Bluemour Melting Pot XXVII

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BrisbaneCFC said:
Think we could do worse than look at Oscar McDonald as a depth KPD seeing as he was delisted.
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Would be very keen.
 
F_therest said:
I've said this quite a lot of times, but I question how much someone with poor endurance when drafted can really improve it. Others might know more about this topic, but it doesn't seem like it can be improved to a huge extent and I really want it to be a key trait of our draftees from now on.

In the modern game running power is extremely important...it's one of the key reasons Richmond have won 3 premierships. Watching their games they make plenty of mistakes and hack kicks into F50...but they just keep coming at you and grind teams down with their superior running and eventually you start to see loose Richmond players everywhere...they aren't supremely skilled, but it's easy to look good when you're kicking to players 10m in space or just kicking to a contest and winning more often because you have greater numbers due to superior fitness enabling them to get to more contests.

Having Dow (or anyone unfit) vs someone with elite endurance in certain situations can be the difference between said player being able to break forward into space to set up an easy goal opportunity or being too tired and thus forcing the ball carrier to kick to a contest. And defensively the same...a fit player able to cover his man so the opposition has no outlet and we can force a turnover, or a player letting his man get away from him into space because he can't keep up, and the opposition can go coast-to-coast.
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Great post.

Fitness ( endurance for a given level of performance) is the #1 input into any player's (and team's) ability to maximise performance capability ( skill and execution of game plan) over required periods of game time. Fitness/endurance is also the easiest 'equaliser' between higher-skilled and lower-skilled players or mismatched in size players....fitness in skilled players allows them to perform at high levels of skill execution for longer both physically and mentally.

Ironically - some of our lower skilled players are also the best endurance players - and if there is a big discrepancy between the endurance levels of lower skilled players and higher skilled players- you end up seeing the ball in the hands of lower skilled players - and cop the consequences of it...

In order to 'carry' lower endurance higher skill types - you are demanding greater levels of performance from the balance of the side - I think this is the knock on players like Dow/Kennedy/(Stocker)/SPS as far as midfield capablity goes - they aren't 4 quarter running machines - and maybe this is why blokes like Fisher/Cuningham are being repurposed into small forwards...

it could very well be that these higher midfield picks lack endurance - although Cuningma according to Russell has that rr combination of endurance and speed...so I don't really know what is going on with him.
 

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Oscar McDonald. No thanks. Would honestly prefer it if we tried our luck on the kid in the draft.
 
Ash24 said:
Had 19 in his career over the 15 games. I guess you should ask the AFL stats pro team instead. They're probably looking at the fact that not many key defenders are ruck relief as well. Not too sure.
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19 ruck contests, 5 hit outs, 2 to advantage.

40% hit outs to advantage is elite, but 40% of 5 (2) kind of makes it irrelevant.
 
JustaBattler said:
Great post.

Fitness ( endurance for a given level of performance) is the #1 input into any player's (and team's) ability to maximise performance capability ( skill and execution of game plan) over required periods of game time. Fitness/endurance is also the easiest 'equaliser' between higher-skilled and lower-skilled players or mismatched in size players....fitness in skilled players allows them to perform at high levels of skill execution for longer both physically and mentally.

Ironically - some of our lower skilled players are also the best endurance players - and if there is a big discrepancy between the endurance levels of lower skilled players and higher skilled players- you end up seeing the ball in the hands of lower skilled players - and cop the consequences of it...

In order to 'carry' lower endurance higher skill types - you are demanding greater levels of performance from the balance of the side - I think this is the knock on players like Dow/Kennedy/(Stocker)/SPS as far as midfield capablity goes - they aren't 4 quarter running machines - and maybe this is why blokes like Fisher/Cuningham are being repurposed into small forwards...

it could very well be that these higher midfield picks lack endurance - although Cuningma according to Russell has that rr combination of endurance and speed...so I don't really know what is going on with him.
Click to expand...

Well explained.

A player could be skillful but if he has poor endurance his lack of running power will be exposed both offensively and defensively, and when he reaches fatigue earlier than 'lesser skilled' players there's a point when his skill will drop to their level or worse anyway.

One thing I observed about Richmond is I feel their lower pick, role players all have good running power and mental determination...so guys like Castagna, McIntosh, Lambert, Baker, Aarts, Broad even Short...these two traits are key to them executing their role and contributing to the team while the game style/system also helps cover their skill deficiencies. I don't think any of them would have nearly the same impact as they currently do in a weaker team. IMO role players we pick up need these traits and we can leave the extreme skill to the top picks/players.

I agree that endurance appears to be the knock on guys like Dow/Kennedy/SPS/Fish/Stocker to be full time mids even though they played there in juniors...we'll be exposed through the middle of the ground with them all in there and put too much pressure on Walsh/Curnow etc to do all the power running. Even this year we were exposed through the midfield on dry decks when we played Cripps/Setterfield/Kennedy - think games vs Saints/Hawks/WC for examples.

Cunners is one I'd like to see in the midfield more but with the club targeting speed and run this trade period it gives me confidence that Teague & Co have identified our running power as a weakness and have have sought to address it. In recent years we also added guys like Walsh/Newnes/Gibbons into the best 22 who all have good endurance.
 
BrisbaneCFC said:
Think we could do worse than look at Oscar McDonald as a depth KPD seeing as he was delisted.
Click to expand...

He makes Plow look like Bruce Doull.

That's how good at defending he is.
 
F_therest said:
I've said this quite a lot of times, but I question how much someone with poor endurance when drafted can really improve it. Others might know more about this topic, but it doesn't seem like it can be improved to a huge extent and I really want it to be a key trait of our draftees from now on.
Click to expand...
Dean Cox is a prime example of a player improving his endurance. When he got drafted, he struggled to run a lap and was getting lapped in time trials in his first couple of years. He worked on it extremely hard and probably changed the way ruckmen played with his endurance running ability
 
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Elmer_Judd said:
Oscar McDonald. No thanks. Would honestly prefer it if we tried our luck on the kid in the draft.
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I concur, on another thread talks of bringing in brothers (Cripps, McKay, etc)... Oscar McDonald, Zak Guthrie are recent examples where it just don't translate from sibling to sibling.
 
jj1978 said:
I concur, on another thread talks of bringing in brothers (Cripps, McKay, etc)... Oscar McDonald, Zak Guthrie are recent examples where it just don't translate from sibling to sibling.
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Who's the Cripps brother? I've never seen that discussed
 

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CJMB said:
As someone who used to be pretty into supercoach a couple of years back, there was always a bit of stat reading to try and predict who would be the players to really jump out next year.

For a while there, Tom hickey was one of them. He played lower TOG than most of the top-tier rucks and sometimes had to share ruck duties (with whoever it was at Saints at that time), but his hitouts to advantage numbers were really good (get points for HOtA, not just HO), and this translated to a good points-per-minute value, so the thought was that if he could just secure that #1 ruck title and play solo he'd be a good chance to rival Goldstein/Gawn/etc (but you'd pay heaps less to get him in your team at the start of the year).

It just never eventuated. Pretty sure he still had a great HOtA:HO ratio, but he couldn't get enough overall to really make a huge difference and he didn't seem to do enough outside the ruck contests to add the extra points required (or be a good ruck on the field).

Now looking back, he's a 4 state journeyman and the concept of him being a top line (supercoach/CD/stat) ruck seems absolutely absurd.

Also worth keeping in mind, those Ben McKay 5 career total hitouts come from 2 games (2 vs Ade this year and 3 vs Bris in 2017) and there's every chance he took them against someone waaaay shorter who was pinch hitting because the main ruck was off, couldn't get there in time, or was parked up the field to try and mark any clearance kick out. 2 hitouts to adv from a sample size of 5 total hitouts is so insignificant it might as well be discarded as an outlier. hugh Greenwood actually sits above him for hitout averages in 2020...
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Yeah you've got a good point, although I hope with him being only 22 years old there's plenty of time to develop both his defensive and ruck crafts. People are saying he's too good to be a depth player, but isn't the whole point of our depth behind Jones and Weiters, is to be actually good? Either way I hope we can find a nice project ruck and/or KPD for the future, either this year or next.
 
F_therest said:
I've said this quite a lot of times, but I question how much someone with poor endurance when drafted can really improve it. Others might know more about this topic, but it doesn't seem like it can be improved to a huge extent and I really want it to be a key trait of our draftees from now on.

In the modern game running power is extremely important...it's one of the key reasons Richmond have won 3 premierships. Watching their games they make plenty of mistakes and hack kicks into F50...but they just keep coming at you and grind teams down with their superior running and eventually you start to see loose Richmond players everywhere...they aren't supremely skilled, but it's easy to look good when you're kicking to players 10m in space or just kicking to a contest and winning more often because you have greater numbers due to superior fitness enabling them to get to more contests.

Having Dow (or anyone unfit) vs someone with elite endurance in certain situations can be the difference between said player being able to break forward into space to set up an easy goal opportunity or being too tired and thus forcing the ball carrier to kick to a contest. And defensively the same...a fit player able to cover his man so the opposition has no outlet and we can force a turnover, or a player letting his man get away from him into space because he can't keep up, and the opposition can go coast-to-coast.
Click to expand...

Regarding improving endurance, like anything it comes down to the time and effort put in to make real improvement. With the correct coaching and run program, I believe a professional afl player should have no problem making drastic improvements to endurance (and speed) of the course of a preseason. Whether the player is willing to put in the work (or the club provide the resources required) is another story.

No doubt genetics can play a part, but I'm sure Ed Curnow didn't just wake up one day and he was an endurance beast. He would have worked his arse off to get to that point.
 
jj1978 said:
I concur, on another thread talks of bringing in brothers (Cripps, McKay, etc)... Oscar McDonald, Zak Guthrie are recent examples where it just don't translate from sibling to sibling.
Click to expand...

Ben McKay is different though. Hes shown hes a very capable lockdown defender. Knows when to stop and when to mark. Good kick, good height, good fitness.

Lets get him. In fact, if you gave me the choice of who to prioritise him or Merrett then Im backing in our as yet unproven midfield putting the number 1 target on Ben.

SPS still has a lot of growth and could well overtake Merrett in 2021. Merrett was an early bloomer and while hes maintained a high standard I see Sammo exceeding him.

If we bloody well play him where he should be played that is.
 
Arr0w said:
Ed Phillips, interesting player

Reasonable quality of players, being delisted
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Elite runner isn’t he? What’s his speed like as the hybrid types is what we need to be looking at ie: a mixture of speed and endurance.

Our list size last year was 40 senior, 5 rookie plus 1 catB rookie - total 46
This year we can have a total of 44 inclusive of all categories which means we only lose 2 spots which is about what I said it would be.
 
F_therest said:
Well explained.

A player could be skillful but if he has poor endurance his lack of running power will be exposed both offensively and defensively, and when he reaches fatigue earlier than 'lesser skilled' players there's a point when his skill will drop to their level or worse anyway.

One thing I observed about Richmond is I feel their lower pick, role players all have good running power and mental determination...so guys like Castagna, McIntosh, Lambert, Baker, Aarts, Broad even Short...these two traits are key to them executing their role and contributing to the team while the game style/system also helps cover their skill deficiencies. I don't think any of them would have nearly the same impact as they currently do in a weaker team. IMO role players we pick up need these traits and we can leave the extreme skill to the top picks/players.

I agree that endurance appears to be the knock on guys like Dow/Kennedy/SPS/Fish/Stocker to be full time mids even though they played there in juniors...we'll be exposed through the middle of the ground with them all in there and put too much pressure on Walsh/Curnow etc to do all the power running. Even this year we were exposed through the midfield on dry decks when we played Cripps/Setterfield/Kennedy - think games vs Saints/Hawks/WC for examples.

Cunners is one I'd like to see in the midfield more but with the club targeting speed and run this trade period it gives me confidence that Teague & Co have identified our running power as a weakness and have have sought to address it. In recent years we also added guys like Walsh/Newnes/Gibbons into the best 22 who all have good endurance.
Click to expand...
Cunners 100% a midfielder look at the Essendon game when given the chance
 
C
F_therest said:
Well explained.

A player could be skillful but if he has poor endurance his lack of running power will be exposed both offensively and defensively, and when he reaches fatigue earlier than 'lesser skilled' players there's a point when his skill will drop to their level or worse anyway.

One thing I observed about Richmond is I feel their lower pick, role players all have good running power and mental determination...so guys like Castagna, McIntosh, Lambert, Baker, Aarts, Broad even Short...these two traits are key to them executing their role and contributing to the team while the game style/system also helps cover their skill deficiencies. I don't think any of them would have nearly the same impact as they currently do in a weaker team. IMO role players we pick up need these traits and we can leave the extreme skill to the top picks/players.

I agree that endurance appears to be the knock on guys like Dow/Kennedy/SPS/Fish/Stocker to be full time mids even though they played there in juniors...we'll be exposed through the middle of the ground with them all in there and put too much pressure on Walsh/Curnow etc to do all the power running. Even this year we were exposed through the midfield on dry decks when we played Cripps/Setterfield/Kennedy - think games vs Saints/Hawks/WC for examples.

Cunners is one I'd like to see in the midfield more but with the club targeting speed and run this trade period it gives me confidence that Teague & Co have identified our running power as a weakness and have have sought to address it. In recent years we also added guys like Walsh/Newnes/Gibbons into the best 22 who all have good endurance.
Click to expand...

C'mon. Apples v apples pleasse!

Castagna 24
McIntosh 26/27
Lambert 29
Baker 23
Aarts 26
Broad 27/28
Short 24/25

Dow 21
Fisher 22
Stocker 21
Kennedy 23
 
Ash24 said:
Should we target out of contract Ben McKay in 2021? Very young at 22, and could be the eventual replacement for Jones as well as some ruck relief for TDK/Pitto.

Above average for - Handballs, disposal efficiency (a whopping 83.3%), kicking efficiency (a massive 77%), one percenters, centre clearances, ruck contests, spoils and contested one on ones.

Elite for - Hit-outs to advantage.

Thoughts?
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Said it on the List Managment thread earlier in the year that we should be targeting him as the Jones replacement, we should have struck this year as I think if his form curve keeps on the same trajectory North will have him locked away by mid year and won’t be letting him go anywhere. I hope to hell im wrong.
 
thylacine60 said:
good chance the last thing brothers want to do is play at the same club.......especially twins.......
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This was exactly what Harry said in his draft year, didn’t want to go to the same club as his brother as they had already spent to much time together. Whether this has changed you would have to ask them.
 
Brutalitops said:
Ben McKay is different though. Hes shown hes a very capable lockdown defender. Knows when to stop and when to mark. Good kick, good height, good fitness.

Lets get him. In fact, if you gave me the choice of who to prioritise him or Merrett then Im backing in our as yet unproven midfield putting the number 1 target on Ben.

SPS still has a lot of growth and could well overtake Merrett in 2021. Merrett was an early bloomer and while hes maintained a high standard I see Sammo exceeding him.

If we bloody well play him where he should be played that is.
Click to expand...

Samo doesn’t have the same production as Merrett who can grind out a full game in the middle.

I reckon his best role is a 50/50 forward/mid split with Jack Martin. Still remember his breakout game against the Pies in 2017.

IMO it’ll be one of Stocker or Dow who comes in as the last midfield piece behind Cripps, Walsh, Ed, Setters, Williams and Murphy. Merrett or Kelly to replace Murphy by 2022, hopefully ...
 
FitzroyBlueBagger said:
2019 season Casboult played his best footy of his career when played a role as a key defender, thought he was incredible down there, had a huge influence on many games, massive difference in us winning a few... For me that’s his most effective position, unfortunately opposition KP matchups denies him of his true belonging...
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It certainly assisted him in finding form in the back half of the year and this was exactly why I was saying he should be given time back there this year when his form started to taper.

You can easily tell when Levi is headed towards a form slump as he starts off by dragging his arms down too quickly when taking a mark and ends up dropping them, as soon as this starts to happen the coaches need to intervene rather than hoping for the best.
 
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