Forward line questions

[Go Ds 335]

What changed so much from 2021? Were Ben Brown and TMac getting injured/losing form/going to defence such a huge wound to our forward set-up? Or was it more that we had so many more/better inside 50s?

[Dee Viney Intervention 2,028]

5 hours ago, Adam The God said:

I hold out hope for K Brown too in this respect. He's a good crumber, is he a reliable finisher?

I have high hopes as well. One thing we do know about him is that he will chase and tackle. Standards need to be set on forward pressure and any forward that won’t do it consistently should spend some time at Casey. In a team that employs a zone defence we need players that are prepared to really pressure the ball carrier to force that turnover. If there is a team that concedes more end to end goals than Melbourne I would love know who they are. Would love to see K. Brown given a real opportunity. 

Edited March 4 by Dee Viney Intervention

[picket fence 18,186]

4 hours ago, Kev said:

Disruptive with JVR going out early.

The smalls are unreliable, using mids as half-forward is a bit, fill gap. We really need explosive smalls, get ball and go, stop quick exits and lock it in.

We need natural readers of the play.

Our clearances are much better when Tracc was on-ball.

Viney calls for it when he is out-matched, needs to have more cognizance. 

I think they have made a mistake with Windsor off the backline (a few tackled got away from him), he loves a goal.

Fritsch looks lost playing a high forward. 

We need the experience of Melky.

Mentha could get a look.

Chandler needs consistency, he can kick but just doesn't seem get to the right areas.

Billings needs to put his head over the ball, look at it, then kick through. He appears to try a "feel" with the ball, that did not work in Mandurah. Will the thing through the posts. 

Great that we are getting good looks within the 50 arc.

"Natural readers of play"??, yeah well Jeffo is in the sin bin! But he is a Natural reader of the ball, has sticky hands, gets good separation and good kick for goal, but obviously others are better at these things! OBVIOUSLY!

Edited March 4 by picket fence

[DeeSpencer 26,678]

33 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

It’s both, isn’t it?

There’s no doubt the quality of our entries has been too poor, generating too many low percentage shots from 40+ out on 45+ angles. I agree that comes from Goodwin/the FD believing that dominance of forward half territory was the way to go. 

But we lose enough games on expected score to tell us that we should be scoring more from the shots we do generate. We have unreliable kicks all over the field and, excluding Fritsch and Turner, that includes our forwards in set shots. 

JVR is a good set shot too.

But really I’m suspect on expected score from non set shots, especially when it’s wild kicks under pressure.

[Adam The God 30,731]

3 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

Not for me, I maintain our issue is we prioritise volume of inside 50’s over quality. 

How many marks in the big scoring zones (inside 20 or inside the corridor within 40) do we get per game?

How many runs in to an open goal plays do we get?

We need half backs who kick to space and run, we need mids who find the footy in space and we need to use the corridor and diagonal plays using half forwards to get deeper entries.

We have to attack in a way the good sides do to trouble our backline. 

 

We had Fritta and TMac miss shots from pretty much directly in front, 35m out against Collingwood in the QF in 23. Fritta practically missed his boot in the wet.

Our first clear shot on goal against Freo was Fritta 30m out directly in front.

Most of the set shots we take are completely gettable, we fluff them. And the games we are untouchable in are the games we convert most of our gettable shots. Think Round 23 against Brisbane 2022, where we scored 18.7.115.

Edited March 4 by Adam The God

[Redleg_Knowledge 36]

4 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

We had Fritta and TMac miss shots from pretty much directly in front, 35m out against Collingwood in the QF in 23. Fritta practically missed his boot in the wet.

Our first clear shot on goal against Freo was Fritta 30m out directly in front.

Most of the set shots we take are completely gettable, we fluff them. And the games we are untouchable in are the games we convert all our shots. Think Round 23 against Brisbane 2022.

Disagree. Games where are our dead-eye [censored] are off don't come around often. 

But games where we blaze at goal under pressure to register a behind happens way too often. Our inaccuracy comes mostly from open play shots on goal or set-shots from difficult angles. Very rarely does it come from easy set-shots missed by our best kicks. We just remember those easily because they're such anomalies. 

Edited March 4 by Redleg_Knowledge

[KozzyCan 973]

48 minutes ago, Go Ds said:

What changed so much from 2021? Were Ben Brown and TMac getting injured/losing form/going to defence such a huge wound to our forward set-up? Or was it more that we had so many more/better inside 50s?

Much better/deeper entries, got it in quicker so we could hit players one on one or ping it around by hand to get decent shots on goal.

Basically just more time and space.

[Kev 10,926]

1 hour ago, picket fence said:

"Natural readers of play"??, yeah well Jeffo is in the sin bin! But he is a Natural reader of the ball, has sticky hands, gets good separation and good kick for goal, but obviously others are better at these things! OBVIOUSLY!

Jeffo will get a go, does enough adequately. I  believe there is a good possibility that he will blossom in the big league. A bit like AMW did.

Looking bigger this year, playing the ground ball well, has confidence to take on multiple opponents. He is often free and lurking on the opponents blind side and always moving.

Needs to demand the ball, looks for the easy boundary side get, appears a little slow when defending. 

Edited March 4 by Kev

[John Demonic 5,988]

Edited March 4 by John Demonic

[greenwaves 516]

Matthew Lloyd said on Footy Classified yesterday that Van Rooyen won't be the player people are expecting.  He said he's poor at ground level.  Rather disheartening.  

I don't read replies or reactions 

[Go Ds 335]

57 minutes ago, KozzyCan said:

Much better/deeper entries, got it in quicker so we could hit players one on one or ping it around by hand to get decent shots on goal.

Basically just more time and space.

Maybe. But our least accurate H&A season recently WAS in 2021!

[Simon Port 205]

Our most effective forward 7 IMO will be:

HF: Petracca Turner Sharp

FF: Pickett Van Rooyen Fritsch 

B: Johnson

I think Trac needs to play more deep forward this year. Having Johnson in the side takes another big defender which can free up Roo and Disco. He's highly competitive and him as the 2nd ruck means Roo can play full time forward.

Sharp will play the Nibbla role with his defensive run and line breaking abilities being important to the side.

It's frustrating Mcadam got injured because in that internal match he looked like he was finally fit and he's a natural forward.

Sparrow will play a fair bit forward and I think his strength, overhead marking for his size and booming kick could bode well.

Tholstrup will hopefully come back and provide some much needed spark, energy and excitement. He's a medium sized marking option who could be a threat with his aggression. Generally all of the good forwards have some aggression and grunt to their game.

Other options include Matty Jefferson who could work well as a third option as he's still not strong enough when he matches up against bigger bodies. I would even consider Tmac as an option down there as a big body if we sustain any injuries.

A lot of demonlanders will also hate me saying this but, I still do think Petty could be a wildcard down there if Tmac can slot into defence. He's finally fully fit and was saying after each game last year he could hardly walk due to his lis franc recovery. He's a great mark and a good height which we are currently missing down there.

Chin is out of form and needs to lift and Spargo will take a long time to build back up to AFL.

Melksham is a proven goal kicker but, I'm not sure if his lack of speed and age will hurt us going back the other way.

I think our biggest issue is there are a lot of options we could go to but, none are really jumping out at the page.

I'd say the only 4 players that are locks in the forward line are Fritta, Koz, Roo and Trac (when he's there).

 

[Adam The God 30,731]

4 hours ago, Redleg_Knowledge said:

Second post here so go easy. 

For one, I think think that our small to medium forwards are vanilla at best and share a common weakness.

Take Pickett and Fritsch out of the picture and we have the most vanilla forward line going around. Match that with a midfield who similarly share the same weak points, (kicking and decision making) and it is absolutely clear as day as to why our side is bombarded with criticism regarding entry, shots on goal and areas that we've kicked to. 

It's not one without the other. For instance, I'd bet my bottom dollar that our forwards would function a lot better if we had a more skilled  midfield. Players with better execution and decision making. 

However, I also think that our forward line is not nearly as dynamic and dangerous as those sides in and around us. As I said, take Kosi and Fritsch out and there's not a huge amount to get excited about. The pressure placed on Van Rooyen is ridiculous given he is a workhorse type who crashes packs. 

The key for us is for our current mids and half forwards to try their darnedest to find consistency in their execution and skill level under pressure. If not, we will continue to have quarters like the second quarter against Freo which will just end the game. 

Obviously we had a terrible day in front of goal. Especially with easy shots from players who are generally very reliable. But we've also seen that before. The more worrying sign for me is the consistent wasting of disposal going inside 50, blazing away at goal and also constant mishandballs or kicks in our forward-line and half leading to direct turnovers that result in end to end goals for the opposition. They are the things I'd love to see changed. Our skills were terrible at the weekend and we simply have to be better and more consistently good across a game of we want to compete with the best. 

So all in all. It's both. Forwardline and Midfield continue to give us grief if skill level and decision making is down from repeat offenders. No matter how much good we do off the ball and at contest. Which is what makes it so hard to watch. Viney and Langdon were big culprits of this against Freo. Basic skills and decision making just so bad. 

They either hold a standard for the year and we remain competitive, or we continue to have quarters like we did against Freo that put the game out of reach for us. 

Agree with much of this mate.

I do think getting Kozzy's ball use and decision making into our midfield mix will do wonders (see the North game), as will Langford and Lindsay finding their feet through the midfield and wings, with support from Windsor, and hopefully Salem and McVee pushing high.

I think we're a completely different side in and from the contest, and forward of the ball with Kozzy in the side.

I also think we've really missed Spargo. His ball use and decision making in the forward half is elite. I'd have him ahead of Chandler every day of the week.

Edited March 4 by Adam The God

[Adam The God 30,731]

3 hours ago, Redleg_Knowledge said:

Disagree. Games where are our dead-eye [censored] are off don't come around often. 

But games where we blaze at goal under pressure to register a behind happens way too often. Our inaccuracy comes mostly from open play shots on goal or set-shots from difficult angles. Very rarely does it come from easy set-shots missed by our best kicks. We just remember those easily because they're such anomalies. 

Do we actually have stats on this? I think this might be a bit of a furphy.

The eye test suggests to me that we still generate more than enough set shots from non acute angles, that we should be putting the opposition away, and don't.

@WheeloRatings, do you have anything on this mate?

[Earl Hood 6,167]

It’s worrying we don’t have big, pack crashing marking options and we are light on for opportunist small forwards with class. Kossi is suspended and earmarked for midfield role when he is back, McAdam injured, Spargo still recovering, Chandler struggling, Mentha, Henderson? Of course with rapid ball movement and good delivery into a F50 with forwards getting separation we might cover the lack of specialists and rack up big scores. But looking at our ball movement against Freo, it frustratingly looks very familiar, shallow entries often to forwards that are covered. The usual so called lack of connection between the mids and forwards! It’s only been an issue for 3 or 4 seasons though. 

[spirit of norm smith 16,679]

Forward connection.

Scoring conversion. 

Reward for inside 50s 

 

problems for many years and still no answers apparently 

learnings ?!?!?! Hardly 

Goody - fix it finally … we need you to solve it 

if we solve this, we can be premiers 

if we cannot solve this , likely we will lose the close ones and finish 8th to 12th. 
 

[Deemania since 56 6,808]

18 hours ago, Rab D Nesbitt said:

If we merged all of the threads relating to our forward line issues and printed them out it would stretch as far as the planet Jupiter. 

An obvious sign that for several years now, the coaching and development squads have been getting it wrong, consistently, preferring a 'hope springs eternal' solution to forward line weaknesses. 

[KozzyCan 973]

14 hours ago, Adam The God said:

We had Fritta and TMac miss shots from pretty much directly in front, 35m out against Collingwood in the QF in 23. Fritta practically missed his boot in the wet.

Our first clear shot on goal against Freo was Fritta 30m out directly in front.

Most of the set shots we take are completely gettable, we fluff them. And the games we are untouchable in are the games we convert most of our gettable shots. Think Round 23 against Brisbane 2022, where we scored 18.7.115.

Every team is untouchable with that sort of accuracy.

[Redleg_Knowledge 36]

10 hours ago, Adam The God said:

Do we actually have stats on this? I think this might be a bit of a furphy.

The eye test suggests to me that we still generate more than enough set shots from non acute angles, that we should be putting the opposition away, and don't.

@WheeloRatings, do you have anything on this mate?

Don't have stats no, but to my eye, over the last few years, I think that bulk of our missed opportunities come from players either having blind shots/blazing at goal in open play or trying to hit the top of the square to a contest which ends up resulting in a behind due to a spoil/rushed. 

I'm not discounting those games we have where our inaccuracies come from missed set shots. 

But the bulk, over a long period of time would come from what I outlined above in my opinion and to my eye. 

 

[Flowergirl 571]

13 hours ago, greenwaves said:

Matthew Lloyd said on Footy Classified yesterday that Van Rooyen won't be the player people are expecting.  He said he's poor at ground level.  Rather disheartening.  

I don't read replies or reactions 

Matthew Lloyd has the most boring takes of the AFL. Everyone is basing this on one practice match. Let's wait and see what happens for the year. 

[BangBnagBang 773]

19 hours ago, Adam The God said:

It's been clear for 3-4 seasons that the number one thing holding our list back is our ability to finish in front of goal.

On our shopping list should be x factor small forwards who can finish in front of goal with limited chances.

The way we generate inside 50s and win territory, we need guys that are dangerous at ground level and take their chances.

I'd be loading up on these guys. Hopefully Henderson gives us something. The spot is there for the taking. I hold out hope for K Brown too in this respect. He's a good crumber, is he a reliable finisher?

The club knows this. Tried to trade up for Bailey Humprey 2022, same for Nick Watson 2023 and then almost selected Joe Berry last year instead of XL. 

[Adam The God 30,731]

3 minutes ago, BangBnagBang said:

The club knows this. Tried to trade up for Bailey Humprey 2022, same for Nick Watson 2023 and then almost selected Joe Berry last year instead of XL. 

I'm talking from now on though.

Happy with who we've selected the last two years, I have questions marks over Kolt, but happy to wait.

I'm talking from end of 25 onwards, these should be our targets.

[Bring-Back-Powell 15,549]

I think Petty will start down down back but if our forward line’s a disaster early days then I see him as an option with T Mac to take his place in defence.

Let’s not forget that Petty got the 3 Brownlow votes against Geelong last year as a forward taking 9 clunks, in what appeared at the time to be a statement win.

[KozzyCan 973]

9 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

I think Petty will start down down back but if our forward line’s a disaster early days then I see him as an option with T Mac to take his place in defence.

Let’s not forget that Petty got the 3 Brownlow votes against Geelong last year as a forward taking 9 clunks, in what appeared at the time to be a statement win.

Petty was good that day but there was no way known he was the best player on the ground.

[Bring-Back-Powell 15,549]

1 minute ago, KozzyCan said:

Petty was good that day but there was no way known he was the best player on the ground.

Admittedly you’re probably right.

Petty’s easily one of our best contested marks and given our lack of small forward pressure and lack of quality small forward full stop, I think he could be of use up there. But yeah, he wasn’t great up forward last year.