News Sam Hayes signs for North Melbourne VFL

[Schulzenfest]

And speaking of averages, the fact that Janus has decided to painstakingly go through each game these guys all played to tally up how many games they had with three tackles or more rather than just quickly looking up their averages (without looking it up myself, I feel very safe in assuming that this is because Butcher has a heap of games where he had two tackles but not many where he had three or more) is just absolute peak Janus. Comparing the tackle numbers of guys who played second ruck to a guy who played pure forward is the icing on the cake.

 

[Duck Farmer]

"You don't defend, you don't play" has been a staple of the Hinkley era since he arrived.

Yes, let's compare apples with apples. Key forwards that actually played in the Port Adelaide system, rather than key forwards that played at other clubs - particularly two expansion clubs that were getting absolutely flogged in their first two seasons.

Jay Schulz 2013 - 7 games where he had more than 2 tackles.
Jay Schulz 2014 - 8 games where he had more than 2 tackles.
Jay Schulz 2015 - 7 games where he had more than 2 tackles.

Jackson Trengove 2017 - 10 games where he had more than 2 tackles.

Patrick Ryder 2015 - 7 games where he had more than 2 tackles.

Dougal Howard 2016 - 4 games where he had more than 2 tackles, out of the 6 he played.

P.S. Ollie Lord had 4 games where he had more than 2 tackles out of 13 he played this year.

If it wasn't about the tackle numbers, how is it that every single key position player that has spent any time in a Ken Hinkley coached forward line has known the value of defensive pressure but old mate Butcher never seemed to grasp it? Even Jackson Trengove in 2017 understood what the role required.

Now, you can say that asking a key forward to put on that kind of pressure is stupid and shows just how clueless Hinkley is. That's a difference in philosophy and you're welcome to it. What I'm saying is that if a key forward wants to play in a Hinkley forward line, they have to put on defensive pressure...and that is exactly what kept Butcher out of the side. Because when it wasn't his day he never found ways to contribute.

And the reason why no one picked him up from other clubs (while guys like Lienert and Bonner get second chances) is because no club in the AFL can afford a player who is only willing to work one way.

Jed McEntee had 7 tackles in the home SF capitulation to GWS. Your point?

 

[Port 2004]

Jed McEntee had 7 tackles in the home SF capitulation to GWS. Your point?

Jed McEntee is not up to AFL standard. At times it was like having a witches hat. Bloody idiotic selection week after week and typical of the defensive nature of Hinckley.

 

[Phar Ted]

Hayes - not up to AFL standard
Butcher - just a meme
Jed - not nearly as bad as some on this site melt over but in saying that I hope that one of Tom Anastasopoulos or Lachlan Charleson force their way in over Jed sooner rather than later.

 

[1954]

I’m talking 70’s and 80’s

I'm a bit bored atm so I will chuck in my two bob's worth.

The resting ruckman as they used to be described could go to the pockets at either end of the ground, but in my memory of Fos William's time as coach from the mid 1950's to early 1970's many of those blokes eg Lloyd Zucker, Ted Whelan, Bob Marrett, Bob Philp, Leon Milde and Paul Marrett regularly went to the forward pocket, and often kicked crucial goals.

Due to how awkward he was I suspect Milde as an example may have struggled in defence but due to his exceptional height for the era he could be very effective when resting forward, and I can still remember him taking a mark in the goal square against two Richmond defenders in an end of season series played in Perth in 1971 that won the Maggies the game.

The kick had to be seen to be believed though, from the top of the goal square the ball missed the left hand goal post by a coat of paint, and for those who weren't around at the time Leon's ball drop could at times make that of John Butcher look almost Ebert like.

It was the much shorter run on ruckmen who usually rested in the back pocket, two examples of that type from other clubs were Neil Kerley and Paul Bagshaw, but that all changed when Jack Oatey decided to swap his mid sized on ballers on the half forward flank, and I believe he may have been the first coach to implement the tactic and possibly well before Ron Barassi did it at Carlton.

The rovers, eg Fos and Tom Williams, and later Jeff Potter, Daryl Cahill and Brian Cunningham almost always changed in the forward pocket, and Cahill and Cunningham in particular kicked some exceptional goals.

The smaller specialist back pocket players have been around for a long time, Dick Russell, Bob Fabian, Trevor Obst, and later George Fiacchi were examples of them at Port, as was Brenton Adcock from Sturt who was previously mentioned by another poster.

 

[Windy Cindy]

Hayes - not up to AFL standard
Butcher - just a meme
Jed - not nearly as bad as some on this site melt over but in saying that I hope that one of Tom Anastasopoulos or Lachlan Charleson force their way in over Jed sooner rather than later.

100% agree up until Jed..

Who if we are a serious side should be playing sanfl..

 

[Phar Ted]

100% agree up until Jed..

Who if we are a serious side should be playing sanfl..

That's why we need one of our new small forwards to progress quickly, the spot is there for the taking.

 

[Janus]

What was happening at the club for Butcher's first few seasons again? Any floggings?

This is why I didn’t use an average but a total.

Jay Schulz was an established player in 2013, not a developing player trying to find his feet.

What has that got to do with a players ability to lay a tackle when it’s his turn?

Lmao, these guys all played significant ruck minutes. They weren't getting their tackles inside 50 and providing frontal pressure anymore than Butcher was.

Ah yes, because a forward needs to stay inside 50 at all times in the modern era. Trengove had 4 games in 2017 where he laid 2 tackles inside 50. Howard had three tackles inside 50 in his first game.

P.S. Butcher averages more tackles per game than Lord across his career. This is despite Lord playing exclusively in an era where we play a high press and Butcher exclusively playing in an era where we didn't play a high press.

How long do you think that will last?

You'd hope Trengove understood defence given he was a defender. Despite the fact that he "understood what the role required", he went so well that he got dropped for a debutant teenager for the pointy end of the season.

Playing Marshall over Trengove was a necessity based on the fact that Hinkley believed that the side was poised to win a flag (to do that you need to make top four) and when the opportunity arose it got completely flogged by Adelaide.

I think it's pretty obvious that Ken Hinkley doesn't understand what KPFs are good for and doesn't know how to get the best out of them, or what that would even look like. My entire argument is that we could have drafted Charlie Curnow, Joe Daniher or Nick Larkey and they'd have been s**t, where as Butcher (and Hayes) could have had a perfectly good career if they'd been drafted elsewhere.

It’s not obvious at all. The easiest and weakest side to take in any argument is to use hypotheticals that have no basis in reality. Is Charlie Dixon a weaker forward under Hinkley than he was at Gold Coast? His All Australian selection tells me he isn’t. Has Marshall suffered under Hinkley’s coaching? He’s a pretty decent forward.

No, the main reason Bonner and Lienert got given a second chance is because they got delisted from a team that was mostly winning and had depth in their position keeping them out of the side. Hayes and Butcher didn't get a second go because they had their development ruined by poor coaching and weren't getting picked despite a dire situation at the club in the position they played. If Hayes had played every game Lycett was out over the past 2 seasons, he'd have gotten a contract somewhere.

If Hayes had played every game Lycett was out he’d still be at Port. What possible reason would coaches self sabotage their own chances of success? No matter how stubborn a coach might be, at the end of the day his legacy is defined by success and success means flags.

 

[JimmyBC]

If Hayes had played every game Lycett was out he’d still be at Port. What possible reason would coaches self sabotage their own chances of success? No matter how stubborn a coach might be, at the end of the day his legacy is defined by success and success means flags.

I mean even a Geelong player called out how we managed the season, it's really not a stretch to say Hinkley was all full burn until his contract was extended thus going into finals with clearly injured players.

 

[TazD]

I mean even a Geelong player called out how we managed the season, it's really not a stretch to say Hinkley was all full burn until his contract was extended thus going into finals with clearly injured players.

I love how that generated zero conversation. If Mason Cox said similar about Melbourne it would've got wall to wall coverage.

 

[Schulzenfest]

100% agree up until Jed..

Who if we are a serious side should be playing sanfl..

Yes, for Sturt.

 

[El_Scorcho]

If Hayes had played every game Lycett was out he’d still be at Port. What possible reason would coaches self sabotage their own chances of success? No matter how stubborn a coach might be, at the end of the day his legacy is defined by success and success means flags.

He's not intentionally self sabotaging, he's a bad coach. He doesn't know what skills are important for KPFs and ruckmen, he doesn't know how to get the best out of them individually, and he doesn't know how to design and execute a system to make them successful. Our key forward and stoppage units are consistently less than the sum of their parts.

But he also rode key players into the ground this season to get a contract extension, leaving us banged up for finals, so I guess you could argue he sabotaged the club's chance at success for a contract.

 

[Janus]

I mean even a Geelong player called out how we managed the season, it's really not a stretch to say Hinkley was all full burn until his contract was extended thus going into finals with clearly injured players.

So we are saying that we would have done better with Hayes over Lycett in finals? For mine, that’s a 50/50 proposition - we were already playing a young key forward in Lord and it was obvious that our key weakness was our lack of key defensive depth, so playing Hayes was probably a bridge too far.

Every single club goes balls out to get enough wins qualify for finals first and then to establish a top four position. And let’s be realistic - if 6 of our best 23 had played in Geelong instead of being out with the flu and concussion protocols (including Aliir who never actually failed a test but had to miss cause of ‘the look’ IIRC), we would have wiped the floor with them too. Then we would have been hosting a qualifying final instead of going to Brisbane.

He's not intentionally self sabotaging, he's a bad coach. He doesn't know what skills are important for KPFs and ruckmen, he doesn't know how to get the best out of them individually, and he doesn't know how to design and execute a system to make them successful. Our key forward and stoppage units are consistently less than the sum of their parts.

But he also rode key players into the ground this season to get a contract extension, leaving us banged up for finals, so I guess you could argue he sabotaged the club's chance at success for a contract.

Um, this season we were the third highest scoring team in the competition. It was our defence that was shit. We also managed to be 6th for clearances even though we were 17th for hitouts.

When Lycett was contributing, it proved what I had been saying about his absence last year - that we needed a contribution from our ruck to feed our mids. While I’m interested to see what Ratugolea and Zerk-Thatcher can do defensively, our most important recruit was Soldo. He’s going to be what Nankervis was to 2017 Richmond - I expect us to dominate clearances next year.

 

[Duck Farmer]

We also managed to be 6th for clearances even though we were 17th for hitouts.

If only we had a thread named after a ruckman who could win the tap for us to post in.

 

[RangaInTeal]

I'm a bit bored atm so I will chuck in my two bob's worth.

The resting ruckman as they used to be described could go to the pockets at either end of the ground, but in my memory of Fos William's time as coach from the mid 1950's to early 1970's many of those blokes eg Lloyd Zucker, Ted Whelan, Bob Marrett, Bob Philp, Leon Milde and Paul Marrett regularly went to the forward pocket, and often kicked crucial goals.

Due to how awkward he was I suspect Milde as an example may have struggled in defence but due to his exceptional height for the era he could be very effective when resting forward, and I can still remember him taking a mark in the goal square against two Richmond defenders in an end of season series played in Perth in 1971 that won the Maggies the game.

The kick had to be seen to be believed though, from the top of the goal square the ball missed the left hand goal post by a coat of paint, and for those who weren't around at the time Leon's ball drop could at times make that of John Butcher look almost Ebert like.

It was the much shorter run on ruckmen who usually rested in the back pocket, two examples of that type from other clubs were Neil Kerley and Paul Bagshaw, but that all changed when Jack Oatey decided to swap his mid sized on ballers on the half forward flank, and I believe he may have been the first coach to implement the tactic and possibly well before Ron Barassi did it at Carlton.

The rovers, eg Fos and Tom Williams, and later Jeff Potter, Daryl Cahill and Brian Cunningham almost always changed in the forward pocket, and Cahill and Cunningham in particular kicked some exceptional goals.

The smaller specialist back pocket players have been around for a long time, Dick Russell, Bob Fabian, Trevor Obst, and later George Fiacchi were examples of them at Port, as was Brenton Adcock from Sturt who was previously mentioned by another poster.

I think in todays game, Defensive nous and agility bodes better than offensive ability, Gawn opposed to English/Lade.

We have become so accustomed to plug and play footballers in todays society as the career span is so short and the ability of some of the very best coming through and being prepared in the junior ranks, we expect that to be the normal.

Choco still had S.Burgoyne and Boak plying an apprenticeship of sorts, Burgoyne Back Pocket, Boak Half Forward, before developing as midfielders.

I think we need to get back to that at every level at the club. Jackson and Mead should be playing the games McEntiee has been gifted, opposed to making them battle it out with Wines, Rozee and Butters for a starting midfield role.

 

[Macca19]

No strength is horseshit.

Being miles out of position will happen when you can't build any chemistry with your forwards and mids because you're never allowed to string games together, playing in a highly unusual forward structure.

It's difficult to fix your kicking action when we know for a fact that several set shot routine experts (including one of his teammates) offered their services and were knocked back. His field kicking was fine.

The fact that he didn't get another shot (the same for Hayes) is heavily influenced by the fact that a team who has a massive need in the position he plays refuses to play him. We ****ed up the development of both of these players and we now have to spend significant draft capital and salary cap space to bring in bang average players to play ruck and KPF.

The club under Hinkley has absolutely no idea how to develop a tall player to their potential. We have no idea what potential in a KPF or ruckman looks like or how to foster it. We've repeatedly played players out of position or completely incapable players in these positions instead of giving the guy with the most obvious talent a run of games to get up to speed, apart from Marshall who is a significant outlier here.

No strength isn't bollocks. With the back injury then the hip issue he couldn't put on the bulk in his core that he needed to, to physically compete against the key defenders he was coming up against. I don't think i'm saying anything that wasn't either obvious at the time or reported on. He was regularly pushed aside in marking contests, when he was able to get to them.

 

[Powerade 08]

Butcher had trouble dropping the ball from his hand onto his foot. The other kent did the absolute bare minimum and still had to come off the field every 5 minutes. lol

 

[davo999]

I don’t think Hayes had the application to make it , think the talent was probably there but he didn’t do the extra yards to develop his body and tank .

 

[simba_]

Everyone would have forgiven his s**t kicking for goal if he had put on pressure in the forward line.

weren't those years peak for making fun of "pressure acts" being a key part of a forwards game? now we're kind of conditioned to it but I'm sure we would've rolled our eyes at anyone trying to say Butcher was forgiven because of his Elite Forward Pressure.

 

[bomberclifford]

So we are saying that we would have done better with Hayes over Lycett in finals? For mine, that’s a 50/50 proposition - we were already playing a young key forward in Lord and it was obvious that our key weakness was our lack of key defensive depth, so playing Hayes was probably a bridge too far.

This is the crux of the debate. If Hayes was fit, as in not injured, he was a much better choice than Lycett, who was injured and definitely not fit.

Ken didn't want to roll the dice with Hayes but he did with Lycett. His gamble lost. That's a fact.

It is entirely appropriate, given Lycett's performance in our finals and the last few games he played, that we the supporters would be asking "why the **** wouldn't you play the guy that actually held his own in our last game against one of our finals opponents, instead of the guy whose body is clearly not holding up?"

Just because Ken said, "the result would have been much worse if we'd played different players", doesn't make it true. The guy's defensiveness about selections straight after the game shows how obvious the criticism of selection was. He needed to deflect and deflect he did.

Added to this is the fact that they chose NOT to send Lycett in for surgery after the bye, so we could have had a refreshed Lycett and a couple of back up rucks with a run of games under their belt just in time for finals.

Just to rub extra chicken salt into the wound, the current premiers played Billy Frampton on Grand Final day, and won.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Lycett vs Hayes for the final was probably a 45/55 proposition on selection night. Hinkley chose the guy who had repeatedly let him down in big games and we got blasted off the park in the midfield.

If we'd played Hayes every time Lycett was out over the last 2 seasons, Lycett would have probably been retired by the time the finals rolled around.

Super glad we gave all those games in 1st ruck to Finlayson and Teakle though.

 

[El_Scorcho]

No strength isn't bollocks. With the back injury then the hip issue he couldn't put on the bulk in his core that he needed to, to physically compete against the key defenders he was coming up against. I don't think i'm saying anything that wasn't either obvious at the time or reported on. He was regularly pushed aside in marking contests, when he was able to get to them.

A lot of that is just positioning and learning to play consistently against AFL quality key defenders. I don't think Butcher had too many issues taking contested marks, although he was more of a packbuster than a wrestler.

Todd Marshall has copped shit his entire career about his physicality and his inability to bulk up, as recently as last week he was ridiculed on this forum for the photo with Cornes and Hartlett. Doesn't stop him from taking marks 1 on 1 though.

 

[longdonkey]

"You don't defend, you don't play" has been a staple of the Hinkley era since he arrived.

The true joke is Hinkley didn't defend himself when he played despite playing as a defender.

 

[240volt]

I'm a bit bored atm so I will chuck in my two bob's worth.

The resting ruckman as they used to be described could go to the pockets at either end of the ground, but in my memory of Fos William's time as coach from the mid 1950's to early 1970's many of those blokes eg Lloyd Zucker, Ted Whelan, Bob Marrett, Bob Philp, Leon Milde and Paul Marrett regularly went to the forward pocket, and often kicked crucial goals.

Due to how awkward he was I suspect Milde as an example may have struggled in defence but due to his exceptional height for the era he could be very effective when resting forward, and I can still remember him taking a mark in the goal square against two Richmond defenders in an end of season series played in Perth in 1971 that won the Maggies the game.

The kick had to be seen to be believed though, from the top of the goal square the ball missed the left hand goal post by a coat of paint, and for those who weren't around at the time Leon's ball drop could at times make that of John Butcher look almost Ebert like.

It was the much shorter run on ruckmen who usually rested in the back pocket, two examples of that type from other clubs were Neil Kerley and Paul Bagshaw, but that all changed when Jack Oatey decided to swap his mid sized on ballers on the half forward flank, and I believe he may have been the first coach to implement the tactic and possibly well before Ron Barassi did it at Carlton.

The rovers, eg Fos and Tom Williams, and later Jeff Potter, Daryl Cahill and Brian Cunningham almost always changed in the forward pocket, and Cahill and Cunningham in particular kicked some exceptional goals.

The smaller specialist back pocket players have been around for a long time, Dick Russell, Bob Fabian, Trevor Obst, and later George Fiacchi were examples of them at Port, as was Brenton Adcock from Sturt who was previously mentioned by another poster.

Had a laugh about your Milde comments, I seen him miss from the top of the goal square at Alberton and most people in the crowd took it with a laugh.
He used to give his all but kicking was not his game.
Sadly passed away now but never forgotten by supporters that seen him play.

 

[240volt]

A lot of that is just positioning and learning to play consistently against AFL quality key defenders. I don't think Butcher had too many issues taking contested marks, although he was more of a packbuster than a wrestler.

Todd Marshall has copped s**t his entire career about his physicality and his inability to bulk up, as recently as last week he was ridiculed on this forum for the photo with Cornes and Hartlett. Doesn't stop him from taking marks 1 on 1 though.

I’ve never been a Marshall fan but Ken has backed him in from day one.
Interesting to see how he goes next year but I do have worries about him banging his head all the time.
This would also be a concern to him and it must affect his thinking when going for the ball.
I hope he kicks on next year but have my doubts.