- Jul 27, 2023
- 5,536
- 16,179
- AFL Club
- West Coast
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Cramping up?Only watched it 50 times myself.
Cramping up?
you've put him as a fave player of yoursView attachment 1997835
Does anyone know why Harley is the only player with a purple star.
Keeps bugging me wondering what it is for.
We all know he is a star but I don't like the fact it is purple.
Jake & Alec Waterman's Great Auntie, I've heard.Old lady is more connected than Ryan Daniels, so I believe it
Home sickness is overrated. Look at the King twins. Max who is playing at home is struggling while Ben who is playing for an interstate team is leading the Coleman. Furthermore, everybody is commenting that Max King looks sad and unhappy. So the one who is at home is actually sadder than the one who is away. One would expect the opposite to be the case.
FMD.you've put him as a fave player of yours
The Eagles uploaded the full segment on their Youtubes, here you go for anyone interested
This.
He’d be mad to sign this early -if he signed 10 games in he should be finding a new manager.
Given his current form and ability, the longer he waits the more 0s he gets to add to his new deal.
Jay Clark stating he is expecting Reid to sign a one year extension.
Nothing about timelines.
Also says the one year extension will allow us to increase his 3 year wages from base wage.
This is what he was pushing on the Mid Week show on Fox last night when the graphic rolled onto the screen that Harley was likely to sign through to 2027. Was pretty strange
Jay Clark stating he is expecting Reid to sign a one year extension.
Nothing about timelines.
Also says the one year extension will allow us to increase his 3 year wages from base wage.
That would be a rort.
We have the leverage that we are the only team that can increase his season year 2/3 pay and we are giving that up for 1 year extention only.
Smart manager but heck I wouldn't do it. Total mercenary move by Harley manager.
However, I understand if we fold and accept that.
I’m pretty sure Clark has got that wrong.
I think he is talking about additional services agreement which is marketing money that sits outside the cap.
It’s just a one year extension for 1.5m
Harley ain’t signing past 2027. All players are signing to 2027 to use Tassie as leverage.
To be fair, one plays for St Kilda.
Wouldn’t mind reading it one day
Quite liked this
Wouldn’t mind reading it one day
Wouldn’t mind reading it one day
I don’t watch much football. In fact, to write this, I’ve had to ask for my friend’s Kayo log in. But when I see certain things take place on the field, I still understand the weight they carry
So, Harley Reid kicks that goal from the centre bounce on the weekend. It takes 10.5 seconds (or thereabouts, I’m using my iPhone to time it) from the moment the ball is bounced to the moment the ball leaves his boot.
I get that it gives people hope. I get that it almost single-handedly dragged the West Coast Eagles to another stage of their rebuild. I get the superlatives around $25 million contracts and the Best First Year Player of the Modern Era talk.
I get all of the gossip and the soundbites and the round table discussions. But what got me while watching it was the fracturing of the game it occurred in: the nuts and bolts of the stoppage and the decisions of players and how that is more fascinating than any of the other talk.
So, with that in mind, this is an Xs and Os-style piece looking at those 10.5 seconds while trying my best to avoid hyperbole.
Stage 1: Ball is bounced, Harley collects ball
Time: 0–3 seconds.
Theory-wise, this is a nothing stoppage set-up. In fact, it’s an incredibly boring set-up from two teams both without their main rucks competing. It’s a man-on-man set-up, a kind of handshake agreement to neutralise one another and get the ball to ground and then see what happens.
With the exception of West Coast ruck Jack Williams’ initial movement, creating space to maybe tap behind him (but he loses body position late and is not in control of the contest and the Demons ruck ends up getting his hand to the ball, tapping towards Melbourne’s goal), there is little pre-tap movement.
It’s a wet blanket set-up from all involved. Christian Petracca starts goalside on Reid on the deadside of the stoppage. The other Melbourne midfielder, Clayton Oliver, is on the opposite side of the circle, goalside of his man. Melbourne is sitting in a defensive triangle shape with Viney at sweeper.
If I’m being hyper-critical, the one real complication from this set-up is that the positioning of Oliver and Petracca puts them in a spot where Reid can wrap behind his ruckman while Oliver’s opponent, Luke Edwards, can block him and give Harley a free run out of the stoppage. Though, without ruck dominance, this is not something teams would usually consider.
Conversely, the Eagles players (Reid and Edwards) both have respective goalside of their opponents too, meaning that the only danger spot (the open space directly towards their goals where a West Coast sweeper could be but is vacant) is null and void because they have a head start if Melbourne’s ruck happens to hit forward to that space.
Basically, this is a very, very safe stoppage that has minimal chance of anything exciting happening.
Stage 2: Harley turns inside stoppage into an outside contest
Time: 3–5 seconds.
Games of football are a form of chemistry, a continued changing of states. From offence to defence, from inside to outside, they are, in essence, chain reactions.
The catalyst for this whole sequence is Reid’s explosiveness and what he does when collecting the football once it hits the deck. What his strength does is completely fracture the boundary between inside and outside.
It’s at this stage, as he takes his first few steps away from the contest, that structures start to collapse. The wingers on both sides of the ground are holding out of the stoppage and letting the insiders go to work. The Demons’ winger on the benchside of the ground is caught treading water. It’s a split moment decision: does he go in, and then allow his man to slip behind him, or does he hold out and hope that his insiders can chase Reid down?
Sure, Petracca clutches at the tackle and Oliver looks like he’s on a treadmill, but football is full of mechanisms to stop momentary faults from becoming catastrophic events.
Layers. Mechanisms. Structures.
In review meetings, these deserve more attention than the skill error mistakes – because no player wants to make a mistake, no one intends to make one.
Structures can be controlled. Usually.
Stage 3: Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…
Time: 5–10.5 seconds.
In this stage, I focus on Jack Viney, the third of the Demons’ midfielders at the stoppage. As Reid runs towards goal, Viney is caught in a half-gaited run in the middle of the ground about 15 metres away. In my mind I’m screaming, “Go at him! Go at him! You have to pressure Reid to kick there!”
But I know this player might be indecisive following the orders of a gameplan to get back and support, to provide coverage in the middle of the ground. To sit in the hole.
He’s less playing on instinct and more on the mechanisms that players come to trust.
Likewise, there would be questions going through the Demons high half-backs’ minds at this point. Decisions would have to be made.
Come forward or to go back?
Where is your man?
If you leave your man and impact, does the next player have your back?
Where’s the dangerous space? Is Reid shaping to kick short or long? What’s more of a risk? Is he really going to kick the goal from there? Shit, how has he gone from a centre bounce to inside 50 without being touched?
What the f--k are the mids doing?!
And this is what Harley Reid has done.
This is why I’m still thinking about it. No one else has touched the ball. He is that type of player who can make the entire contest revolve around them.
The entire dynamic of a stoppage changes with him in the picture.
If you stay too close to him, he will shrug you off.
If you stand too far away, he has time to explode away.
If you send two players to him, then someone else is spare.
Reid throws a stick in the machine of opposition strategy. For a team with few obvious things to be worried about, he is an annoyingly pertinent problem.
For proof: at the next centre bounce Max Gawn is rucking and the pace of Kysaiah Pickett is on Reid, blocking goalside and right foot. A tired Petracca is resting forward. Viney’s eyes are more firmly fixed on Reid.
What I’m trying to say here - and I don’t feel this is hyperbolic - is that Reid has the ability to turn a game from stasis to “Oh shit!” faster than anyone else in the game.
So, while a week is a long time in football (I hate that line, always have), it’s only Thursday, and I’m still thinking about that Harley Reid goal.
- Brandon Jack, author and journalist, played for the Sydney Swans from 2013-2017.
Cooper Simpson I think signed a two year deal, so signed until 2027Yeah, the time the Tassie team enters the comp are what players will be signing to..has any draftee actually signed an extension yet?
I was of the opinion the ASA was for 3rd year players who met "targets" in their first 2 years like being placed in B&F's and the Brownlow etc.I’m pretty sure Clark has got that wrong.
I think he is talking about additional services agreement which is marketing money that sits outside the cap.
It’s just a one year extension for 1.5m
Harley ain’t signing past 2027. All players are signing to 2027 to use Tassie as leverage.
Him talking about his apparent homesickness...or lack thereof