Midfield - is it that bad?!

[B.M]

There is a notion that the midfield has no quality

Not sure I fully agree, for a starters I believe we have the best two-way midfielder in the AFL. Will finish top 5 in coaches votes and Brownlow again, will be AA again.

Jack Steele - A gun midfielder!

Brad Crouch - Contested ball winner, possession accumulator. Not the greatest kick, but a lot of his kicks are under pressure. Good player

Zak Jones - breakaway clearance winner. Can have hot games and quieter games. Gives the inside midfield pace and zip. Hard at it and another good player.

Luke Dunstan - clearance and contested ball mid, like Crouch. Plays tough, and is better at finding uncontested ball and better defensively now. Poor kick.

Hunter Clark - Highly skilled and courageous. Has elite talent, poor fitness. If he got fit, he’d be A Grade. has great awareness and evasion. Can playinside/Outside and HB

Jade Gresham - bit like Zac Jones with more talent. Gives speed of ball movement from clearances with his elite evasive skills. Elite below his knees and for a short player, strong overhead. Has to improve his tank to be a full time mid. Very average kick.
Can play equally as damaging forward. Question over recovery from injury, will he lose his powerful step?

Dan Hannebery - Can’t get his body right! When available, one touch player, elite hands and probably the best kick/decision maker at the club. Powerful gut runner, very courageous and finds the ball easily. Can play inside or outside equally well. Pity his body is probably done!

Ryan Byrnes - has shown promise, has the attributes of a handy inside/outside mid and HF. Uses his legs well when he gets possession and takes the game on. Concerns over the depth of his kicking. Looks a player though.

Jack Bytel - Inside mid. Struggled this season, I think he might be a bit slow?! Good hands in tight, and will win the ball at contest and find it around the ground. Average kick.

Brad Hill - Was an elite runner, which made him a weapon on the wing. Not as fit nowadays (actually looks overweight) and whilst he still covers the ground better than most, is not the running machine he was at Freo. Comfortable on a fat paycheque!
Had to be moved to HB to get easy kicks - I say F*** that, you are the big recruit! You need to be more than a quarter back getting cheap kicks D50.

Daniel McKenzie - revelation this year IMO
Huge engine, good acceleration and good step, like a shorter Sam Gilbert. The former small defender has relished his wing role, using his tank and offensive and defensive running power to good effect. Very courageous player. Gives 100%

Seb Ross
Moved to the wing (sometimes HB) due to the number of inside Mids on the list, and his ability to use his running on the outside However, he is not around the footy as much so is having less impact than we are used to. Good hands and reasonable kick and decision maker in space, can cough it up under pressure.
Most underrated player on the list.

Jack Billings
Usually plays HF but can play wing. When in good form and fit is a quality player

Josh Battle
Can be utilised on the Wing due to his aerobic capacity. Gives a point of difference with aerial strength. Good field kick. Very courageous. Slow, lacks agility, and poor below his knees.

Overall
A deep midfield with lots of ball winners and runners
Strange that with some real clearance weapons, we would lose clearances and contested ball so often and so easily.
Maybe we rely too heavily on Paddy?
Probably a lack of polish and finishers by foot. Supposed to be Billings, Hill and Clark but they can be very underwhelming.

Steele is our Hayes
We want Hill to be as good as Montagna
We want Billings to be as good as Da Santo
We Coffield to be as good as Goddard (or in the ball park)
We want Clark to be as good as Ball
We want Gresham to be as good as Milne

Sadly none of that is the case!

[Wayne42]

Steele is definitely the best player out of that lot.

The rest of them have flaws, maybe that's why we lose so many clearances, so many games.
We will be better when we get better players.

[Freebird]

There is a notion that the midfield has no quality

Not sure I fully agree, for a starters I believe we have the best two-way midfielder in the AFL. Will finish top 5 in coaches votes and Brownlow again, will be AA again.

Jack Steele - A gun midfielder!

Brad Crouch - Contested ball winner, possession accumulator. Not the greatest kick, but a lot of his kicks are under pressure. Good player

Zak Jones - breakaway clearance winner. Can have hot games and quieter games. Gives the inside midfield pace and zip. Hard at it and another good player.

Luke Dunstan - clearance and contested ball mid, like Crouch. Plays tough, and is better at finding uncontested ball and better defensively now. Poor kick.

Hunter Clark - Highly skilled and courageous. Has elite talent, poor fitness. If he got fit, he’d be A Grade. has great awareness and evasion. Can playinside/Outside and HB

Jade Gresham - bit like Zac Jones with more talent. Gives speed of ball movement from clearances with his elite evasive skills. Elite below his knees and for a short player, strong overhead. Has to improve his tank to be a full time mid. Very average kick.
Can play equally as damaging forward. Question over recovery from injury, will he lose his powerful step?

Dan Hannebery - Can’t get his body right! When available, one touch player, elite hands and probably the best kick/decision maker at the club. Powerful gut runner, very courageous and finds the ball easily. Can play inside or outside equally well. Pity his body is probably done!

Ryan Byrnes - has shown promise, has the attributes of a handy inside/outside mid and HF. Uses his legs well when he gets possession and takes the game on. Concerns over the depth of his kicking. Looks a player though.

Jack Bytel - Inside mid. Struggled this season, I think he might be a bit slow?! Good hands in tight, and will win the ball at contest and find it around the ground. Average kick.

Brad Hill - Was an elite runner, which made him a weapon on the wing. Not as fit nowadays (actually looks overweight) and whilst he still covers the ground better than most, is not the running machine he was at Freo. Comfortable on a fat paycheque!
Had to be moved to HB to get easy kicks - I say F*** that, you are the big recruit! You need to be more than a quarter back getting cheap kicks D50.

Daniel McKenzie - revelation this year IMO
Huge engine, good acceleration and good step, like a shorter Sam Gilbert. The former small defender has relished his wing role, using his tank and offensive and defensive running power to good effect. Very courageous player. Gives 100%

Seb Ross
Moved to the wing (sometimes HB) due to the number of inside Mids on the list, and his ability to use his running on the outside However, he is not around the footy as much so is having less impact than we are used to. Good hands and reasonable kick and decision maker in space, can cough it up under pressure.
Most underrated player on the list.

Jack Billings
Usually plays HF but can play wing. When in good form and fit is a quality player

Josh Battle
Can be utilised on the Wing due to his aerobic capacity. Gives a point of difference with aerial strength. Good field kick. Very courageous. Slow, lacks agility, and poor below his knees.

Overall
A deep midfield with lots of ball winners and runners
Strange that with some real clearance weapons, we would lose clearances and contested ball so often and so easily.
Maybe we rely too heavily on Paddy?
Probably a lack of polish and finishers by foot. Supposed to be Billings, Hill and Clark but they can be very underwhelming.

Steele is our Hayes
We want Hill to be as good as Montagna
We want Billings to be as good as Da Santo
We Coffield to be as good as Goddard (or in the ball park)
We want Clark to be as good as Ball
We want Gresham to be as good as Milne

Sadly none of that is the case!

How many of these talented players do you want the ball in their hands to make things happen?

[B.M]

Of course he is, he would be the best player at a lot of clubs. Genuine gun!!!

Almost every player in the AFL has flaws. Cannot have 22 elite players with no flaws.

[B.M]

Are you saying they are no good?!

[The_Dud]

We’ve got one star A-grader, a couple of B’s and a bunch of C’s.

You probably want 3 A-graders to be a genuine contender, so we need to find 2 more somewhere.

[cwrcyn]

It's a solid, blue collar midfield. It has more depth than 5 years ago, thank goodness. For it to be more than blue collar we need improvement from Clark, Bytel, and Byrnes and we need to bring in another with speed, skill and evasive skills. Hopefully Gresham will fully recover from his injury, and that will help both in the midfield and up forward. What we really need is a Sam Walsh or Zac Merrett type. Guaranteed 30 possession a week and smart footballers.

At full strength, we have a highly competitive midfield, but it lacks a match winner like Bontompelli, Dangerfield, or D.Martin

We mist nail our draft hand this year.

[Wayne42]

It's a solid, blue collar midfield. It has more depth than 5 years ago, thank goodness. For it to be more than blue collar we need improvement from Clark, Bytel, and Byrnes and we need to bring in another with speed, skill and evasive skills. Hopefully Gresham will fully recover from his injury, and that will help both in the midfield and up forward. What we really need is a Sam Walsh or Zac Merrett type. Guaranteed 30 possession a week and smart footballers.

At full strength, we have a highly competitive midfield, but it lacks a match winner like Bontompelli, Dangerfield, or D.Martin

We mist nail our draft hand this year.

Yes, we mist nail our draft.

[bangaulegend]

Pretty much think the same as most solid but need a Kelly / Bont type to get to the next level but can't see that happening so improvement from with in is where has to happen.

[B.M]

Our Match Winner is a 6’8” key forward - he will be a superstar

If we had two of him, would be the most dangerous two prong attack since Reiwoldt and Gehrig

Our midfields reminds me of Sydney’s at their best

Kennedy, Parker, Jack, Hannebery

Very good players. No superstar there but players that get it done

[B.M]

If midfield was/is such a need

Why at the last draft did we select a mid size forward and a midsize defender?

Then in the mid season draft we selected another hybrid forward and a ruckman?

Interesting choices

[The Fireman]

zac jones is a gun

[cwrcyn]

Very glad we picked up that hybrid forward

[The_Dud]

Our Match Winner is a 6’8” key forward - he will be a superstar

If we had two of him, would be the most dangerous two prong attack since Reiwoldt and Gehrig

Our midfields reminds me of Sydney’s at their best

Kennedy, Parker, Jack, Hannebery

Very good players. No superstar there but players that get it done

No use having match winners up forward if you can't get the ball down to them enough!

And that Sydney midfield had 8x AA between them, so they're a few steps ahead of ours atm...

[older saint]

We have too many of the same type , hence why Brynes went in at times post bye.
Will be fixed with either Dunstan and or Ross leaving.

Need to add in speed to the mix and quality ball use. Clark with a huge pre season could become the latter

[B.M]

I think we get the ball in (I50) enough, and stats suggest that our I50/D50 differential is ok.

Whether our method of getting it in, or the quality of entries is high is another story.

The biggest concern we had at times this season was conversion

Can’t win games if you don’t kick goals

[Yorkeys]

Up nicely v Cats; centre bounce, Stanley to Selwood on the burst, no one near him, no one defensive side, doesn't need to step or change stride hits fwd, Cats goal, they are on their way.

Typical of our mids. Not a cohesive group, don't adjust to even the most obvious ploys, fumble far too much putting team out of position. Set plays? What are they. I imagine mids coach is one of the departing.

Individually competent footballers, collectively hopeless in their clearance roles. Steele and Dunstan stand outs because very rarely do they give opposition an easy ball when they are near. But getting clean gives and stopping run ons the whole mob are like strangers at a bus stop being asked for change by a bag lady.

[skeptic]

I think this is a very generous write up to be honest

You’re on point with Steele who absolutely is elite

Crouch is a level down… he’s a little more prone to be phased out for patches of the game and also not as damaging as you’d like. Still an A-Grade by all means but he isn’t completely elite elite

Dunstan has been a revelation in terms of being a ball winning bull and TBH, I’m quite keen to keep him but his disposal and decision making can be a liability at times. Even by hand he’s quite inconsistent.

Jones is great but we haven’t gotten a ton of continuity from him when he’s been match fit and polished. Very big difference when he’s on and firing vs when he’s working his way back.
5 hamstrings in 2 years is a huge worry

Hannebery doesn’t count - ridiculous to include a play that’s played 1/3 of the available games into consideration moving forward

Gresham hasn’t played for 2 years
Battle is not a mid

Billings I like but am losing patience with… he hasn’t played out a season whilst maintaining his best. Usually gives us an excellent patch that silences critics and drops whether due to injury or otherwise.

Hill i think is harshly critiqued here… his good games are easily forgotten and each and every mistake is highlighted ad’nauseum…
Comparing him to a guy like Ross who isn’t having nearly the influence that the seasoned leader and senior mid should and is now being praised ++ for his % plays… always a bad sign.

Bytel, Byrnes and Connolly all still developing and can compete but are prone to getting beaten too. All should be in and out of the team as warranted. I would have preferred to see Bytel play a bit more late this year. Certainly deserved the opportunity that Hannebery has now been gifted

Bottom line is the reputation of the majority here is surpassing actual performance

[Banger9798]

I'm looking forward to seeing what Connolly can do.
He has done a few somewhat dodgy things, but can kick it, has great vision and super evasive.
Needs to get more of the pill, but exciting player.

[bigcarl]

Hunter Clark - Highly skilled and courageous. Has elite talent, poor fitness. If he got fit, he’d be A Grade. has great awareness and evasion. Can playinside/Outside and HB

I just hope he can play up to his potential, which is huge.

Copped at least three heavy knocks and a couple of concussions this season - along with a badly broken jaw. That will have hit his confidence, but confidence can be rebuilt.

He needs to start running now if he wants to be A Grade next season. I think the club should commit to him playing midfield rather than half back.

As to the midfield as a whole, it is quite strong (until you factor in a disastrous year of injuries). Ryder/Marshall injured/unavailable was not a good start. Gresham/Jones injuries also were telling.

[spert]

We have lost a quite a few games when our midfield went off the boil for a quarter or more this season, when we had games in the bag. I think they are pretty static at centre bounces, and not quick enough as a unit, though Jones has run, he is hot and cold. I expect Byrnes to step up in the next couple of seasons, and maybe Bytel, but jeez we need to recruit another mid with leg speed and toughness, but they don't grow on trees.

[B.M]

Isn’t Zak Jones that player?

Gresham will add pace if he recovers