Bluemour Season Blast Off Edition XXXIII

[BlackGoanna]

1. Walsh
2. Cripps
3. Cerra
?
5. Hewett
6. Kennedy/Martin/Setterfield

If one of Dow or Williams can cement themselves as the 4th genuine midfielder (20+ disposals a game), our midfield goes from worst in the league to mid-table, which is enough given our defence and forward threats.

I would look at this differently. You would have 1 inside mids and 2 endurance mids running though at any one time. Question marks over Dow's endurance. He needs to build it up over pre-season or he shouldn't be in the team. Cuningham I would have in the midfield rotations if fit. Setterfield offers no value. Jack Martin does not have the endurance to be a midfielder.

Inside Mid (rotation forward, bench)
Cripps, Kennedy

Endurance Mid (rotation wing, bench)
Walsh, Cerra, Cuningham, Hewitt, Curnow, Dow*

Stocker can be developed as an inside midfielder, however I would give him another year in the backline to build his confidence. I think they will persevere with Kemp as 3rd tall defender for a few years.

We clearly need some more star midfielders to go past the likes of Curnow, Hewitt. We only really have Carrol and possibly Philp, Ramsay.

 

[Hands On]

Hmmm. I’m still not over Hamill leaving…

Don't want him Back. Average coach

That is my point, we need to bolster the midfield.
Cerra and Hewett will definitely help.

Kennedy will not be a constant in our midfield if we want to climb the ladder.

You could possibly say the same about Crips, I fear opposition coaches have worked him out, slow and in the second half of the season showed he has less tricks than Kennedy.

 

[Gethelred]

If we were looking at Dunstan, then I anticipate we are considering trading Dow to the tigers. We'd probably be interested for their pick 15 if it was available.

Hewett and Dunstan in as Free Agents
Cerra for Pick 6
Pick 15 for Dow (Richmond)
Pick 49 for SPS (West Coast)
L. Young for pick 49 (effectively what they paid for him)

Midfield changes:
Out: Murphy, Dow, Curnow, SPS (acknowledging some werent pure mids)
In: Stocker, Cerra, Hewett, Dunstan

Williams plays half back and rotates with Stocker

Richmond would have every reason to offer pick 26, citing inadequate development, lack of size and fitness. Sure, we then proceed to walk away, but if the goal is to maximise his trade value he then walks 12 months later when OOC.

I'm not as big a critic of Dunstan as some, but Dow's ability to find a target improved considerably where his never has. If we trade Dow and LOB while delisting Ramsay and recruiting Dunstan, I am going to be rather irate.

 

[Blue and Silver]

Don't want him Back. Average coach

You could possibly say the same about Crips, I fear opposition coaches have worked him out, slow and in the second half of the season showed he has less tricks than Kennedy.

Cripps has way more tricks than Kennedy.

Ever seen Kennedy fake out multiple defenders and goal 50 out?

On SM-A515F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Magruder]

Don't want him Back. Average coach

You could possibly say the same about Crips, I fear opposition coaches have worked him out, slow and in the second half of the season showed he has less tricks than Kennedy.

Needs to get back to winning the ball on the inside and taking the first option available.

More time as a fwd threat, improve his set shot kicking become an outlet option for down the line kicks from half back and some very limited ruck rotations.

Do that, as he did a couple of games toward the end of the year, and he's back as a top 20 player in the comp again.

 

[Hands On]

Cripps has way more tricks than Kennedy.

Ever seen Kennedy fake out multiple defenders and goal 50 out?

On SM-A515F using BigFooty.com mobile app

True

 

[Aphrodite]

Sure. And can you keep trade talk opinion and non rumours to the trade thread?
Deal?
(It's not me ...it's shetland. He get's wildly grumpy for a little fella. Can't crease his newspaper either)

So you want to free up bandwidth in this thread so you can post your horsey gifs/memes.


Nah don't think so.

 

[4flagsin5yrs]

As long as it's not the Dogs, Demons or Giants that argument probably stacks up pretty well with regards to Kennedy. If we have some luck with injury and natural development, Kennedy could well be in that 2nd string and rest forward which would be a good result for us given he stays fit and carries on with what we saw in the back half of this year

Round 8.

We had the better of the Dogs for nearly 3/4trs of the game before our mental frailty kicked in....

Our mids that day?

Walsh, Crippa, Williams (1st game back), Cuners, Ed C, SPS.....

Crippa was very quiet, Williams all but invisible.

Not much speed in that lot.

Add Cerra, Hewett, Kennedy in there, huge improvement.

 

[smashbox gill]

Needs to get back to winning the ball on the inside and taking the first option available.

More time as a fwd threat, improve his set shot kicking become an outlet option for down the line kicks from half back and some very limited ruck rotations.

Do that, as he did a couple of games toward the end of the year, and he's back as a top 20 player in the comp again.

I think Voss alluded to this, the same he did with Wines.
Get him back to basics and what he does best which is winning the ball in the contest and stop trying to do so much. I’ve got a lot of faith that Cripps can get back to his best

 

[thylacine60]

Seriously?
That is a very thin midfield.

Kennedy has never played consistently good footy and does not look like making it as a quality mid.
Dow has improved but has a long way to go.

Dow doesn't have far to go at all.

 

[DangerousD]

So, he's got issues with his foot but he'd be perfect for us when we have a shocking record with fitness and getting blokes on the park. Ok.....

I know you can read, so you obviously just chose to ignore the, body permitting of course, sentence from the post you quoted.

 

[El Topo]

Needs to get back to winning the ball on the inside and taking the first option available.

More time as a fwd threat, improve his set shot kicking become an outlet option for down the line kicks from half back and some very limited ruck rotations.

Do that, as he did a couple of games toward the end of the year, and he's back as a top 20 player in the comp again.

We lost in a shocking team performance, but Cripps' game against Norf is the way forward

 

[Blue__Balls]

So I am led to believe.

I've only seen it mentioned here. Haven't seen a source to confirm. Then again, I also haven't specially looked either.

AFL confirms 2022 list sizes, tweaks rule for rookies

Any players in their third season as a Category A or B rookie will be eligible to spend another season as a rookie in 2022

www.afl.com.au

In here, towards the bottom. Back to three picks minimum.

Other notable change is that third year rookies can stay on the rookie list for a fourth year.

 

[Coops93]

We lost in a shocking team performance, but Cripps' game against Norf is the way forward

Cripps with 10 kicks and 20 handballs is a fine ratio. Normally you want it closer to 50-50 but Crippas handballs are gold inside the contest.

I was also fine with the game against GWS in which Teague and his manager criticised him, saying he hurt the team by not kicking more. He was just about BOG before he went off, he had 6 clearances and 12 contested possessions in just 51% game time, yet his coach whacked him!

Cripps strengths are in a phone booth, but based on the big wigs comments I think we know who was pushing him to be Dustin Martin...

 

[slashin_velvet]

Richmond would have every reason to offer pick 26, citing inadequate development, lack of size and fitness. Sure, we then proceed to walk away, but if the goal is to maximise his trade value he then walks 12 months later when OOC.

I'm not as big a critic of Dunstan as some, but Dow's ability to find a target improved considerably where his never has. If we trade Dow and LOB while delisting Ramsay and recruiting Dunstan, I am going to be rather irate.

Probably should clarify that im not endorsing Dunstan - but if they do look at him, then someone's gotta go. Kennedy just re-signed, Newnes reportedly hit a trigger, Setterfield is valueless

 

[Blue__Balls]

I think Voss alluded to this, the same he did with Wines.
Get him back to basics and what he does best which is winning the ball in the contest and stop trying to do so much. I’ve got a lot of faith that Cripps can get back to his best

Kennedy did too, actually, I believe - said that his form at the tail end of the year stemmed from a renewed focus on his strengths rather than trying to improve all his weaknesses. I feel like maybe our coaches got a bit carried away trying to round out players instead of playing them to their strengths.

Cripps slimming down to improve his outside play, then bulking back up.
SPS spending a lot of time down back "learning to defend".
LOB spending time in the reserves working on his contested game.
Williams playing as a full time mid until it became painfully clear he needed to go back.
Setterfield to the wing

Think we'll see things simplified a bit under Voss, at least initially. There's always room for a bit of positional experimentation, but we seemed to be playing a bit of musical chairs here when our list has all the pieces if they're put in the right spots.

 

[Blue__Balls]

Probably should clarify that im not endorsing Dunstan - but if they do look at him, then someone's gotta go. Kennedy just re-signed, Newnes reportedly hit a trigger, Setterfield is valueless

If Dunstan doesn't land somewhere else, I'd give him an invite to train through the preseason with the option to grab him in the SSP if any of our mids got injured. Don't think we want to be picking him up for a normal list spot though, he doesn't offer anything we don't already have or are expected to gain in the coming weeks.

 

[Gethelred]

Probably should clarify that im not endorsing Dunstan - but if they do look at him, then someone's gotta go. Kennedy just re-signed, Newnes reportedly hit a trigger, Setterfield is valueless

Oh, I got that from your post. Projecting forwards.

I think Dunstan, in the right midfield - say, instead of Prestia a few years ago, Richmond got him - he could be a good deal better than adequate. Just with our list the way it is (with Jack, LOB being excellent disposers of the ball to a leading target, getting in Cerra who is the same, Dow having made exceptional strides in this direction, Saad, Williams) and with Cripps, Kennedy and Setterfield sitting on the list, I don't have space for him and I definitely don't have space for him if it means that Ramsay/LOB/Dow leave.

And we're doing something in behind the scenes here I think. If you look at how slowly slowly we're treating the new contracts and how we're consistently hearing how the renewed signings are 'commitments' rather than significant contracts (amount and length is low) it looks like we're either cash tight or we've something in mind for the savings. Cerra and Hewitt might be on decent coin - Cerra especially - but the alternative could be that we pay Newnes out of the trigger to vacate the list spot.

We'll see, I guess.

 

[Countryblueswitnotattoos]

Cripps has way more tricks than Kennedy.

Ever seen Kennedy fake out multiple defenders and goal 50 out?

On SM-A515F using BigFooty.com mobile app

I've seen Cripps do that once successfully. Then I've lost count of the number of times he tried to replicate it to the teams detriment. I like Cripps, but I would prefer he puts that club back into his golf bag and leave it there to be honest.

 

[Kings of Lygon]

Probably should clarify that im not endorsing Dunstan - but if they do look at him, then someone's gotta go. Kennedy just re-signed, Newnes reportedly hit a trigger, Setterfield is valueless

If we look at bringing in Dunstan we need our heads read. You mentions Setters being valueless, Dunstan is literally valueless given St. Kilda just jettisoned him for nothing. There's some chance he ends up in a state or local league next year.

He cannot hit the backside of a barn with his disposals and averages only a tick above 20 possessions a game for his career. Isn't overly quick, is horrible defensively, is short and has very limited versatility.

 

[spry]

I think our top end is good. It's our role players that are below par. The games we won this year we're mostly on brilliance from guys like Walsh and Harry rather than system and players do their jobs consistently.

The critical thing here (and I don’t want to be dismissive) is that system players require a system..

if they don’t have it what you get is a whipping boy.

 

[swuzzlebubble]

The critical thing here (and I don’t want to be dismissive) is that system players require a system..

if they don’t have it what you get is a whipping boy.

We'd be lost without a whipping boy

 

[Faucon Bleu]

Enquires regarding Setterfield.

 

[andrewroberts91]

Cripps has way more tricks than Kennedy.

Ever seen Kennedy fake out multiple defenders and goal 50 out?

On SM-A515F using BigFooty.com mobile app

Ever seen Kennedy try to shrug off defenders, pirouette and do the impossible but get caught holding the ball 9 times out of 10?

 

[katmanblue]

Wouldn't say better, more on par.
The difference is, they are a lot better at the other parts of the game.

Kennedy is a much better forward than either.

Unfortunately none of them are very well rounded footballers.

Having three defensive liabilities in the midfield was one reason we kept getting runs of goals kicked against us. Made even worse when Pitto was playing.