdon and Tomlinson and the benefit to the midfield.

    The context of the post, you omitted important parts of, challenged the concept that TOG = hard running.  Jay gave no evidence to support that premise. 

    And, I suspect a fair part of Tomlinson's TOG was not in the midfield, eg defence where 88%-95% of TOG is common.

    To me it was a flaky article.

    As I said in my earlier post, endurance and hard running will come from fitness and attitude.  Sure Tomlinson and Langdon may give other mids a minute or two more 'resting' time per game but if their fitness and attitude doesn't improve it won't help us one iota in two-way running and running out quarters/games. 

    Of course it's a flakey article. It's a Herald sun article. About the AFL. In October. 3 strikes.

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