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7 hours ago, KingDingAling said:

Grundy to MFC just defies logic. We already have an established ruck. Best in the league. Gawn isn’t a good forward and neither is Grundy. Both are just sole rucks. Why we would pay top dollar for an excess big man that we don’t need, whilst desperately needing to recruit a key forward - it’s beyond me. It’s actually just stupid. Reminds me of the Lakers recruiting Westbrook. Just a bad fit that would never work, and now they are stuck with a fat contract they cannot move. If rumored numbers are correct we’ll be paying 700k for a second ruck. Just plain bad list management.

Gawn is more than a capable forward. Where did you get 700k from? That would mean he comes as a fourth round pick. Collingwood would be paying half his salary guaranteed. The only problem is should he be a first rounder or a second rounder. I don't think he's any better than Ben Brown who was a second rounder.

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42 minutes ago, WERRIDEE said:

Gawn is more than a capable forward. Where did you get 700k from? That would mean he comes as a fourth round pick. Collingwood would be paying half his salary guaranteed. The only problem is should he be a first rounder or a second rounder. I don't think he's any better than Ben Brown who was a second rounder.

Gawn is a poor forward. 2 goals in 7 games

aside from that Prelim last year he hasn’t shown he can be a consistent forward

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1 hour ago, DubDee said:

Gawn is a poor forward. 2 goals in 7 games

aside from that Prelim last year he hasn’t shown he can be a consistent forward

He's not a poor forward but he's not a good forward either. He's a capable forward. If McDonald comes in Gawn as the 3rd tall could cause problems. 

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32 minutes ago, WERRIDEE said:

He's not a poor forward but he's not a good forward either. He's a capable forward. If McDonald comes in Gawn as the 3rd tall could cause problems. 

.Not really sure what ‘capable’ means in this context…

One thing that can’t be argued is he is inconsistent up frwd and is an absolutely terrible shot for goal, which annoyingly is an important skill for the position. His goal accuracy this yr is 34% which is in the worst bracket for performance in the comp…. The majority of NBA teams have a more efficient 3 point average than Max has accurate shots at the big sticks.

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10 hours ago, DubDee said:

Gawn is a poor forward. 2 goals in 7 games

aside from that Prelim last year he hasn’t shown he can be a consistent forward

You realise he only plays 30% forward in terms of game time?  He misses goals he should kick, but he's the best contested mark in the competition. 

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6 minutes ago, grazman said:

You realise he only plays 30% forward in terms of game time?  He misses goals he should kick, but he's the best contested mark in the competition. 

He’s played more than 30% in recent weeks, and he’s the best contested mark as a ruck, taking on opposition rucks and dropping behind the ball. Marking as a forward - and the leading patterns required - is a completely different skill set.

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23 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

He’s played more than 30% in recent weeks, and he’s the best contested mark as a ruck, taking on opposition rucks and dropping behind the ball. Marking as a forward - and the leading patterns required - is a completely different skill set.

In his press conference Simon Goodwin just sad that max played "64-65% ruck time last week" as he has consistently, he played 91% game time, so 91% - 64% = 27% forward time.

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16 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

He’s played more than 30% in recent weeks, and he’s the best contested mark as a ruck, taking on opposition rucks and dropping behind the ball. Marking as a forward - and the leading patterns required - is a completely different skill set.

He attended 56% of all ruck contests against Sydney. That's basically the same as his 53% rate for 2022 and 58% in 2021. He averages 89% game time in 2022, which means that he spends about 35% of his time on the field NOT as the primary ruck. This also includes the times where he is just playing behind the ball.

Gawn is the best contested mark in the league and teams absolutely wet themselves when the ball is kicked near him. The leading patterns required of a footballer 20 years ago (or even 5 years ago) are very different to now .... since 2017 nobody has even kicked 70 goals, let alone 100. Brendan Fevola was the last player to even surpass 80 goals, which was in 2009. You don't need to be able to lead for the ball anymore because you don't play as much one on one with a zone defence. What you do need is a player that can take advantage of a weakness in the zone (eg, a weaker opponent nearby) or to be able to mark/influence a contest against a set defence. Max does both of those. 

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4 minutes ago, Axis of Bob said:

He attended 56% of all ruck contests against Sydney. That's basically the same as his 53% rate for 2022 and 58% in 2021. He averages 89% game time in 2022, which means that he spends about 35% of his time on the field NOT as the primary ruck. This also includes the times where he is just playing behind the ball.

Gawn is the best contested mark in the league and teams absolutely wet themselves when the ball is kicked near him. The leading patterns required of a footballer 20 years ago (or even 5 years ago) are very different to now .... since 2017 nobody has even kicked 70 goals, let alone 100. Brendan Fevola was the last player to even surpass 80 goals, which was in 2009. You don't need to be able to lead for the ball anymore because you don't play as much one on one with a zone defence. What you do need is a player that can take advantage of a weakness in the zone (eg, a weaker opponent nearby) or to be able to mark/influence a contest against a set defence. Max does both of those. 

Good data!

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47 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

he’s the best contested mark as a ruck, taking on opposition rucks and dropping behind the ball. Marking as a forward

There's an element of truth about this...contested marking is definitely harder as a forward where your opposition is generally trying to spoil but his marking is still a weapon there, he will rarely be out marked.

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9 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

He's not a poor forward but he's not a good forward either. He's a capable forward. If McDonald comes in Gawn as the 3rd tall could cause problems. 

Gawn has kick more than 10 goals in a season 4 times out of 11 seasons. 

In those seasons he has kicked

  • 12g 14b
  • 16g 17b
  • 13g 12b
  • 16g 11b

 

He is not a fwd.

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1 hour ago, DeeSpencer said:

He’s played more than 30% in recent weeks, and he’s the best contested mark as a ruck, taking on opposition rucks and dropping behind the ball. Marking as a forward - and the leading patterns required - is a completely different skill set.

The alternates to playing Gawn forward either aren't good enough or aren't ready.  So it's Gawn.  If Gawn plays more in the ruck, we'd have to go in with one key forward (Brown) and/or Jackson will have to play forward (and that's a big ask)

They might pick Van Rooyen but to my way of thinking, that selection would be half a season too late and we'd be expecting a lot of the lad.  He isn't a future Dermie (Brereton debuted in a final) but if he did somehow turned out to be that good a player, it's wishful thinking right now anyway.  The stuff of dreams

As for T-Mac, even he conceded that he could run around ok but the rest of it was going to be a test

No change unless Petracca is out.  Van Rooyen might get a call up but it's a big ask expecting the lad to shine in his first game (a final to boot)

And if Petracca is available we might be better suited with him having a role in the forward line (thus, alleviating the onus on Gawn)

I'm all for taking risks but those risks need to be calculated risks

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1 hour ago, Axis of Bob said:

He attended 56% of all ruck contests against Sydney. That's basically the same as his 53% rate for 2022 and 58% in 2021. He averages 89% game time in 2022, which means that he spends about 35% of his time on the field NOT as the primary ruck. This also includes the times where he is just playing behind the ball.

Gawn is the best contested mark in the league and teams absolutely wet themselves when the ball is kicked near him. The leading patterns required of a footballer 20 years ago (or even 5 years ago) are very different to now .... since 2017 nobody has even kicked 70 goals, let alone 100. Brendan Fevola was the last player to even surpass 80 goals, which was in 2009. You don't need to be able to lead for the ball anymore because you don't play as much one on one with a zone defence. What you do need is a player that can take advantage of a weakness in the zone (eg, a weaker opponent nearby) or to be able to mark/influence a contest against a set defence. Max does both of those. 

I reckon he’s hit 40-50% in some late season games and hasn’t been a big scoreboard factor. Not that scores are the only metric of a forwards worth.

If we plan to spread the ball out more and move it faster (and we aren’t winning jack if we don’t) we need more than just bomb it to Max down the line out of him as a forward.

Obviously the days of Fev on the lead are over but even Mason Cox on his good days knows how to lead in to spots in the zone. Or someone like Tom Lynch is a big contested marker who gets out the back of zones. 

A good amount of forward time - as he’s played the last 2 years - is good for Max and the team. I just think he’s a ruck/forward and not a forward/ruck 

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26 minutes ago, DeeSpencer said:

Obviously the days of Fev on the lead are over but even Mason Cox on his good days knows how to lead in to spots in the zone.

Mason Cox has kicked 6 goals in 16 games this year, whilst averaging about 40% ruck time. He averages 0.7 marks inside 50 per game, whilst Max has averaged 1.1. Max is top 50 for marks inside 50 despite being a primary ruckman (23), with Darcy Cameron the next best on 16 and Tim English on 14 being the next highest rated primary ruckmen. 

The other thing it allows us to do is we can play fewer tall forwards when we know that we won't get beaten in an aerial contest. This allows us to play smaller forward lines where Kozzie can be a more attacking small forward or we can play more creative players like Laurie. Currently we need to play multiple talls because Brown can't reliably bring the ball to ground without a supporting tall to hold the pack. A kick to Lynch, McKay or Hawkins is , at worst, a crumbing opportunity because they won't be outmarked. This allows you to play more mobile players that can cause matchup problems (eg, Cameron, Curnow etc). We have the mobile forwards to make this work, but we need Max to take advantage of it.

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14 hours ago, WERRIDEE said:

Gawn is more than a capable forward. Where did you get 700k from? That would mean he comes as a fourth round pick. Collingwood would be paying half his salary guaranteed. The only problem is should he be a first rounder or a second rounder. I don't think he's any better than Ben Brown who was a second rounder.

Would you back Gawny, 20m out, straight in front to kick the goal? 50/50 proposition at best

I love Gawny but his goal kicking is not reliable

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