Midfield blues

[Blue-and-red 91]

When the going is tough, viney is our only consistent gun performer, brayshaw (goes missing), harmes (slow, poor decision maker) and Oliver (shocking disposal, poor kick, bad decision maker) are all not up to it  when up against quality opposition - tough decisions to make but we need more class and better decision makers to compliment vineys grunt - time to trade any of brayshaw, Oliver or harems for what we can get

[adonski 9,143]

Petracca played well. Oliver grew as the game went on. Right about Brayshaw and Harmes. It more so exposed the lack of a second genuine winger. Don't think we'll entertain the thought of trading Oliver any time soon, btw.

[DeeSpencer 23,123]

Clarry really came in to the game and started to find the balance in the second half, was a huge reason for the turn around, went from a negative to a positive.

Gus and Harmes seem to be struggling from not being first choice mids. Not easy to go from wing to on ball (Gus) and forward to on ball (Harmes).

Trading Gus seems likely but we could just as easily need him to step in to a bigger role.

The big question is why he keeps making the same simple mistakes because if we cut a few errors out I feel he's actually doing a number of things right even if he's game isn't high possession or flashy.

 

[Swooper1987 2,745]

It's interesting, this whole midfield thing.  Whilst numbers say that Viney, Oliver and to a lesser extent Tracc had good games, as a collective we were outgunned in the midfield comprehensively pretty much all night.  Gawn was dominant in hit outs and hit outs to advantage and had  a better than useful game around the ground, yet we couldn't translate that into any clearance dominance. It wasn't a great showing in the clinches and we need to do better with the huge advantage Gawn gives us pretty much every game.

[buck_nekkid 5,479]

Brisbane set up perfectly to beat us in the middle, and it took until 1/2 time to start to crack the code.  They played off our midfield, ring fenced our midfield and squeezed the ball out of our midfielders.  It worked a treat and they won the clearances significantly.  The bollocking of Viney and the better work of Oliver certainty turned things around.  Brayshaw not so much, and Petracca was shaded versus last week.

Our game relies on us winning in the contest.  Our backline was phenomenal to keep us in it until we switched things up.

[Rocknroll 912]

Reckon the throw up rather than bounce helped them. The random  factor helps gawn move it to better places where straight up is predictable and they could hang off us. But they have some pretty handy mids 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Rocknroll

[spalding 1,118]

3 minutes ago, buck_nekkid said:

Brisbane set up perfectly to beat us in the middle, and it took until 1/2 time to start to crack the code.  They played off our midfield, ring fenced our midfield and squeezed the ball out of our midfielders.  It worked a treat and they won the clearances significantly.  The bollocking of Viney and the better work of Oliver certainty turned things around.  Brayshaw not so much, and Petracca was shaded versus last week.

Our game relies on us winning in the contest.  Our backline was phenomenal to keep us in it until we switched things up.

Good summary. We are getting better at adjusting, and we now have a defence that  can hold up long enough to give us a chance.

We are that close to being one of the better teams in the Comp - as tonight showed. Don’t know what some others are watching here at times. 

 

[dimmy 1,114]

4 minutes ago, buck_nekkid said:

Brisbane set up perfectly to beat us in the middle, and it took until 1/2 time to start to crack the code.  They played off our midfield, ring fenced our midfield and squeezed the ball out of our midfielders.  It worked a treat and they won the clearances significantly.  The bollocking of Viney and the better work of Oliver certainty turned things around.  Brayshaw not so much, and Petracca was shaded versus last week.

Our game relies on us winning in the contest.  Our backline was phenomenal to keep us in it until we switched things up.

VIney has been terrific for the last 3 weeks, but he & Clarrie do not bring others into the game as much as they could. Petracca is so much more effective with ball in hand because he is looking for options BEFORE he gets the ball. The Wings & Outside Mids do not know where Clarrie & Jack are going ?and how they are going to dispose. For a season & a half we have hand plenty of grunt in the middle ,but not enough quality coming out of it. Opposing teams learn to play off our dominant ruckman like tonight and have the quality to use the ball better. Simple game really.

[dee-tox 4,798]

Philosophical question. If your ruckman is winning the tap but the opposition is dominating the clearances. Is it the fault of the midfield for not sharking those hitouts, or the fault of the ruckman for not hitting it to the right positions?

Edited July 26, 2020 by dee-tox

[spalding 1,118]

It’s a similar plan that Collingwood used to  smash us in queens birthday a couple of years ago. Stand behind and push our players under to ball and then get it loose out the back with speedier players to run on to it. A fair bit of holding going on as well. We did start to get a few frees for this in the last quarter which made a big difference. 
We also managed to adjust, and got well on top in the last quarter. Viney was good all night, but Clarrie had a great last term. 

[640MD 2,794]

Just my view.

Max on most occasions at a centre bounce is predictable.

kick outs from the goal        Predictable barely describes it, 

last week I remember we took it straight down the guts,  once and scored.

we need more running to space. 

Like hannan to fritta , where were the other leads ? 

Kossy. I love his enthusiasm but at times he needs to “slow down” and compose himself.    ( easy for me to say on here)

it was ours to win. We blew it,   No plan B

or a poor 2 nd quarter stuffed it..,

next week ....   who knows !

[BW511 2,243]

The kick out strategy or lack of one is truly bizarre.

It's like we have given up on trying and when we are getting smoked around the contest, plonking the ball amongst the largest group of players is not what I would be thinking.

[Ungarieboy 354]

9 hours ago, dee-tox said:

Philosophical question. If your ruckman is winning the tap but the opposition is dominating the clearances. Is it the fault of the midfield for not sharking those hitouts, or the fault of the ruckman for not hitting it to the right positions?

From memory he mostly hit to the right positions as it landed in our hands first, but they were already grabbing our player  resulting in a spill which there (Lions) other midfielders then quickly swept away.  They worked far far better as a collective.

Our midfielders seemed to have been spoilt by having the ball given to them, rather than finding it in a chaos (unpredictable) situation.

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Ungarieboy

[Forest Demon 4,681]

What a ridiculous thread.

Oliver was good last night. Yes he has made some mistakes, but we are asking him to take the game on more and that will come. To say he’s not up to it is a joke. The bloke battered Selwood and Geelong in a final 2 years ago as a 20/21 year old FFS.

Harmes is a depth mid. He hasn’t been at his best this year, but definitely not on the chopping block.

Brayshaw is the interesting one, as he is well paid and needs to be more than a fringe contributor. But there are already multiple threads discussing that.

[Vagg 2,422]

On several occasions Max tapped the ball straight to one of our guys.  But, they fumbled the ball, and in that split second the Bris players were able to get control of the ball and clear it.  Had our guys not been so fumbly, they would have been in a better position to win the clearance.  As Jack & Goody said in their interview/Presser, Brissy were just so much cleaner than our guys.  If we get rid of the fumbles we will do so much better.  To me that was the difference between the two sides last night.  We continually fumbled the ball and lost any advantage, while the Brissy boys didn't fumble as much, and so had more time to find a team mate.

[dl4e 5,583]

4 minutes ago, Vagg said:

On several occasions Max tapped the ball straight to one of our guys.  But, they fumbled the ball, and in that split second the Bris players were able to get control of the ball and clear it.  Had our guys not been so fumbly, they would have been in a better position to win the clearance.  As Jack & Goody said in their interview/Presser, Brissy were just so much cleaner than our guys.  If we get rid of the fumbles we will do so much better.  To me that was the difference between the two sides last night.  We continually fumbled the ball and lost any advantage, while the Brissy boys didn't fumble as much, and so had more time to find a team mate.

Correct. Last night was a bad example of this. It happens to often against too many opponents. I am starting to think that clarry has got butterfingers.

[Lord Travis 10,163]

I've previously banged on about our midfield being unbalanced and that we should look to trade either Brayshaw or Viney to address the issue. I'm usually shouted down, but seems others are starting to agree.

We have too many see ball get ball inside types, and lack classy disposers and more rounded players. Our mids also don't kick enough goals. Brayshaw has been that player in the past (2018) where he shone both inside winning ball and outside linking up. That match against Adelaide where he had 39 touches and 3 goals is proof of that. Noone on our entire list has produced that sort of output before. For whatever reason, he's struggled since and is playing an unsuitable role.

Most of our midfield has regressed since 2018, Petracca is the only ones who's improved not regressed. Back in 2018 Clarry kicked 12.11 too. He's regressed in scoring and impact since. Harmes has also struggled with his role being shifted around, though he's less talented than the others. He's getting less ball, making worse decisions and not scoring as much. Can we afford to send him back to being a permanent tagger? 

I still believe we need to trade one of them to re-balance and bring in the type of midfielder we need. I'm not talking about a pure outside Langdon type, I'm talking a rounded midfielder who performs both inside and outside depending on what the team needs. Viney is in hot form, so Brayshaw is the logical trade option. Do we trade him off to Freo to be with his family? What can they offer us?

[BW511 2,243]

Imagine Scott Pendlebury working around our guys, someone smooth moving and skillful would take us to another level. His leadership wouldn't hurt either.

Field kicking has to be a priority on whoever we chase

Will be interesting to see how things shape up on the trade front at the end of this year, we need to get a look at Jordon soon, he is supposedly a good user?

Edited July 27, 2020 by BW511

[Swooper1987 2,745]

1 hour ago, Vagg said:

On several occasions Max tapped the ball straight to one of our guys.  But, they fumbled the ball, and in that split second the Bris players were able to get control of the ball and clear it.  Had our guys not been so fumbly, they would have been in a better position to win the clearance.  As Jack & Goody said in their interview/Presser, Brissy were just so much cleaner than our guys.  If we get rid of the fumbles we will do so much better.  To me that was the difference between the two sides last night.  We continually fumbled the ball and lost any advantage, while the Brissy boys didn't fumble as much, and so had more time to find a team mate.

Agree entirely with this.  Max has a genuine predictability about his ruck work that on most occasions is a massive advantage for us.  He does exactly as has been planned and nearly always finds one of our guys.  Our problem is that our mid field, as hard as they are, are not clean and skillful players, probably Tracc aside.  When you compare a Neale, or a Pendlebury or even someone like Michael Walters at Freo, we have nobody who is that clean. That extra third or half a second makes all the difference. The fumble creates the spill, which shifts the ball outside and bang, away they go.  It's fixable but whether it can be fixed in time to save the season is the question.