Player Watch #4 Brodie Grundy

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Player Profile:

Experienced ruckman Brodie Grundy joined the red and white after selection in the 2023 AFL Draft Trade Period. The two-time All Australian arrives having played 194 games across Collingwood and Melbourne and after debuting for Magpies in 2013 has gone on to feature in four finals campaigns, including the 2018 Grand Final. The 29-year-old, who cites Dean Cox as his football icon, will bolster a young side of ruckman in Lachlan McAndrew and Will Green.

DOB: 15/04/1994
Draft: 2012
Recruited From: Melbourne FC
 
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grimlock said:
If you haven't seen this worth checking out. Ex-Melbourne ruck Jeff White breaks down how the Lions dominated the center bounces in the 2nd quarter. The point I found really interesting was that the Lions knew Grundy prefers to hit the ball to a certain area and hence were set up to counter this.

I think it's a bit harsh to just point it to Grundy, when this analysis would suggest the Brisbane mids were better structured (and coached?) than ours.

Click to expand...

Out coached once again in a big game. But why weren’t they onto it immediately in the coaches box & where were our leaders? No plan B. No onfield leaders.

A coach playing a system that died when the 6 6 6 was introduced, disabling our ability to halt an opponent’s momentum, thus stopping the 6 or 7 unanswered goals. It was born in our two years of missed finals. Where every was lovey Dover with Horse in the lockdowns.

Adams may not have been at his best but he would have brought some resistance at the contest with a ruckman he knows inside out & against a ruckman playing his first game in 20 or so weeks. The vulnerable midfield should have been the Lions.
Our coaches showed them.
 
Tedeski said:
Out coached once again in a big game. But why weren’t they onto it immediately in the coaches box & where were our leaders? No plan B. No onfield leaders.

A coach playing a system that died when the 6 6 6 was introduced, disabling our ability to halt an opponent’s momentum, thus stopping the 6 or 7 unanswered goals. It was born in our two years of missed finals. Where every was lovey Dover with Horse in the lockdowns.

Adams may not have been at his best but he would have brought some resistance at the contest with a ruckman he knows inside out & against a ruckman playing his first game in 20 or so weeks. The vulnerable midfield should have been the Lions.
Our coaches showed them.
Click to expand...
I think saying that Horse was out coached in a "big game" gives him an out for all the many other games throughout the year... every year... for the past seven or eight years... where Horse is out-coached in the midfield. He simply can not make a midfield work.

Even suggesting Adams being picked is futile. If our midfields have been dog-shit so often with names like JPK and this year's Heeney in them, the addition of an Adams wouldn't have made much difference.

I'm seriously fed up with Horse.
 
grimlock said:
If you haven't seen this worth checking out. Ex-Melbourne ruck Jeff White breaks down how the Lions dominated the center bounces in the 2nd quarter. The point I found really interesting was that the Lions knew Grundy prefers to hit the ball to a certain area and hence were set up to counter this.

I think it's a bit harsh to just point it to Grundy, when this analysis would suggest the Brisbane mids were better structured (and coached?) than ours.

Click to expand...


That is particularly damning for Dean Cox - the champion ex-ruck who coaches our midfield. More than any single person I would think he has responsibility for this. Then of course there's Horse, who sits over him and who bears responsibility for any decisions of his subordinates.
 

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Callipygian said:
That is particularly damning for Dean Cox - the champion ex-ruck who coaches our midfield. More than any single person I would think he has responsibility for this. Then of course there's Horse, who sits over him and who bears responsibility for any decisions of his subordinates.
Click to expand...
Because Cox was a gun ruck 20 years ago why should we expect him to be a master midfield tactician in today's game? Or Horse?
That's a nonsense. Many teams have stoppage analysts and coaches to do this.
THIS would be a major improvement moving forward. Lose a line coach if necessary. Poach one.
 
grimlock said:
If you haven't seen this worth checking out. Ex-Melbourne ruck Jeff White breaks down how the Lions dominated the center bounces in the 2nd quarter. The point I found really interesting was that the Lions knew Grundy prefers to hit the ball to a certain area and hence were set up to counter this.

I think it's a bit harsh to just point it to Grundy, when this analysis would suggest the Brisbane mids were better structured (and coached?) than ours.

Click to expand...

Great share, thank you.

Entirely agree that the midfield also bares responsibility.

What I was trying to say is that Grundy is supposed to be a premier ruck in the comp (with a couple of huge points to prove) up against a journeyman reserve ruck (albeit good quality).

Grundy should have not only be able to dominate Fort in hitouts, but also have the awareness to see the strategies of both teams to win the drop and be able to adapt his ruckwork and tell his mids where they need to be to dominate the game.

He didn’t take on this responsibility / didn’t have the smarts and awareness to do it.
 
grimlock said:
If you haven't seen this worth checking out. Ex-Melbourne ruck Jeff White breaks down how the Lions dominated the center bounces in the 2nd quarter. The point I found really interesting was that the Lions knew Grundy prefers to hit the ball to a certain area and hence were set up to counter this.

I think it's a bit harsh to just point it to Grundy, when this analysis would suggest the Brisbane mids were better structured (and coached?) than ours.

Click to expand...

I've followed White's ruck analysis all year via twitter. He knows his stuff. If we brought him on as a consultant (discretely so as not to embarass Cox), I reckon he could really help.
 
grimlock said:
If you haven't seen this worth checking out. Ex-Melbourne ruck Jeff White breaks down how the Lions dominated the center bounces in the 2nd quarter. The point I found really interesting was that the Lions knew Grundy prefers to hit the ball to a certain area and hence were set up to counter this.

I think it's a bit harsh to just point it to Grundy, when this analysis would suggest the Brisbane mids were better structured (and coached?) than ours.

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing.

A common theme for me throughout the year has been that we've been focused on attack at the expense of defence, and this clip is a little glimpse into that.

A few things stood out.

1. Grundy was poor and let us down.
2. Heeney's inexperience as a mid was telling
3. Dunkley was bloody good in nullifying Heeney (shame we couldn't make him a swan at the two points he was available).

First play, we set up with Heeney looking to attack the ball. Grundy totally messed this one up, as a result, Heeney overruns it. Success here was predicated on a) Grundy winning the ruck battle and b) Heeney taking the ball cleanly. Heeney had the opportunity to take a more defensive approach, continue maintaining body contact with Dunkley, pushing him left, sealing him off from the contest and opening up more space for himself to run into, while staying in the defensive zone where the ball actually ended up. But he was in an ultra-attacking position and was focused on losing contact so he could run onto Grundy's tap. Only that Grundy lost the battle, it went to the Lions advantage and Heeney was out of the play and Dunkley was able to seal him off.

2nd play, Heeney was once again in attack mode, went to the ball before it had even been tapped, allowing the Lions ruck to tap it at his feet, Heeney once again caught in no man's land trying to attack the ball. And clearance to Dunkley who held great position.

3rd play, Grundy, beaten again, Heeney, tries to attack the ball but is beaten by Neale. Poor job by Rowbottom, Neale draws Heeney, opening up Dunkley. Great work by the Lions, all round poor effort by us.

I won't go into the rest, but basically, we went into this game as we did all season, with our fight fire with fire mantra. We went with an offensive mindset, but really weren't equipped to go head to head with Brisbane.

Neale is a dual brownlow medallist for good reason, and Dunkley is an intelligent and experienced mid.

Grundy was poor. Heeney is green in terms of his midfield craft and was asked to attack, which he did, so I'm not overly critical of him.

To me, this falls on the coaches. We went ultra-attacking. The same style that saw us as one of the most potent attacking teams in the comp, but also a team that continually had runs of goals scored against us.

The positive is, the gameplan only needs a bit of fine tuning. If we're at 65 attack 35 defence, we just need to dial it back to 62 attack 38 defence and we may be there.
 
GoTheSwannies said:
Thanks for sharing.

A common theme for me throughout the year has been that we've been focused on attack at the expense of defence, and this clip is a little glimpse into that.

A few things stood out.

1. Grundy was poor and let us down.
2. Heeney's inexperience as a mid was telling
3. Dunkley was bloody good in nullifying Heeney (shame we couldn't make him a swan at the two points he was available).

First play, we set up with Heeney looking to attack the ball. Grundy totally messed this one up, as a result, Heeney overruns it. Success here was predicated on a) Grundy winning the ruck battle and b) Heeney taking the ball cleanly. Heeney had the opportunity to take a more defensive approach, continue maintaining body contact with Dunkley, pushing him left, sealing him off from the contest and opening up more space for himself to run into, while staying in the defensive zone where the ball actually ended up. But he was in an ultra-attacking position and was focused on losing contact so he could run onto Grundy's tap. Only that Grundy lost the battle, it went to the Lions advantage and Heeney was out of the play and Dunkley was able to seal him off.

2nd play, Heeney was once again in attack mode, went to the ball before it had even been tapped, allowing the Lions ruck to tap it at his feet, Heeney once again caught in no man's land trying to attack the ball. And clearance to Dunkley who held great position.

3rd play, Grundy, beaten again, Heeney, tries to attack the ball but is beaten by Neale. Poor job by Rowbottom, Neale draws Heeney, opening up Dunkley. Great work by the Lions, all round poor effort by us.

I won't go into the rest, but basically, we went into this game as we did all season, with our fight fire with fire mantra. We went with an offensive mindset, but really weren't equipped to go head to head with Brisbane.

Neale is a dual brownlow medallist for good reason, and Dunkley is an intelligent and experienced mid.

Grundy was poor. Heeney is green in terms of his midfield craft and was asked to attack, which he did, so I'm not overly critical of him.

To me, this falls on the coaches. We went ultra-attacking. The same style that saw us as one of the most potent attacking teams in the comp, but also a team that continually had runs of goals scored against us.

The positive is, the gameplan only needs a bit of fine tuning. If we're at 65 attack 35 defence, we just need to dial it back to 62 attack 38 defence and we may be there.
Click to expand...
Reinforces my opinion that we had too many outside players in the GF. We had Lloyd, JJ, McInerney, Gulden, Campbell and Warner.
Not enough true inside players. We had Rowbottom and Heeney. We left out Adams, Mills, Sheldrick and Cleary.

The Cattle is there.

The mix is wrong.
 
rustycrate said:
Reinforces my opinion that we had too many outside players in the GF. We had Lloyd, JJ, McInerney, Gulden, Campbell and Warner.
Not enough true inside players. We had Rowbottom and Heeney. We left out Adams, Mills, Sheldrick and Cleary.

The Cattle is there.

The mix is wrong.
Click to expand...
Yup, funny that Adams wasn't even on the emergency list and Parker was being played as a forward. Just rubbish decisions all round. Horse is to blame
 

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I don't where this belongs nor where to post it but here'll do: https://www.athletesvoice.com.au/br...sport-comedy-and-coping-when-things-go-wrong/

This is Brodie Grundy hosting a podcast and interviewing Nazeem Hussain but the whole thing comes across just as a chat and, unfortunately, a rather tedious one for the most part. It's unclear when it was done. Still it's interesting to see something of what Brodie's about/up to. He's done a few others besides, none of them with footy players as far as I can tell.
 
Dubai Quacker said:
Controversial post.

Peak Grundy (circa 2018 & 19) was surrounded by peak Pendlebury, Sidebottom & Treloar.

All pretty handy & masters of the clearance craft.

Maybe he’s only as good as the cattle around him?
Click to expand...
Not that controversial. Absolutely true.
First half of 2024 Grundy was doing very well. Not peak, but well. Then both he and our mid setup got figured out, he tired, things fell away.
I expect he'll start 2025 pretty well but not as well as 2024. If we manage him better and sort out our clearance setup we'll be competitive, which should be enough.
Richmond won three titles with Nank who lost a lot more than he won but they had a great setup.
 
Dubai Quacker said:
Controversial post.

Peak Grundy (circa 2018 & 19) was surrounded by peak Pendlebury, Sidebottom & Treloar.

All pretty handy & masters of the clearance craft.

Maybe he’s only as good as the cattle around him?
Click to expand...

Which star ruckman was awesome with a completely dud midfield ?
 
I just hate that Horse uses the ruck as an excuse for our midfield performance all the ****ing time. Year in year out. He places way too much stock in the ruck instead of looking at what HE and his coaches can do to make the midfield fire WITHOUT being good in the ruck. You know... like most premiership coaches over the last decade have done.
 
caesar88 said:
I just hate that Horse uses the ruck as an excuse for our midfield performance all the ****ing time. Year in year out. He places way too much stock in the ruck instead of looking at what HE and his coaches can do to make the midfield fire WITHOUT being good in the ruck. You know... like most premiership coaches over the last decade have done.
Click to expand...

Horse is a premiership winning coach. And he won a premiership without a star ruck (you could argue about Mumford but he was injured for much of the game anyway).
 
Callipygian said:
Horse is a premiership winning coach. And he won a premiership without a star ruck (you could argue about Mumford but he was injured for much of the game anyway).
Click to expand...
But in the last decade? That's the period I'm looking at. And it's a period that has been mostly characterised by our average midfield and the messaging from the club that our lack of quality ruckmen hurts.

For the record, I'm not denying that Grundy was extremely influential in our midfield's performance earlier this year. I am more asking the question of why he needs to be...
 
I'm not an astute enough judge of the game (and I've never played) to expatiate on the importance of a ruck and how you can counter when you lack a dominant ruck.

But I do think it's the easiest thing in the world to bag the coach and clearly John Longmire knows VASTLY more about the game than pretty much any of us do. He would be all across the pros and cons of rucks and how to play without a dominant ruck and so forth. He's also surrounded by other people who know a lot more about the game than we do. And he has a track record of working with and inviting in strong voices who can challenge his opinions (I'm thinking people like Andrew Ireland, Tom Harley, Don Pyke, Leon Cameron, Mark McVeigh, Jarrad McVeigh etc). He also has a small army of people who drill into stats and vision etc - like we try to but on a much deeper and more thorough level - who help him and his other coaches.

There may be other coaches who are technically better but it seems impossible for us to judge. I find myself having to rely on his peers (who have twice voted him coach of the year and who are universally very respectful).

It might be easier for us to comment on his character or attitude. Is he too soft? Is he too emotional and not calm and dispassionate enough? We can also comment on stylistic issues: once upon a time we thought Horse's game plan was too defensive. Now we seem to think he's swung too far the other way. These criticisms I think are easier to make.

But in terms of saying he doesn't know what he's talking about, or he doesn't understand tactics and strategy (with and without a dominant ruck), I just don't buy it. Even if it were true, we wouldn't know. And even if we judge based on results, his results are absolute top echelon (whether you look at us making so many GFs, or his career winning % or whatever) despite our poor record in Grand Finals (which is the only criticism that can be made of Horse's results).

So, in short, you are entitled to all your opinions and criticisms (and disappointment in the functioning in our midfield is one I share) but some of them I just think are really unsound and I don't agree with at all. I prefer people to say "I'm sick of Horse and losing grand finals over and over and I want a new coach" [which is probably what they really mean] than to say "our coach isn't very good and he doesn't understand what he's doing properly".
 
You are kind to 👍me caesar88 . I feel a bit sheepish. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. I think I got a bit heated.

I'm also still really flat after the GF (I was there), haven't been able to bring myself to renew my membership yet, and don't know what the way forward is. I just don't feel like negativity and bashing anyone connected with the club whose head sticks over the parapet is the answer.
 
Callipygian said:
You are kind to 👍me caesar88 . I feel a bit sheepish. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. I think I got a bit heated.

I'm also still really flat after the GF (I was there), haven't been able to bring myself to renew my membership yet, and don't know what the way forward is. I just don't feel like negativity and bashing anyone connected with the club whose head sticks over the parapet is the answer.
Click to expand...
I feel ya Calli. I think the frustration of all of us not being able to do anything can lead to us drawing our own conclusions as to what's gone on, which isn't always the most productive.

I know you said you haven't ventured into the Sack Horse thread, which is more than fair enough. In there I did leave a pretty lengthy comment as to my thoughts on Horse and his coaching, the general gist of it being that he's a very good coach not without mistakes, and those mistakes have simply caught up to us a bit.

Roast - Sack Horse

I am not authorised to conduct a coaching search 🤣. I just know doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is madness. Also trying to redefine success when there is a clear prize (premiership) to justify keeping someone is bonkers . Recent history has shown that coaches...
www.bigfooty.com www.bigfooty.com

(Not saying my opinion is so important that you must go over to that thread and read it, but your comment above did feel like it was aimed a little towards my earlier comment re the ruck and midfield. So I felt compelled to respond and since I said all I would want to say in the linked comment, I thought it better to just link it here than repeat myself!)
 

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Player Watch #4 Brodie Grundy

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