Dawes in for L Brown?

[Optimax]

Standard of opposistion TRS?

Lake, Morris and Williams are all better then maguire, staker abd the other no name that looked like a superstar last week.

If your bringing standard of opponent in, then your argument for Dawes is weakened not strengthened

 

[Thommo 42]

I'm staggered that you think what Dawes produced against Brisbane was comparable to the game that Brown produced against the Bulldogs, I'm also staggered that you would repeatedly refer to statistics to get such a point across. There is a large gulf between the 2 performances that I feel is quite obvious.

Jolly had 18 hitouts yesterday compared to Hudson's 19, according to the stats Hudson had the better of the contest.

 

[magicpants]

I guess in Dawes' defence, we had no real crumbers last week.

^^^this...I'm staggered that not much has been made of the completely unstructured forward line we had in the past 2 losses (geel and bris) in defense of Dawes. No medders in both games and leon only in vs cats and we know how his form was in that game. Also Anthony and Wood in made us way too top heavy!

And this is in addition to the stats we have all seen re those two weeks being the worst in the comp!

Too many forget the previous run of big wins where our structure looked great! Then a few injuries to key personnel (wellers, medders, fraser and leon? or just form with neon) coupled with a tough run ie cats back from trip to freo and then up to brissie and everyone jumps on Dawes for a quiet half v bris!

Dont get me wrong, always been a fan of Leroy (have said I'd like him to back up Jolly this week and let fraser get his body right)

Just think too many have dropped off Dawes way too prematurely....would love to see a fit leon and medders, didak lurking around the big guy when he doesnt mark (yes needs to get better at this) but how often is he outmarked?

 

[loki04]

Standard of opposistion TRS?

Lake, Morris and Williams are all better then maguire, staker abd the other no name that looked like a superstar last week.

If your bringing standard of opponent in, then your argument for Dawes is weakened not strengthened

Maguire and Staker have been good for the last 3 weeks, both capable players when on there game.

 

[Optimax]

Maguire and Staker have been good for the last 3 weeks, both capable players when on there game.

Lake Morris Williams good?

Staker is at best a 3rd tall, maguire is undersized in saying that so is Morris so draw there.

 

[The Royal Sampler]

Standard of opposistion TRS?

Lake, Morris and Williams are all better then maguire, staker abd the other no name that looked like a superstar last week.

If your bringing standard of opponent in, then your argument for Dawes is weakened not strengthened

I would argue L Brown's a significantly worse option, in arguably better form, against inarguably poorer opposition at the time Dawes was dropped for him.

Meh. Clearly, I'm talking about the decision to bring Brown in for Dawes, at which time Brown hadn't played Lake, Morris or Williams.

I'm staggered that you think what Dawes produced against Brisbane was comparable to the game that Brown produced against the Bulldogs, I'm also staggered that you would repeatedly refer to statistics to get such a point across. There is a large gulf between the 2 performances that I feel is quite obvious.

Jolly had 18 hitouts yesterday compared to Hudson's 19, according to the stats Hudson had the better of the contest.

I don't think the disparity is nearly as great as you suggested.

That doesn't mean their games were comparable, just that you've rated them as "very poor" and "very good", which is a ridiculous exaggeration. Also, statistics are useful when interpreted correctly, and you're only throwing statistics out the window because they hinder your premise. Quoting a 1-hitout difference and saying the player who achieved the additional hitout had the better of the contest is just monumentally stupid, if ruckmen were judged solely on hitouts then Guy Richards would still be playing. Your argument is based entirely on extremes and the truth lies somewhere in the middle in reality.

 

[Keele]

Originally Posted by DWil6
I guess in Dawes' defence, we had no real crumbers last week.

I actually think that was one of the big differences with Leroy in.... he helped to create opportunities for Davis Didak and company by working hard and keeping the ball in his zone when failing to mark.

 

[joefootylover]

seriously TRS, when you do watch the game (I recommend the Telstra game analyser), you are going to feel a little foolish. Leroy had just about his best game for the Pies last night, he led straight up the middle, brought the ball to ground in front and set up at least 3 goals for the cumbers (both Davis and Sidebottom) inside the forward fifty. Both his own goals came when the game was still hot, and his 5 tackles hit hard and hurt like hell. He provided a target for Clokes long kicks into the forward fifty and would have had a hand in close to half our goals, he was very, very good, and when you watch the game you will, I assume, see this.

Dawes may have a future, but he needs to get goals that arn't cheap, he needs to stick more marks, he needs to stay in the contest and not fade out of games and he needs to present deeper when Cloke is high and higher when Cloke is deep to make himself more dangerous. Put simply, if you watch both games, the swap of Leroy for Dawes manifestly paid off in spades.

I also would like to roast whichever mod "merged" (deleted really) the Leigh Brown toast thread and made it an appendage to yet another bring back Dawes thread, I was keen to voice my praise of Leroys game without being dragged back into a Dawes vs argument, but unfortunately I wasn't given the choice.

Does anyone remember BradHodge over on Nicks back in the day when Maxwell being played in Jason Clokes role? and BradHodge would go on and on about how JClo could do everything at least as well as Maxy? At the moment I feel like there are an army of BradHodges here with the same kind of man love for Dawes as he had for JClo, and we cant praise Leroy lest we come too close to besmirching the untouchable Dawes.

Take my word for it TRS, Leroy had a corker of a game last night, and it was in no way other than statistics comparable to Dawes against the Lions.

 

[Grumpy Bum]

Brown was very good yesterday, very good. Which worries me.

 

[The Royal Sampler]

Take my word for it TRS, Leroy had a corker of a game last night, and it was in no way other than statistics comparable to Dawes against the Lions.

I have no complaints against anyone who says Leroy was good against the Dogs, he was good and provided a very strong contest whenever the ball was in his area.

I object to those jumping on Dawes for having a return of 11 disposals, 4 marks and 2 goals in his 16th game. To say he was "very poor" in this match, given he was our best key forward for the game, and the amount of flooding that went on, the degree to which our midfield was smashed, is manifestly untrue. You'll note nowhere have I said that his game against Geelong was anything but a shocker, but people around here have such ludicrously polarised opinions it's getting impossible to keep logging on and read it.

I backed Reid to make it when nearly everyone wrote him off as a spud, I was in Wellingham's corner when the popular opinion was that he didn't have the concentration to put more than 10 mins together, and I'm certainly going to defend Dawes' value going forward after showing plenty in his first 16 games... at least from the stuff being posted which is blown out of all proportion.

 

[The Royal Sampler]

Brown was very good yesterday, very good. Which worries me.

O'Bree was good for a week when he was brought back too. L Brown had kicked zero goals for the year prior to yesterday's game, so he needs to make hay while the sun shines. Credit to him on a good game, for sure, but that needs to become his new benchmark or something close to it. He's a 200-gamer, consistent performances are expected from players of that amount of experience.

 

[Thommo 42]

hang on, did you not see the game TRS?

As for Dawes and Brisbane, you can talk about all the midfield and flooding, but the fact is the ball was directed to him on several occasions and he gave many poor contests, dropped at least one sitter of a mark and both he and Anthony filled each others space like a couple of rugby converts playing their first game.

I love Chris Dawes and think he will be an exceptional player for us, but he needs alot of work and the AFL is not the place to do it in my opinion. I think he needs to go back to the VFL and really show he is too good, which in my book he is really yet to do. My old man watches almost every VFL game for the Pies, and he reports to me that Dawes has only really taken 2 or 3 games by the scruff of the neck so far since being there.

Anthony and Brown in comparison, both go back and seem to immediately stamp themselves on games in the VFL. Which mystifies me as I feel Dawes has more talent than both of them combined. He has a good engine, adequate skills and a monstrous body. Yet he doesn't attack the footy, has no presence around the contest and is poor in the air. Hopefully he improves like the original 'Iron Gloves - Rod Marsh' did, because his hands are a worry.

 

[The Royal Sampler]

hang on, did you not see the game TRS?

....

Anthony and Brown in comparison, both go back and seem to immediately stamp themselves on games in the VFL.

I watched it today after the in-laws recorded it for me.

And no they don't; Anthony in particular was invisible on Saturday and has been more often than not in the VFL this year. No doubt partly due to an interrupted preseason.

 

[The Royal Sampler]

Dawes may have a future, but he needs to get goals that arn't cheap, he needs to stick more marks, he needs to stay in the contest and not fade out of games and he needs to present deeper when Cloke is high and higher when Cloke is deep to make himself more dangerous.

Come on now, which of Dawes' two goals against Brisbane was the cheap one; the one where he did his own roving or the goal from outside 50m? The guy is unlucky to get dropped until his replacement has a good game and then people are just inventing stuff to bag him on. Once Brown has a bad game Dawes will become bigger than Jesus Rusling. Rinse and repeat.

Take my word for it TRS, Leroy had a corker of a game last night, and it was in no way other than statistics comparable to Dawes against the Lions.

Which is fair enough, except I never said they were comparable other than statistically. I did say the difference wasn't as great as "very poor" and "very good", and I stand by that. Too quick to stick the knife in around here by half.

 

[Boris the Contradiction]

I'm staggered that not much has been made of the completely unstructured forward line we had in the past 2 losses (geel and bris) in defense of Dawes. No medders in both games and leon only in vs cats and we know how his form was in that game. Also Anthony and Wood in made us way too top heavy!

This has annoyed me more than anything about our game this year. Not in terms of structure, but in terms of inconsistency of structure.

We have been like this from week to week; 1 key forward, 4 key forwards, 3 key forwards, 2 key forwards, 0 key forwards (when Cloke and Dawes play from the HBF to the wing they are not key forwards)....coupled with....2 forward pockets, 1 forward pocket, 2 forward pockets, 0 forward pockets and all makeshift flankers, etc. Do we have a plan or is it all random at this club?

We have been changing from an almost exclusively boundary line team to a boundary line team that uses the corridor quite often continually as a result. We started the season with 3 or 4 tall forwards (Brown, Jack, and Fraser with Medhurst who can play tall) and a few smalls and kicked it long to a contest. It worked. We played our best footy with Dawes and Cloke in deep and a resting ruckman going in there often. We need to settle on a forward structure and let the players build some continuity into their games. Otherwise we get situations where we are bombing it long and high into an empty forward line one week (Davis one out does not count), bombing it long to a host of talls (one of whom can't mark over his head but does bring the ball to ground) with noone to crumb to them the next week or we get a situation like the weekend where we are kicking to a reasonable structure. The midfielders will lose confidence in the forwards and the forwards will lose confidence in the coach and the midfielders and we will be screwed.

Don't point out that Davis and Medhurst were out either. We have Lockyer on the sidelines who has been dominating in the ressies, we have a guy named Alan Didak in the midfield and we have used Shane O'Bree as a forward (ridiculous). Beams and Sidey have spent a lot of time forward but are flankers more than anything.

 

[Pie eyed]

This has annoyed me more than anything about our game this year. Not in terms of structure, but in terms of inconsistency of structure.

We have been like this from week to week; 1 key forward, 4 key forwards, 3 key forwards, 2 key forwards, 0 key forwards (when Cloke and Dawes play from the HBF to the wing they are not key forwards)....coupled with....2 forward pockets, 1 forward pocket, 2 forward pockets, 0 forward pockets and all makeshift flankers, etc. Do we have a plan or is it all random at this club?

We have been changing from an almost exclusively boundary line team to a boundary line team that uses the corridor quite often continually as a result. We started the season with 3 or 4 tall forwards (Brown, Jack, and Fraser with Medhurst who can play tall) and a few smalls and kicked it long to a contest. It worked. We played our best footy with Dawes and Cloke in deep and a resting ruckman going in there often. We need to settle on a forward structure and let the players build some continuity into their games. Otherwise we get situations where we are bombing it long and high into an empty forward line one week (Davis one out does not count), bombing it long to a host of talls (one of whom can't mark over his head but does bring the ball to ground) with noone to crumb to them the next week or we get a situation like the weekend where we are kicking to a reasonable structure. The midfielders will lose confidence in the forwards and the forwards will lose confidence in the coach and the midfielders and we will be screwed.

Don't point out that Davis and Medhurst were out either. We have Lockyer on the sidelines who has been dominating in the ressies, we have a guy named Alan Didak in the midfield and we have used Shane O'Bree as a forward (ridiculous). Beams and Sidey have spent a lot of time forward but are flankers more than anything.

It could be misinterpreted as "trying something new" or experimenting with the game plan, even thinking outside the box and lateral thinking.
God save us.

 

[Boris the Contradiction]

It could be misinterpreted as "trying something new" or experimenting with the game plan, even thinking outside the box and lateral thinking.
God save us.

Not when you are winning most weeks and you are a coach that continually harps on about sticking to the structures at all times. MM is one of those coaches. Geelong are so good because they are allowed to play a game style consistently that wins them games. St Kilda were the same last year. You then deviate from that structure when things aren't going entirely to plan.

It is an entirely different thing to win a game by 10 goals and to line up in a completely different shape the next week before anything's gone wrong. Change is good, but regularly occurring radical changes to a successful formula is not. Houses are built on solid foundations. Without foundation the house, no matter how well constructed, will fall down. If it's sunny, you open the windows. If it's rainy, you close them but the foundation is always there. We have a beautiful mansion with no foundation at moment.

 

[Pie eyed]

Not when you are winning most weeks and you are a coach that continually harps on about sticking to the structures at all times. MM is one of those coaches. Geelong are so good because they are allowed to play a game style consistently that wins them games. St Kilda were the same last year. You then deviate from that structure when things aren't going entirely to plan.

It is an entirely different thing to win a game by 10 goals and to line up in a completely different shape the next week before anything's gone wrong. Change is good, but regularly occurring radical changes to a successful formula is not. Houses are built on solid foundations. Without foundation the house, no matter how well constructed, will fall down. If it's sunny, you open the windows. If it's rainy, you close them but the foundation is always there. We have a beautiful mansion with no foundation at moment.

Well I assume MM sets the structures and they are designed to suit the side he fields? Surely you don't think he means a single structure?

The core have remained unchanged but for injury and he has tried two young backs, two young forwards and two young half forwards, a couple of utilities as well as slotting in two hardened players in Jolly and Ball.
Change and a certain amount of instability are unavailable.
Grumpy Bum has been harping on that MM will never try anything different, will stick with the same old squad blah blah... ad nauseum and yet when it's never been more obvious he is we are now supposed to be wary of it?

How else do you get the best combination on the field for any given opponent?

The core of the side plays every week with a few changes. That's our foundation.

8-3 at half way with nearly all the available obvious senior options having been tried, and given a run fairly evenly seems like we are actually heading down the right path to me.

 

[Boris the Contradiction]

Well I assume MM sets the structures and they are designed to suit the side he fields? Surely you don't think he means a single structure?

The core have remained unchanged but for injury and he has tried two young backs, two young forwards and two young half forwards, a couple of utilities as well as slotting in two hardened players in Jolly and Ball.
Change and a certain amount of instability are unavailable.
Grumpy Bum has been harping on that MM will never try anything different, will stick with the same old squad blah blah... ad nauseum and yet when it's never been more obvious he is we are now supposed to be wary of it?

How else do you get the best combination on the field for any given opponent?

The core of the side plays every week with a few changes. That's our foundation.

8-3 at half way with nearly all the available obvious senior options having been tried, and given a run fairly evenly seems like we are actually heading down the right path to me.

Whilst I agree that you can't have exactly the same structure when playing each team, the basis of it should be the roughly the same. Otherwise you become a reactive club that is assigned to finishing 3rd to 8th every year. We haven't been tinkering with our game plan, we've been changing it completely. I agree that we are going well. We are 8-3 as you said, have had one of the hardest draws of any club to this point (yet to play any of the bottom 3 sides, played freo away, brisbane away, dogs away twice, cats, saints, blues, hawks, bombers, a much improved demons side, etc) and I am not hitting the panic button. I am merely making an observation.

What you are talking about is a foundation of players. You have misinterpreted my posts entirely. I am talking about a foundation in terms of structure that those "core" players can play within. We have a great core group of players. This thread is about 2 forwards and my response was in regards to another poster who was talking about an unstable forward structure. This is what frustrates me and you can see that it frustrates/confuses the players at times too. It changes drastically every week and we have no continuity in our shape. We replace talls with smalls, smalls with talls, lose a forward and pick an unskilled inside mid to replace him, etc. This has a flow on affect. The mids can't build an understanding with the forwards in terms of leading, the backs run into brick walls because the mids aren't where they "should be", etc. We keep our back line structure relatively stable from week to week and as a result, the understanding in there is normally brilliant.

When you are winning games something is going right and it can only be unsettling for the players to keep drastically changing a winning formula. I agree, tinker when you need to but we want to become the hunted and a lot of that comes from finding a winning formula and backing it in against all opposition. I don't agree that MM is as unwavering as people are stating anyway. He pioneered the rotation football that is coming in at the moment, in Jason Cloke he basically invented the modern day "loose quarter back" style defender that is the vogue these days, he has forward line tagged full backs with talls (L Brown for instance) and he has done many other similar things also. To this point he has "picked his favourites" but we have hardly had the depth to do otherwise. Now we have the depth and he is using it. His gameplan has always been dynamic as well, in my opinion too much so. We have always been a "reactive" club that changes completely based on the opposition and it's allowed us to remain competitive and stay in the finals through rebuilds with pretty poor lists. I think we are at a point now where we are good enough to let the opposition do this for us. If we're not we won't win a premiership. FWIW I think we'll give it a huge shake but not if a different team rocks up on Grand Final day to the one that won by 8 goals the week before.

 

[Pie eyed]

Whilst I agree that you can't have exactly the same structure when playing each team, the basis of it should be the roughly the same. Otherwise you become a reactive club that is assigned to finishing 3rd to 8th every year. We haven't been tinkering with our game plan, we've been changing it completely. I agree that we are going well. We are 8-3 as you said, have had one of the hardest draws of any club to this point (yet to play any of the bottom 3 sides, played freo away, brisbane away, dogs away twice, cats, saints, blues, hawks, bombers, a much improved demons side, etc) and I am not hitting the panic button. I am merely making an observation.

What you are talking about is a foundation of players. You have misinterpreted my posts entirely. I am talking about a foundation in terms of structure that those "core" players can play within. We have a great core group of players. This thread is about 2 forwards and my response was in regards to another poster who was talking about an unstable forward structure. This is what frustrates me and you can see that it frustrates/confuses the players at times too. It changes drastically every week and we have no continuity in our shape. We replace talls with smalls, smalls with talls, lose a forward and pick an unskilled inside mid to replace him, etc. This has a flow on affect. The mids can't build an understanding with the forwards in terms of leading, the backs run into brick walls because the mids aren't where they "should be", etc. We keep our back line structure relatively stable from week to week and as a result, the understanding in there is normally brilliant.

When you are winning games something is going right and it can only be unsettling for the players to keep drastically changing a winning formula. I agree, tinker when you need to but we want to become the hunted and a lot of that comes from finding a winning formula and backing it in against all opposition. I don't agree that MM is as unwavering as people are stating anyway. He pioneered the rotation football that is coming in at the moment, in Jason Cloke he basically invented the modern day "loose quarter back" style defender that is the vogue these days, he has forward line tagged full backs with talls (L Brown for instance) and he has done many other similar things also. To this point he has "picked his favourites" but we have hardly had the depth to do otherwise. Now we have the depth and he is using it. His gameplan has always been dynamic as well, in my opinion too much so. We have always been a "reactive" club that changes completely based on the opposition and it's allowed us to remain competitive and stay in the finals through rebuilds with pretty poor lists. I think we are at a point now where we are good enough to let the opposition do this for us. If we're not we won't win a premiership. FWIW I think we'll give it a huge shake but not if a different team rocks up on Grand Final day to the one that won by 8 goals the week before.

I agree with all of that bar the bolded.

This is true barring Saint Kilda and Geelong at this time. I think we are working on this with the current tinkering or at least I hope so.

 

[joefootylover]

I reckon there is a view that our best back six and our best midfield are good enough but that we need to perfect a structure and find our best front 6 this year to be a shot, we have looked at Medhurst, Davis, Cloke, Dawes, Leroy and Anthony as full forwards this year, as well as Fraser and Jolly at times, we have tried Rusty, Beams, Davis, Medhurst, O'Bree, Didak, and probably others who slip my mind as small forwards, and I am sure MM and Co would be keen as mustard to bring Dick in.

Last year Davis played as a midfielder pretty much the entire year, last year Lockyer played as a small forward pretty much the entire year, last year Anthony was our FF pretty much the entire year, thats 3 changes right there, so I am not surprised that we have been a bit up and down there.

I think Dawes will make it in the long term, and I think Nate Brown will too, but I would back Leroy and Presti as my FF and FB if the grand final was tommorrow against Geelong, simply because Leroy might hurt Scarlett or Taylor a bit physically and Presti would not drop his head if he had a few kicked on him, I'm not sure of Dawes or Nates capacities in those areas THIS year, by next year I expect them both to be regulars in the 22.

I think a fit Dick, a fit Medhurst and a fit Davis are 3 members of our best 6 forwards, and Sidebottom, Beams and Didak should rotate through the remaining HFF, Fraser if fit and in form (which he is NOT) is our clear second ruck for mine, and Cloke, obviously os our CHF, that leaves FF, and I think Anthony is so off the boil he is not even under serious consideration right now, so basically Leroy stays untill he turns in a bad performance, or until he has a couple of average games and Dawes plays a blinder in the 2's.

By the end of the year whichever of Leroy and Dawes is playing better footy will probably line up at FF for us in the finals, I for one am happy that there is a genuine contest unfolding for that spot.

 

[daics cousin]

Leroy is an imposing prescence.Not the greatest footy player around but i agree that at this point he has experience over Dawes.
Dawes i believe is a smarter footy player and will become a strong target when he can pick up on his skills alittle.

For now though the Anvil is what we need.Hard tough and uncompromising,we need the grunt against other sides.

Also the Anvil provides a few strings to his bow which is a bonus.

 

[Thommo 42]

In my ideal world our forward setup would resemble something like this.

Cloke, Dawes, Davis, Medhurst + resting ruck + rotating mid (Didak, Sidebottom, Thomas)

Structured with Cloke close to goal and Dawes roaming high, and vice-versa. If Fraser is the resting ruckman, he plays high and links all the way up to the wing, if it's Jolly, he plays deep. Davis aplays almost exclusively close to goal at the feet of Dawes/Cloke/Jolly. Medhurst plays his duel role of lead up forward and crumber, as well as assisting Davis with ground level pressure.

The rotating mid then fills the role of crumber and tackler as well.

This plan is let down by a few things:

1. Dawes aerial skills not up to playing deep or high, but I have high hopes.
2. Medhurst and Davis not being 100% fit
3. Fraser not yet settled or 100% fit, thus not allowing him to play the high linking role

I think at least 2 of the above 3 problems can be solved over the course of the season, and I also think the tactic of bombing it long when under pressure (Harry O and Johnno!) could actually see some benefit from a structure like this.

Unfortunately, the world isn't perfect. Medhurst, Davis and Fraser are not fit, and Dawes has unreliable hands and limited presence.

 

[Blaster]

In my ideal world our forward setup would resemble something like this.

Cloke, Dawes, Davis, Medhurst + resting ruck + rotating mid (Didak, Sidebottom, Thomas)

Structured with Cloke close to goal and Dawes roaming high, and vice-versa. If Fraser is the resting ruckman, he plays high and links all the way up to the wing, if it's Jolly, he plays deep. Davis aplays almost exclusively close to goal at the feet of Dawes/Cloke/Jolly. Medhurst plays his duel role of lead up forward and crumber, as well as assisting Davis with ground level pressure.

The rotating mid then fills the role of crumber and tackler as well.

This plan is let down by a few things:

1. Dawes aerial skills not up to playing deep or high, but I have high hopes.
2. Medhurst and Davis not being 100% fit
3. Fraser not yet settled or 100% fit, thus not allowing him to play the high linking role

I think at least 2 of the above 3 problems can be solved over the course of the season, and I also think the tactic of bombing it long when under pressure (Harry O and Johnno!) could actually see some benefit from a structure like this.

Unfortunately, the world isn't perfect. Medhurst, Davis and Fraser are not fit, and Dawes has unreliable hands and limited presence.

Congratulations.

Best post EVER, in the history of Big footy.

love your work.

 

[Thommo 42]

Yeah, except I just realised I forgot about BRAD DICK!

I can't be bothered rethinking the structure with him included, but suffice to say he's in there somewhere!

I deserve to be flogged for such an oversight.