Pre game postulations: AFL 2021 Rd 7: Carlton vs the Drug Cheats

[kruddler]

....Williamson has developed a case of the chook runs.

Developed? I've been calling him Paul bower for a whole now. He's always done it, now people are starting to notice.

[kruddler]

I disregard Weitering and Walsh because they were obvious and popular choices  by most observers.

I'll also put aside for a moment the less than adequate players we picked up from other teams.

I don't have a lot of issue with the speculative late picks. (Finbar aside)
Silvagni would no doubt be relying on scouters out in that area.

The main area of concern and discussion centres around those higher draft picks.
Dow, O'Brien and even Cunningham were all high picks.
Silvagni would/should  have taken a bit of interest at that level.
SPS...same (he has been a regular player though, so a bit of slack there)

It may be one or more of these players do eventually reach a level where they're regular, consistent performers.
And yes...the development once drafted is equally (perhaps more of an issue) than the recruitment.

Again, cherry picking to some degree.
Dow, obrien and sps.
No mention of curnow and McKay despite being taken later than those 3.
Fwiw, the dow/obrien draft was an average one.
Cuningham is about on par with most of the others taken around him in that draft.
Perhaps we expect too much?

But...
The balance you talk about is only achieved if it's solid through all parts.
It's not much good picking a player for that position and, balance, if he struggles to make the team.
Austin may be of the opinion that we needed an upgrade in those areas, even though on paper we've had them covered.

Silvagni gets scruitinised because we have a body of work to evaluate.
It's not all bad or good, but a bit of a mix.
Skilled in some aspects, questioned in others.

Austin's time will come but we haven't seen enough of his picks to judge their impact on the side.
I'm still trying to get my head around why you think his selections have unbalanced the side.

Under sos we had senior players in every position and kids coming through in every position.

Under Austin we pushed out Simpson and recruited 2 more hbf/wing types in saad and Williams. We'd pushed out daisy the year before.
We have Docherty, Plowman, Newman, Marchbank, Williamson, sps.... who are afl capable players on the list...and a sprinkling of kids in a similar area.

How many kpd have we got on our list?
Jones and weitering.
We ditched silvagni, finbar, macreadie, Moore and replaced them with nobody.....maybe Oscar who fell into our lap and was good luck rather than good management.

Same with the ruck. Kreuzer out, who was in? We've got tdk and pittonet and....
Casboult??
....and if casboult has to go back to cover for injuries? We've got no key forwards coming through.
How many young kpps do we have on our list?
Zero. Tdk is the youngest (good sos pickup by the way....but nobody talks about him) and the cupboard is bare.

Too many hbfs and no kpps.
That's why our list is unbalanced.

Fwiw, the best list strategy has an abundance of kpps as they are worth more at the trade table....you can trade them for gun mids if you want.

That's poor list balance.

[WASurfer]

Agreed Kruddler....said the same thing myself in another post about the lack of planning in terms of ruckmen. Pittonet was recruited purely as backup for Kreuzer and a young TDK who was developing. Kreuzer went down in Round 1 last year, while TDK was injured, and since then Pittonet has been numero uno!!!

I agree Casboult's form has been pretty ordinary YTD but who else do we have as a backup ruckman or key forward? I thought his game against Port Adelaide was pretty good.

And if anyone suggests we pull Jones or McKay out of their positions to play in the ruck for short bursts as backup for Pittonet, you're crazy! It's not like we're flushed for blokes in their positions either....not to mention the risk of injury.

[LP]

And if anyone suggests we pull Jones or McKay out of their positions to play in the ruck for short bursts as backup for Pittonet, you're crazy! It's not like we're flushed for blokes in their positions either....not to mention the risk of injury.

I wouldn't ever consider McKay for the ruck, he's too fragile and also a good mover for ground ball at F50 stoppages.

But Jones might be worth a crack, we can always put McGovern back to float in front of or rotate with Weitering. Jones has to want to do it though, if he doesn't buy in it's a waste of time, but he was surprisingly good at VFL level when Fraser had him sharing ruck duties with Kerr.

[Baggers]

Agreed Kruddler....said the same thing myself in another post about the lack of planning in terms of ruckmen. Pittonet was recruited purely as backup for Kreuzer and a young TDK who was developing. Kreuzer went down in Round 1 last year, while TDK was injured, and since then Pittonet has been numero uno!!!

I agree Casboult's form has been pretty ordinary YTD but who else do we have as a backup ruckman or key forward? I thought his game against Port Adelaide was pretty good.

And if anyone suggests we pull Jones or McKay out of their positions to play in the ruck for short bursts as backup for Pittonet, you're crazy! It's not like we're flushed for blokes in their positions either....not to mention the risk of injury.

McGovern is an option for b/u ruck work, has done it before and it would get him involved in the game plus his mobility is a plus. That would mean we can give the out of form Casboult a rest and bring in a more mobile forward, especially for the big spaces of the G.

[LP]

Developed? I've been calling him Paul bower for a whole now. He's always done it, now people are starting to notice.

He wasn't always like that, when he started he was contested marking gold, but I think injuries have cruelled his way of play. Now he looks like he is trying to be a Simmo but without the physical contact.

[WASurfer]

What other options do we have in terms of a "mobile forward" if we drop Casboult and play McGovern in the ruck? JSOS is out injured and Kennedy obviously has his papers stamped. Jones is playing his best football as an intercept marking defender. As a ruckman he'll just jump high and bash it....hoping one of our midfielders can latch onto it first....there won't be any science too it.

[WASurfer]

Speaking of SOS recruits, Jarred Garlett played his first game for Railways up here in the GNFL over the weekend....kicked 4 but wasn't in the best players.

[LP]

I think our bigger problem is BigH.

He's in good personal form, but he's not doing things right by the team. We want him to be committed to the contest, but we need him to be smarter, in kicking his 6 or 7 he is probably at times costing guys like McGovern, Cripps and Betts easy set shots. Too often BigH is dragging his opponent into the contest when we have a clear advantage inside F50. It's good to see him hungry, but it'd be better to see him get creative.

Fans are all over BigH, but a good percentage of his goals come from team-mates sacrificing and they get no credit, team-mates can't say the same about BigH!

It's like being back in the FevCycle, great to watch, but doesn't really help.

[ElwoodBlues1]

What other options do we have in terms of a "mobile forward" if we drop Casboult and play McGovern in the ruck? JSOS is out injured and Kennedy obviously has his papers stamped. Jones is playing his best football as an intercept marking defender. As a ruckman he'll just jump high and bash it....hoping one of our midfielders can latch onto it first....there won't be any science too it.

I think McGovern in the ruck is fanciful, I'd rather Jones as a backup to the backup ruck and stick McGovern down back to cover.
191cm vs Gawn, NicNat etc is a slaughter, even the Essendon spuds like Philips would enjoy that matchup and thats not McGoverns fault. If he can kick 2 goals a week and stick to the basics like he did vs Brisbane I'll call that a win and be happy to leave him where is comfortable. You also have the injury factor with him, he never plays a full season and having some 100kg plus giant run into him for 5-10 minutes a quarter is looking for trouble IMHO.
We really need to look for another moneyball ruckman as backup and get TDK back in the team.....Stef Martin was such a great pickup for the Dogs, no world beater but a big frame to asborb punishment just break even and let the kid English do his thing.
Pittonet can do that but we need another like Martin as backup as TDK does get injured a bit and Levi is on his last legs as a player.