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Greg Stafford - Forward Coach?


Cranky Franky

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FFS, listen to Gawn's admiration for Stafford, Goodwin's acknowledgement of his role, the fact that every other team has gone to work on us because of our  dominance, and people postulate he is no good because he wasn't a gun FF? Only ever been one good FF, that became a top coach and that was Norm Smith. Fair dinkum some folks should just learn to say 'thank you', we are bloody lucky to have Stafford on staff.

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1 hour ago, 1964_2 said:

Might need to do a bit more research there cranky. 141 goals, from 204 games. Pretty sure he didn’t score all of them from the ruck! Was an extremely accurate set shot as well. 

68% conversion. 141 goals, 66 behinds. Be in the top tier conversion of all time. 

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9 hours ago, Cranky Franky said:

Greg was a run of the mill ruckman & I was very surprised he got the fwd coach job. 

Seems like a nice guy but I'd have thought that u need to have played a lot of footy in a good forward line to get the gig.

Maybe a Sav Rocca or Stevie J or P Sumich.

I think our fwd line has been mostly dysfunctional since he took over.

 

Tell the truth Cranky Franky, you obviously thought Stafford took over someone the start of this year to come up with this theory 

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Due to both form and injury reasons for each of them, Ben Brown and Tom McDonald only played 11 games together in 2021 and they've only played 4 games together in 2022.

What could be pointed out is that when our forward line is fully available, it works pretty damn well. With Brown taking marks for shots, McDonald providing both connecting marks and pressure (like no other tall forward in the game, by the way), Fritsch playing a smart team game with movement that gets him out of the way of others and forces the opponents to spread awkwardly, and a bunch of small forward going hunter-killer all over the place.

Everyone knows their job and knows how to do it. Can't ask much more of a line coach.

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1 hour ago, 1964_2 said:

68% conversion. 141 goals, 66 behinds. Be in the top tier conversion of all time. 

Maybe but I recall most of his kicks were 20 m out & mainly directly in front.

I still maintain that our fwd line for most of this year & 2 thirds of last year has been pretty shambolic.

 

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12 hours ago, Engorged Onion said:

Spoiling for a fight @Cranky Franky? I'll land a couple of jabs as a response. 🥊

1) This is a forward line that won a premiership 17 games ago

2) Optics are one thing, and the stats are, we are scoring more per game than last year.

 

Hope he's got a decent chin EO!

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3 hours ago, Little Goffy said:

Due to both form and injury reasons for each of them, Ben Brown and Tom McDonald only played 11 games together in 2021 and they've only played 4 games together in 2022.

What could be pointed out is that when our forward line is fully available, it works pretty damn well. With Brown taking marks for shots, McDonald providing both connecting marks and pressure (like no other tall forward in the game, by the way), Fritsch playing a smart team game with movement that gets him out of the way of others and forces the opponents to spread awkwardly, and a bunch of small forward going hunter-killer all over the place.

Everyone knows their job and knows how to do it. Can't ask much more of a line coach.

Excellent summary.

Without T Mac our forward line doesn’t function as well, the evidence is overwhelming and the losses are starting to stack up.

Fritta has only kicked 6 goals in the last 4 games which suggest he’s struggling without T Mac as the opposition have the Luxury of putting a serious defender on him.

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12 hours ago, Cranky Franky said:

Maybe but I recall most of his kicks were 20 m out & mainly directly in front.

I still maintain that our fwd line for most of this year & 2 thirds of last year has been pretty shambolic.

 

Forward line not performing :- No arguments from me. 

Doesn’t mean it’s because of GS. And your reasons for why he shouldn’t be coach are clearly wrong (no experience as a forward) 

If his kicks were from 20m out he clearly had some strong forward craft to get shots on goal from the best positions. 

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17 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

'Worked us out' is such a cop out comment. It means nothing. Do you reckon all the oppo/strategy analysts and coaches spent the last few seasons sitting on their thumbs?

As for the kick outs, do you think maybe being predictable is part of the plan, ro do you reckon the coaches are just too lazy and/or don't know footy well enough to change it?

Sorry you cannot understand "worked us out" simple to me but...Has the cats changed the way they are playing? yes because teams worked them out where they would slow down play switch across the ground and go nowhere, has Carlton changed the way they play yes because you have to tweak how you go about things, it's simple. I also said it was a small teak inside the big picture, not a fail as you put it.

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A fine thread as any to place this observation.....I'm always intrigued as to why the more 'glass half empty' posters seem to have fewer 'reputation' points than posts...

Edited by Engorged Onion
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3 hours ago, 1964_2 said:

Forward line not performing :- No arguments from me. 

Doesn’t mean it’s because of GS. And your reasons for why he shouldn’t be coach are clearly wrong (no experience as a forward) 

If his kicks were from 20m out he clearly had some strong forward craft to get shots on goal from the best positions. 

Well all thatp means is that he is an accurate kick not that he is all that well versed in forward craft.

Maybe he is a decent fwd coach - I don't know but I'd  have thought it was a specialist position.

Everyone seems to agree that our fwd line isn't working as well as other areas.

When we keep banging away high balls that don't work & when our big fwds all lead to the same square metre of ground who is at fault ?

 

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15 minutes ago, Cranky Franky said:

Well all thatp means is that he is an accurate kick not that he is all that well versed in forward craft.

Maybe he is a decent fwd coach - I don't know but I'd  have thought it was a specialist position.

Everyone seems to agree that our fwd line isn't working as well as other areas.

When we keep banging away high balls that don't work & when our big fwds all lead to the same square metre of ground who is at fault ?

 

I think just hold fire from looking for blame for a couple of weeks.

The club plans to build from here, and be playing near its best approaching finals. They deserve everyone’s trust and faith to give this a chance to happen. 

We can assess what the forward line looks like, when we are playing closer to our best 

 

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Whatever the issues, which may in part lie with Stafford, if our forward line was humming we would be an unstoppable powerhouse and storming into the finals well clear on top of the table right now.

The fact that we arent and are now back in the mix with so many other teams tells the tale IMV.  Our forward line hasn't fired consistently all year and remains our biggest weakness and the reason why most teams don't fear us and rate their chances highly when coming into their matches against us.

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On 7/15/2022 at 4:54 PM, demon3165 said:

Because teams have worked us out, same as kick outs, out to the left out to the left, but as I said it is not a huge fix but it need changing.

Our play has been one dimensional this year yet we've still managed 12 wins and I do wonder if Goody has a range of moves up his sleeve that will be rolled out in finals and not before. This is what gives me hope that we haven't been overtaken by the contenders and that we will shock everyone come the end of the season. Whilst this may be a utopian view of the season, it is the hook on which my hat has been firmly hung.

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On 7/15/2022 at 5:00 PM, Lord Nev said:

'Worked us out' is such a cop out comment. It means nothing. Do you reckon all the oppo/strategy analysts and coaches spent the last few seasons sitting on their thumbs?

As for the kick outs, do you think maybe being predictable is part of the plan, ro do you reckon the coaches are just too lazy and/or don't know footy well enough to change it?

It's as much 'worked out' as working out how someone makes breakfast in the morning. Like after a while you know exactly how someone holds the frying pan, operates the toaster and heats the oven. You could say to the wife instead of holding the pan to the left to maybe try the right or even holding a shorter grip range on the handle. All this feedback is valuable until you get the inevitable frying pan to the head..

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On 7/15/2022 at 5:17 PM, Lord Nev said:

You'd have to sign up to Champion Data and try to find the ladder of scores from kick outs I guess.

But, we're second on the ladder despite a bit of bad luck with injury and the like so I'm not sure we need to be assuming we've noticed cracks in the plan that the coaches haven't.

It's not injuries putting us second....its playing patchy football,it's bad forward craft and surprisingly" loading" for half the season so we are not unbeatable in the last quarter like last year.

But almost no injuries last year helped....last year

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1 minute ago, layzie said:

Wonder who gets pot shotted next week?

I saw a couple of our players slip over today.

Are our footwear maintenance technicians state of the art or do we still have a load of old cobblers?

#Sackthebootstudder

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