With Macrae leaving it's likely he spends way more time in the side.
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With Macrae leaving it's likely he spends way more time in the side.
- Apr 23, 2013
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I bow to the majority on Owies, but I’m sure he will pop into my head every time I watch McNeil miss from 20 m out.
There's a reason McNeil and VDM get games - our three talla need to be supported by fast running, high tackling smalls. VDM and McNeil are playing that role better than the alternatives.
Owies isn't an upgrade on either for us.
- Apr 23, 2013
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Yeah I get it , but I think nearly everyone agrees they are also players that are low skilled.
I watched Owies 2024 highlights, he is not slow , a better tackler than McNeil and light years ahead on skill level.
By eye he looks like someone that would do all those 2 players offer. Both a better kick and all round skill.
But I concede if Carlton are happy to move him on then he would come with limitations.
I don’t think they are to blame but I do think that we need to improve the bottom 6 of our best 23. Our fifth and sixth forward positions are close to our weakest points on the field along with our wings. Therefore it’s only logical that those positions are the areas we want players in to push guys like VDM and McNeil to being depth players.
Please tell me how VDM is a high tackling small forward?
He had 45 tackles for the year at an average of 1.9 a game.
Weightman and McNeil both average 3.5 a game and West 3.2.
VDM also averages 9.9 disposals a game 1.7 of which are changers and scored just 10 goals 8 behinds from 24 games this year.
Not a single thing about VDM is him being a high tackling small forward. He’s a fast runner that’s it.
Now I’m not in favour of Owies really but his stats are:
2.3 tackles a games - not great but better than VDM
33 goals 13 behinds from 23 games - far superior to VDM.
8.7 disposals a game and 1.4 changers - pretty even with around 7.3 effective disposals to VDMs 8.2 but Owies has far superior impact
Also they are equals on goal assist stats 0.7 a game each
Is speed more important than impact
It’s not hard to build an argument against VDM, then again McComb played most of one season before reason got in the way
Speed/Pressure is the impact Owies provides little to none of this hence why Carlton couln't give a rats ass about keeping him and there is little to no interest elsewhere to pick him up,
VDM needs to be replaced sure but the role he plays in the team like it or not is about pressure acts closing down space and goal assists which he was actually very good at this year
Mofra
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I'm glad somebody gets it.
The HHF defensive runners in no way get replaced by a defensively poor, closer to goal forward.
There's a reason Arty was straight in when VDM was out. It's a specific task set to a quick runner with high repeat endurance.
Mofra
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I'm not sure blaming 5-10% of our cap is really that accurate.
By and large it was our Top 6 that shat the bed against the Hawks. They're the players that lead the way and need to stand up when the chips are down.
The bottom 6 guys are role players just trying to forge a career.
Massive case in point our good friend Kane Cornes,
Ports bottom 6 are shit after losing against Geelong despite the fact Wines/Rozee/Butters/JHF all sucked magically all improve vs Hawthorn and they win,
The gap between average and crap players at AFL isn't that big the gap between Average and elite is huge and thats where games are won and lost i.e the gap from Poulter to Williams is closer then Williams to Bont
Talk is he is going to Richmond.
VDM pressure acts average 10.9 a game, Owies pressure acts 12.1 a game.
So if speed results in pressure why is it that Owies has more tackles and more pressure acts, he also averages more one percenters. More ground balls, more inside 50 ground balls which all suggests he gets to the ball quicker than his opponent more often than VDM does.
West 14.8 pressures acts average
Weightman 15.1 pressure acts average
McNeil 14.7 pressure acts average
Speed isn’t an automatic of pressure it depends what you do with speed and being slower doesn’t equate to less pressure if you have a football brain and know where to move to on the ground
Our top 6 are the reason we made finals.
We need to improve our best team not our depth because some players currently in our team should be depth players not regulars.
You can get elite talent through the draft and development but given our assets this year that’s going to be difficult.
So we either sit on our hands or try to improve our bottom 6 which is more feasible this year given our assets
You're completely disregarding the part where they close down space quicker making it harder to rebound which is what VDM excels at and why teams didn't have huge run ons like previous years
Snarls Barkley
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The season is over, surely we can stop pretending Vandermeer offered anything. He played all season for the same reason that Gardner has played 50 games, Hannan played however many, McComb played a full season, etc. Bevo has blinkers on for battlers who are good teammates and hard trainers and will keep selecting them even if providing zero or negative impact
- Jun 21, 2012
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Watched a bit of Werribee this year and was pretty impressed with Jaelen Pavlidis each time.
Small, speedy defender with good disposal, something we will need when Duryea retires.
Saw he got a wrap from the coach ahead of the VFL GF and hope that we have at least at a look at him.
Small, speedy defender with good disposal, something we will need when Duryea retires.
Saw he got a wrap from the coach ahead of the VFL GF and hope that we have at least at a look at him.
Are there any stats to support that he in fact does that? Would closing players down not in fact be a pressure act?
No closing down someone without the ball to stop a switch isn't recorded as a stat,
Go back to the fox footy commentary after the Melbourne game a month ago and you'll get a more advanced understanding of his role,
He should by no means be B22 and we 100% need to find a better option but if you're going to try and do so at least go for someone comparable
Mofra
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Repeat sprints? Leads the AFL IIRC. Treloar has been pretty open about him much his teammates love playing with him too.
If you're a masochist you could always watch some of our late 2022 season games, especially the GWS game.
They basically walked the ball out of their defense all the way up the ground as we just didn't defend the cheap 45 kick well at all. Supporters were (rightly) pulling their hair out.
Mofra
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Blaming the bottom 6 is what we're taking about. Really, the last few guys picked don't move the needle much.
If English grew a pair that final, we'd improve far more than the incremental improvement we'd get by swapping a few role players.
Jones & Libba concern me too. Father time can make an appearance rather quickly.
Fortunately we do have kids who can start to cover them (Sanders and Buss) and both were in excellent VFL form late season too
All this talk about speed and pressure is getting me excited.
Why don't we make a play for Dylan Shiel and Zak Jones as they are both quick and both can tackle better than VDM?
And no, VDM is not a better player than either of those guys.
Why don't we make a play for Dylan Shiel and Zak Jones as they are both quick and both can tackle better than VDM?
And no, VDM is not a better player than either of those guys.
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