Strategy It’s the midfield, stupid

[Big Crow]

seriously guys, wake me up when we get some genuine a grade midfielders. Not some other club cast offs who try hard and run a bit. Not some third rounders that we reckon were under valued and probably second rounders, so that’s a win, right?

Genuine a grade, all Australian, Brownlow contending midfielders. We’ve been to the bottom since 2017 and 5 years later have zero midfield prospects.

Zero

What a waste. Rub it out and start again. And start with the midfield.

Absolutely damning. Four years of high draft picks and not one elite midfield prospect from it.

Until we sort out recruiting then the “rebuild” is going nowhere.

 

[I Lost My Keays]

Part of it, is the selection committee. Why the hell are we continuing playing Sloane and Crouch when we need to blood players such as Schoenberg, Pedlar and Berry.

Secondly, the drafting is a joke. Hamish needs to go and get a breath of fresh air. To this day it baffles me that we got McAsey when we clearly needed midfielders.

Lastly, the production of ROB is a joke. He just doesn’t provide for us, most of the centre bounces gets walked out by the opposition

 

[Kenny Dee]

Without seeing much of todays game, Surely we can be rotating more players thru the middle whilst we "rebuild" instead of the usual starting 4 and a few token cba for 2-3 others

 

[Sanders]

Is it our drafting though?

The midfielders we have drafted aren't experienced enough and have been used incredibly poorly. We can't expect sub 50 game players to immediately be decent

I mean these are the recently drafted midfielders we have and how we've used them (all are sub 50 game players by the way, in contrast to Fremantle players like Brayshaw who have nearly 100 games under their belt)

Jones - started him forward, then midfield, then defence
McHenry - has never played midfield
Schoenberg - got a consistent stretch of games, looked good, has gone backwards
Sholl - had good stretches and looked okay at times
Berry - played an entire season in the forward line despite being drafted as an inside midfielder, looking okay now in his real role
Hately - we've barely played him, preferring a cooked Sloane and Crouch, was today his first game as an inside midfielder for us?
Pedlar - exclusively played forward and even has been playing forward in the SANFL at times
Soligo - debuted then dropped after 1 game
Taylor - injured

So of the NINE midfielders we've drafted recently (three using first round picks, another first rounder traded in), I can count ONE player we have given significant inside midfield time to

THREE players have effectively never seen their preferred position, and another player has only just been shifted into the actual midfield

Might be time to stop drafting midfielders if we actually want small forwards

Such a depressing list.

 

[FR0GGY]

Anyone get the CBA numbers?

Keays 24
Hately 24
Laird 18
Berry 11
Schoenberg 8
Rachele 5

Obrien 25
Himmelberg 5

 

[CrowToon]

Frampton to the midfield or a wing. There's your big bodied mid who can use the footy.

 

[FR0GGY]

Frampton to the midfield or a wing. There's your big bodied mid who can use the footy.

We need mids who can defend

 

[CrowToon]

We need mids who can defend

Wouldn't mind one that can distribute. Frampton can actually hit up a leading target. I don't have a heart attack when he has the ball.

Currently our mids can't defend or distribute. It's hack and slash stuff which doesn't help our forwards nor our defenders.

 

[Mikevk123]

Need to give them more opportunities. Get Laird out of the middle he can play in defence.

Get some run into Hately. Seemed to get better as the game wore on. Is a little slow but could be the groin problems acting up. Berry looks crafty and so does Schoenberg. They do seem like similar types though. Does Dodo recruit for you guys as well ?

Inside- Keayes, Schoenberg, Pedlar, Berry, Hately

Wings- Cook, Sholl, Dawson, Hinge

 

[betterthanu]

Absolutely damning. Four years of high draft picks and not one elite midfield prospect from it.

Until we sort out recruiting then the “rebuild” is going nowhere.

Midfield is always last part of a rebuild. You pick the talls first due to their development time which weve done. Thorpe being the key one but the McAcey one looks a miss so far. You can then pick mids who slot straight into a team like Rowell, JHF and Walsh. Unfortunately as bad as we are, North are worse and will pick off those top players before us.

 

[Cap]

Keays 24
Hately 24
Laird 18
Berry 11
Schoenberg 8
Rachele 5

Obrien 25
Himmelberg 5

Thanks.

 

[Crow_Magnon]

Is it our drafting though?

The midfielders we have drafted aren't experienced enough and have been used incredibly poorly. We can't expect sub 50 game players to immediately be decent

I mean these are the recently drafted midfielders we have and how we've used them (all are sub 50 game players by the way, in contrast to Fremantle players like Brayshaw who have nearly 100 games under their belt)

Jones - started him forward, then midfield, then defence
McHenry - has never played midfield
Schoenberg - got a consistent stretch of games, looked good, has gone backwards
Sholl - had good stretches and looked okay at times
Berry - played an entire season in the forward line despite being drafted as an inside midfielder, looking okay now in his real role
Hately - we've barely played him, preferring a cooked Sloane and Crouch, was today his first game as an inside midfielder for us?
Pedlar - exclusively played forward and even has been playing forward in the SANFL at times
Soligo - debuted then dropped after 1 game
Taylor - injured

So of the NINE midfielders we've drafted recently (three using first round picks, another first rounder traded in), I can count ONE player we have given significant inside midfield time to

THREE players have effectively never seen their preferred position, and another player has only just been shifted into the actual midfield

Might be time to stop drafting midfielders if we actually want small forwards

I agree, mostly.
Jones was tried quite a few times as a mid but failed miserably. He's still got good value off half back, so not a complete waste. Hopefully, in time we can try him again as a mid. McHenry and Sholl are too small to make it as mids. Sholl shouldn't even be on the park - too weedy for AFL. IMHO Hately doesn't have what it takes. Berry starting to come good, Schoey is a bit too inconsistent at the moment. Pedlar will take time as will Soligo. Even Murphy is not bad when he goes in for the odd CBA, but he's another midget.
All this is predicated on a ruckman who can hit to advantage. How is God's name can you win the hitouts 46 to 22, but have 74 to 49 I50's the other way. This is partially due to the inexperience we have but I fully expected the game to be close, just based on the fact their first choice ruck is out, and they're having to throw in SoS - and one could've reasonably expected a minimum of a break even in the midfield. Mind-boggling! The selectors have backed themselves into a corner by promoting ROB to the leadership group now - Strachan should replace him without question.

 

[Danger in Texas]

Keays 24
Hately 24
Laird 18
Berry 11
Schoenberg 8
Rachele 5

Obrien 25
Himmelberg 5

These numbers paint Berry in a very positive light and Hately in a lesser one IMO, considering I noticed Berry seemed to be more prominent and productive in centre square congestion

 

[jackster83]

Frampton to the midfield or a wing. There's your big bodied mid who can use the footy.

Play him in the ruck. I'm tired of dinosaur rucks who can't jump, can't mark, can't ****ing kick a ball to save their life and who hit the ball straight to the opposition on such a regular basis it looks like match fixing.

 

[CrowToon]

Play him in the ruck. I'm tired of dinosaur rucks who can't jump, can't mark, can't ******* kick a ball to save their life and who hit the ball straight to the opposition on such a regular basis it looks like match fixing.

If Strachan is overlooked for Frampton that'd kill the bloke

 

[Crow_Magnon]

Play him in the ruck. I'm tired of dinosaur rucks who can't jump, can't mark, can't ******* kick a ball to save their life and who hit the ball straight to the opposition on such a regular basis it looks like match fixing.

Not averse to this. He's actually got some good skills as a footballer, and is a decent size. We just need some taller mids, with a couple of quick outside runners to take advantage.

 

[Scorpus]

Play him in the ruck. I'm tired of dinosaur rucks who can't jump, can't mark, can't ******* kick a ball to save their life and who hit the ball straight to the opposition on such a regular basis it looks like match fixing.

Frampton wouldn't hit the ball to the opposition because he wouldn't get the tap in the first place

How about we just play real rucks in the ruck

 

[Slippery Pete]

What’s this bloke up to? Or is that like, a stupid question?

 

[Rory Walkerfield]

Play him in the ruck. I'm tired of dinosaur rucks who can't jump, can't mark, can't ******* kick a ball to save their life and who hit the ball straight to the opposition on such a regular basis it looks like match fixing.

We might as well. The club seems intent on making an AFL footballer out of him so might as well give him a crack. If that fails we can then try him on a wing, then ruck rover, rover, forward pocket, back pocket and the if all that fails have him as the team runner - but on the field so he just runs back and forth to the bench relaying messages.

 

[weekend at bernies]

besides 2017 being a blip on the radar where Crouch and Sloane played out of their skin our midfield has been absolute poo since Danger left.

 

[Jetwa5h]

Reason Hardly was there was I think to try and make Cripps 's disposals as hard as possible, anyone got his tackle numbers, he looked to have a pure defensive role today

On ASUS_I003D using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[MRB37]

Absolutely damning. Four years of high draft picks and not one elite midfield prospect from it.

Until we sort out recruiting then the “rebuild” is going nowhere.

We also haven't really used any "elite" picks to draft one

Jones at 9, Pedlar at 11, you'd probably have to go back to when we traded for Brad Crouch in the mini-draft for the last time we used a single digit pick on a mid. It's usually 20+ we're picking up our mids.

besides 2017 being a blip on the radar where Crouch and Sloane played out of their skin our midfield has been absolute poo since Danger left.

We also had the advantage of being able to blitz numbers through centre bounces that year to get speed around the ball. We haven't really adjusted for the type of midfielders to recruit since then.

 

[MRB37]

Reason Hardly was there was I think to try and make Cripps 's disposals as hard as possible, anyone got his tackle numbers, he looked to have a pure defensive role today

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6 tackles and 19 pressure acts.

Cripps had 7 and 16 himself.

Berry had 9 tackles and 36 PA, Keays had 6 and 29, Laird had 7 and 22 and Schoenberg had 6 and 24.

 

[Bearded Clam]

Keays 24
Hately 24
Laird 18
Berry 11
Schoenberg 8
Rachele 5

Obrien 25
Himmelberg 5

Thats ****n disgusting

Keays and laird should NEVER attend the same CB..

Two of them in there at the same time is a joke.

Have one of them attend at any one time then partner them with two of the younger blokes.

Laird needs to go back to half back permanently. He’s not an AFL standard midfielder. He’s a panic riddled “kick and hope” hack.

Geez we desperately need to add some class right now or we will be ****ed for years..

 

[Thetrader15]

We had chances to trade for Treloar, Dunkley and one other A grade mid last year (can't remember who). Even Neale when he left Freo. Did we even pick up the phone?

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You know Treloar and Neale are sub 185cm...apparently that's not what we need. I don't think Treloar or Dunkley are "A-grade" mids anyway.