Strategy The case for a third tall forward

[Seanybruz]

I've been worried about it for some time but after seeing him hurt his shoulder I seriously think Kens stubbornness to give Jay some decent backup (even as a decoy) will cut short what's left of his career at our club.

What's the plan if Schulz goes down? We've got Butcher, Shaw & Harvey who have been given hardly any opportunity to develop at AFL level. Vickery used to be a soft spud but Richmond carried him & he's at least capable of being a decent backup to Riewoldt.

You could leave Gray/Mitchell on their own for a whole game & they'd likely not worry the opposition, not sure you could do the same with Butch/Shaw without them kicking a few goals or creating a few goals from crumbs.

 

[tribey]

I think the lack of a 3rd tall defender is throwing our structure out more than a 3rd tall up forward.

The defence thing - two forced outs in Carlile and Trengove - hurts but even when they've been on deck we've needed Westhoff to swing back to bulwark the defence against an opposition run-on.

Today when we were overrun we robbed Peter to pay Paul in a major way as Westhoff spent a ridiculous amount of time back there stemming the tide, which ended up largely being cancelled out when Chaplin (lol) kicked 2 while manning him up anyway.

You pick Butcher or Shaw, you at least retain some semblance of a forward line while sending Hoff back or into the ruck - and by semblance of structure I mean anything has to be better than sending vital clearances deep to Sam Gray with 2 men on his hammer.

 

[Forzaport]

Vickery is no superstar, heck, a standard Butcher game gives us more. Just saying.

 

[tribey]

Sam Gray was Monfries replacement, but I digress.

I wholeheartedly agree with your second point, but none of our Magpies key forwards have done enough of what they're supposed to do to warrant selection. It's that simple.

Gray didn't play Monfries' role though. He played the old Brett Ebert "I'm sub-180 but the midfielders think I'm post-190" role today.

It's gotten to the point where Magpies form is irrelevant. Talls are talls and to maintain structure and gameplan you have to play them - just like when we begrudgingly picked Renouf to take on Sandilands when Lobbe was injured.

 

[itisnt2hard]

Vickery is no superstar, heck, a standard Butcher game gives us more. Just saying.

Ummm, ok we will go with that then. Sounds educated enough.

 

[Forzaport]

I think the lack of a 3rd tall defender is throwing our structure out more than a 3rd tall up forward.

I agree although it's made a bad structure worse.

We've been 'getting away with it' because of the awesomeness of Trengove and Carlile and a midfield that up until a few weeks ago was the cream of the competition.

 

[El_Scorcho]

This is fine, but we didnt lose a tall forward, and have played with only 2 talls up forward since Round 4.

And i've been complaining about it since round 4. It just became alarmingly apparent when we also decided to go in small down back.

Our midfield, or lack of it, is exactly why we are losing to teams like Essendon and Richmond. A 3rd tall forward doesnt fix us getting thrashed in contested possesions, clearances, tackles etc. like we have the last 2-3 weeks. Whilst I think having no 3rd tall up forward thwarted our chance of winning it in the 2nd half, it wasnt the reason we lost the game today.

We won the contested possessions, clearances and inside 50s against Essendon, but we got dominated in the air and it allowed them to control the game.

When we lose the aerial battle, we lose our ability rebound because we can't get our hands on the ball, and our attacks end up being intercepted far too often

 

[Trewth]

Who are they taking the place of then?

We're playing 4 talls. Richmond played 7. We got monstered in the air. We are losing games of football because we're going in too small. Do you feel like the output of Gray and Mitchell are enough to reverse the massive disadvantage we're having by going in too small?

Do you honestly believe based off what you've seen in the SANFL that Butcher/Harvey/Shaw deserve selection? This is my point. When they are good enough they will be in the team, Ken has talked about this multiple times. It'd be completely ridiculous and against everything we've been crying out for to select someone based on anything other than form.

 

[Forzaport]

Ummm, ok we will go with that then. Sounds educated enough.

Play Butcher --> forces a match up, say, Chaplin. Allows Westhoff to be genuine loose man in defence and limits Gray, Gray, Polec, etc being 2nd tall.

Instant improvement in our structure.

 

[El_Scorcho]

I think the lack of a 3rd tall defender is throwing our structure out more than a 3rd tall up forward.

It's one and the same when Westhoff spends half the game as a loose man in defence because we're getting absolutely killed without him back there.

We start Westhoff forward, then switch him back because we're too short down back, and then we've got absolutely no targets up forward (because Schulz has led up to the wing).

Pick a tall, any tall. Any of Butcher, Shaw or Clurey would have made a world of difference to how we set up today.

 

[Seanybruz]

Vickery is no superstar, heck, a standard Butcher game gives us more. Just saying.

He doesn't need to be a superstar he just needs to create a contest, kick 1-2 goals & take one of the oppositions KPD's away from Riewoldt. You're right Butcher could do that but he was exiled after one poor game against North.

It'd be interesting to see whether our season would've been better placed had we brought Butcher back in when confidence was high against Melbourne, let him get a run against a few average sides like St Kilda & the Dogs & now when we're in strife KPP wise we'd at least have one less mr fixit role for the Hoff to play.

 

[tribey]

Do you honestly believe based off what you've seen in the SANFL that Butcher/Harvey/Shaw deserve selection? This is my point.

We're beyond that though.

When they are good enough they will be in the team, Ken has talked about this multiple times. It'd be completely ridiculous and against everything we've been crying out for to select someone based on anything other than form.

Mitchell's form's been putrid for weeks and he still keeps getting games.

Gray has been good as a midfielder at SANFL level but doesn't have a great record as a key forward at AFL level.

 

[Macca19]

I think Butch can do a role at AFL level but neither Shaw nor Harvey are ready. Shaw showed on the weekend he isnt quite ready and Harvey can barely run out 2 1/2 quarters at SANFL level.

 

[Forzaport]

Do you honestly believe based off what you've seen in the SANFL that Butcher/Harvey/Shaw deserve selection? This is my point. When they are good enough they will be in the team, Ken has talked about this multiple times. It'd be completely ridiculous and against everything we've been crying out for to select someone based on anything other than form.

Pick the best performing out of the 3.

Using the same logic, if Lobbe was out of form, we wouldn't be playing a ruck man.

 

[itisnt2hard]

Play Butcher --> forces a match up, say, Chaplin. Allows Westhoff to be genuine loose man in defence and limits Gray, Gray, Polec, etc being 2nd tall.

Instant improvement in our structure.

I agree sounds good to me

 

[El_Scorcho]

Do you honestly believe based off what you've seen in the SANFL that Butcher/Harvey/Shaw deserve selection? This is my point. When they are good enough they will be in the team, Ken has talked about this multiple times. It'd be completely ridiculous and against everything we've been crying out for to select someone based on anything other than form.

That's funny because since Butcher was dropped, but especially since the Melbourne game, i've been crying out for us to select a side with conventional structure.

Butcher and Shaw have both played some really good games in the SANFL, but as developing forwards, they're inconsistent. You know what? So is everyone in our side bar Boak, Gray and Schulz. Inconsistency is a silly reason to be leaving them out when we're absolutely crying out for talls.

 

[Trewth]

Every spud from other clubs over six feet tall who can't get a game should be lining up to join Port in the off season, seeing as that's all you need to get a game. Hell, why did we even delist Snowy?

C'mon now.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Every spud from other clubs over six feet tall who can't get a game should be lining up to join Port in the off season, seeing as that's all you need to get a game. Hell, why did we even delist Snowy?

C'mon now.

Um, it's quite the opposite as I see it. I'm quite worried we'll lose Shaw and/or Clurey because they'll figure if we're just not going to pick talls, even if there are significant injuries to our talls, when are they ever going to get a game?

 

[tribey]

I think Butch can do a role at AFL level but neither Shaw nor Harvey are ready. Shaw showed on the weekend he isnt quite ready and Harvey can barely run out 2 1/2 quarters at SANFL level.

Agreed.

All Butcher would have to do is compete. Anything else would be a bonus given what it would give the rest of the side.

Harvey is a year away based on tank and Shaw is 'in case of emergency' only - but given Butcher seems to be persona non grata I'm not averse to grabbing a hammer.

 

[bomberclifford]

Do you honestly believe based off what you've seen in the SANFL that Butcher/Harvey/Shaw deserve selection? This is my point. When they are good enough they will be in the team, Ken has talked about this multiple times. It'd be completely ridiculous and against everything we've been crying out for to select someone based on anything other than form.

Why did we Renouf play against Freo then?

 

[raman]

Every spud from other clubs over six feet tall who can't get a game should be lining up to join Port in the off season, seeing as that's all you need to get a game.

I've yet to see one of the anti-Butcher/Third-Tall brigade respond to the logic which (tribey? El Scorcho?) presented, paraphrasing here:

If Lobbe went down (and Renouf was fit) Renouf would be picked to replace him regardless of how badly he was spudding it up in the SANFL. Because structure.

 

[Trewth]

Um, it's quite the opposite as I see it. I'm quite worried we'll lose Shaw and/or Clurey because they'll figure if we're just not going to pick talls, even if there are significant injuries to our talls, when are they ever going to get a game?

They'll get a game when they match their KPI's that they're well aware of.

The notion that our coaching staff, with all their science, GPS measurements and experience in the game don't know what they're doing because our structure seems out and they aren't picking talls is ridiculously naive. Ken has said numerous times that he'd love another tall forward but he has no choice. He has no choice. Why is that so hard to understand?

 

[raman]

They'll get a game when they match their KPI's that they're well aware of.

It'd be great if we had that luxury, but we don't. But we're acting like we do.

The notion that our coaching staff, with all their science, GPS measurements and experience in the game don't know what they're doing because our structure seems out and they aren't picking talls is ridiculously naive. Ken has said numerous times that he'd love another tall forward but he has no choice. He has no choice. Why is that so hard to understand?

Because he has choices.

 

[Trewth]

Why did we Renouf play against Freo then?

Because he's a better full time ruckman than Trengove or Westhoff. Trengove and Westhoff can chop out but they can't ruck full time.

 

[tribey]

The notion that our coaching staff, with all their science, GPS measurements and experience in the game don't know what they're doing because our structure seems out and they aren't picking talls is ridiculously naive. Ken has said numerous times that he'd love another tall forward but he has no choice. He has no choice. Why is that so hard to understand?

Because we've pissed 2 winnable games away.

Best laid plans and all that.