Mods feel free to merge this if you don't believe it's worth its own thread. Jennings on Whateley this morning spoke at length about Gawn and his influence. The first 3 or 4 minutes are really interesting.  He believes Gawn is the best player in the competition and one of the top 3 alongside Carey and Ablett Senior in his time in the game.

15 minutes ago, Swooper1987 said:

https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode/712301

Mods feel free to merge this if you don't believe it's worth its own thread. Jennings on Whateley this morning spoke at length about Gawn and his influence. The first 3 or 4 minutes are really interesting.  He believes Gawn is the best player in the competition and one of the top 3 alongside Carey and Ablett Senior in his time in the game.

 

 

 

 

Amazing company he has him in there.   Wow.

Sometimes its easy to underappreciate one of our own when youre  a tortured Melbourne supporter and we are so desperate for success.  I hope we appreciate Gawny while hes here.  I reckon he can dominate well into his 30's too.

 

He makes some interesting comments about Salem. 

He likes how Melb put the ball into his hands as he is our best user.  And that Jade Rawlings knows his game and North will come after Salem to minimise his impact.  And he said watch out if they go after Salem dees players will come out swinging as they absolutely love that guy! 

Just shows how much we don't know about the value of a player within club land and behind the scenes stuff.

Maybe we should look more closely at how much attention Salem gets as he tends to go under the radar for fans and not appreciated for what he does.

Edited August 6, 20204 yr by Lucifer's Hero

1 minute ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

He makes some interesting comments about Salem. 

He likes how Melb put the ball into his hands as he is our best user.  And that Jade Rawlings knows his game and North will come after Salem to minimise his impact.  And he said watch out if they go after Salem the players will come out swinging as they absolutely love that guy! 

Just shows how much we don't know about the value of a player.

Maybe we should look more closely at how much attention Salem gets as he tends to go under the radar for fans and not appreciated for what he does.

Yes Craig's Comments about Jade Rawlings will be interesting to see next Sunday.

He worked closely with Salem

Probably mentioned a million times elsewhere, but Gawn looks at his most dominant when our midfield actually move at a ruck contest.  It's why his hitout to advantage count is not as high as it should be, and why decent opposition mids shark him so easily.

While I like the guy, and have had a bit to do with him in a previous life, the midfield/stoppage coach needs an absolute rocket, if not moved on totally.

It's interesting, because I'd say what he says about Ben Brown is equally applicable to Gawn and Melbourne, in that our strength has become our weakness. Stop Max, stop Melbourne. Hinder Max, hinder our midfield.

I agree that we absolutely have to be smarter in a strategic sense for how we protect Max, but I don't think Jennings is right in saying that's the only answer. Sorry, but you can't protect Max in a ruck contest when only Max can nominate and you're not allowed to get in the way of the opposition ruckman. I think that's a bit farcical to suggest being 'more strategic'. But around the ground, I think we've become too dependent and too predictable with the way we use Max.

I find it hard listening to Jennings talk about Melbourne, because to me he comes off increasingly biased with regards to our current coaching.

It could be argued that Goodwin's comments in the media about protecting Max are strategic and that this places the treatment of Gawn at the top of the agenda for umpires.

The guy I'd be trying to stick up for is Oliver though. He is essentially tackled prior to possessing the ball at every centre stoppage. It's as clear as day and yet he is rarely paid free kicks. Last night, the two Clarry received were welcomed, but just imagine he's Selwood, Dangerfield or Ablett. He'd be receiving free kicks all day or players would stop doing it and it'd make him so much harder to play against. The common denominator between those three players is they have a coach that squeals about them being held every week. I think we need to be calling it out in the press far more often. We have an elite midfield now and the best players usually get the best armchair-ride from the umpires. Time our guys got some of that.

But back on Jennings' analysis, I disagree to a large extent on Salem. Dinky little kicks from half back to centre wing might help connection from the backline to the midfield, but do nothing to score or help forward connection. I think Salem is a lovely bloke (having met him before), he has got great skills and he has shown a level of hardness that should make for an elite package, particularly, playing him behind the ball and giving him more time. However, I find his possessions don't attack the ground enough and if Jennings is talking about maintaining possession from half back, then that might be a different thing, but in terms of Salem's importance, I don't see it. He needs to be far more attacking with his kicking if he's to be a lynchpin for us.

The next thing he talks about is accuracy and how it "doesn't always make you popular in footy clubs when everybody wants to talk about contest". To me, this is another whack at the club. Whilst I agree with him, there's a better, less passive aggressive, more professional way of wording this. In terms of what he says here, our accuracy has cost us a number of games this year, IMV, and there does need to be a balance between forward and defence, but I don't think it's a strategic problem this year, it's simply a lack of polish from the likes of Fritsch, Weideman, our mids and even Melksham. Should that be a focus? Well, as if accuracy isn't automatically a focus. And I think drawing attention to it when it isn't like it's VFL standard, may only exacerbate the problem. So for me, this point sounds like it's big noting himself and very easy to say as someone no longer inside the club.

He also talks about the importance of having multiple strings to your bow and to just be a contest team is not enough. He then proceeded to analyse the Gold Coast v St Kilda game as a tale of two game styles, saying neither game style was better or worse than the other. To me, this is a contradiction. One is about getting the ball to the outside and other is about keeping it tight and contested. He then says St Kilda are a great scoring team, well, they play a contested style, so as long as it's not Melbourne playing the contested style it's alright? Is that what you're saying, Jenno? 

Edited August 6, 20204 yr by A F

2 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

He makes some interesting comments about Salem. 

He likes how Melb put the ball into his hands as he is our best user.  And that Jade Rawlings knows his game and North will come after Salem to minimise his impact.  And he said watch out if they go after Salem dees players will come out swinging as they absolutely love that guy! 

Just shows how much we don't know about the value of a player within club land and behind the scenes stuff.

Maybe we should look more closely at how much attention Salem gets as he tends to go under the radar for fans and not appreciated for what he does.

Interesting take, LF

I just posted on the Salem thread that I think he should be dropped for his brain fades and turnovers

Seems more pronounced to me this year

2 minutes ago, jumbo returns said:

Interesting take, LF

I just posted on the Salem thread that I think he should be dropped for his brain fades and turnovers

Seems more pronounced to me this year

Yeah, I saw your post and chuckled a bit wondering if you would open this thread...

Salem is one of my faves so I can't fault him.  But even I was surprised to hear how valued he is and how much work op coaches put into him. 

Unfortunately not having our people at the ground the only feedback we get is what the camera or commentators show.  From what I saw last night quite a few hits or plays involving us weren't replayed.  So its hard to tell how much pressure is on players to dispose of the ball.  Even harder as there seems to be little overhead camera vision.

3 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Yeah, I saw your post and chuckled a bit wondering if you would open this thread...

Salem is one of my faves so I can't fault him.  But even I was surprised to hear how valued he is and how much work op coaches put into him. 

Unfortunately not having our people at the ground the only feedback we get is what the camera or commentators show.  From what I saw last night quite a few hits or plays involving us weren't replayed.  So its hard to tell how much pressure is on players to dispose of the ball.  Even harder as there seems to be little overhead camera vision.

He's an angry baby faced assassin on the field, but he needs to not ask for the ball when there are too many around him

Now that you've mentioned it, he is copping a lot of heat - not sure he's an effective kick on his non-preferred 

 

3 hours ago, The Chazz said:

Probably mentioned a million times elsewhere, but Gawn looks at his most dominant when our midfield actually move at a ruck contest.  It's why his hitout to advantage count is not as high as it should be, and why decent opposition mids shark him so easily.

While I like the guy, and have had a bit to do with him in a previous life, the midfield/stoppage coach needs an absolute rocket, if not moved on totally.

Great post, mate. I think the midfield group has been stuck between being overly attacking and being more accountable to their opponents if the opposition sharks Max's taps. Thing is, it's ironically meant that we're not active enough at stoppages.

I sometimes wonder if we should occasionally spread the mids out in around the ground stoppages, as in, have them stand back 5 metres, and vary this at every stoppage, so that Max can become more aggressive with his tapping and if the opposition ruckman taps it, our mids can still close in on them being 5 metres back and affect the quality of the clearance. Would also give our guys an ability to 'hit' the stoppages at pace a bit more, with essentially a run up.

I'm not saying I'd use it every time, otherwise it becomes predictable, but I think our stoppage set ups could do with a bit more innovation. 

Edited August 6, 20204 yr by A F

3 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

He makes some interesting comments about Salem. 

He likes how Melb put the ball into his hands as he is our best user.  And that Jade Rawlings knows his game and North will come after Salem to minimise his impact.  And he said watch out if they go after Salem dees players will come out swinging as they absolutely love that guy! 

Just shows how much we don't know about the value of a player within club land and behind the scenes stuff.

Maybe we should look more closely at how much attention Salem gets as he tends to go under the radar for fans and not appreciated for what he does.

I hope they love him.  Against the pies will be his 100th. Really want to Win that game. 

The guys sounds pretty delusional to me. Gawn is a good player but not close to being the best in the competition or a generational talent. Salem is just an average regular player, nothing more, nothing less. He regularly struggles against the high pressure teams. Most teams would have a more damaging half back flanker.

If Gawn keeps up his form, he will go down as the best ruck in the history of the game. He is that dominant. Good player all around the ground. Good to see Jennings put him into the conversation with the greats. He isn't there yet though. 

16 minutes ago, KingDingAling said:

If Gawn keeps up his form, he will go down as the best ruck in the history of the game. He is that dominant. Good player all around the ground. Good to see Jennings put him into the conversation with the greats. He isn't there yet though. 

Short memory, Dean Cox had better skills than any of our midfielders.

2 hours ago, A F said:

He also talks about the importance of having multiple strings to your bow and to just be a contest team is not enough. He then proceeded to analyse the Gold Coast v St Kilda game as a tale of two game styles, saying neither game style was better or worse than the other. To me, this is a contradiction. One is about getting the ball to the outside and other is about keeping it tight and contested. He then says St Kilda are a great scoring team, well, they play a contested style, so as long as it's not Melbourne playing the contested style it's alright? Is that what you're saying, Jenno? 

I see what you're saying about him being contradictory but I think you can play 2 different styles without being overly reliant on one or the other.

The Saints are the outside team, the Suns are the contest team. But the Saints still have Steele, Jones and others hunting the contest, just as the Suns have Weller, Lukosius and Ellis with some skilled outside game. 

To compare to super teams the Hawks loved to get it on the outside and use their skills, whilst the Cats sure didn't lack for skills but their game plan was to run through sides and hit up Mooney at CHF and bring the contest in to the game.

The Suns best footy still uses lots of skill and spread but they make sure they have numbers at the ball and play directly so it stays in the contest. The Saints prefer to get it out to guys like Billings, Hill and Butler and get running.

9 minutes ago, Watts the matter said:

Short memory, Dean Cox had better skills than any of our midfielders.

Cox was probably equal to Gawn as a tap ruckman (Max is good but he's not Nic Nat), 80% as good as a marking option around the ground (better forward) and twice as good as a midfielder with the ball in motion. As good as Max is and as strong as his influence on games is he won't have the career Cox had.

45 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

Cox was probably equal to Gawn as a tap ruckman (Max is good but he's not Nic Nat), 80% as good as a marking option around the ground (better forward) and twice as good as a midfielder with the ball in motion. As good as Max is and as strong as his influence on games is he won't have the career Cox had.

And Cox played in the centre square with Judd, Kerr and Cousins.  Hard to believe that side only won the single flag - by a point!

57 minutes ago, Swooper1987 said:

And Cox played in the centre square with Judd, Kerr and Cousins.  Hard to believe that side only won the single flag - by a point!

It would be hard to play consistent football when your weekends were as big theirs....