Guido up 5kg's

[The Doctor]

In the Herald Sun it says Gia has put on an extra 5kg's of muscle onto his frame. This is good news. He probably needed it most. Too often he was easily knocked off the ball. Maybe now he will be a different proposition.

I hope he now adds concentration to his game to stop him from producing those shocking grubber kicks and dropping easy marks.

He's a player with a lot of talent and I look forward to seeing him put it all together consistently.

The report also suggested that Gilbee, Minson and Birss have added a bit too.

 

[OldSchool]

There is a group of the younger players at the club has targeted specifically this season to build muscle and from what I have been told most of them have added between 3 and 6kg.
A very modfied approach to their training which has them spending more time in the gym rather than putting the miles into the road or track work.
You can notice guys like Guido, Power, Murphy, Gilbee, Faulkner and even McMahon all looking a lot bigger than last season.
As a comparison, it will be interesting to see how our boys line up against a team like Geelong this season because I have believed that the Cats have been a season or two physically further advanced with their younger guys than the Doggies.

 

[ReservoirDog]

We pretty much had the Cats covered in 2003.

 

[doggies40]

Yeah i read that about gia, its great news for us, shaggy looks likes hes put on a bit as well, i saw him at skip at highpoint last thurs, they both look like there bigger but i could really tell with shaggy.

 

[Petergm]

Pardon my lack of knowledge. But who is Shaggy?

 

[doggies40]

Originally posted by Petergm
Pardon my lack of knowledge. But who is Shaggy?

Ryan Hargrave

 

[SonOfScray]

Good news, hopefully he can utilise the extra bulk and put his head over the footy with a bit more confidence. I'd be more worries abour Murphy's terrible grubber kicking rather than Danny G's to be honest, he seems to turn the footy over a lot less.

 

[Dog Town]

Originally posted by SonOfScray
Good news, hopefully he can utilise the extra bulk and put his head over the footy with a bit more confidence. I'd be more worries abour Murphy's terrible grubber kicking rather than Danny G's to be honest, he seems to turn the footy over a lot less.

Most of the times Murf turned the ball over they were interceptions of passes that were headed for a team mate.They were more decision making errors than actual skill errors IMO brought about by our bloody ridiculous game plan of having to spot up players through heavy traffic.Guidos were just lazy,half hearted toe pokes and quite often these kicks were when we were streaming forward about to enter the 50 which was very costly.The most disturbing part for me is it has only developed into his game in the past 2 seasons.Cant quite put my finger on what the problem is but its something that needs to be fixed because he has way to much ability to be wasting the ball like that.

 

[OldSchool]

Originally posted by Dog Town
Most of the times Murf turned the ball over they were interceptions of passes that were headed for a team mate.

Cant agree, there might have been a few interceptions but in the main they appeared to be errors in his concentration. For mine, some of Murphy's errors were due to him not kicking through the ball correctly. What was frustrating to watch was that he would often do a brilliant play and baulk a player or two only to undo it a moment later by what appeared to be a lazy attempted pass that grubbed along the ground.
It's a flaw that I think can be easily rectifed given his skill level is normally good.
Don't think we will have any problems with Guido either.

 

[SonOfScray]

Oldschool, absolutley agree about Murphy there. I think perhaps he is just a little lazy with his kicking and needs ID his target and follow through with his kicking a little more. For someone so talented he really lets himself down in this area, it particularly hurts when Murf turns the ball over because the others tend to stream forward out of the backline, leaving an easy ball for the oppostition.

 

[Dog Town]

I dont think you will see Murf altering his style because he has a similar style to some of the better kicks of recent times.Players with great coordination and that deft touch on the footy all kick like that (Jarman and Mcleod are two examples).I remember seeing slow motion replays of them kicking and they kick with a bit of a stab and there toe pointing up.It gives the forwards a chance to work onto the ball as it is easier to weight the ball.For us mortals the traditional style and principles of kicking are the best methods but you get the odd exceptional player who does it a bit outside the square (Nathan Brown and Trav Johnstone have completely obscure styles aswell) and I think Murf is one of them.I suppose we will see in time whether its just a combination of factors or there is something a bit off there.

 

[OldSchool]

Originally posted by SonOfScray
Oldschool, absolutley agree about Murphy there. I think perhaps he is just a little lazy with his kicking and needs ID his target and follow through with his kicking a little more. For someone so talented he really lets himself down in this area, it particularly hurts when Murf turns the ball over because the others tend to stream forward out of the backline, leaving an easy ball for the oppostition.

Turnovers tend to hurt a team anyway but in Murphys case it actually hurt the Doggies a little more again. In a lot of cases he had done the hard work and eluded his opponents only to cough it up with either an error of judgement or just a lazy kick up forward.
As you pointed out, our midfielders and defenders tend to back themselves when he has the ball and were often caught out of position.

This is an easy thing to turn around and I am sure it wont be as evident this season.

 

[Aquamarinejewel]

Good to hear that Gia has bulked up a little..I am sure he will improve further this season.

 

[Bloody-Redhead]

Nice to see that I wasn't the only one to notice the number of interceptions or ineffective kicks of Murphy during 03.
I would have questioned Murphy being 'way better' then 02 like a fair number of people had suggested, only I bit my tongue.

Interesting questions about that:

A) Lazy style

B) Game plan forced him to pin-point kicks when its not feasible

C) Concentration

D) Suffering through the season like the rest of us (lack of confidence)

Personally I reckon elements of ALL the above seemed to work against him at some point, but never for the entire season. He just made individual turnovers based on one particular issue, got over it and misfired again over another issue.

Hence my opinion is that a sharp new preseason will tend to clear him up and there isn't really a need to really concentrate on any particular issue.

 

[stefoid]

Murph did what was asked of him last year - play tight, beat the opponents he was given, and there were some heavy weight opponents in '03. What did you expect of him BRH?

Dinky short pass turnovers under no pressure is a problem for him, but wouldnt call it a serious problem.

 

[Tank]

With a more direct game plan, and Murph & Gia spending more time in the middle, and talls in the forward line, I'd expect to see both those players and others going for the long option rather than the shorter one this year.

 

[OldSchool]

Originally posted by stefoid
Dinky short pass turnovers under no pressure is a problem for him, but wouldnt call it a serious problem.

Agreed, this is just a minor flaw and I dont expect to see the same problem this season. His overall skill level is just to good for him not to overcome it.