Training 2024 Preseason training reports and discussion

[Nathan Barley]

It sounds good in theory but still we already struggle with our spread of mid time without Ashcroft in the team. While we struggle to have solid wing options most weeks.

If Fletcher moves more onball it might have to mean McCluggage wider again, or dropping Rayner/Baileys/Dev's mid time

Or Neale ans Dunkley get to rest forward

 

[Section 5]

Or Neale ans Dunkley get to rest forward

Nathan i hope that does not happen.

It sounds good in theory but still we already struggle with our spread of mid time without Ashcroft in the team. While we struggle to have solid wing options most weeks.

If Fletcher moves more onball it might have to mean McCluggage wider again, or dropping Rayner/Baileys/Dev's mid time

Fish may have some inside information but that does not mean it will happen.

However, Dev apparently won't be ready for opening round so that's one exclusion from the GF side.
Dev also on that borderline selection depending on who's available.

Very early days but i think Dev's replacement will possibly be a halfback.
That could mean Wilmott to wing or a more true midfield position.
Then Fletcher stays wing or gets that mid/forward position.

A few more weeks and we will get a better picture of possible position changes.

 

[Nathan Barley]

Nathan i hope that does not happen.


Fish may have some inside information but that does not mean it will happen.

However, Dev apparently won't be ready for opening round so that's one exclusion from the GF side.
Dev also on that borderline selection depending on who's available.

Very early days but i think Dev's replacement will possibly be a halfback.
That could mean Wilmott to wing or a more true midfield position.
Then Fletcher stays wing or gets that mid/forward position.

A few more weeks and we will get a better picture of possible position changes.

I think the reason for our late quarter fadeouts last year were due to 2 of our mids playing onball for 90% of the game and getting tired

Build that midfield depth and hopefully we stop the fadeouts

 

[Section 5]

I think the reason for our late quarter fadeouts last year were due to 2 of our mids playing onball for 90% of the game and getting tired

Build that midfield depth and hopefully we stop the fadeouts

But you mentioned Neals and Dunkley "rest forward".
So that would mean more TOG for both.
They actually get a break when on the bench. They get no break when resting forward.
There is still lots of running for forwards in the modern game.

Unless you mean 85% mid and 5% forward.
But they really are not forwards so in my opinion that is wasting 5% TOG for our best 2 mids.

 

[rye]

But you mentioned Neals and Dunkley "rest forward".
So that would mean more TOG for both.
They actually get a break when on the bench. They get no break when resting forward.
There is still lots of running for forwards in the modern game.

Unless you mean 85% mid and 5% forward.
But they really are not forwards so in my opinion that is wasting 5% TOG for our best 2 mids.

dunkley is capable as a forward but i imagine part of the reason he came to us was to play as a full time mid where he is much better

footscray were wasting his potential parking him forward and taking ruck contests

 

[Nathan Barley]

But you mentioned Neals and Dunkley "rest forward".
So that would mean more TOG for both.
They actually get a break when on the bench. They get no break when resting forward.
There is still lots of running for forwards in the modern game.

Unless you mean 85% mid and 5% forward.
But they really are not forwards so in my opinion that is wasting 5% TOG for our best 2 mids.

It's more that by rotating on a rested Rayner for a fatigued Neale will boost the effectiveness of our midfield

Collingwood showed us up in the GF by rotating Pendlebury into the midfield when our mids were tiring so we would clearly benefit from finding ways to combat teams who carry a lot more midfield depth than we do

 

[rye]

i dont think having more players be able to rotate through the midfield is ever a bad thing. dont really think it should be at the expense of dunkley. neale as he gets older might need to preserved a bit, but doubt that happens in 2024. think it would be better to be rotating them onto the bench than 'rest' forward though

maybe starting on a flank whilst rayner / bailey attend a centre bounce and then rotating with them afterwards would be the extent i could see either of neale or dunkley resting forward. its not like we had a shortage of players capable of rotating in the midfield in the 2023 gf side. robertson, berry, zorko, bailey, rayner all in the team. whether we rotated them well enough on the day is another question.

think robertson's wrist injury was worse than the club let on as he did not go into the middle at all that i can recall.

side bar: think ive made this point before, but a player id be pretty excited about eventually moving into the midfield is wilmot.

has great defensive intent, pace, moves well in traffic and obviously a good kick. could be a serious weapon bursting with the ball out the front half of a stoppage

think he could be a jordan dawson

12

Jordan Dawson

Age

27

Ht

191cm

Wt

91kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

17.0

4star

K

11.4

4star

HB

5.7

4star

M

4.8

5star

T

2.8

4star

CL

0.6

3star

D

15.7

4star

K

10.9

4star

HB

4.9

3star

M

2.9

3star

T

2.0

3star

CL

0.4

3star

D

11.8

3star

K

7.8

3star

HB

4.0

3star

M

5.0

5star

T

3.0

5star

CL

0.6

3star

type mid

 

[Section 5]

It's more that by rotating on a rested Rayner for a fatigued Neale will boost the effectiveness of our midfield

Collingwood showed us up in the GF by rotating Pendlebury into the midfield when our mids were tiring so we would clearly benefit from finding ways to combat teams who carry a lot more midfield depth than we do

I get what you are saying.
I just don't think the side will be any better off with our 2 best inside midfielders being off or resting forward.
In the GF Neal TOG 86.6% with Dunkley 80.7%.
Their average TOG for season 2023: Neale 86.6 % Dunkley 80.7%

Neale highest career average TOG was 92.3% in 2020. That year being his first Brownlow win.
Harder to get a line on Dunkley as he was messed around at the Dogs. His career average TOG is 81.4%
Season 2023 is just an extra 3.6% in his first year as a Lion.

I don't think they are overworked being our 2 best inside midfielders.
But reducing that TOG a little won't hurt us much if the coaches decide to go that way.

 

[M Malice]

 

[SizeMatters]

Clugga looks fit. Big year in for him.

Seperately. This bullshit mid season trade rubbish will be the final nail in the coffin for equalisation. The player association will destroy this league. Pathetic.

Don’t get me started on the annual rule changes. Give it 5 years and we will be playing touch AFL. It’s pathetic. How the **** does a league change 3 to 4 rules every year??? Every damn year. Can we please get appropriate people in positions of power … not ex AFL players who want to put their own touch on the game. Clean out needed.

 

[M Malice]

Clugga looks fit. Big year in for him.

Seperately. This bullshit mid season trade rubbish will be the final nail in the coffin for equalisation. The player association will destroy this league. Pathetic.

Don’t get me started on the annual rule changes. Give it 5 years and we will be playing touch AFL. It’s pathetic. How the * does a league change 3 to 4 rules every year??? Every damn year. Can we please get appropriate people in positions of power … not ex AFL players who want to put their own touch on the game. Clean out needed.

Agree, it will lead to the higher ranked clubs raiding the lower ranked clubs talent mid season to shore up their lists for finals, the players will want to leave as they are in with a chance of a Premiership.

 

[Mr Ripper]

At Springfield do you know Mr Ripper or elsewhere? I remember they had a couple at other venues last year.

Sprungfeld. (I hope)

 

[KissKiss]

I get what you are saying.
I just don't think the side will be any better off with our 2 best inside midfielders being off or resting forward.
In the GF Neal TOG 86.6% with Dunkley 80.7%.
Their average TOG for season 2023: Neale 86.6 % Dunkley 80.7%

Neale highest career average TOG was 92.3% in 2020. That year being his first Brownlow win.
Harder to get a line on Dunkley as he was messed around at the Dogs. His career average TOG is 81.4%
Season 2023 is just an extra 3.6% in his first year as a Lion.

I don't think they are overworked being our 2 best inside midfielders.
But reducing that TOG a little won't hurt us much if the coaches decide to go that way.

But how does that compare to the other best midfields across the year? Would we be better if they dropped both down by 5% (I made that number up) and then two others got 5% more rather than "over working" the main two?

 

[Sanchez365]

As has been mentioned big difference between us having the midfield depth on paper vs practically in game.

Coaches definitely don't see it and a lot of players people are mentioning don't spend a lot of time there. Dev rarely in the middle, Rayner in for some cbas but never actually on ball, Berry lines up on the wing 95% of the time. These guys just don't play as midfielders even if "on paper" they should.

Ashcroft is a freak no doubt but it's pretty galling a first year player pushed out 6-7 other players and got a walk up starting mid spot in a top 4 team. I mean even Fletcher is another example of proving it's a weak spot in our team.

Neale
Dunkley
Ashcroft
McCluggage
Zorko
Berry
Fletcher
Bailey
Rayner
Ah Chee
Dev

I would say the first 4 on that list were the only ones to regularly get midfield time all year. If we have depth we aren't utilizing it.

 

[M Malice]

Sprungfeld. (I hope)

At Springfield do you know Mr Ripper or elsewhere? I remember they had a couple at other venues last year.

Fish said on The Roar Deal today that both intra clubs will be at Michael Voss Oval, this Fridays he said would be a 4pm bouncedown.

 

[M Malice]

Has anybody on here re watched the Grand Final, particularly taking note of what happened re Collingwood's late quarter goals? Was it a result of.

1- Fatigue... we need to be fitter overall.
2- Tactical blunder in dropping a player back late in quarters... get smarter and more adaptable to think in game.
3- As suggested above, too much of a load placed on Neale/Dunkley and they in particular fatigued... spread the load.

I can not bring myself to watch it again, have only watched the final 2 minutes on afl.com, the non calling back of the Neale below the knees free was huge, Neale would have pumped it to the top of the square and anything could of happened eg. Joe/Cam specy, Charlie crumb.

 

[M Malice]

 

[M Malice]

Love this, the vision... and a bit of Johnny Cash.

 

[Cubs2Lions]

Again, this ain’t my video or YT channel but here is some more short vision from today’s session.

 

[Section 5]

But how does that compare to the other best midfields across the year? Would we be better if they dropped both down by 5% (I made that number up) and then two others got 5% more rather than "over working" the main two?

There are a lot of good midfielders in the AFL.
Last season there were 10 midfielders in the AFL that averaged more TOG (min 10 games) than Neale. Pretty much all wing players.

Finding similar traits to Neale and Dunkley i had a look at a cross section of total disposals and contested possession.
I may have missed a couple.

Neale 86.6%
Dunkley 80.7%

Tom Green 85.5%
Bont 84.9%
Petracca 84%
Taranto 84.3%
Oliver 83.7% Had a weird year. Previous 2 years 86.5% & 88.4%
Serong 83.5%
Rowell 82.9%
Tim Kelly 82.1%
Cripps 80.6%
Parish 80.4%

Laird 79.2%
B Crouch 78.5%
Liberatore 78.1%

 

[FeastOrFamine]

Hey everyone, I'm wondering if someone could give me a general run down on the off-season discussion so far in the thread. I feel like it's time to return to being a footy nuff with the season getting fairly close and the praccy match only a few weeks away.

I've been busy organising uni stuff and haven't had the time to keep up with who's been "training the house down" so any help on that front would be much appreciated.

 

[Shinboner1]

 

[briztoon]

As has been mentioned big difference between us having the midfield depth on paper vs practically in game.

Coaches definitely don't see it and a lot of players people are mentioning don't spend a lot of time there. Dev rarely in the middle, Rayner in for some cbas but never actually on ball, Berry lines up on the wing 95% of the time. These guys just don't play as midfielders even if "on paper" they should.

Ashcroft is a freak no doubt but it's pretty galling a first year player pushed out 6-7 other players and got a walk up starting mid spot in a top 4 team. I mean even Fletcher is another example of proving it's a weak spot in our team.

Neale
Dunkley
Ashcroft
McCluggage
Zorko
Berry
Fletcher
Bailey
Rayner
Ah Chee
Dev

I would say the first 4 on that list were the only ones to regularly get midfield time all year. If we have depth we aren't utilizing it.

I've been saying this for a couple of years now.

Levi will probably walk straight in to Zorko's mid-fwd role next season. Fair chance Sam Marshall pushes for a wing spot by mid season next year.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Has anybody on here re watched the Grand Final, particularly taking note of what happened re Collingwood's late quarter goals? Was it a result of.

1- Fatigue... we need to be fitter overall.
2- Tactical blunder in dropping a player back late in quarters... get smarter and more adaptable to think in game.
3- As suggested above, too much of a load placed on Neale/Dunkley and they in particular fatigued... spread the load.

I can not bring myself to watch it again, have only watched the final 2 minutes on afl.com, the non calling back of the Neale below the knees free was huge, Neale would have pumped it to the top of the square and anything could of happened eg. Joe/Cam specy, Charlie crumb.

I did watch it, although it was before Christmas so the details are a bit vague now. It's hard to tell from the TV coverage because you can't see where all the players are and what they are doing. But I think it's a combination of fatigue and going ultra-conservative late in quarters, and those two factors dovetailing into each other to form a self-fulfilling prophecy, where everyone expects the ball carrier to kick long down the line late in the quarter, so nobody runs to create an option because they all know it's going long anyway.

I've watched the third quarter of the Qualifying Final a couple of times... I think it's probably my favourite quarter of the season. Mainly because we kicked 4 goals in the last 5 minutes of the quarter which was rather out of character for our team in 2023.

But funnily enough we almost only got 2 of those goals. The most thrilling single goal of that quarter was Hipwood's goal where Fletcher intercepts that kick inside 50 from Port Adelaide. Next thing he's racing across half back, handballing to Charlie who's kicking it long over everyone's head inside 50. The kick is perfect, it's straight onto Eric's chest without having to break stride running towards goal. With nobody in front of him he gets to run to the goal square and bang it through.

BUT

When Hipwood gets the ball there's 50 seconds to go in the quarter. He takes the mark, keeps going, then suddenly thinks "oops, I really should stop here, go back and take the set shot, and take 30 seconds off the clock". But by the time he's thought about that he's already 10m in front of where he took the mark, so the umpire, quite rightly, calls him to play on. Eric kicks the goal, looks a bit sheepish, and then immediately we get another one to lead by 38 points at the last change.

But imagine if he'd have been allowed to take his shot? Sure, there would only have been 15 seconds left at the end of the quarter after the kick, but he'd have been shooting from 40-45m out, not quite directly in front, and having had a pretty ordinary night in front of goal, would you have really backed him from there? We might have only taken a 27 point lead into the last quarter, and left the door open for Port.

So I think that was an example of our inherent (but needless) conservatism late in quarters, and I really think that attitude is coach-driven because that clearly was not Eric's first thought in the heat of the moment.

I mean, sure, let's not go back to the bad old days of Joe taking a specky and then handballing to Cockatoo at the top of the goal square with 1.5 seconds left in the quarter. We need to exercise more common sense than that! But goodness me, kick an opponent when they're down. If we have the ball, be positive, play to score.

To go back to your Grand Final example, if there is 40 seconds left in a quarter and we have the ball in our back 50, we really only have to get the ball outside 50 and maintain possession. Ideally via kick-mark. No more. That will take another 10-15 seconds off the clock. Once we achieve that, provided we don't make any heinous skill errors going directly sideways, we become the only team who can score. That's when it becomes like the final few overs of a one day cricket game and we can take all sorts of risks you normally can't take in a game. If they come off, great, we score, if they don't come off, we probably lose the ball but the opposition runs out of time.

So far I think Collingwood is the only team who has figured this out. Which is bloody annoying!

 

[McIvor]

Clugga looks fit. Big year in for him.

Seperately. This bullshit mid season trade rubbish will be the final nail in the coffin for equalisation. The player association will destroy this league. Pathetic.

Don’t get me started on the annual rule changes. Give it 5 years and we will be playing touch AFL. It’s pathetic. How the * does a league change 3 to 4 rules every year??? Every damn year. Can we please get appropriate people in positions of power … not ex AFL players who want to put their own touch on the game. Clean out needed.

Absolutely and when you hear that new clown in charge saying that a mid season trade period will provide fans with extra enjoyment or some BS you know we have issues. Start the season with a squad and end it with the same squad. Even the mid year draft is a joke. Since when are trade periods fun or offer any form of entertainment. I mean how is hearing or reading a benign article that North or any other club have traded in some player barely getting a game at club x entertainment? As you said, the AFL just panders to these entitled players.