Roast How diabolical is our midfield?

[Sanders]

We don't look beyond the very next week. That's it. How do we win the next week. Three years from now? Who cares. Wins now.

We are still hurting for all the lower draft picks we had from prioritising round 22 wins when the season was over; all in the name of “culture”

What a crock

 

[Sanders]

Round 1 2023
Fresh from preseason, boosted by late season wins again crap teams in 2022

Loss to GWS

CBA
Laird 22
Berry 22
Soligo 12
Schoenberg 12
Rachele 9
Tyler Brown

21

Tyler Brown

Age

24

Ht

192cm

Wt

84kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

11.0

3star

K

4.0

2star

HB

7.0

4star

M

1.0

1star

T

1.4

3star

CL

0.6

3star

D

11.0

3star

K

4.0

1star

HB

7.0

4star

M

1.0

1star

T

1.4

2star

CL

0.6

3star

D

11.0

3star

K

4.0

2star

HB

7.0

5star

M

1.0

1star

T

1.4

4star

CL

0.6

3star

7
Keays 4
Rankine 4

What the **** has happened since?

 

[Sanders]

Round 1 2024
Loss to GC

Dawson 16
Crouch 13
Laird 10
Rankine 7
Berry 6
Soligo 3

Where is the F-ing plan? 5 years of rebuilding, and no obvious plan!!

 

[kirky]

Round 1 2024
Loss to GC

Dawson 16
Crouch 13
Laird 10
Rankine 7
Berry 6
Soligo 3

Where is the F-ing plan? 5 years of rebuilding, and no obvious plan!!

All those examples are an indictment of our coach and the midfield coach.

 

[George Kramer]

Round 1 2024
Loss to GC

Dawson 16
Crouch 13
Laird 10
Rankine 7
Berry 6
Soligo 3

Where is the F-ing plan? 5 years of rebuilding, and no obvious plan!!

Sanders care to do the Sydney loss at home last year?

 

[Samcro24]

As a coach, or coaching group can you not look at the talent other clubs have assembled in the midfield, and say, we need some of that please.

GWS, Collingwood, Sydney, port. Even the other shit clubs have more young talent in there.

Since 2020 all we have to show is Soligo. And it’s as though they’ve had to be dragged kicking and screaming to play him.

 

[George Kramer]

As a coach, or coaching group can you not look at the talent other clubs have assembled in the midfield, and say, we need some of that please.

GWS, Collingwood, Sydney, port. Even the other s**t clubs have more young talent in there.

Since 2020 all we have to show is Soligo. And it’s as though they’ve had to be dragged kicking and screaming to play him.

They have no trust in the juniors to play in the important position of midfielder, they all have things to work on.

Meanwhile we have Laird in there with multiple issues.

 

[bmac84]

Given we’re meant to be rebuilding I went back to random wins over the last few years to see our midfield mix

Round 20 - 2022 beat Carlton at home
CBA
Berry 18
Laird 17
Schoenberg 16
Soligo 15

Now compare that to our current Dads army?

Now nearly 2 years later in a rebuild if we’ve decided all these young blokes aren’t up to it - how did we respond?

Did we spend high draft capital on mid? Nope? We traded for Rankine, chased Redman and Petty

For a rebuild, it’s hard to see our priorities have a consistency to them

Here's a comparison of every team's CBA for the first 4 rounds (min 2 games played and 20% attended) and where each was drafted (slightly skewed for players acquired by trade).

Immediately obvious how little draft capital we've used on our midfield, with a huge disparity with the best teams like Melbourne and GWS in particular. Makes it easy to understand the problems we are currently facing.

 

[BigBoSS_Riot]

Sanders care to do the Sydney loss at home last year?

Ours was extremely top heavy, and didn't rotate well.

J Dawson (23), R Laird (23), R O'Brien (23), M Crouch (16), L Pedlar (6), R Sloane (5), R Thilthorpe (2), J Soligo (1), J Rachele (1).

Sydney had a much better looking mix, to put it mildly.

Mills (22), Hickey (20), Papley (14), Parker (13), Gulden (10), Rowbottom (9), Warner (7), McLean (5).

 

[George Kramer]

Ours was extremely top heavy, and didn't rotate well.

J Dawson (23), R Laird (23), R O'Brien (23), M Crouch (16), L Pedlar (6), R Sloane (5), R Thilthorpe (2), J Soligo (1), J Rachele (1).

Sydney had a much better looking mix, to put it mildly.

Mills (22), Hickey (20), Papley (14), Parker (13), Gulden (10), Rowbottom (9), Warner (7), McLean (5).

Thanks, so the new breed excluding Thilthorpe had 8 in total and Pedlars were all second half. So in effect when we sucked in the first half we went all experience and blew a home chance to make the finals.

We truly are coached by a bunch of morons.

 

[Samcro24]

Ours was extremely top heavy, and didn't rotate well.

J Dawson (23), R Laird (23), R O'Brien (23), M Crouch (16), L Pedlar (6), R Sloane (5), R Thilthorpe (2), J Soligo (1), J Rachele (1).

Sydney had a much better looking mix, to put it mildly.

Mills (22), Hickey (20), Papley (14), Parker (13), Gulden (10), Rowbottom (9), Warner (7), McLean (5).

If papley can get a run for Sydney we can do it with Rankine

 

[Samcro24]

The prime movers through the years.

McDermott McGuiness A Jarman
Ricciuto McLeod Goodwin Edwards
Thompson Dangerfield Sloane
Dangerfield Sloane B Crouch M Crouch
Sloane B Couch M Crouch Gibbs
M Crouch Sloane Laird Keays (lol)
M Crouch Laird Dawson (Soligo?)

It’s almost as though we gave up on it after Dangerfield bailed.

 

[MRB37]

That's what you want to read

 

[MRB37]

Round 1 2024
Loss to GC

Dawson 16
Crouch 13
Laird 10
Rankine 7
Berry 6
Soligo 3

Where is the F-ing plan? 5 years of rebuilding, and no obvious plan!!

Plan is win now and despite all the talk of him being a rebuilding coach Nicks has never trusted youth to win him games.

He's another one like Pyke who put faith in failing seniority hoping it'd have a form switch.

 

[FullyBigKPro]

That's what you want to read

View attachment 1954257

 

[Rory Walkerfield]

But but but, our midfield is STACKED:

Who's the No.1 midfield? Port guns stake their claim

Butters, Rozee and Horne-Francis caught the eye against Essendon but the numbers say there are others even better

www.afl.com.au

 

[Scorpus]

But but but, our midfield is STACKED:

Who's the No.1 midfield? Port guns stake their claim

Butters, Rozee and Horne-Francis caught the eye against Essendon but the numbers say there are others even better

www.afl.com.au

I've highlighted all the midfields where the youngest player is born in 1997 or earlier

 

[skam85]

But but but, our midfield is STACKED:

Who's the No.1 midfield? Port guns stake their claim

Butters, Rozee and Horne-Francis caught the eye against Essendon but the numbers say there are others even better

www.afl.com.au

14th best midfield, 15th on the ladder.

Midfield clearly outperforming the rest of the squad!

 

[Rory Walkerfield]

I've highlighted all the midfields where the youngest player is born in 1997 or earlier

View attachment 1954333

That’s a great way to highlight the issue.

And you know what the difference between our midfield is and the other two?

The answer involves the word “medals”.

 

[Dangerousfield]

But but but, our midfield is STACKED:

Who's the No.1 midfield? Port guns stake their claim

Butters, Rozee and Horne-Francis caught the eye against Essendon but the numbers say there are others even better

www.afl.com.au

Some cracking midfields out there. Ours ranked as expected and the club says drafting is done so we must have some great mids to trade in this off season with our bulging Salary Cap War Chest

 

[Billy_01]

Our midfield isn’t even the problem. We would be ranked a lot higher if ball use wasn’t letting us down massively. Besides it’s not about what team has the best 3 on ballers, Geelong are shithouse at clearances and still one of the best teams in the comp. We’re actually a good team at winning clearance, we just get killed because we keep turning the ball over in the back half and through poor forward entries which leaves the corridor open to easy counter attack.

 

[MRB37]

Our midfield isn’t even the problem. We would be ranked a lot higher if ball use wasn’t letting us down massively. Besides it’s not about what team has the best 3 on ballers, Geelong are shithouse at clearances and still one of the best teams in the comp. We’re actually a good team at winning clearance, we just get killed because we keep turning the ball over in the back half and through poor forward entries which leaves the corridor open to easy counter attack.

A lot of that is down to how "vanilla" our midfield is. When Laird, Crouch and Dawson roll up into the midfield you do not need to spend any time defensively on Crouch and Laird. If they win it you roll off and double Dawson and cover the wings because you know there's little chance Laird/Crouch drive it forward and likely go lateral to a Dawson and force it to be his problem to move the ball.

There's no suprise when we get guys like Rankine/Soligo etc in there we start to get better I50 entries because suddenly the opposition has to defend long forward movement, rather than just short lateral/backwards movement.

 

[Coopers]

But but but, our midfield is STACKED:

Who's the No.1 midfield? Port guns stake their claim

Butters, Rozee and Horne-Francis caught the eye against Essendon but the numbers say there are others even better

www.afl.com.au

That's pretty good actually. We rank much better than I had thought.

 

[Dangerousfield]

That's pretty good actually. We rank much better than I had thought.

Your low expectations easily met eh?

 

[WetCrow1991]

That's pretty good actually. We rank much better than I had thought.

The rankings aren't borne out in reality though. So something wrong with the rankings.