Adam The God

This is why I've levelled the blame at Max a lot this year. I think we've been super ordinary due to his predictable tap work in the centre square. Part of this could well be he hasn't been able to get off the ground. It seemed to me that he struggled with this, particularly in the second half of the year. This wouldn't be much of an issue around the ground, but the centre square often has much higher leaping going on. Perhaps this is the reason? This isn't helped by the fact none of our mids are particularly penetrating kicks and we don't really get goals from midfield. This needs to change if we're to take the next step.

I would have thought the opposite. There's less space when your entire team can surround a stoppage, whereas centre bounces, no one's allowed in but the midfield.

I think you might have hit the nail on the head here though when you wrote earlier that we set up not to concede. We're happy to have repeat stoppages around the ground, but the easiest way to score against our set up is a quick well directed centre clearance that doesn't allow our defenders to zone off and intercept. It leaves us in 1v1s. Because we can clog up space around the ground and get more numbers around the clearance, we can afford to go more attacking at these stoppage set ups. We can either have one off the back of the stoppage or the extra at the contest. I think ultimately this plan was shown not to work this year, mostly because we struggled to transition from attack to defence or vice versa well enough. We did it a few times (namely that Collingwood game), the Brisbane game clogged up the opposition and then hit them on the rebound, while St Kilda was a similar story, but our ball use going inside 50 was ordinary. I'm inclined to agree with the theory that we should be playing more aggressive, attacking football. I think better forward craft will help this and better decision making from our mids. If you look at how we still won the around the ground clearances, I think we should just attack from the centre stoppages too. I'd love to know what Jennings thinks we should do with our set up.

The point I was making was if we traded McDonald to North for Polec, both are on good coin, but we'd get North to pay the fee or financial gap above McDonald's contract (there must be an accounting term for this?).

It might depend on how they set up to play. If they go down the GWS route with Cripps as the bull in the middle, those two guys off the back of the square, they could play a run and gun game. They feel like they're a year or so behind us, but I don't think they have the midfield. I like their spine though.

It also suggests Tom McDonald for Polec isn't going to get it done, which means Tom's contract or a vast part of it will stay on our books, despite him wanting to leave. I hope this isn't the deal for Preuss.

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.