Preview How will our season end?

[Cousin of Daicos]

Hold on Ed the mids and especially the running backmen are far too often bombing the ball in long on a wing and a prayer.

Sure the forwards are down but they certainly aren't being helped by haphazard delivery into the forward line.

But that's my point.

It's the lack of forward structure and leading targets that's causing the mids to need to bomb it in and put it out to the pockets.

 

[jonbe54]

But that's my point.

It's the lack of forward structure and leading targets that's causing the mids to need to bomb it in and put it out to the pockets.

It's a vicious circle Ed one leads to another, but its the mids - and running half backs that have control of the ball and the tempo of the game. The mids are the creators, it's their job to win the ball and put it to the advantage of the forwards. If Cloke and Dawes are being closely checked while the mid is coming downfield then he needs to either chip sideways (and risk losing momentum) or identify at least a one on one we might win in the forward line.

The clearest illustration of this was Ried's surgical strike to Cloke, now admittedly most of our players don't have this precision by foot but putting the ball in the hands of Penders, Beamsy or Dids coming out of the centre gives us a better than average chance of an advantageous disposal into the forward line as all are good users of the ball and creative with their passing.

The only excuse for bombing it 50 meters with a punt into the forward line is if Cloke or Dawes can get one out with time for the pass to come in.

 

[PieNSauce]

Having given this whole question a bit more thought, I'm no closer than anyone else to knowing what will happen because there are so many variable that will affect other teams let alone the huge list of factors affecting our own fortunes. In particular, I see the major factors being:

• The form of a few key players needs to rise fairly sharply and in particular, I refer to Cloke, Dawes, Brown and Reid. This is 80% of our spine and right now doesn't appear to be setting any great benchmarks. I believe that both Brown and Reid are highly likely to return to somewhere near their best without too much problem although Brown is more of a worry in regard to his regaining confidence. I suspect that Cloke will bounce back fairly hard now that some of the speculation has died about his contract and I have everything crossed as regards Dawes because he's probably the biggest worry (and worrier) of them all. If 3 of those 4 can hit peak in the next few weeks the difference will be huge.
• The emergence of Krak and Caff as possible ins before the season is over is a double-edged sword. Not only is there the possibility, if remote, that we will get back 2 experienced quality forwards, but the mere suggestion that they may come back will act as a spur for others in the side. This can only work wonders for guys like Sinclair, Elliott, Goldsack and a few others.
• The efficiency of our mids who have been nothing if not prolific will be fairly key in countering the likes of Hawthorn and Sydney. It's all very well to get the ball out of the middle but when you're not winning contested ball at half forward it's going to come flying back over your head very quickly unless you're disposal efficiency is high. Right now our mids seem to be concentrating heavily on smashing the ball forward without the level of poise they've shown in the past. While that may have won us plenty of games in the past, this year we just don't have the cattle up forward to be able to take advantage.

For us to be in a position to strongly contest another premiership I reckon a significant number of those factors will need to fall into place over the next month or so. The extent to which that happens will largely determine where we finish and what our chances are for another premiership. If we cannot start to address those things fairly soon then I'd have to believe that even a top 4 finish is in jeopardy.

 

[76woodenspooners]

...

• The emergence of Krak and Caff as possible ins before the season is over is a double-edged sword. Not only is there the possibility, if remote, that we will get back 2 experienced quality forwards, but the mere suggestion that they may come back will act as a spur for others in the side. This can only work wonders for guys like Sinclair, Elliott, Goldsack and a few others.

...

All Good Points. I'd add Didak and BJ to this point though.

 

[PieNSauce]

All Good Points. I'd add Didak and BJ to this point though.

Yep. Thanks for reminding me and in fact, Didak has the strongest possibility of any of them to get back given the comparitively shorter nature of his injury. The pressure on a fairly large number of players to improve over the next few weeks will be fairly high and the hope is that this pressure alone should lead to a percentage improvement. In 2010 it was a massive factor.

 

[loki04]

Come on. He hasn't played well for at least 2 weeks. 16 weeks of form before that is unimportant compared to 1 week of being rested and another of bad form

Was a great 1st half of the season but imo he has been just going through the motions a bit for the last month hasn't been overly damaging with ball or getting into attacking positions.


Was one of the best for 12 or so rounds and I maybe should of rephrased it to fell off in the back half of the year for Sidebottom. Thomas on the other hand has been off the boil all year.

 

[obleex]

No one gives us a chance, just the way we like it