Analysis The overly tall forward line conundrum and my possible solution to fix it.

[xInfected_Virus]

Now the club has Flynn and Allen back, Waterman in Coleman contention, Darling performing decently and the team wanting Maric in, this team imo is too tall. As seen in matches such as the second Essendon match, teams have been waltzing out of our forward line with ease because the talls don't have the agility or all jump for the same ball rather than staying down. However the club feels like it needs someone to chop out for Flynn which in this case B.Williams is the "best" to do so, as a result the overly tall team gets selected much to the detrimental or forward pressure and late run espcially if the second ruck plays 60% TOG and the main ruck playing 65% TOG which is pretty much an extra smaller player who could've been impactful rather than handicapping the team at the end.

Forward line against the Bombers: Allen, Waterman, Darling and B.Williams (who played 60% TOG while Flynn played 67% TOG down from his 80% TOG against Norf). Maric played more in the midfield. Look at that lineup, no wonder it was soo easy for Essendon to run the ball out at will and if this line up continues then expect good rebounding teams to absolutely kill us on the transition.

Out of Flynn and Bailey, it's Flynn for me because he's more competitive in the ruck work itself and is better at giving our mids first use which is very crucial.

My possible solution at least.

1. Three tall forwards THAT'S IT: Three KPFs with one of them being able to ruck. Out of Allen, Waterman and Darling I have to say Darling is the weakest link but he's playing decently after a quiet start and has been crucial in having the name recognition in taking a good defender away from Waterman and J.Williams now Allen. If it's Darling or any of Waterman or Allen that gets left out due to injury or suspension then preferably J.Williams should be in the side. See #3 for how I would do the ruck setup when Flynn goes off for a rest.

If it means B.Williams not playing then so be it.

2. B.Williams cannot be in the same side as Flynn as B.Williams lacks forward craft from what I'm seeing unless one of Allen, Waterman and Darling are injured or suspended: Only reason why he's in the side is because he's been decent in the games he's played in, plus he's been pretty durable and with Flynn back the club believes that he can chop out for Flynn. As shown against Essendon, Flynn only played 67% TOG and B.Williams only 60% TOG which leaves the club short of run at the end. B.Williams lack of forward craft ability is a liability ass he doesn't take marks and doesn't get in a good enough position to even contest plus it tempts the likes of Waterman, Allen and Darling to jump up which leaves defenders down who can collect the crumb and run it out.

Don't know how it would've worked if Flynn never got injured early in the season but I can imagine B.Williams being a liability up forward and oppo teams rebounding it out at will thus killing us on the transition even more.

3. Flynn should ruck at least 80% TOG minimum with Gov or Allen (preferably Jamo) pinch hitting especially if Darling plays: When Flynn comes off and needs a rest, there's two scenarios I came up with.

A: We simply use Allen as a pinch hitter although not ideal though due to Allen's injury history. Good news is that Flynn should be capable of playing more TOG than Nic Nat so less time is needed from Allen in the ruck plus we can have Darling to do F50 stoppages.

B: We use Gov in the ruck and send Allen down back whenever Flynn's resting. This keeps the three tall KPD structure.

In both of these scenarios the team will be shorter up forward and forward pressure should be better applied which will reduce oppo transitions.

Note: Those of you that are worried of Allen in the ruck due to past injuries, I can understand. Allen though has been injured whenever jumping for the footy in a marking contest in a reckless manner rather than being in the ruck itself.

4a. Maric down back as our third KPD: Imo he should be trained as a key defender to replace Rotham (who's a delist candidate at the end of the season imo), he's 196cm tall and has potential attributes to play as a key backman to help support Gov and Barrass down back to free one of both of them up and to help against taller forward lines. The club can use Maric's elite kicking to help transition the ball from the backline which is lacking atm because the club doesn't have an elite kick like Hurn and Jetta down back and Gov is the closest to them but can bite off more they can chew and Witherden also prone to biting off more than he can chew. Not helped by always setting up on the right side rather than mixing it up.

4b (Edited in) Jamo as the third KPD with Maric on the wing: Keeps the three KPD structure but having a genuine pinch hitter. Could send Allen down back should Jamo chop out to shorten the forward line to help with forward pressure.

5. My best 22 with that setup.
Backs: Gov, Barrass, Maric, Cole, Hough, Duggan, Witherden
Mids: Reid, Yeo, Kelly, Ginbey, Chesser, Hunt, Brockman, Hewett (only if ready) otherwise Jones
Forwards: Allen, Waterman, Darling, Cripps, Ryan, Petch
Ruck: Flynn
Sub: One of Dewar, Hall, Johnston, Burgiel, Culley

Team with Jamo in (edited in).

Backs: Gov, Barrass, Jamo, Cole, Hough, Duggan, Witherden
Mids: Reid, Yeo, Kelly, Ginbey, Chesser, Hunt, Brockman, Hewett (only if ready) otherwise Maric
Forwards: Allen, Waterman, Darling, Cripps, Ryan, Petch
Ruck: Flynn
Sub: One of Dewar, Hall, Johnston, Burgiel, Culley

With that team, no two rucks is needed and the team has an smaller extra runner in the team which is very crucial to help close out games and reduce oppo defensive transitions that kill the club. I would love the team to just play three tall forwards MAX with one of them being able to chop out instead of this land of the giants rubbish BS.

This setup could also work in the wet.

 

[stallon]

One thing to consider also is if we have any aspirations of trading BW at the end of the year, he needs to be getting games to keep his value up as much as possible.

1. Three tall forwards THAT'S IT:

Its hard when our best 3 KPFs cant/shouldnt ruck, if Culley had shown more in his game id be tempted to throw him in as the 2nd ruck like Carlton to with Cripps. Darling might be ok at it but really hes too short

3. Flynn should ruck at least 80% TOG minimum with Gov or Allen pinch hitting especially if Darling plays:

Flynn should be 85%+ like a lot of the good ruckmen, maybe hes not fully up to doing that much game time with a long lay-off. With a full preseason id expect longer stints on ground.
We shouldnt touch our backline, leave them as they are. Gov could ruck while its back there but its so awkward to take Allen all the way down the ground for a few minutes every quarter.
Theres a good reason no team runs a def/ruck

4. Maric down back as our third KPD:

Id have thought Busslinger or Bazzo when hes back would be better here, we desperately need a winger anyway so Maric there works well. I do think Maric could be a Ridley type if he bulked up a little more, maybe one to explore next year if we dont get Buss?
I think Hunt to replace one of our small/med defenders covers a lot of the issues we have coming out of defence.

 

[Godfather32]

One thing to consider also is if we have any aspirations of trading BW at the end of the year, he needs to be getting games to keep his value up as much as possible.

Its hard when our best 3 KPFs cant/shouldnt ruck, if Culley had shown more in his game id be tempted to throw him in as the 2nd ruck like Carlton to with Cripps. Darling might be ok at it but really hes too short


Flynn should be 85%+ like a lot of the good ruckmen, maybe hes not fully up to doing that much game time with a long lay-off. With a full preseason id expect longer stints on ground.
We shouldnt touch our backline, leave them as they are. Gov could ruck while its back there but its so awkward to take Allen all the way down the ground for a few minutes every quarter.
Theres a good reason no team runs a def/ruck

Id have thought Busslinger or Bazzo when hes back would be better here, we desperately need a winger anyway so Maric there works well. I do think Maric could be a Ridley type if he bulked up a little more, maybe one to explore next year if we dont get Buss?
I think Hunt to replace one of our small/med defenders covers a lot of the issues we have coming out of defence.

Not sure the way he played today is keeping his value up

 

[stallon]

Not sure the way he played today is keeping his value up

True, at least we can argue hes best 22 if hes actually in our 22

 

[Goroyals22]

True, at least we can argue hes best 22 if hes actually in our 22

People have eyes… people can see that regardless of if he is playing afl or wafl he is useless at most of the things players are rated on.

 

[random260]

It's not that hard. Both Darling, Waterman and Oscar played well. Keep all three.

Then second ruck Jamo

 

[mat11]

Going into next week either drop Bailey or Flynn agree we can't play both

Get rid of rotham and have jamo play 3rd tall back that pinch hits

This is plenty of height should be 4 maximum kpf/rucks (maric utility)
-Waterman FF lock
-Allen CHF lock
-One of darling or J.Williams
-One of Flynn or bbw

 

[BrotherDodge]

We were noticeably better at locking the ball in and forcing stoppages in the second half though, and I don't think the structures changed much. Are we really too tall to apply forward pressure or do we just half-arse it sometimes?

 

[xInfected_Virus]

We were noticeably better at locking the ball in and forcing stoppages in the second half though, and I don't think the structures changed much. Are we really too tall to apply forward pressure or do we just half-arse it sometimes?

Taller players aren't as agile and our tall forwards, Baz included of course all went for the same ball and as a result, smaller more agile Bombers players stayed down and got the crumb and had other players staying down and they used their superior agility to burn off our taller players. As a result they scored a lot of their D50 transitions which pretty much killed us.

 

[THE A5]

Don’t mind Williams playing if he was dominating the second ruck (which in most cases is a pinch hitter) and giving our mids a boost but he isn’t doing that either. I genuinely know whats gonna happen Williams. Jack Williams slowly showing a bit and I think long term he suits flynn as a back up

 

[kaiserchief13]

Billiams deserves to be omitted but the problem is he's trade bait at end of the year and him playing WAFL means he's a really poor player, which means he is worth at best 3rd-4th rd draft pick

 

[flamingEMBERS]

JD is the one if we want BBW to work as forward.

Can at least trial it a few games as, as it sits his 300th will be at mdma stadium rd 24. Not the best way to do it, but also not the best thing sitting on your mind all preseason.

 

[Keys]

We’re currently using 5 players to fill what should be 4 spots.

That’s because Darling can’t ruck and B-Will isn’t a dangerous enough forward.

So instead of playing a ruck, 2 tall forwards and a 3rd tall forward who can chop out in the ruck we’re playing 3 tall forwards and a 4th tall who chops out in the ruck. It means we play one less small/medium forward than we otherwise might

In part that’s a result of Waterman metamorphosising from a medium forward into a genuine KPF, albeit an undersized one.

To be fair to the current setup, Flynn has only played 3 games so is still finding his feet, Williams has then only had 3 games switching from first ruck to a marking forward and Allen has only been back a week into this setup

The Essendon game therefore is our only sample to judge if the current setup can work. Waterman kicked 3.1 (13 disposals), Allen kicked 2.4 (13 disposals) and Darling kicked 2.1 (9 disposals). Collectively they took 19 marks

Bailey Williams struggled however with no scores and just 5 disposals

And despite laying 16 inside F50 tackles as a team, we allowed Essendon to score something like 12 goals from their back half. Some of that, however, would have been due to poorly directed and shallow F50 entries

For now, I’m happy to see us persist but we also probably need to look at some alternatives at some point

If Bailey doesn’t improve we should look at replacing him with Jack Williams who has shown more capability as a forward.

Or we could go without either Williams and somehow pinch hit with a combination of Darling and whoever is playing 3rd tall defender to support Flynn. This option would leave us exposed if Flynn was injured

Finally, if Darling’s form regresses we drop him and run with one of the Williams to split time between forward and 2nd ruck

The above all points to Bailey Williams being somewhat surplus to requirements but behind Flynn he’s the only player who’s shown an ability to at least be useful as first ruck. So he’s needed as depth at least whilst Barnett hopefully develops into an AFL standard ruckman which is by no means guaranteed

 

[stallon]

To be fair on BW, he has barely even been in the forward line. Hes done 44% CBAs from 60% game time last weekend, leaving roughly 15% game time in the forward line where he is lining up with Waterman and Allen who are obviously going to get targeted over him.

Itd be good if he gets an actual run as a forward at some stage soon, we might actually see something

 

[InTheWings]

I am starting to like the idea of swapping in Jamo for Bailey. Jamo can rotate between the ruck and take Rotham's spot in the backline.

 

[stallon]

I am starting to like the idea of swapping in Jamo for Bailey. Jamo can rotate between the ruck and take Rotham's spot in the backline.

There is a reason we almost never see a defender/ruck. Teams dont like to take from their backline, it messes with structures too much and leaves a likely mismatch for 10-20% of the game