Prediction Changes: Round 17 Vs Carlton + pre-match discussion

[AFL Nut]

Colyer was the best forward we had at Peel on the weekend from my watching and I certainly wouldn't be against it. As you say, had pace and pressure as well as putting it on the scoreboard as well.

I can kind of understand the coaches backing in Frederick just because he is playing half forward and a lot of his role is going to mean he is going to get bypassed as an option a good number of times. And at least he is kicking goals unlike Switkowski....

Switkowski looks really good when he is on, but he basically has basically been slightly worse than "playing well when we are on and not when we are not". As you say, he looked useful as a shock weapon in the midfield early in the year but he just can't kick goals consistently enough. His tackle numbers are also right down these last 5 games, with three games of only 1 tackle. Also positionally, not being able to kick 50m goals as a high half forward hurts; many of our opponents equivalents have doubly stuck the boot in with goals from the 50m arc over the last five games. Is he playing better than Sturt, who can actually kick goals? I don't know, but he is definitely a selection panel favorite in that he gets a lot of benefit of the doubt just because he trains well and does the team things.

Shultz has also probably been just off the mark; recently he has been getting very far up the ground, not sure whether that is intentional or whether that teams are deliberately pushing that to happen. I always look at him as a Ballantyne kind of forward and his stats are still comparable to that. I see the next option behind him being Tom Emmett and he was in really good form until he sort of got stuck in the no man's land of being an emergency and not being playing at WAFL level.

I think there is a psychology that the coaching panel have with the forwards that mean that we will always favor smalls that lay lots of tackles over being goal kickers. For mine it is why Henry is now a midfielder and why Sturt is on the verge of not getting a new contract for the next season. I strongly think that if we had Pickett we would play him as winger. We can probably afford to have that attitude if we were smashing the centre midfield battles and having great rebound from defence, but when we don't then I think you kind of need to take whatever you can get in terms of cheap goals.

JL said in his presser the other week that the bye at Peel had come at the wrong time for Colyer so hes doing something right.

 

[AFL Nut]

I like Treacy but have been so frustrated with his kicking. His field kicking is good
When he arrived he was a very raw package but his goal kicking was good
Kicked goals from outside 50 regularly

What has happened?

What frustrates me is that when these younger players have a couple of good games everyone loves them but as soon as they don’t everyone has an opinion on what they need to do better. They are young & still learning so therefore they are going to be up & down. You can clearly see treacy tries his guts out.

 

[go_the_dockers]

I think you can certainly make a case for your position.
But I think there is room on a list for aging icons providing you don't make the Eagles' Error of Too Many, Too Crumbly, Too Fat. Too Dear.
Fyfe's club presence and limited on-field role is worth $400K/year for 2 years and does have some X factor about it.

The wrong thread, but Brodie, Omeara and Fyfe will all be unlikely to be best 22 in there last year.

Game is getting quicker, and we have 3 slow players locked in for multiple years.

Next thing we will do is bring in Matt Crouch.

 

[Vintage]

Cox actually started the year really well. His first few games were backing up his best last year. I think it becomes a confidence issue when the teams doing poorly.

If you watch the first few games again you will have a different opinion - he started very poorly, really slow and copped a lot on here and from commentators, took about 4 games to get going.

It’s too easy to underestimate the impact of missing a month of training.

 

[arsesmart]

Colyer was the best forward we had at Peel on the weekend from my watching and I certainly wouldn't be against it. As you say, had pace and pressure as well as putting it on the scoreboard as well.

I can kind of understand the coaches backing in Frederick just because he is playing half forward and a lot of his role is going to mean he is going to get bypassed as an option a good number of times. And at least he is kicking goals unlike Switkowski....

Switkowski looks really good when he is on, but he basically has basically been slightly worse than "playing well when we are on and not when we are not". As you say, he looked useful as a shock weapon in the midfield early in the year but he just can't kick goals consistently enough. His tackle numbers are also right down these last 5 games, with three games of only 1 tackle. Also positionally, not being able to kick 50m goals as a high half forward hurts; many of our opponents equivalents have doubly stuck the boot in with goals from the 50m arc over the last five games. Is he playing better than Sturt, who can actually kick goals? I don't know, but he is definitely a selection panel favorite in that he gets a lot of benefit of the doubt just because he trains well and does the team things.

Shultz has also probably been just off the mark; recently he has been getting very far up the ground, not sure whether that is intentional or whether that teams are deliberately pushing that to happen. I always look at him as a Ballantyne kind of forward and his stats are still comparable to that. I see the next option behind him being Tom Emmett and he was in really good form until he sort of got stuck in the no man's land of being an emergency and not being playing at WAFL level.

I think there is a psychology that the coaching panel have with the forwards that mean that we will always favor smalls that lay lots of tackles over being goal kickers. For mine it is why Henry is now a midfielder and why Sturt is on the verge of not getting a new contract for the next season. I strongly think that if we had Pickett we would play him as winger. We can probably afford to have that attitude if we were smashing the centre midfield battles and having great rebound from defence, but when we don't then I think you kind of need to take whatever you can get in terms of cheap goals.

Tackling small forwards are the standard m.o. across the AFL though.

In fact, more tackles from small forwards can easily go hand in hand with increasing goal-scoring. Charlie Cameron (47 tackles, 37 goals), Zac Bailey (51 t, 19 g), McCarthy (41 t, 14 g), Rankine (45 t, 30 g), Rachele (16 t, 48 g) are all top 5/10 for tackles in their teams. The Lions and Crows are the highest-scoring teams in the comp.

Schultz (60 t, 19 g) and Switkowski (51 t, 10 g) with possibly increasing midfield minutes aren't incomparable. Their higher tackle levels also allow Walters (27 t, 25 g) to play a more creative and energy-saving role.

 

[apuchar]

The wrong thread, but Brodie, Omeara and Fyfe will all be unlikely to be best 22 in there last year.

Game is getting quicker, and we have 3 slow players locked in for multiple years.

Next thing we will do is bring in Matt Crouch.

Well Serong and Brayshaw aren't going to make it quick.

 

[Bigger]

Have I told anyone lately how much I hate Cripps?

Fyfe breaking a foot means Patrick gets another uninhibited crack at being a w***er to our decent citizens in the middle.

I say we play Johnno, Ras, Jacko and Darcy in the middle as much as possible. For future development rah de rah, but also to confuse Paddy, who won't see anyone under 6 foot to fall on.

 

[s_wd6]

If you watch the first few games again you will have a different opinion - he started very poorly, really slow and copped a lot on here and from commentators, took about 4 games to get going.

It’s too easy to underestimate the impact of missing a month of training.

Nah he was very good against Saints in round 1. Got the most coaches votes for that game too. Maybe he dropped in the next few games I can’t really remember, but he was best on ground in the first game of the year.

 

[pK75]

Have I told anyone lately how much I hate Cripps?

Fyfe breaking a foot means Patrick gets another uninhibited crack at being a w***er to our decent citizens in the middle.

I say we play Johnno, Ras, Jacko and Darcy in the middle as much as possible. For future development rah de rah, but also to confuse Paddy, who won't see anyone under 6 foot to fall on.

Need to add Brodie to the mix, one of my favourite memories from last year was his big don’t argue on Cripps

 

[CapitalA]

I wonder how much of it is to do with the forward structure with JT, and how much is to do with the team playing slightly better, or how much it has to do with natural improvement from Amiss throughout the year.

Before Treacy he went 1.3 goals/game from 6 games.
Since Treacy is in he's gone 2.6 goals/game from 8 games.

I would say it has more to do with the Jye, Jackson, Josh structure than the team playing slightly better.
Going off Jye kicking 4 goals in the two losses to Richmond and Bulldogs. However he didn't give a yelp against gws when we had to move Jacko to the ruck and Josh backup ruck a lot more than since Darcy came back.

 

[FreoRicci]

Because we have 3 underperforming small forwards and Colyer is a very handy player on his day.

Colyer is good at running up and down & linking up, he's got electric pace, is not afraid to take the game on and can kick a goal or 2 on a good day. Plus he has a lot of experience and we are playing very young most weeks. A couple of harder players like Colyer and Brodie could be just what we need to match Carlton.

What's the point in having players on the list if you aren't actually going to play them if the players out there aren't getting the job done? They are depth for when either the incumbent is injured or out of form.

I reckon Freddy, Shultz, Switta could all do with a kick up the bum. Players like Banfield and Sturt are regularly dropped for poor returns, Sturt gets dropped even if he kicks more goals and lays more tackles than the rest of the forwards.

I'd prefer to play Switta as a mid/forward and either Shultz or Freddy can go see how they like running around at Peel.

JL talks about selection integrity but doesn't demonstrate a whole lot of it when it comes to certain players.

Actually agree.
Apart from Tabs and Fyfe, with Chapman rehab, there’s a full list to choose from.
Lack of accountability and players being comfortable.

Players such as Switkowski, Hughes, Aish have at times been poor or below par.
Colyer is pacey and can provide a solid kick.

 

[FreoRicci]

Have I told anyone lately how much I hate Cripps?

Fyfe breaking a foot means Patrick gets another uninhibited crack at being a w***er to our decent citizens in the middle.

I say we play Johnno, Ras, Jacko and Darcy in the middle as much as possible. For future development rah de rah, but also to confuse Paddy, who won't see anyone under 6 foot to fall on.

He ll target Brayshaw no doubt. Would love a Fyfe this week.
Put Jackson on ball, and just bully Cripps.

 

[sumavich]

Can't see us winning, we just aren't that good.
Carlton always lift against us.
Our midfield needs some changes, more speed out of stoppage would be good

 

[Taylor]

I think it will depend which ruck group they can bring against us and which we can match against them.

 

[SiempreFreo]

Have I told anyone lately how much I hate Cripps?

Fyfe breaking a foot means Patrick gets another uninhibited crack at being a w***er to our decent citizens in the middle.

I say we play Johnno, Ras, Jacko and Darcy in the middle as much as possible. For future development rah de rah, but also to confuse Paddy, who won't see anyone under 6 foot to fall on.

Yeah, doubly zackly That sneer….

 

[SHill Shall]

Colyer is pacey and can provide a solid kick.

Don't remember that being a consistent strength of his tbh.

 

[yakamoto]

Colyer’s kicking is generally above average for our list.

 

[s_wd6]

So hip injury for Jackson is why he didn't play much ruck in the past couple games. At least there's an explanation for that decision.

 

[ROGS]

Need to add Brodie to the mix, one of my favourite memories from last year was his big don’t argue on Cripps

Why not get creative and play Banfield on Cripps as similar pace and weight etc
BB was good as tagger when he first started, given him a task/role and let him go for it

 

[Footskill]

Why not get creative and play Banfield on Cripps as similar pace and weight etc
BB was good as tagger when he first started, given him a task/role and let him go for it

Not the worst idea you won't get too much support here for it though

Play the Fyfe role and rotate between mid and forward

 

[Taylor]

Cripps tagged by Banfield, keeping away from the stoppage, Brayshaw tagged by Curnow, leaving the whole game to be Serong and Darcy v Silvani and Cerra

 

[wakojako]

Cripps tagged by Banfield, keeping away from the stoppage, Brayshaw tagged by Curnow, leaving the whole game to be Serong and Darcy v Silvani and Cerra

JLo to tag Vossy every time he leaves the box

 

[Madas]

Question for the jury :

Should I bother driving 400km to attend this game ?

( Edit : if Jackson is out with injury I ain’t going )

 

[deputy]

Question for the jury :

Should I bother driving 400km to attend this game ?

( Edit : if Jackson is out with injury I ain’t going )

Just do it!, Losing to Carlton would be the worse loss of the year .So much to play for and We are better than them if we play our best football.Home game and they are beatable.

 

[Madas]

Just do it!, Losing to Carlton would be the worse loss of the year .So much to play for and We are better than them if we play our best football.Home game and they are beatable.

Thanks for the vote of confidence
I’ve had this game circled on the calendar all year

That’s what I’m fearful of though

I feel like if I’m there and they beat us it’s going to be very depressing

If I’m home I can go play in my shed or go for a surf

But then if we do beat them it’s going to be awesome
Pretty sure I’m going