AFLW 2024 - Round 10 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
And when you have a quality backman who doesn't have to pay as much attention to his man, a quality forward who demands attention, the flow on effect can be massive. You have more clean ball out of the backline and your forward line is able to spread defenders. More targets and more open targets. Can change the face of the game for most clubs. There is much more that it can do but I'm wary of creating monster posts that won't be read anyway.
) we were never going to kick a winning score without the two talls. With that being the case the question needs to be asked why didn't Buckley throw numbers behind the ball to limit the damage defensively and try to keep us in the match for as long as possible? Instead of flooding the contest with numbers and then getting exposed once they had it in space because our defenders had to play one on one and our mids didn't work hard enough defensively.
Saying it's just two players missing and we should be able to cover them is just simply simplistic -it's not just two players but two players absolutely cruicial to the way our forward line - indeed our attacking gameplan have been built around.
Ok on the forward line we can have Cloke, White, Reid, Fas, Elliott - all are markers and all decent (normally) in front of goals, part of the problem may be solved by allowing Swanny to drift forward and add his marking prowess but we still lack that vital last man.
He has that luxury because he has the onballers who will win most contests. When they're being matched or beaten in contests, he won't go down that line. He'll run the risk of mids leading into the forward line and getting on the end of passes that bypass congestion. This is where we will miss a fit Daisy. When you're winning contested ball and spreading well, big Sandy will be next to useless because you won't have the likes of Swan needing to put it on the boot quickly.
Whether the side lost by 30 or 70 is stuff we and the media will worry about. Yes percentage is an issue but in the early rounds, I think he is willing to pit our numbers against the best and see where we're at. I think the second quarter showed that we couldn't go with them and in that case, an honorable loss would have still highlighted deficiencies in scoring potential.If we accept Ed's line of thinking (which I'm happy to run with because I prefer a positive outlook
The contested possession and clearances stats on their own are overrated. So what if you are up in contested possession and clearances if you have more players at the contest - you SHOULD be winning those by a fair margin. It's much more damaging if you can win these when you actually have LESS numbers at the contest as Fremantle did to us. On Friday we were a mere +1 in contested possession and only broke even in stoppage clearances despite often having numbers at the ball. Interestingly we won centre clearances 14-9 when you have to go equal numbers against the opposition. That might be telling us something.
They have Ibbotson Crozier Bradley Z.Clarke Gumby Sylvia Silvangi Griffen to call upon if we needed. We have about the same to call upon and need to call upon them that's the difference.
Yes they were missing quality players, but structure wise, the players we had missing hurt alot more to us compared to a missing Kepler Bradley or Colin Sylvia for them.
Yeh but the ball was hardly forward so how did that hurt our sturture. No point bringing in White and Reid v Fremantle and taking out Witts if they aren't getting supply anyway. Our forward 50 entries after half time were nearly con existent. You could have brought Lockett on we still would've lost by 70 points.
After half time it was a head game
Delivery in was influenced by who was in there. A genuine target at CHF draws the ball in a particular way. Should the ball spill and hit the deck in that area more often, mids and other half forwards are more incline to run hard to the contest rather than sit back and wait for it to come back. As it stood, it was difficult to get forward run happening with the set up of the forward line and the way the ball was banged in.
Could have swung Reid back to sure up the defence plus would have given us an elite distributor from the back half, that alone would have increased our forward entries. Add White to the forward line to receive those entries and you get a much more potent combination. Might not have won but there is no way Fremantle are, on par, a 70 point better team that's just complete nonsense.
Exactly. So Reid plays back for the year. Case closed. We've seen where our weaknesses are for the season.
Yep he has the tools and the composure but may need a little shepherding like Judd used to get when he played for Wet Toast, create a corridor for him to run and set up in or at least enough interference to give him a step or two to execute with extreme prejudice lol.
