Stanley showing good signs..

[saintbrat]

http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xc/141409 ... 71C83CD282

[Con Gorozidis]

Maybe he can be a poor mans Nik Nat...

He has similar athletic attributes to NN, if not as pronounced, and is similarly lacking footy smarts and reading of the play, also as NN does/did...

Playing forward is very difficult... Even top shelf footballers such as Fisher and Gilbert couldn't make the transition due to the instinct and nous that is required to succeed... Infinitely more difficult with guys like Stanley that rely on their athletic capabilities pretty much entirely to succeed..

So let him chase the ball, be in and around it, and use his speed, spring and strength to impact the game...

It's ruck or nothing for Stanley IMO..

i agree with this. let him run around. ok he will get out buscled but he will make up for that when the ball hits the ground and he can go for it or receive a handball. lets play him all year as 2nd ruck. he can go fwd from time to time. his fwd work will become better over the years as he gets stronger and more confident etc but he wont tear it up as a fwd in the next year or 2. thats fine. lets just get the most out of him for now - which is a follower - paddy ryder style or a poor mans nicnat.

[groupie1]

We need to just persist with Stanley.
I have no problem playing 4 talls and I reckon Stanley is a genuine ruck follower who can go fwd.
Did some great things.

Agree. I have no idea why people are worried about too many talls when the last two premiers won premierships with:
Hmmmm.... now let me think......

Dawes, Cloke, Brown, Jolly
and
Hawkins, Ottens, Pods, West

hmmmmm....... seems the KOZI, STANLEY, ROO AND MCEVOY IN THE SAME TEAM... ARE YOU KIDDING ME antics are a-historical and committed to some idea of a game style or game plan the inverse of which has proven successful over the past two years.

Let me try and shed light rather than being smart. As I see it, with fitter and more organised and more mass defensive postures what you need up forward are mark takers or pack busters (can be the same player in one) and a pack of quick smaller players. Marks on leads are rarer and rarer; balls come into attack over heavy opposition numbers and congestion. The Tom Hawkins of the game are going to be the most important player there is for at least 5-6 years. Kozi and Mac can both play that role. Roo and Stanley give us speed and agility. I think its a nicely balanced big guy mix.
Hawks are using Franklin, Hale, and would have used Roughead in the same way. Eagles witnessed with Cox and or Nat in the same forward line as Lynch.
Mayeb the question shouldn't be so much about how many tall forward/followers we pick, but where are they best suited on the ground given the prevailing paradigm of gam styles. And to me, the answer to that is to use players where their competitive advantages can be exploited by them. Roo and Stanley on the wings, perhaps? With Siposs and Kozi forward and Mac in the ruck. Stanley third man up around the ground. Kozi alternating with Mac.

[mad saint guy]

Stanley's ruckwork ended up being the only real positive we could take out of Friday's game. He's very hard to beat at center clearances and is slowly looking more and more comfortable on the field. If he can start sticking a few marks and going on some long runs with the footy then he'll keep a senior spot this year.

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

Just watched a replay of most of the last quarter (from about the 5 min mark) against West Coast from last week, when Rhys went up against Nic Nat in the ruck for the quarter and Rhys convincingly won the first 4 centre bounce hitouts from that time against him. All 4 bounces went basically straight up and gave both a great chance of getting their hands on it, but Rhys won all of them. He hit one down Ledger's throat, one down Joey's and the other two hit the ground right next to their intended targets, but didn't quite hit them. He was getting up just as high as Natanui, which very few do. For the final centre bounce of the quarter, it favoured Stanley slightly, but they might have both missed it. Stanley may have just gotten a touch to it (he ran under it a bit far), but at least he didn't let Nat get close to it. At the boundary throw-ins there was very little in it and it was often hard to tell who was getting their hands to it, as their hands were practically next to each other and it was at the very top, or out of the screen. Nat won a couple of them, but the rest were hard to tell. I expect that if that was a game for premiership points, we'd frequently have someone coming over the top to help Rhys out at those contests, anyway.

So Stanley went head to head with Natanui for a quarter and then with Jolly (mostly) and Dawes for a half and may have lost as few as one centre bounce hitout in the combined 3 quarters. Most of them he won convincingly and some ridiculously so, thanks to his leap.

I dare say Rhys would usually get at least a foot higher than Mac at centre bounces and often more than that.

[mad saint guy]

Another positive from his game on Friday was that he was absolutely stuffed before half time. He couldn't stand up straight and could barely jog off the ground when sent to the bench. But he then comes out and plays his most impressive half of footy to date, so the workrate and endurance is obviously coming along well.

[St Igmata]

Some of these guys including Sippos must get more touches.
Stanley is another that doesnt get near the ball enough for the modern game.

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

I agree that Stanley needs to get more of it, and he is miles and miles off reaching his full potential, but I think Siposs is getting enough of it for someone his age (just turned 19- there are very few playing regular senior AFL that young these days- he's 18 months younger than Winmar and 6+ months younger than Markworth, Ledger, Cripps and Crocker, for example and only 6 months older than Seb Ross) and in the position he is playing. If he was playing mainly on the ball, or on the wing, I would agree, but playing up forward it's not as easy to rack up the stats. Especially when you're getting badly beaten and the ball is spending a lot of the match up the other end of the ground, as it did on Friday, or on one flank, when you're positioned on the other.
I think he's tracking very, very well, all those things considered. (And in the game when he was played in the midfield- against Geelong in the first round of the NAB Cup, he got the second most possies for us for the match, which was a terrific effort, considering we had the likes of Goddard, Gram, Ray, Polo, Peake, Jones, etc, playing).

[St Igmata]

Ten touches a game is not enough in todays football.
Young or old .
Having too many low touch players and too many players turning over the ball means you are not getting anywhere fast

[S.A Saint]

I agree that Stanley needs to get more of it, and he is miles and miles off reaching his full potential, but I think Siposs is getting enough of it for someone his age (just turned 19- there are very few playing regular senior AFL that young these days- he's 18 months younger than Winmar and 6+ months younger than Markworth, Ledger, Cripps and Crocker, for example and only 6 months older than Seb Ross) and in the position he is playing. If he was playing mainly on the ball, or on the wing, I would agree, but playing up forward it's not as easy to rack up the stats. Especially when you're getting badly beaten and the ball is spending a lot of the match up the other end of the ground, as it did on Friday, or on one flank, when you're positioned on the other.
I think he's tracking very, very well, all those things considered. (And in the game when he was played in the midfield- against Geelong in the first round of the NAB Cup, he got the second most possies for us for the match, which was a terrific effort, considering we had the likes of Goddard, Gram, Ray, Polo, Peake, Jones, etc, playing).

I agree with the Siposs comment, By the end of the year i can see him having around 15 touches a game across the half forward line. Stanley on the other hand needs to be used more as a second ruckman that is able to push forward. Having time in the ruck will get him more involved and build his confidence up.

[matrix]

good call
the guy can leap as we all know so lets get him doing more ruck work

[stevie]

How would he go at CHB, with Chips helping him? This would free up BJ to become a fwd option.