Farewell Brodie Grundy

[DeeSpencer 25,341]

1 hour ago, A F said:

This is about the best post on this thread.

Max behind the ball frees up May, Lever and Petty significantly and brings their intercept into the game, as teams will need to avoid Max at all costs.

It could also mean we could afford to shift Petty forward and play Turner in his place.

If Grundy is fit, it could be a master stroke.

Max never deliberately played behind the ball though. He pushed back from the ruck after we slowed teams ball movement.

Do reliable tall targets forward of the ball allow the ruck to sit back more - yes. But we can get that with 3 tall forwards if we have them (or recruit them).

Grundy rucking 50%+ immediately takes away from Gawn floating back from the ruck, and whilst he’s not bad at it Grundy isn’t nearly as good as a backline marker. Plus having an immobile ruck up forward takes away from the forward pressure required to slow ball movement and allow the big ruck to sit back to begin with.

 

[Bring-Back-Powell 14,668]

I hope the MFC has done a massive amount of due diligence with Grundy's 2022 injury issues. Last thing we need is for him to be on the side lines next year.

The acquisition  doesn't 100% make sense as we want Gawn spending way less time next year in the forward line than this year. Can only imagine the club are still keen on the 2 key forward/1 resting ruck model that won us a flag. Thus Gawn more likely to play more minutes than Grundy up forward.

So I expect next year's forward line to mostly look like:

ANB/Spargo   T Mac  Pickett

Gawn   BBB/JVR    Fritsch

T Mac, BBB and JVR to fight for 2 spots.

Is that a forward line to contend for next year's flag? Time will tell.

 

 

 

[DeeSpencer 25,341]

1 hour ago, Demon3 said:

The set up of our defence will be just as interesting as our fwd line next season in my opinion. The elephant in the room might be Jake Lever if teams continue to play against us as they did, his season while interrupted was pretty poor, not a player in the competition relies more on the team playing the way Melbourne do and holding the opposition up. We didnt do that last half of the season.. he was rendered useless at times. 

In saying that,  i still think Grundy will be a good addition.

Teams mostly shifted away from trying to combat Lever with a 3rd tall and instead put pressure on him to man up smalls. He was often on Walters, Ginnivan and McCarthy late in the season.

When we held teams up he had the better of that match up, when opposition broke through he couldn’t keep up. And like most of our backline he offered so little in attack. Honestly the attacking work rate from our back 7 was deplorable this year.

I just hope they’ve got long enough over summer to fix his issues and get him fully fit. I’d rather they set a time line that ends a few rounds in to the season but has Jake at peak fitness than get him in for round 1. We’ve seen the impact of chronic plantar fasciitis/ankle/foot drama with Jack Viney and we can’t repeat that.

[Adam The God 29,990]

10 hours ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Not sure about Max (or Grundy) behind the ball. 

I think that belongs in the 'it was a 2021 tactic' basket.  It worked in the first part of this year but when we played Geelong they did everything but kick it high into f50 or anywhere near where Max was. 

Other teams have followed that with varying degrees of success.  Not sure Max behind the ball is the same weapon in future that it was in 2021.

The new mantra to play against Melbourne:  keep the ball low into f50 where Melb struggle to defend.  Every team will try that tactic in 2023 so fixing that part of our defensive game will be a key for 2023 success.

That's about pressure at the ball carrier though. Get that right and teams start kicking it back to our interceptors. including potentially Max.

Edited September 14, 2022 by A F

[rpfc 28,220]

With Grundy our forward line becomes Gawn centred.

Gawn deep, with TMac/Brown up the ground, a couple of crumbers and the rest lead up forwards otherwise we are too top heavy next to Gawn:

Spargo McDonald JVR

Fritsch Gawn Pickett

Melksham/Medium forward on bench.

[Axis of Bob 11,592]

3 hours ago, mo64 said:

I didn't see much evidence of us counter attacking from the back half.

Just because we didn't counterattack well (we really lost a lot of run from the back half with Salem hobbled, Bowey out, and Rivers and Hunt offering very little offensive punch this year) doesn't mean that having the opposition kick inside 50 slow and short is bad defending. This was especially obvious when Brayshaw went back into the midfield.  

Also our pressure around the ball was down on last year, which means that it's a lot easier for the opposition to avoid being counterattacked.

2 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

The acquisition  doesn't 100% make sense as we want Gawn spending way less time next year in the forward line than this year.

Hard disagree. They will want him spending a lot less time in the ruck than this year, not more, given that he's a 31 year old behemoth that's had 3 knee reconstructions. Keeping Max going as long as possible would surely be the number 1 priority, and having him be smashed in the ruck for 80% of the game is the worst way to do that. 

Getting a big brawler to bully the ruck contests means that we can protect Max and use him to dominate the highest leverage aerial contests (wherever they may be). 

Edited September 14, 2022 by Axis of Bob

[The heart beats true 18,076]

11 hours ago, KingDingAling said:

Nonsensical trade. We need a quality forward.

Which one you thinking? I haven’t heard a single quality forward is available? McStay is a third tall, and half the player Fritsch is in the same role.

I’m open to hearing options for forwards, but I doubt there’s anyone good available. Jackson wasn’t a forward. He was a ruckman and around the ground spare ruck rover. Interestingly the best comparison is the guy we are bringing in - except the guy we are bringing in is also a 2 time All Australian, and a much better, and more experienced, footy player. Oh yeah, and he’ll cost us 250k a year less than the bloke who left will get. Swap Grundy for Jackson and we are instantly a much better side the next 2-3 years.

And if Max goes down what do we do then? Spargo in the ruck? Pinch hitting with Bowey?

Edited September 14, 2022 by The heart beats true

[KingDingAling 3,752]

24 minutes ago, The heart beats true said:

Which one you thinking? I haven’t heard a single quality forward is available? McStay is a third tall, and half the player Fritsch is in the same role.

I’m open to hearing options for forwards, but I doubt there’s anyone good available. Jackson wasn’t a forward. He was a ruckman and around the ground spare ruck rover. Interestingly the best comparison is the guy we are bringing in - except the guy we are bringing in is also a 2 time All Australian, and a much better, and more experienced, footy player. Oh yeah, and he’ll cost us 250k a year less than the bloke who left will get. Swap Grundy for Jackson and we are instantly a much better side the next 2-3 years.

And if Max goes down what do we do then? Spargo in the ruck? Pinch hitting with Bowey?

That’s why we could acquire Meek in the Jackson deal. To cover Gawn.

There may be no good forwards available this year but why hinder us salary wise from trading for good forwards the next 5-6 years.

Paying Grundy big money to be a back up just in case Gawn goes down - is bad management. What do we even do with 2 stand alone rucks who can not play forward? Grundy is a terrible kick and Gawn worse. Whoever told Gawn he should attempt as many goals as he does should be sacked on the spot the bloke is a shocking kick. Now we are adding another bad kick in Grundy and paying him as much as we would pay a quality young forward.

[Its Time for Another 4,184]

2 hours ago, A F said:

That's about pressure at the ball carrier though. Get that right and trams start kicking it back to our interceptors. including potentially Max.

Spot on. There were a series of failures in the system this year that culminated in easy controlled i50's against us and away from Lever and May. For some reason I don't know we started to lose contests and clearances which is the starting point for our Game plan. (Our pressure rating dropped from 3 last year to 16 this year and 3rd for clearances in 1st 10 rounds and finish at 13th.) Once we lost these particularly in our forward half we seemed to have lost last year's brilliant defensive transition by the end of the season we were only better than North and the Eagles in stopping teams going from their defensive i50 to forward i50. That's a mind blowing drop off. Plus in losing those contests we were put under pressure which resulted in a lot more turnovers and statistically we ended up being right at the bottom for scores against from turnovers. Swans kicked 11 goals from turnovers. This loss of contest pressure was also evident in trapping the ball inside our own forward 50 so a lot of the transition started from there. I don't know why we lost our setup behind the ball especially in the second half of the season but my guess is we aren't set up for losing contests and that meant we didn't have time to setup behind the ball as other teams attacked ahead of us. 

Nathan Jones on SEN made a couple of interesting points. He mentioned how teams were easily scoring from our turnovers. Also mentioned that our inability to run enough to defend was not caused by lack of fitness but lack of efficiency. Someone else I heard also mentioned that you get a lot more tired chasing and not getting a result than you do running ahead of the ball and scoring. I guess the inefficiency includes how much we get it inside 50 but then fail to score so we have to expend a lot more energy to score than other teams. That might also apply to our inability to kick straight. For instance Trac went at 27% in Swans final and 39% v Lions. This can be partly explained by his injury but he hasn't been great all season and of course his kicking for goal has gone off a cliff. At one stage he was 19 goals 31 points and 17 out on the full. His percentage accuracy on goal was 28% which is the worst for the top 50 players. (These stats are coming from Robbo in the HS so take at your own peril)

I reckon nearly all of that is a matter of some fine tuning not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We're not that far off. Have a proper break this off season unlike last season. Come back fit and refreshed. Fix the forward system of delivery and leads although I hope getting Grundy doesn't signal that Goodwin's bomb it in strategy is going to continue by freeing up Gawn to stay down there even more as a bomb it in target rather than a leading target. Also hope they change this strategy to match BB's strength which is marking on a lead rather than being forced to try to mark in packs which was never his strong point. 

Edited September 14, 2022 by Its Time for Another

[Redleg 40,772]

2 hours ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Not sure about Max (or Grundy) behind the ball. 

I think that belongs in the 'it was a 2021 tactic' basket.  It worked in the first part of this year but when we played Geelong they did everything but kick it high into f50 or anywhere near where Max was. 

Other teams have followed that with varying degrees of success.  Not sure Max behind the ball is the same weapon in future that it was in 2021.

The new mantra to play against Melbourne:  keep the ball low into f50 where Melb struggle to defend.  Every team will try that tactic in 2023 so fixing that part of our defensive game will be a key for 2023 success.

And the team that really could have benefited with that tactic of keeping the ball low on I50 entry was us and we never employed it.

[DeeSpencer 25,341]

22 minutes ago, KingDingAling said:

That’s why we could acquire Meek in the Jackson deal. To cover Gawn.

There may be no good forwards available this year but why hinder us salary wise from trading for good forwards the next 5-6 years.

Paying Grundy big money to be a back up just in case Gawn goes down - is bad management. What do we even do with 2 stand alone rucks who can not play forward? Grundy is a terrible kick and Gawn worse. Whoever told Gawn he should attempt as many goals as he does should be sacked on the spot the bloke is a shocking kick. Now we are adding another bad kick in Grundy and paying him as much as we would pay a quality young forward.

I’m absolutely on record that I don’t want Grundy, but I think there might be push back on the big money aspect of it.

Gawn’s one of 2 Melbourne players who really does make money away from footy with marketing, plus his business interests. If he’s as unselfish as we’re lead to believe he might only be on 600k . Maybe we put the screws to the Pies and get Grundy down to 550-600k too. 

Given any starting calibre player makes 400k+ and even an in demand back up like Meek could fetch 300k it might not be all that much salary wise. 

It could be that we’re fine with our ruck budget being expensive and that it doesn’t hinder our ability to land a key forward for 2024. 

[Its Time for Another 4,184]

33 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

I’m absolutely on record that I don’t want Grundy, but I think there might be push back on the big money aspect of it.

Gawn’s one of 2 Melbourne players who really does make money away from footy with marketing, plus his business interests. If he’s as unselfish as we’re lead to believe he might only be on 600k . Maybe we put the screws to the Pies and get Grundy down to 550-600k too. 

Given any starting calibre player makes 400k+ and even an in demand back up like Meek could fetch 300k it might not be all that much salary wise. 

It could be that we’re fine with our ruck budget being expensive and that it doesn’t hinder our ability to land a key forward for 2024. 

Of course the other factor here is that Grundy has the total say on whether he goes or stays. If he says he'll only go to MFC and if Pies have to push him out to get whoever in they need then how much they pay of his salary and how low a pick they get back might be out of their hands if they want it to happen. Grundy can turn around and say ok no worries I don't want to leave anyway so I'm staying. 

[Diamond_Jim 12,497]

1 hour ago, Its Time for Another said:

Given any starting calibre player makes 400k+ and even an in demand back up like Meek could fetch 300k it might not be all that much salary wise. 

It's not really the money (it will be a minimum of $600k per year though) it's the remaining 6 year contract length.

Gawn has another 3 years on his contract so there's a balance there.

He'd better be fit !

[Wrecker46 2,955]

If we are looking for a forward go after Hipwood. He has destroyed us a few times.

 

[layzie 33,718]

2 hours ago, Diamond_Jim said:

It's not really the money (it will be a minimum of $600k per year though) it's the remaining 6 year contract length.

Gawn has another 3 years on his contract so there's a balance there.

He'd better be fit !

People conveniently gloss over the 6 remaining years part. If he gets injured again and again we'd be stuck with it. 

[Lucifers Hero 39,302]

Not that it makes much difference Grundy's contract has another 5 years, expiring in 2027.

[Sir Why You Little 36,884]

6 hours ago, mo64 said:

I didn't see much evidence of us counter attacking from the back half. I haven't got the stats in front of me, but I recall seeing that our scores from defensive rebounds was pretty low.

Salem not 100%
attacking from Halfback is crucial 

[Boots and all 1,000]

7 hours ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Not sure about Max (or Grundy) behind the ball. 

I think that belongs in the 'it was a 2021 tactic' basket.  It worked in the first part of this year but when we played Geelong they did everything but kick it high into f50 or anywhere near where Max was. 

Other teams have followed that with varying degrees of success.  Not sure Max behind the ball is the same weapon in future that it was in 2021.

The new mantra to play against Melbourne:  keep the ball low into f50 where Melb struggle to defend.  Every team will try that tactic in 2023 so fixing that part of our defensive game will be a key for 2023 success.

Yes, the low ball into F50 caused so many issues for us! Obviously this reduced intercept marks and we weren't then able to transition as quickly as a result.

Despite the low entries, I think our tall defenders still did a great job getting the ball to ground, Petty, May and to a lesser extent Lever did this really well. 

I thought the clean clearance and hitting targets when exiting defensive 50 was our biggest issue. We were 'Out Melbourned' so often with teams getting repeat entries, particularly in second halves.

I'm not sure if that is a system or personnel issue, but I agree, we need to clean this up for next year.

[buck_nekkid 5,839]

We assume the same system and ask ‘where does he fit?’  Perhaps the system will change and Grundy suits where we are going?  Also, what if Gawn is cooked?  Need to know more before i think of it as a good or bad move, but may, lever, lingers all were great pickups.

[BScotti 178]

What DL thoughts exist on including Liam Henry as part of Jackson deal to Freo? Steak knives?

Edited September 14, 2022 by BScotti

[Crystal Dees 372]

51 minutes ago, BScotti said:

What DL thoughts exist on including Liam Henry as part of Jackson deal to Freo? Steak knives?

LH was a real talent as junior,  was hoping we'd get him. I was surprised he hasn't shown it yet. Paul Haselby has absolutely bagged him saying he doesn't give 100% and said Freo should trade and run. 

A big yes for me on talent alone, but as we know that's only part of the package. 

[Adam The God 29,990]

7 hours ago, Its Time for Another said:

Spot on. There were a series of failures in the system this year that culminated in easy controlled i50's against us and away from Lever and May. For some reason I don't know we started to lose contests and clearances which is the starting point for our Game plan. (Our pressure rating dropped from 3 last year to 16 this year and 3rd for clearances in 1st 10 rounds and finish at 13th.) Once we lost these particularly in our forward half we seemed to have lost last year's brilliant defensive transition by the end of the season we were only better than North and the Eagles in stopping teams going from their defensive i50 to forward i50. That's a mind blowing drop off. Plus in losing those contests we were put under pressure which resulted in a lot more turnovers and statistically we ended up being right at the bottom for scores against from turnovers. Swans kicked 11 goals from turnovers. This loss of contest pressure was also evident in trapping the ball inside our own forward 50 so a lot of the transition started from there. I don't know why we lost our setup behind the ball especially in the second half of the season but my guess is we aren't set up for losing contests and that meant we didn't have time to setup behind the ball as other teams attacked ahead of us. 

Nathan Jones on SEN made a couple of interesting points. He mentioned how teams were easily scoring from our turnovers. Also mentioned that our inability to run enough to defend was not caused by lack of fitness but lack of efficiency. Someone else I heard also mentioned that you get a lot more tired chasing and not getting a result than you do running ahead of the ball and scoring. I guess the inefficiency includes how much we get it inside 50 but then fail to score so we have to expend a lot more energy to score than other teams. That might also apply to our inability to kick straight. For instance Trac went at 27% in Swans final and 39% v Lions. This can be partly explained by his injury but he hasn't been great all season and of course his kicking for goal has gone off a cliff. At one stage he was 19 goals 31 points and 17 out on the full. His percentage accuracy on goal was 28% which is the worst for the top 50 players. (These stats are coming from Robbo in the HS so take at your own peril)

I reckon nearly all of that is a matter of some fine tuning not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We're not that far off. Have a proper break this off season unlike last season. Come back fit and refreshed. Fix the forward system of delivery and leads although I hope getting Grundy doesn't signal that Goodwin's bomb it in strategy is going to continue by freeing up Gawn to stay down there even more as a bomb it in target rather than a leading target. Also hope they change this strategy to match BB's strength which is marking on a lead rather than being forced to try to mark in packs which was never his strong point. 

Great post mate.

We couldn't win ground balls and contests in the air in the second half of the season. We're a team that relies on controlled chaos. Force teams to dump kick, where we take intercepts or we mop up ground balls.

We're not a pin point disposal team, so if we don't win enough ground balls or contests in the air, our game falls apart.

[layzie 33,718]

22 hours ago, Lucifers Hero said:

Not sure about Max (or Grundy) behind the ball. 

I think that belongs in the 'it was a 2021 tactic' basket.  It worked in the first part of this year but when we played Geelong they did everything but kick it high into f50 or anywhere near where Max was. 

Other teams have followed that with varying degrees of success.  Not sure Max behind the ball is the same weapon in future that it was in 2021.

The new mantra to play against Melbourne:  keep the ball low into f50 where Melb struggle to defend.  Every team will try that tactic in 2023 so fixing that part of our defensive game will be a key for 2023 success.

I like the thinking and it's something different BUT there is a big difference between Max dropping back a kick behind play to take a relieving mark across half back and Max joining the back 6 unit and being expected to do everything that May, Lever and Petty do like killing air balls, playing zone and structure on a consistent basis. These guys clock in and work the boilermaker from start to finish and the cohesion like this needs to be built as a unit. To me there is a lot more homework and studying that needs to be done in defence and our defence in particular than up forward.

I do feel Max played his best footy as the drop back ruckman with the occasional stint up forward and maybe for another team dropping him back regularly might be an option but specifically for our defence  I think it's a bigger ask than having him play more time up forward which I'm not really the biggest fan of either. He would need to spend a lot of time training with the back group and this would be a lot to ask on top of continuing to hone his ruck craft I believe. Just my take on it. 

Edited September 14, 2022 by layzie

[old55 23,306]

Two years ago, Jeremy Cameron was one year younger than Grundy when he was traded for 13, 15 and 20 with 2 future 2nds back.  I think a late 1st is fair value for Grundy if Collingwood pick up 30% of his salary. 

[Colm 2,045]

8 minutes ago, old55 said:

Two years ago, Jeremy Cameron was one year younger than Grundy when he was traded for 13, 15 and 20 with 2 future 2nds back.  I think a late 1st is fair value for Grundy if Collingwood pick up 30% of his salary. 

That's probably is fair market value. But there are other factors in this trade, for one Grundy doesn’t want to leave and hasn’t put in a request. Another factor in this trade is that the Pies need him off the books in order to be able to afford to bring in their targets and give better contracts to their up and coming starts. 
If as reported we are the only club properly interest then it really does give us the upper hand. 
We don’t need to always be the nice guys in trading, if they want rid of him and we are the only club he’s will to go to then the market price is whatever we are will to give them in terms of $$$$ of his contract and picks.