Training 2019 preseason

[JAMES_B_101]

One of our more stacked positions though. Williams, Richards, Crozier, Suckling, Duryea, Lynch could all play there.

Lynch is the one, big opportunity now for the first month of the season. Needs to find more of it but has the pace and elite skills plus a dual sided player. Hope he's given the chance and takes it.

 

[Mantis Toboggan]

Is this meant to be funny ? Seriously I thought in this day and age this sort of gag would be long gone

Seriously, who is offended by that joke?

 

[Northernsoul74]

Lynch is the one, big opportunity now for the first month of the season. Needs to find more of it but has the pace and elite skills plus a dual sided player. Hope he's given the chance and takes it.

I like Lynch but he looked a liability down back last year at times.

 

[BallaratBulldog]

I like Lynch but he looked a liability down back last year at times.

Yeah, he is still learning the pace. The amount of times he got caught holding the ball trying to take on too much or selecting an option. He's clearly confident and not phased by oncoming pressure though with a pretty good long kick on him.

Didn't mind him up forward either.

 

[JAMES_B_101]

Yeah, he is still learning the pace. The amount of times he got caught holding the ball trying to take on too much or selecting an option. He's clearly confident and not phased by oncoming pressure though with a pretty good long kick on him.

Didn't mind him up forward either.

This happens to every half back that's told to take the game on in the early stages of their career. He'll adjust soon enough and become dangerous at AFL level.The games he got in 2018 are very important to his development.

 

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

Lynch is the one, big opportunity now for the first month of the season. Needs to find more of it but has the pace and elite skills plus a dual sided player. Hope he's given the chance and takes it.

I don't think he'll be given a go first up. Morris, Wood, Cordy, Naughton, Crozier, Daniel, Duryea, Suckling, Williams and Richards are all comfortably better players. I imagine we'll give some of our new forwards a go as well to try to fix balance issues.

My prediction would be something like:
FB: Morris - Naughton - Wood
HB: Crozier - Cordy - Daniel
C: Hunter - Bontempelli - Williams
HF: Richards - Schache - Wallis
FF: Cavarra - Trengove - Gowers
R: English - Liberatore - Macrae
I: Duryea - McLean - Suckling - Dunkley

Those 22 roll off the tongue without even considering Lynch imo.

 

[Bulldog Brent]

JJ 4-6 weeks. Not too bad all things considering.

 

[Triple Baileys]

I don't think he'll be given a go first up. Morris, Wood, Cordy, Naughton, Crozier, Daniel, Duryea, Suckling, Williams and Richards are all comfortably better players. I imagine we'll give some of our new forwards a go as well to try to fix balance issues.

My prediction would be something like:
FB: Morris - Naughton - Wood
HB: Crozier - Cordy - Daniel
C: Hunter - Bontempelli - Williams
HF: Richards - Schache - Wallis
FF: Cavarra - Trengove - Gowers
R: English - Liberatore - Macrae
I: Duryea - McLean - Suckling - Dunkley

Those 22 roll off the tongue without even considering Lynch imo.

You'd have to go fer Bailey Dale before Kava right now.

 

[Charlie Bucket]

I don't think he'll be given a go first up. Morris, Wood, Cordy, Naughton, Crozier, Daniel, Duryea, Suckling, Williams and Richards are all comfortably better players. I imagine we'll give some of our new forwards a go as well to try to fix balance issues.

My prediction would be something like:
FB: Morris - Naughton - Wood
HB: Crozier - Cordy - Daniel
C: Hunter - Bontempelli - Williams
HF: Richards - Schache - Wallis
FF: Cavarra - Trengove - Gowers
R: English - Liberatore - Macrae
I: Duryea - McLean - Suckling - Dunkley

Those 22 roll off the tongue without even considering Lynch imo.

Like this side a lot. Would probably only swap Wallis with McLean on the bench for mid/fwd rotation purposes.

The set up of...

Crozier - Daniel
Hunter - Williams
Richards - McLean

This wing/flanks set up gives us a good mix of run and skill and would be suited to where the game is moving towards with the new rules.
Like Daniel down back. Would get JJ in there somehow once healthy. Maybe Duryea out, Crozier to bench.

 

[JAMES_B_101]

I don't think he'll be given a go first up. Morris, Wood, Cordy, Naughton, Crozier, Daniel, Duryea, Suckling, Williams and Richards are all comfortably better players. I imagine we'll give some of our new forwards a go as well to try to fix balance issues.

My prediction would be something like:
FB: Morris - Naughton - Wood
HB: Crozier - Cordy - Daniel
C: Hunter - Bontempelli - Williams
HF: Richards - Schache - Wallis
FF: Cavarra - Trengove - Gowers
R: English - Liberatore - Macrae
I: Duryea - McLean - Suckling - Dunkley

Those 22 roll off the tongue without even considering Lynch imo.

On paper this looks good as of today but Suckling and Duryea could easily be replaced in that side by Lynch and Dale, I see no need for the two extra half backs off the bench when we can rotate Williams to a half back as well. Duryea not in the side for mine, would prefer to play Dale or Fergus. Suckling is battling this preseason and I would rather manage him/use him as a reserve given his age and recent run with injury, added to his lack of defensive game. I would prefer Lynch to Suckling. Now maybe we play one of them for experience, but that it the only argument I would allow at this point. I would also comfortably play Jong over Duryea.

 

[Cadillac]

On paper this looks good as of today but Suckling and Duryea could easily be replaced in that side by Lynch and Dale, I see no need for the two extra half backs off the bench when we can rotate Williams to a half back as well. Duryea not in the side for mine, would prefer to play Dale or Fergus. Suckling is battling this preseason and I would rather manage him/use him as a reserve given his age and recent run with injury, added to his lack of defensive game. I would prefer Lynch to Suckling. Now maybe we play one of them for experience, but that it the only argument I would allow at this point. I would also comfortably play Jong over Duryea.

Sucking was easily one of or best players last year. He’s not easily replaced

 

[JAMES_B_101]

Sucking was easily one of or best players last year. He’s not easily replaced

Only managed 11 games last season and turns 31 this year, coming off an interrupted preseason. No question he was great when healthy last year but I just said I would be prepared to use him as a reserve. Would still end up playing a good amount of games. May even preserve him a bit for later in the year. He is still a role player at best no matter how well he is playing. Biggest selling point outside of his left foot is the experience. Don't want him in the side unless he's 100% fit and ready to play.

 

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

On paper this looks good as of today but Suckling and Duryea could easily be replaced in that side by Lynch and Dale, I see no need for the two extra half backs off the bench when we can rotate Williams to a half back as well. Duryea not in the side for mine, would prefer to play Dale or Fergus. Suckling is battling this preseason and I would rather manage him/use him as a reserve given his age and recent run with injury, added to his lack of defensive game. I would prefer Lynch to Suckling. Now maybe we play one of them for experience, but that it the only argument I would allow at this point. I would also comfortably play Jong over Duryea.

Suckling was one of our better players last year and Duryea was brought in for a reason and in my opinion is comfortably a better player than Lynch. That said, even if we were to count those out, I think we'd prioritise trying to add some scoring punch with the likes of Greene, Lloyd or Dickson, or opt to play guys like Dale, Hayes and Smith ahead of Lynch.

As far as I'm concerned Lynch has a lot of work ahead of him to find his way into the team. I hope he surprises me.

 

[bobs head soup]

JJ 4-6 weeks. Not too bad all things considering.

Given our R1 match is exactly 6 weeks away from today, he'll be a chance to play R1, albeit off the dreaded interrupted prep.

 

[unclechopchop2]

I don't think he'll be given a go first up. Morris, Wood, Cordy, Naughton, Crozier, Daniel, Duryea, Suckling, Williams and Richards are all comfortably better players. I imagine we'll give some of our new forwards a go as well to try to fix balance issues.

My prediction would be something like:
FB: Morris - Naughton - Wood
HB: Crozier - Cordy - Daniel
C: Hunter - Bontempelli - Williams
HF: Richards - Schache - Wallis
FF: Cavarra - Trengove - Gowers
R: English - Liberatore - Macrae
I: Duryea - McLean - Suckling - Dunkley

Those 22 roll off the tongue without even considering Lynch imo.

I like it a lot! I do think people are underestimating Sam Lloyd, I think he plays.

 

[Triple Baileys]

Suckling was one of our better players last year and Duryea was brought in for a reason and in my opinion is comfortably a better player than Lynch. That said, even if we were to count those out, I think we'd prioritise trying to add some scoring punch with the likes of Greene, Lloyd or Dickson, or opt to play guys like Dale, Hayes and Smith ahead of Lynch.

As far as I'm concerned Lynch has a lot of work ahead of him to find his way into the team. I hope he surprises me.

I can see Lynch getting a lot of games off the bench this season. Sort of like a shock trooper. Chuck him on the field to smash the lines when some of the other players are running out of petrol tickets.

 

[doggies ftw]

Remember how much Bailey Williams got caught holding the ball at the start of his career. Lynch will be fine, you want that confidence to take the game on in a player like him. I see him as an isaac smith type for us. Too many weapons in his game to not find a spot somewhere eventually.

 

[dogwatch]

Duryea and Lloyd will get first chance ahead of the young blokes.

I doubt either of them would have have come here if they thought it was to be a fringe player and I'm pretty sure they'd have had some explicit discussions with Power/Bevo about their prospects. Naturally that can change over the course of the season or with injuries but I'm expecting both to be firmly in the 22 in Round 1.

Ditto with Suckling if fit. Call him a role player if you like (what does that mean anyway? - everybody plays a role) but he was comfortably in our top ten B&F until injured last year. That's the only query about him: if his achilles is playing up he'll be rested. Time will catch up with him of course but I'm not expecting that will happen until later in the season at the earliest. More likely 2020-21. It could happily coincide with some of our younger players demanding a spot by then.

 

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

Remember how much Bailey Williams got caught holding the ball at the start of his career. Lynch will be fine, you want that confidence to take the game on in a player like him. I see him as an isaac smith type for us. Too many weapons in his game to not find a spot somewhere eventually.

I'm not worried about how much Lynch gets caught. I'm worried about how diabolical his ability to man an opponent is. It'll grow to some extent with experience but since he played some games last year we've gained more mature players from both the off-season, and from injury recovery. He's going to have to show improvement in that area before he's prioritised over them in my opinion.

 

[Northernsoul74]

I like it a lot! I do think people are underestimating Sam Lloyd, I think he plays.

I agree, I don’t think we brought in Lloyd or Druyea to play VFL. They’ll get a go first up.

 

[Northernsoul74]

Remember how much Bailey Williams got caught holding the ball at the start of his career. Lynch will be fine, you want that confidence to take the game on in a player like him. I see him as an isaac smith type for us. Too many weapons in his game to not find a spot somewhere eventually.

Just not in defence at the moment.

 

[Norm De Guerre]

I don't understand the reasoning for Duryea and Lloyds automatic inclusion in our round 1 side at all. Duryea may well have played 17 games last year, but his career has been quite tenuous for much of his time in the system. The fact that his last contract with the Hawks when his was 25 and one would expect him to be the prime of his career was for a single year speaks to the trajectory that he was on. Putting aside the difficulty he had breaking back into a very powerful side these past two years, the same could be said for Lloyd. These two are by definition fringe players and have been for most of their careers, that they have come over to multi-year contracts speaks more to their desire to continue playing at the highest level than it should to their status in our side. Will they play games this year, of course. Are they walk-up starts for round 1? In my view they are not.

 

[Mattdougie]

The versatility thing is overplayed. It's been exacerbated in recent times because we've lacked players that can reliably play an effective role. Bev wants to win and isn't afraid to shuffle things around if players aren't performing their roles well enough. We saw in '16, though, that his vision isn't for musical chairs across the board, it's for having a chunk of players that effectively play their primary role but have the flexibility to move around if things aren't working for us.

Now, I do think younger, developing players would benefit from a bit more consistency in their roles - but that's another question altogether.

Then why did he change the system in 17?

Why try Wood forward?

Sorry everything he has done since the flag screams versatility including moving the coaches.

He has outsmarted himself and if he continues to follow that path I cannot see us improving.

 

[Dannnnnnnnnn]

Then why did he change the system in 17?

Why try Wood forward?

Sorry everything he has done since the flag screams versatility including moving the coaches.

He has outsmarted himself and if he continues to follow that path I cannot see us improving.

No question Bev and the coaches have made some bad decisions over the past few years but I don't agree they've been for the sake of versatility. The coach and system changes in '17 weren't intended to increase the team's versatility for mine - I think they were meant to prevent us from getting stale. You have to make some alterations after winning a flag as you become the hunted, but the coaches took it too far and failed. Wood was tried forward not because we wanted him to become more versatile, rather he had the attributes we were crying out for up forward. It was again a bad move, obviously, but one made for different reasons than you suggested imo.

 

[Norm De Guerre]

No question Bev and the coaches have made some bad decisions over the past few years but I don't agree they've been for the sake of versatility. The coach and system changes in '17 weren't intended to increase the team's versatility for mine - I think they were meant to prevent us from getting stale. You have to make some alterations after winning a flag as you become the hunted, but the coaches took it too far and failed. Wood was tried forward not because we wanted him to become more versatile, rather he had the attributes we were crying out for up forward. It was again a bad move, obviously, but one made for different reasons than you suggested imo.

The Wood move to the forward line was a howler, but when you look at how well stocked we were for medium sized half backs and how poor were were for half forwards at the time you can understand the reasoning. What is much harder to understand is how it took Beveridge and Co. so long to recognise what a terrible mistake they had made and what it did to Wood as a player for a good part of the season.