meher baba wrote:More rubbish on this thread. We are heaps better in many areas than we were last year:
Defence, thanks to the arrival of Carlisle and Brown; Roberton and Webster continuing to improve; Geary also improving, with much better judgement around his kicking, and possibly even some slight skill improvement (which is highly unusual for a player of his age)
Midfield/outside: Ross and Billings have become elite, Sinclair has made a quantum leap, Stevens has been a terrific acquisition, Steele and Acres have shown glimpses, Dunstan might still make it, Steven continues to be elite, and Gresham shows flashes of brilliance but needs to work harder on his game. And Armo might come back and strengthen this area further.
Forward line: alas, not much improvement here. Riewoldt and Membrey still look pretty good, but desperately need a third musketeer to provide a central target. Bruce's form has been up and down. Lonie has shown glimpses in the last two games.
Ruck: Billy is as bad as Hickey, but in different ways.
We're not as far off as many of you seem to think. If we can recruit a Kelly or a Martin that would be great. Even if we can't do this, Acres and Billings could potentially develop into serious creative forces in our future midfield.
I'm more bothered about our forward line. Last night, Riewoldt was the only forward player who was seriously worrying the GC defence. Membrey and Bruce are potentially long-term players for us, but we need a dangerous target man. Maybe Paddy can still become this, but - if I were in charge of our recruiting - I'd be trying to snare another quality forward (preferably a ruck-forward) even before looking at a Kelly or a Martin.
I agree that our defence is better this year. Carlisle and Brown have definitely improved us in this area. I agree with all your comments re defence actually. That's not our problem.
Re our mids. What do you call elite? I'd argue no-one in our team is elite. We have some very good AFL footballers, and Ross is one of those. Billings has been up and down all year. At his best he has a higher ceiling than anyone in the team. His last 7-8 games have been very encouraging. Ross has definitely improved. He seems stronger and fitter and his ball use is far better. He consistently wins possessions in the mid 20's and is more effective with those possessions. Steven is not elite in my opinion, not compared to the genuine elite mids in the comp. This is our problem. He's our best mid and probably our best player. The opposition know it and have started to put a lot of work into him to limit his effectiveness. His breakaway speed from packs sets up the game, but his kicking once he breaks away is inconsistent at best. He needs help in there and I'm certainly not laying the blame at his feet. Rarely does a midfield function on the back of one gun mid - which is why G. Ablett has been incredible at the GC. Ross and Steven have been very good this year, with Steven's effectiveness blunted recently.
We needed more improvement from the likes of Acres this year. We haven't seen it enough tbh. I personally believe that the inclusion of Steele, Stevens and Dunstan hasn't changed our midfield much at all. I was always concerned that Steele didn't kick the ball enough. It's ok to feed the ball out, but that's only really damaging if it hit a runner at speed. Little dinky handpasses in close to a player in nearly as much pressure isn't that great. Stevens is tough and lays tackles, but he doesn't influence games or change the tempo of a game. His disposal is only average. Dunstan definitely hasn't improved and we have given him a lot of chances. Armo is a good player but who knows when he'll return and in what state. We are crying out for quality mids, not just more mids like what we recruited this year.
Our rucking stocks have gone backwards a country mile. Hickey was just below the best rucks in the league last year. Instead he languishes in the reserves and he looked pathetic pre-season. Now he's injured. Longer is not AFL standard. This hardly helps our mid field or our fwd line.
Our fwd line has also gone backwards. Roo is another year older. He's still good enough to play and be effective but it's an indictment on the rest of the team that he still remains our most viable target up forward - by a long way. Gresham does some clever things but he is no where near as clean as he promised to be earlier in his career. Sinclair has improved but in terms of quality small fwds he's still only average. Wellar has gone backwards - can't kick and his strong overhead marking is non existent. His defensive work is ok but nothing sensational for a defensive fwd. Bruce has had a poor year, but looks like the penny may have dropped recently. I had high hopes for Membery but feel as though he will only ever be a 3rd tall and he's still nothing like say a Tom Lynch at Crows. We have no real structure coming into the fwd line. We're either hopelessly outnumbered or we bomb it to the predictable spot top of the goal square as if we have Lockett, Carey and Simon Madden all competing for the ball.
In summary - our defence is coming along fine. Our mids are one paced apart from Steven and don't give us anything like the run we need at this level to get the ball into space. Our skills also let us down as much as our lack of run. Dunstan, Stevens, Steele and even Gresham, Sinclair etc don;t have the poise or xeecution of skills to give our average fwd line the delivery they need to kick winning scores against good opposition.
( God help me)
and despise the Pies, the Blues, and the Injectors.
