The 2021 Forwardline: What's our best mix?

[Adam The God 30,259]

One of the ongoing narratives of 2021 has been who makes up our best forwardline. Is it a horses for courses situation or should we be looking to lock in a consistent set up?

Given we've been able to get those early wins on the board, we're now able to experiment a bit more on what that best make up looks like.

At the start of pre season, it's clear we wanted Weideman and Brown to be in that mix and that we'd play McDonald up the ground on the wing and potentially as a mobile half forward (see the Fritsch role).

It's quite likely at this time, the club saw McDonald in direct competition with Brayshaw on the wing and Fritsch or Melksham in the forward half.

When Brown and Weideman both went down in pre season, it gave us a new set of problems, but it also gave Tom an opening, which I think is fair to say he's taken with impressive maturity.

Ironically, IMO Tom's form and Jackson's continued improvement has played a big part in us struggling to find the right position and synergy when it comes to Brown and Weideman. They clearly don't want to play all 4 talls, because they must think it messes with the pressure system.

As Alan Richardson said on SEN recently:

“The forward line is a little bit different and we still think it’s our best option to have the three talls.

“We’ll keep working with that model and we see ‘Weids’ as a big part of that.”

So it's clear we want 3 talls from Weideman, Jackson and one of Brown and McDonald. But I think we could be missing a trick here.

The key question and the potential trick to unlocking the synergy in the forward half is about whether we could use Jackson's versatility more through the midfield (as a genuine mid) and then as a pressure forward who is great at ground level.

Jackson is 1 of probably 5 players (Oliver, Petracca, Jordon, Salem and then Jackson) who is the cleanest below their feet. And he's been doing this in traffic too. So could we use him in the midfield in larger stints and then forward, and think of him as a tall playing small? He'd be a headache of a match up given his height and athleticism, and importantly, his cleanness.

We could then aim for all 4 talls, but I think they'd still like to keep Weideman and one of Brown or McDonald. Not all of them. I'd personally go with Brown before Weideman, but the club clearly holds a different view at the moment.

The other question hangs regarding the make up of our mid sized and smalls to compliment the talls. I've said for a while that not only do Melksham and Fritsch play a game that is not combative enough, but their functions appear to be too similar in our set up. 

IMV, we can't carry both, particularly if they're not hitting the scoreboard strongly every week. And even then, I'd argue that's a dangerous precedence to add to your forward set up that relies on pressure and locking the ball in our forward half. 

This similarity in the way Melksham and Fritsch play is why I think they've added Melksham to the midfield rotation to give him more versatility, but I don't think it's adding to our system as much as we could get from other tweaks.

For example, I'd much prefer to play Jackson in Melksham's role. We can also roll Harmes or Jordon or Sparrow or Viney through the midfield and that forward pressure role. Obviously, not all in the one team, but Jackson's versatility unlocks this potential depth in our team and system.

As for smalls, IMV we're a bit light on for them, but ANB, Spargo and Kozzie are obviously the three incumbent pressure forwards. Sparrow, Bedford and Chandler are back ups. So the rest of the rotations and role players need to come from the midfield rotation. Viney could be added to this group and they might look to play him through here more for a few weeks to protect his foot. Sparrow could also play this Melksham role where he plays majority forward and then rolls through the midfield for 4 or 5 centre bounces.

So where does all this leave us? I'd be interested to hear Demonlanders thoughts.

For mine, I think the best make up, form permitting, is Brown, McDonald, Jackson, Fritsch, Pickett, ANB, supported by Spargo, Viney and Petracca. While Viney is out, I think playing Harmes taking some forward time is a good idea as he's strong above his head, but rotating midfield with Petracca.

In reality though, I think the club will try to fit Weideman into this set up and if they don't want to play Jackson as a genuine mid yet, while McDonald keeps his form up, it's likely Brown that will sit it out.

[adonski 12,143]

We won't have our best mix til my boy Bailey Laurie is locked in

[Red But Mostly Blue 4,547]

5 minutes ago, A F said:

For mine, I think the best make up, form permitting, is Brown, McDonald, Jackson, Fritsch, Pickett, ANB, supported by Spargo, Viney and Petracca. While Viney is out, I think playing Harmes taking some forward time is a good idea as he's strong above his head, but rotating midfield with Petracca.

In reality though, I think the club will try to fit Weideman into this set up and if they don't want to play Jackson as a genuine mid yet, while McDonald keeps his form up, it's likely Brown that will sit it out.

Completely agree with this, especially Weideman's role. All communication from the Club seems to indicate they are committing to Weid (he's currently fit, younger, 'the future' etc.), which I am ok with - he needs time to build momentum and confidence at this level. IMO certainly capable. I also think Jackson would make a great tall mid capable of forward stints. A real matchup headache. 

It causes problems, though. Because we have paid good money for Brown, and we will want a return on that at some point. There's no way we planned for TMac/Jackson's respective efforts this year. So with the push to focus on Weideman, I wonder how they will address Brown going forward. 

[deebug 1,754]

11 minutes ago, adonski said:

We won't have our best mix til my boy Bailey Laurie is locked in

Hope he gets a game this year?

 

[Adam The God 30,259]

5 minutes ago, RedButMostlyBlue said:

Completely agree with this, especially Weideman's role. All communication from the Club seems to indicate they are committing to Weid (he's currently fit, younger, 'the future' etc.), which I am ok with - he needs time to build momentum and confidence at this level. IMO certainly capable. I also think Jackson would make a great tall mid capable of forward stints. A real matchup headache. 

It causes problems, though. Because we have paid good money for Brown, and we will want a return on that at some point. There's no way we planned for TMac/Jackson's respective efforts this year. So with the push to focus on Weideman, I wonder how they will address Brown going forward. 

Brown will get his turn, but I don't think the club will be too worried about the money paid to Brown. I think they'll love having him as depth and putting pressure on McDonald, who it must be said, has had some pretty erratic form slumps across his career. 

[Ted Lasso 19,518]

In terms of our best on paper forward line, not taking into account the rest of the ground i'd say 

 

Petracca     McDonald     Neal-Bullen 

Fritsch     B.Brown         Pickett 

with Spargo rotating through. 

obviously Jackson for example offers a lot to the team, but purely as a forward i wouldn't have him in the mix 

and i still rate Brown a touch higher than Weid, that may change by the end of the year. 

and Petracca is a very handy forward option, but obviously vital in the middle these days 

[Red But Mostly Blue 4,547]

2 minutes ago, A F said:

Brown will get his turn, but I don't think the club will be too worried about the money paid to Brown. I think they'll love having him as depth and putting pressure on McDonald, who it must be said, has had some pretty erratic form slumps across his career. 

This is a good point. It's been a very long time since we've been able to say we have someone of Brown's caliber as depth! Tmac must be feeling that he pretty much has to play out of his skin every week to keep the gig!

[Adam The God 30,259]

9 minutes ago, RedButMostlyBlue said:

This is a good point. It's been a very long time since we've been able to say we have someone of Brown's caliber as depth! Tmac must be feeling that he pretty much has to play out of his skin every week to keep the gig!

Yep, and that pressure is great for ensuring we rarely drop off in performance. ?

[Bring-Back-Powell 14,833]

This is a very shallow analysis but we've played our best footy of the year with T Mac and Fritta as our number 1 and 2 key forwards respectively with Gawn playing deep for 30% of matches.

The Richmond and Geelong wins were out best for the year while we looked extremely dangerous against GWS and logged 31 scoring shots against St Kilda. We played the T Mac/Fritta/resting ruck structure in all those games.

I think Fritta plays better with more responsibility of being the number 2 forward.

I've been disappointed with Weideman. He's going at 0.5 goals a game and just 4 marks. It's not good enough.

If Weid fails tonight, I'd give BBB another shot for 3 weeks. If he's no good, then we go with what worked well for us in the early rounds, for the final 8 or so weeks. 

 

[Fat Tony 5,231]

3 hours ago, A F said:

As Alan Richardson said on SEN recently:

“The forward line is a little bit different and we still think it’s our best option to have the three talls.

“We’ll keep working with that model and we see ‘Weids’ as a big part of that.”

So it's clear we want 3 talls from Weideman, Jackson and one of Brown and McDonald. 

 

I did not read from Richardson's interview that Weideman was a lock. Far from it. Just that we currently feel thata our best side includes three of Weideman, Jackson, Brown and McDonald.

Personally, I think our best forward line is the one that has been selected tonight. While we had a number of players with little impact last weekend, as a whole our Forward Efficiency was 56%, which was 5% up on our season average. We were just pipped by a side that had everything go the Crow's way (they played well, kicked straight, we dropped marks in defence and, of course, the umpiring).

 

[old dee 23,791]

7 minutes ago, Fat Tony said:

I did not read from Richardson's interview that Weideman was a lock. Far from it. Just that we currently feel thata our best side includes three of Weideman, Jackson, Brown and McDonald.

Personally, I think our best forward line is the one that has been selected tonight. While we had a number of players with little impact last weekend, as a whole our Forward Efficiency was 56%, which was 5% up on our season average. We were just pipped by a side that had everything go the Crow's way (they played well, kicked straight, we dropped marks in defence and, of course, the umpiring).

 

But we didn't win! Please don't tell me you think Weidman played well.

[loges 6,767]

1 hour ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

This is a very shallow analysis but we've played our best footy of the year with T Mac and Fritta as our number 1 and 2 key forwards respectively with Gawn playing deep for 30% of matches.

The Richmond and Geelong wins were out best for the year while we looked extremely dangerous against GWS and logged 31 scoring shots against St Kilda. We played the T Mac/Fritta/resting ruck structure in all those games.

I think Fritta plays better with more responsibility of being the number 2 forward.

I've been disappointed with Weideman. He's going at 0.5 goals a game and just 4 marks. It's not good enough.

If Weid fails tonight, I'd give BBB another shot for 3 weeks. If he's no good, then we go with what worked well for us in the early rounds, for the final 8 or so weeks. 

 

Totally agree.

[Supermercado 2,797]

Weid has to start taking marks inside 50. Not going to argue with anyone marking up the ground, but it's crossing over with what McDonald and Jackson do.

Also I'm not writing off Brown this quickly. He started slowly in his first game of the year, was good in his second, and had a rotten one in the wet when he and Weid shouldn't have both been playing. I'm 51% Weid at the moment but if he doesn't perform tonight I'm willing to change.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Supermercado

[Fat Tony 5,231]

9 minutes ago, old dee said:

But we didn't win! Please don't tell me you think Weidman played well.

We didn't win because of our poor defence. The Crows scored 96 from 47 inside 50s. Prior to the Crows game, our highest score against was 73. And the Crows game was the second lowest Inside 50s against for the year.

Weideman didn't play well. Nor did Fritsch, Spargo, Melksham or TMac. But part of the reason why the forwards had relatively low statistical impact was that we were efficient in generating scores (which is the aim). We had 7 more inside 50s but 37 less possession. Essentially we had a lot of quiet forwards but the structure actually worked pretty well.

 

[old dee 23,791]

4 minutes ago, Fat Tony said:

We didn't win because of our poor defence. The Crows scored 96 from 47 inside 50s. Prior to the Crows game, our highest score against was 73. And the Crows game was the second lowest Inside 50s against for the year.

Weideman didn't play well. Nor did Fritsch, Spargo, Melksham or TMac. But part of the reason why the forwards had relatively low statistical impact was that we were efficient in generating scores (which is the aim). We had 7 more inside 50s but 37 less possession. Essentially we had a lot of quiet forwards but the structure actually worked pretty well.

 

But we did not win Tony. All the rest means zip.

[Dr.D 1,771]

I don't think we can say Ben Brown is in our best forward line. He isn't even good enough to make our team at the moment. And rightly so.

[Engorged Onion 10,215]

32 minutes ago, Dr.D said:

I don't think we can say Ben Brown is in our best forward line. He isn't even good enough to make our team at the moment. And rightly so.

Good positive chat as always Dr.

Mind you, the medical profession does look at things from a deficit model.

[Adam The God 30,259]

45 minutes ago, Fat Tony said:

We didn't win because of our poor defence. The Crows scored 96 from 47 inside 50s. Prior to the Crows game, our highest score against was 73. And the Crows game was the second lowest Inside 50s against for the year.

Weideman didn't play well. Nor did Fritsch, Spargo, Melksham or TMac. But part of the reason why the forwards had relatively low statistical impact was that we were efficient in generating scores (which is the aim). We had 7 more inside 50s but 37 less possession. Essentially we had a lot of quiet forwards but the structure actually worked pretty well.

 

I'd argue the Crows were able to score because our forwards failed to lay enough tackles.

[Cyclops 511]

Would love to see a tall who is a one grab mark. It is not Jackson nor is it Weideman. At times it is McDonald but it is certainly not BBB this season.