Hrmm... I gently disagree. Not because I don't like Rivers having the ball, but because I don't like too much emphasis on 'player x should do this type of thing and player y should do that kind of thing'.

In my mind it is the Terry Wallace syndrome. Excessive designation of roles leaving players mentally limited and trying to follow rules that are about who and 'what' they are, instead of the situation they are in.

Ha, fun side note - I was just about to give a second example after Richmond under Wallace, and it was going to be the Bulldogs of the late 90s early 2000s.... under Terry Wallace. I'm comfortable with the name!

Coincidentally, I think Sydney's greatest strength is the spread of mid-sized players who are ready to do whichever task falls to them at that moment of play. Obviously it is a little easier when you have an extra four top-5 draft picks courtesy of special consideration for the commercial need to bias an entire competition to serve its most fickle supporter base, but they still do it well.

  On 13/03/2024 at 13:03, Little Goffy said:

Hrmm... I gently disagree. Not because I don't like Rivers having the ball, but because I don't like too much emphasis on 'player x should do this type of thing and player y should do that kind of thing'.

In my mind it is the Terry Wallace syndrome. Excessive designation of roles leaving players mentally limited and trying to follow rules that are about who and 'what' they are, instead of the situation they are in.

Ha, fun side note - I was just about to give a second example after Richmond under Wallace, and it was going to be the Bulldogs of the late 90s early 2000s.... under Terry Wallace. I'm comfortable with the name!

Coincidentally, I think Sydney's greatest strength is the spread of mid-sized players who are ready to do whichever task falls to them at that moment of play. Obviously it is a little easier when you have an extra four top-5 draft picks courtesy of special consideration for the commercial need to bias an entire competition to serve its most fickle supporter base, but they still do it well.

Your proving quite like a fickle supporter Gofgy not wanting JUH “ no tight type of player for us” and now saying don’t try and artificially involve Riv in our forward set ups as it upsets a team ?

It is understandable if overdone but it’s just good footy to get the ball on some players hands more than others. Who we old you want yo get a pass from JV or Lingers or Riv? No shame on the others but let’s be real. 

Whilst I get what you are saying @Little Goffy I disagree to a point. If we went 5-1 then it works, use that until it doesn’t then swap him out with Salem and do similar. 
We under used Salem for years. 
 

Making teams alter themselves to try and nullify one of our strengths is what you want, then see who wins or ensure we have a back up play the players know to switch to. Ie start Rivs at Hbf and he pushes up and Salem drops back etc. 

Spreading the load is great in theory, but we don’t have enough good kicks behind the ball to spread it around.

Gotta be flexible.

  On 13/03/2024 at 13:03, Little Goffy said:

Hrmm... I gently disagree. Not because I don't like Rivers having the ball, but because I don't like too much emphasis on 'player x should do this type of thing and player y should do that kind of thing'.

In my mind it is the Terry Wallace syndrome. Excessive designation of roles leaving players mentally limited and trying to follow rules that are about who and 'what' they are, instead of the situation they are in.

Ha, fun side note - I was just about to give a second example after Richmond under Wallace, and it was going to be the Bulldogs of the late 90s early 2000s.... under Terry Wallace. I'm comfortable with the name!

Coincidentally, I think Sydney's greatest strength is the spread of mid-sized players who are ready to do whichever task falls to them at that moment of play. Obviously it is a little easier when you have an extra four top-5 draft picks courtesy of special consideration for the commercial need to bias an entire competition to serve its most fickle supporter base, but they still do it well.

You may think that anyone at Sydney can do whatever is needed but that is a fallacy; teams like that are structured so well at stoppages and contests that the players that they want to get the ball on the outside or front of the play are the players that get the ball.

We have been good with this mostly due to our defensive wingers being on the outside although I don’t really rate Langdon’s kicking. 

We should be structuring up to get Rivers, Salem, McVee, Windsor, Bowey the ball and pushing CO, CP and JV to the next contest but we don’t. Because they are our best players and they must kick, sorry, dump the ball forward. 

Sorry bad mood this morning.

I really should have added a whole bunch of caveats, yeah. That's why I only 'gently' disagree with the original statement. But people already get annoyed with my occasional posts which resemble a wall of text!

I definitely agree that it is vital to have a structure and overall plan of movement which places as many players as possible in positions and roles which use their strengths and for recruitment to systematically cover that variety of roles.

I think what I was reacting to in the original post was the feeling that in a given moment in the game a player should be thinking about feeding it to Rivers. If you're inside a stoppage jungle with three howling gibbons chewing on your leg, feed it to whoever is in a better position. Hopefully the structure will mean that player is Rivers or Salem or Bowey, and not Alistair Nicholson.

Is anyone else anxious that our current team is going to end up like the Bulldogs from roughly the mid-90s to 2010? Some names which go into the history books and popular imagination for a generation, routine finals appearances, but always just a little short at the critical time? From 94 to 2010 they played 21 finals for just 6 wins, and only ever won a single final in any given season. Grim stuff.

They trained Rivers, Bowey, Howes, McVee all bursting from the back all summer.

Personally I think Riv is excellent at breaking through traffic but in terms of designated kickers Bowser was the one I was most excited to see. Howes now takes that role I hope (in preference to Salo). 

A lot of our players don’t seem convinced to give the quick handball though which is needed to get the footy to attacking flankers. Sydney had no qualms - especially as they are never pinged holding the ball - firing handballs in the backline. 

May is paralysed if he can’t turn on his left and kick. Tomlinson needs an hour and a traffic management crew to change direction. Gawn will consider it before deciding to hold play up and bomb it 60 to the opposition ruck. 

And that’s without the next piece of the puzzle which is midfielders and half  forwards who provide options that reward attacking backline play.

We dumped it to Langdon and Hunter all year last year because they were always open (deep and sideways, but open). Midfield Salem is so vital because he can work in pockets of space to attract the footy. ANB is always on his bike. Tracc and Clarry demand the pill. But we need more and with more cohesion.