Adam The God

I'd suggest it's the opposite. Oliver's around the ground clearance numbers dwarf any other player in the league. We also often won the around the ground clearances, but lost the centre stoppages comfortably. I agree with your point RE: setting up our stoppages not to get scored against, but I'd argue this was mostly our aim from centre bounces, given the 6-6-6 and the inability to get natural numbers behind the ball. So a quick centre clearance is far more dangerous to the way we set up and zone off.

I noticed you posted this at 2amish. Haha. So that's great commitment. I'd propose one other thing. If Viney has yet to re-sign, you have to wonder what that's about. Why would he look elsewhere or why would we lowball him if he was doing such a great job? Let's just say that he's had a really solid season, but his contractual stuff does raise some question marks. You'd expect him to have re-signed months ago.

Great post. I need to watch more closely. I do think we evolved our set up as the year went on though. Viney was deployed more defensively as the season progressed, but this could be explained by Brayshaw and Petracca not being good enough as those defensive players. As you know, I think we should have played Harmes in there as well. And we likely will in 2021. In the last two rounds we experimented a bit more with stoppage set ups. At least that is my observation. You can see how wide we set up against Essendon. It gave our burst mids (Oliver and Petracca, and even Viney) room to burst onto the ball.

Not really. We have a competent ruckman, GWS do not...

Given GWS have Toby Greene already, I wonder if they'd do a swap for Preuss with someone like Brent Daniels. I'd do that trade, but would they?

I'd go a 2 year KPI-based contract. One year guaranteed, second based on KPIs on the first to trigger the second. That may not prise him from Hawthorn, who knows. I'd prefer Tom McDonald for Polec and North paying the gap in Polec's contract, but Smith could be a good back up option.

I disagree entirely. He tries to go for the first possession. That's not defensive, that's attacking. Not only is Oliver our best clearance player, leading Jack by 38 clearances (with only one more game played than Jack), Oliver is also our best defensive player, leading our tackle count by 25 over Jack and by 65 in pressure acts. But Jack's our best defensive midfielder and Oliver is the ball winner? Oliver does both to an extraordinarily high standard and is more valuable than Jack at both. Viney should only be playing the defensive role if he's ever rolling through the midfield. Outside of the St Kilda game, where he very obviously had a job to do in the second half of that game on Steele, he's played predominantly, IMV, as an attacking mid who tackles.

Adding Merrett would be the icing on the cake. ;)

Forward of centre includes outside run I would have thought.

Fair enough.

We can only hope haha.

A couple of times this year, but the majority of the time he thinks he's playing first possession mid and crashes into Oliver and Petracca and is nowhere near clean enough. I will never question Jack's toughness or commitment to the contest, but he plays dumb football and he's 26, and has been playing dumb football for a long time. Is that Jack's fault, the coaches fault or a bit of both? I'd suggest you'll point to his BnF finish and say he's doing the right things. I'd argue he's damaging the connection of our midfield by the aforementioned manner in which he plays.

Instead of making the first right decision, he tries to run through people. If he gets through, it's more often a rushed disposal. Because his play in unpredictable, his team mates are never sure whether to run forward or cover for the turn over, meaning we're nowhere. I think it's pretty clear that Jack will be playing at Melbourne next year, so he needs to play a different role. Forward pocket and defensive mid.

At least dress it up a bit, ET. Sparrow's name would be perfect for an elaborate riddle.

I wonder if we've remained in Ben King's ear... as to how we'd get a trade done, no idea!

Unlikely I know, but anyone who says Merrett is a butcher, isn't watching closely enough. He's a gun. These highlights show how naturally he gets it on the outside. Not only is he a beautiful kick, he's quick, despite what some are saying. Perfect fit for our midfield.

Yep, figured the thinking was based on Viney having re-signed. I'd be playing Salem on the wing and Merrett in the middle with Oliver and Petracca. A worrying lack of blanket players then though. This would leave only Jack to play a tagging/blanket role. This may be enough. I'd still like him played in a forward pocket if he's staying on. As for the trading of future picks, I know there was a rule at some stage about trading consecutive futures, but has this rule been 'laxed? I certainly think the AFL should be more flexible given the climate.

I reckon they'll play him up the ground. We'll see who we bring in to improve our forward entries and ball use out of midfield, then we'll know about where Salem would best fit.

Interesting... I'd probably do it, but jeepers we're losing a lot of guys that can roll through midfield. Merrett's elite, so I'd do it, but yeah, things could go pear shaped with an injury or two.

Now that we're not playing finals, I'm happy to write off whoever wins the premiership this year as 'not a legitimate flag'. ?

My read on this, which could be wrong, is that we're not sure if Salem's contest game and ability to win ball himself is good enough to play mid. As we know, a lot easier to play the half back role than win your own ball in the middle. I want him to utilise his kicking more than he does. If he ever pushes up to the 50m arc, he usually hits a leading target that results in a score. We need more of that from midfield. For this reason I think Fritsch and Melksham (if both are playing), should play high half forward, because their delivery is usually brilliant. Salem is another I'd like to try between centre wing and forward 50. The inflexibility of the midfield is absolutely a problem, which is why I'd play Viney in the forward pocket and be open to trading Gus if we could land an A grader (Merrett). I think if we land Saad he'll almost certainly move up the ground, but even without Saad, I'd like to see Rivers given more responsibility and even bring in Lockhart to play deeper and allow Rivers a bit of latitude to attack. If Salem played on a wing, I think you'd have to try and stretch him defensively (as an opposition), but I think playing at half back for as long as he has, he's a lot better defensively these days and often wingers are a bit on the softer side by nature, so tackle and run hard and use your kicking to set up scoring chains and you'll be doing your job. I'd like to see it tried. (and I'm not claiming Salem is inherently soft at the contest) If you let Salem get a look from just outside 50 he'll hit up a leading target or kick the goal himself. He could become a weapon.

Well, to be fair, Gus can play inside and if you look at their midfield, this is what they're desperately lacking. If we could convince Merrett to put in a trade request, I think they'd take a player of Gus' abilities. They might ask for a little sweetner, but I'd be reticent to pay more than Gus.

Have an ability to give us a kicker at stoppages ala Bontempelli. If he can play a Merrett like role, that will provide us with increased flexibility and diversity. So he can be moved from half back to a wing to the midfield and back again.

You can't push him out the door and then expect the world for him. Jesse may well be done.

Our ball use is directly impacted, IMV, by our stoppage set ups. They don't give our mids separation and instead make us predictable, leading too often, to rushed ball use that doesn't suit anyone.