Changes vs Carlton

[Elder van Berlo]

^ what is Otten's position? Again, one of the things I said in pre-season was that Otten may have done himself a disservice by playing so well as an emergency forward last year.

He was never going to be able to hold that position with the addition of two first-22 key forwards in Pods and Tex, particularly if Jenkins and Lynch made successful returns from injury. We've already had long threads about who misses out from all these guys without even throwing Otten's name in the mix.

But Otten's absence from defence gave Hendo and Hartigan a chance to push for Otten's spot back there, which they've both done with varying degrees of success. You'd think there would be little doubt that Hendo would be in the side if he was fit. Hartigan has been largely very good this year as well, mainly as a straight KPD but also in the 3rd tall role when Truck has been in the side.

So Otto's miles off as a forward, is certainly no small defender, probably not strong enough to play as a KPD... Doesn't leave a lot of options. While Hartigan is performing well and until Otten is knocking down the door in the SANFL, I find it hard to see a spot for him. It says a lot IMO that Reilly and Shaw were dropped in the same week, and Otten didn't come in. He would've been the most like for like replacement for both those guys.

 

[Kane McGoodwin]

We are too slow with Truck, Talia and Otten (although not so bad if Reilly isn't there)

Otten was becoming our swing man; Pods has been playing that role.

I like Otten, a lot, but is he good enough as a pure stopper? I still have big concerns about his pace and agility.

I'm hoping he was another victim of the fat bastard routine we were running with last year, and that we've trimmed him down a bit so he can play as a running defender (should've been AA in his early year, he was better than Maxwell who got it).

There is no significant difference in speed between hartigan & Otten that some are banging on about. Otten is a far better decision maker & has footy smarts.

It's playing Reilly with 3 of these players I have my doubts on.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

How can Henderson play forward? with Tex, Pods and JJ there?

I mean Lachie Henderson

 

[Bailey01]

I mean Lachie Henderson

Yer sorry that's who I meant.

 

[HKCrow]

I hope we don't treat this win as we treated the Kangaroos win last year; a sign that we're back baby and it will all be ok from here - unchanged all the way! We did lose to Melbourne at home, being 7 goals to 1 down at one stage. That was just one game ago. We are quite capable of losing to Carlton and Gold Coast.

A big part of the reason we won was because we got some good players back in (Walker, Douglas), made some hard calls on experienced players (Petrenko, Reilly) and were adventurous rather than cautious with youth (Cameron). We need to keep making these types of selection calls.

Good call. The hard decisions last week delivered results, when we were getting NO results before that.

 

[GROTTO]

Crows coach Brenton Sanderson could endorsed an unchanged line-up. He also could seek changes to deal with the tactical needs of playing Carlton. And he could reward players in impressive form in the SANFL, in particular midfielder Jarryd Lyons and utility Andy Otten.

Sanderson could restructure his defence with Otten appearing a better fit than Kyle Hartigan to deal with the Blue’s mid-size forwards.

Lyons’ consistent form in the SANFL puts the heat on Matthew Wright and Matt Crouch at selection.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...aling-broken-leg/story-fni5f4l8-1226922051692

It is interesting the media are suggesting that Hartigan would go for Otten. While Rutten is slow and is old, I have hardly noticed his "clangers" costing us goals this year. I still remember his great run from defence to I50 to kick a goal in the NAB challenge.

While I am happy that there is no changes, I hope Sando does what is best for the team to win, as opposed to rewarding the team for a good performance by making no changes. I would like Lyon to be rewarded and acknowledge for his good form in the SANFL. Sends a clear message to the reserves that if you perform consistently you will play.

 

[GROTTO]

A possible eye opener as to what we may expect on Sunday?



Plenty of players missing for us that will make a significant difference on Sunday too.

 

[Rear Admiral]

Our best clearance player? I don't think so.

As Sando says, Thommo is an absolute Bull in the Clearances/Stoppages....a gun. He is awesome at this. But the moment the Footy is one fraction of an inch outside the congestion, Thommo is useless. His decision making and disposal in open-play are beyond horrendous. He's like a rabbit frozen in the headlights....to the point where I reckon he's become a liability. And watching him (try to) chase? It's like watching a smaller version of Truck chase.

Thommo is a Clearance Machine, and is hard to beat in these scrimmages, but I just reckon the remainder of his game has reached the point where he is a liability in general field play.

 

[Rear Admiral]

Crows coach Brenton Sanderson could endorsed an unchanged line-up. He also could seek changes to deal with the tactical needs of playing Carlton. And he could reward players in impressive form in the SANFL, in particular midfielder Jarryd Lyons and utility Andy Otten.

Sanderson could restructure his defence with Otten appearing a better fit than Kyle Hartigan to deal with the Blue’s mid-size forwards.

Lyons’ consistent form in the SANFL puts the heat on Matthew Wright and Matt Crouch at selection.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...aling-broken-leg/story-fni5f4l8-1226922051692

It is interesting the media are suggesting that Hartigan would go for Otten. While Rutten is slow and is old, I have hardly noticed his "clangers" costing us goals this year. I still remember his great run from defence to I50 to kick a goal in the NAB challenge.

While I am happy that there is no changes, I hope Sando does what is best for the team to win, as opposed to rewarding the team for a good performance by making no changes. I would like Lyon to be rewarded and acknowledge for his good form in the SANFL. Sends a clear message to the reserves that if you perform consistently you will play.

I'm not a fan if Otten in the slightest, and I wouldn't bring him in for a Mid-sized anything. I tend to think you gotta be big enough to hold a Key Position, or you gotta be small and quick. Otten is neither.

Truck? Beyond slow, but his skills, decision making, disposal, and almost non-existent number of conceded goals are a huge plus. In fact these points are why I wanted him as a Key Forward years ago (not now), before we picked up our current batch of Forwards.

But who/what are you referring to in this NAB Cup transition Goal? Hartigan? Truck?
I've always had this thing for seeing ANY Full Back sneak Forward and slot a Goal. Any Full Back from any team.

Also, am I the only one who notices Otten's zero lateral skills and how he is FOREVER falling over?!? Has me tearing my hair out.

 

[Rear Admiral]

Bullshit

Hartigan is MUCH quick, not slightly and Hartigan covers the ground a lot easier then Otto

Otto has also lost a lot core strength and this is why he goes to ground so easily, not to mention Otto is one of our worse tacklers on our list.

Not to mention playing Otto, Truck and Talia down back together seriously exposes us on leg speed and throw Radar into this mix well here comes 2013 again when sides just kicked it over our defense and creamed us for leg speed and walked into an open goal

The difference in oace and mobility is significant

Absolutely spot on. Thankyou.
I'd play Talia and Hartigan as Key Posts. The rest of our Back Six needs to be chosen 99.99% on leg speed.
2013 was a picture-perfect example of how cement-filled boots stuffs up a Season.

Little blokes running off with the Pill once it hits the deck - this is our issue. We need another Betts as a Back Pocket. Or two of him.

 

[Rear Admiral]

It is no coincidence that our best game for the season coincided with having more speed on the ground.

Thankyou!!!

I am on my knees praying to God that Sando is reading this post.

 

[lunacy]

There is no significant difference in speed between hartigan & Otten that some are banging on about. Otten is a far better decision maker & has footy smarts.

It's playing Reilly with 3 of these players I have my doubts on.

There is a big difference in speed between Otten & Hartigan IMO. Otten would be one of the slowest players in our team, where as Hartigan would be mid pack IMO.

 

[lunacy]

As Sando says, Thommo is an absolute Bull in the Clearances/Stoppages....a gun. He is awesome at this. But the moment the Footy is one fraction of an inch outside the congestion, Thommo is useless. His decision making and disposal in open-play are beyond horrendous. He's like a rabbit frozen in the headlights....to the point where I reckon he's become a liability. And watching him (try to) chase? It's like watching a smaller version of Truck chase.

Thommo is a Clearance Machine, and is hard to beat in these scrimmages, but I just reckon the remainder of his game has reached the point where he is a liability in general field play.

Well then everyone else has to be applying excellent pressure while he is the tough presence on the inside.

Every player is gonna have a weakness. It's funny that people are so pro Lyons getting a game yet he shares the very same weaknesses. That's the beauty of team. It's made up of very different players with different strengths and weaknesses. Thommo was one of our best for sure against Collingwood. Sure he isn't the complete player but probably only Gary Ablett is.

 

[Vader]

As I see it there are three players who could, conceivably, be dropped - Wright, BoB and Rutten:

• Wright was our worst player on Thursday night, by quite a margin, and was subbed out as a result. He wasn't great against Melbourne either and could be on thin ice after a string of relatively poor performances.
• BoB was selected as sub this week. He did nothing wrong after being subbed into the game, but was clearly beginning to tire before the bye. Hopefully with a bye under his belt and the best part of a week off against Collingwood, he'll be sufficiently recovered to return to the starting 21. That said, we all know that the lime bib is frequently followed by a week in the SANFL.
• Rutten destroyed his opponent, but looked oh so slow. Time waits for no man and Rutten is clearly getting towards the end of his career. Whether that slowness is caused by ongoing problems with his knee, or the inevitable aging process, I don't know. What I do know is that he could well be dropped this week if they don't think there's a suitable match up for him in Carlton's forward line.

That said, I think we'll go into the Carlton game unchanged. This has nothing to do with rewarding a team who played so very well, it has everything to do with the fact that there is nobody in the SANFL who would materially improve the team.

With Otten & Reilly apparently playing poorly in the SANFL (and I take any posts about Reilly with a grain of salt due to some seriously one-eyed agendas), that only leaves Grigg and Lyons as possible inclusions. Grigg has just been sent back to the SANFL after a couple of horrible games at AFL level - being subbed in very late didn't help him in the Footscray game, but he has no excuses for his poor showing against Melbourne. Grigg will need at least 2-3 high quality games in the SANFL before the selectors consider bringing him back into the AFL team. That leaves Lyons and I think we all know that that's just not going to happen. No matter what I, or anyone else here on BF think, Sando clearly doesn't rate Lyons and it's highly unlikely that he'll be selected next week as a result.

Even if Sando were to have an epiphany regarding Lyons, you have to ask whether selecting Lyons and dropping Wright improves the team. It's hard to argue that it does. On that basis, Wright holds his position (for now).

The only change I'm expecting to see is Matt Crouch starting in the 21, with Wright wearing the lime green bib.

 

[Vader]

Why are people suggesting we drop Crouch? Madness. Must pump games into him no matter what. And we aren't at the "no matter what" stage because he hasn't played a bad game yet.

He had a real impact with his clean hands even in limited playing time v Collingwood.

Crouch stays in with the odd sub appearance to freshen him up.

Crouch was clearly showing signs of fatigue before the bye, which is entirely understandable for a kid playing his first season, spending most of his time in the midfield. He started in the lime green bib against Collingwood and we all know where the next stop is from there.

Crouch is a player that they have to manage carefully. He's clearly shown that he's good enough to play at this level - and to play very, very well at this level. He's also just a kid, who doesn't have the base fitness level that the more senior players have, after many pre-seasons. On the one hand, they want/need to give him as much experience as possible. On the other hand, they need to be careful that they don't burn him out. If that means he gets a week or two in the SANFL to recover from an exhausting period in the AFL, then I can live with that.

 

[Vader]

I got slammed for saying in pre-season that although Otten would start the year in the best 22, there was no guarantee he would end it there as we have better or higher upside options at every position Otten can play.

You got slammed because at the time you wrote those comments they were absolute rubbish. Otten was a certainty for our best 22 every day of the week, until he injured his knee in the MMC. His lack of form since then is 100% attributable to that incident. Without it, he would have played every game this year.

Unfortunately, Otten has a history of taking a long time to get back to his best post-injury. He'll be an automatic selection if/when he does regain form.

 

[Elder van Berlo]

Crouch was clearly showing signs of fatigue before the bye, which is entirely understandable for a kid playing his first season, spending most of his time in the midfield. He started in the lime green bib against Collingwood and we all know where the next stop is from there.

Crouch is a player that they have to manage carefully. He's clearly shown that he's good enough to play at this level - and to play very, very well at this level. He's also just a kid, who doesn't have the base fitness level that the more senior players have, after many pre-seasons. On the one hand, they want/need to give him as much experience as possible. On the other hand, they need to be careful that they don't burn him out. If that means he gets a week or two in the SANFL to recover from an exhausting period in the AFL, then I can live with that.

While I agree we have to manage him carefuly, by Sunday Crouch will have played 15 minutes of footy in 22 days. If he was fatiguing (and I'm not sure I agree he was - he had one sub-par game and even then, 15 touches, 9 contested, 5 tackels and a goal is hardly a stinker), he's had plenty of time to freshen up now.

You got slammed because at the time you wrote those comments they were absolute rubbish. Otten was a certainty for our best 22 every day of the week, until he injured his knee in the MMC. His lack of form since then is 100% attributable to that incident. Without it, he would have played every game this year.

Unfortunately, Otten has a history of taking a long time to get back to his best post-injury. He'll be an automatic selection if/when he does regain form.

We will never know whether this is true because he got injured and hasn't regained form since, which has taken the decision out of our hands somewhat. The point that I was trying to make is that Otten plays in a position(s) where we have several other good players on our list and that it wasn't out of the question that by the end of 2014, he would have been overtaken by players who were behind him as at the end of 2013 and squeezed out of the 22 as a result.

Our depth in those positions is exemplified by the fact that (besides Otten) we had two 3rd tall defenders playing in the SANFL on the weekend, as well as one out injured, and two tall forwards playing in the SANFL on the weekend, as well as one out injured. And we convincingly beat a top 8 side in the AFL, so those in the side obviously did ok.

Coming back to the point of the thread, which is whether Otten should play this week, and not whether he's best 22 in a philosophical sense, I still prefer Hartigan in that position, unless and until Otten is clearly a preferable option. I think it's important we keep getting games into Hartigan and that Otten is very replaceable in the medium-long term.

 

[huludicidal]

I understand the talk surrounding Otten not being considered for selection until he regains form, but did anyone here actually see him play against Norwood? Judging by the stats, it seems like he may well have found form in this game. Or was it a clanger-riddled, cheap stat game from him?

If the selecton panel feel he played well and is 100% fit, I have no doubt he'll be selected, either this week or the next. Whether that is at the expense of Hartigan, Rutten, Crouch or Wright is up for debate but I know he is highly regarded by the club. I just didn't see the Norwood game so I don't know for sure how he went, as stats never tell the full story.

 

[Vader]

While I agree we have to manage him carefuly, by Sunday Crouch will have played 15 minutes of footy in 22 days. If he was fatiguing (and I'm not sure I agree he was - he had one sub-par game and even then, 15 touches, 9 contested, 5 tackels and a goal is hardly a stinker), he's had plenty of time to freshen up now.

I agree with this and posted something similar in the post before I quoted yours:

Hopefully with a bye under his belt and the best part of a week off against Collingwood, he'll be sufficiently recovered to return to the starting 21.

That said, there are still another 14 games to go this season (assuming we don't make the finals). If he's showing fatigue after just 6 (he didn't play in R1 and was clearly given the bib on fatigue management grounds for R8), then it's fairly safe to assume that he's going to fatigue again. He might be recovered now, after a week off and 1/8th of a game vs Collingwood, but that fatigue will return again once he starts playing full games again. He needs to be managed carefully, because he has a lot to offer and we don't want to burn him out.

 

[Vader]

I understand the talk surrounding Otten not being considered for selection until he regains form, but did anyone here actually see him play against Norwood? Judging by the stats, it seems like he may well have found form in this game. Or was it a clanger-riddled, cheap stat game from him?

If the selecton panel feel he played well an is 100% fit, I have no doubt he'll be selected, either this week or the next. Whether that is at the expense of Hartigan, Rutten, Crouch or Wright is up for debate but I know he is highly regarded by the club. I just didn't see the Norwood game so I don't know for sure how he went, as stats never tell the full story.

I didn't see the game (obviously), so I can't comment on whether he played well or not. IF he played well, then he may be in a position to alter the selection equation. It's probably fair to say that there is only room for 2 of Rutten, Hartigan & Otten in the team.

When fit, Rutten is easily the best of those 3 players and should be selected automatically on that basis. That said, I'm not convinced that he is fully fit at present and not still suffering from the knee injury which saw him miss games earlier in the season.

Hartigan is probably our future replacement for Rutten and needs to gain as much experience as possible before Rutten goes Trucking into the sunset. Right now he's the least effective of the 3 players in question, but he's also the least experienced and has significant scope for improvement as he gains that experience.

Otten might not be as quick as Hartigan (and both are quicker than Truck), but he's a much smarter player. Otten gives a degree of flexibility that Hartigan can't - he's able to play on mid and tall sized forwards. If fit and in form, he's an automatic best 22 selection every day of the week. The big question is whether he's fit and in form?

 

[AFC979810]

As Sando says, Thommo is an absolute Bull in the Clearances/Stoppages....a gun. He is awesome at this. But the moment the Footy is one fraction of an inch outside the congestion, Thommo is useless. His decision making and disposal in open-play are beyond horrendous. He's like a rabbit frozen in the headlights....to the point where I reckon he's become a liability. And watching him (try to) chase? It's like watching a smaller version of Truck chase.

Thommo is a Clearance Machine, and is hard to beat in these scrimmages, but I just reckon the remainder of his game has reached the point where he is a liability in general field play.

You see what you want to see.

His positives far outweigh his negatives. Would be top 5 in our clubs B&F so far this year.

 

[Brown_DOG68]

You really do talk rubbish sometimes:

• Wright was our worst player on Thursday night, by quite a margin, and was subbed out as a result. He wasn't great against Melbourne either and could be on thin ice after a string of relatively poor performances.

Did you actually watch the game? I mean without your blinkered sith helmet on? I'd suggest go back and watch the game again, and maybe notice all the one-percenters in Wrights game that don't show on the stats sheet or in the supercoach scores.

The worst by quite a margin? did you notice Laird's game?
Wright was subbed out on thurs night with 10 mins to go in the game, only because he was spent, and no other reason.
Sure, he only touched the ball 15 times, and kicked 0 goals, but your assessment is pretty typical for you - watching the game on TV 1000 km away and reading the stats on the internet, and then creating your own "facts".[/QUOTE][/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

[TheLeftFist8]

The worst by quite a margin? did you notice Laird's game?

I'm a Laird fan but I'd have to agree with this re last game.

 

[Brown_DOG68]

I'm a Laird fan but I'd have to agree with this re last game.

I'm a Laird fan too, and I don't think his game was particularly bad, he was just a bit quiet. The whole team played well, and Wright performed his role well without being flashy or exciting. No way was he our worst player by "quite a margin".....

 

[Troy87]

You really do talk rubbish sometimes:

Did you actually watch the game? I mean without your blinkered sith helmet on? I'd suggest go back and watch the game again, and maybe notice all the one-percenters in Wrights game that don't show on the stats sheet or in the supercoach scores.

The worst by quite a margin? did you notice Laird's game?
Wright was subbed out on thurs night with 10 mins to go in the game, only because he was spent, and no other reason.
Sure, he only touched the ball 15 times, and kicked 0 goals, but your assessment is pretty typical for you - watching the game on TV 1000 km away and reading the stats on the internet, and then creating your own "facts".

[/QUOTE][/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

I would also agree with this. Watching the game live I thought Wrights position in the team might come under fire. Watching it back over the weekend there was quite a few little things he did which created turnovers. There was only one part of his game I was critical of when he did not put a chase on Pendles in our forward 50.