Tallest saints Team ever????

[saintsRrising]

Tallest Saints Team ever????

If one looks at a possible Saints line up for 2008 it is evident that there is a lot of potential height that could be deployed on virtually every line…..and even in the midfield if for example BJ played there, or Dempster tagged there….

A possible team (though for discussion I have leaned a little to tallish players) could be

Dempster 192 Max 191 Gilbert 194

Gram 186 Goose 190 S Fisher 191

BJ 191 Lenny 186 Joey 178

Roo 193 Kosi 197 Schneider 179
Milne 178 GTrain 195 C Gardiner 190 (or Allen 193 or X 181)

King 201 Dal 185 Ball 186

M Gardiner 199 Harvey 181 Fiora 186

In the mix Baker 179 Birss 184 L Fisher 184 Raph 188 Blake 189 (though evidently is 191)

I have highlighted in dark blue all players 190cm and above.

Our back line could well end up being a tall unit as Max, Gilbert, Dempster and even Sam Fisher to some extent all have the capacity to play on smaller players.

So in 2008 will we see take to the field on a regular basis one of the tallest Saints teams ever????

Even if X plays say forward pocket and L Fisher say keeps Dempster out of the 22 it is still a tallish looking unit.


Your thoughts???

[Oh When the Saints]

That team Thomas picked in the last round of '06 will probably be our tallest ever ...

But you do have a point, although blokes like Goddard, Dempster, Gilbert, Blake and someone like Charlie Gardiner can play "small", or smaller than their height ...

We've got a lot of flankers.

[Go Sretnias Go]

That's not a bad team sRr - your foward line is the same six I've mentioned elsewhere. I would have Bakes for Dempster and Raf and Blake on the bench instead of Fiona.

[saintsRrising]

That team Thomas picked in the last round of '06 will probably be our tallest ever ...

.

That team in 2006 had 9 players 190cm or taller (Goose and Max did not play).

The team that I have flagged above could have 10-13

[Armoooo]

Geez, that is a huge team
I'm worried that they could be a little bit too tall, this could be what stops Dempster from getting a game, maybe even Allen aswell...

[bigcarl]

we do have a lot of good talls ... enough to put one of the most aerially dominant teams in history on the park.

to my mind we'll be better served with a long-kicking gameplan rather than the chippalotto, which doesn't play to our strengths.

[st.byron]

I hadn't realised that Dempster is 191cm. Handy pick-up if he can fit into the side. It certainly is a tall back-line.
I like your side, the only definite change I'd have is X in front of Charlie Gardiner.

[bigcarl]

That team Thomas picked in the last round of '06 will probably be our tallest ever ...

But you do have a point, although blokes like Goddard, Dempster, Gilbert, Blake and someone like Charlie Gardiner can play "small", or smaller than their height ...

and guys like gilbert and blake can also play taller than their height, which is what makes them so valuable

[Halo-9]

its the same in the forward lines with g-train,kosi,riewoldt,gardiner and the resting blake/king...milney and schneider can have some field days if they play their cards right this year.

[hAyES]

Too tall for the way footy is played these days. We'd have to mark just about everything because we're stuffed once the ball hits the deck.

[bigcarl]

Too tall for the way footy is played these days..

maybe we ought to change the way footy is played and play to our strengths.

to be honest i can't see a problem with "tall" so long as they can all play the game and most of ours can.

[plugger66]

Too tall for the way footy is played these days..

maybe we ought to change the way footy is played and play to our strengths.

to be honest i can't see a problem with "tall" so long as they can all play the game and most of ours can.

I disagree. Footy cannot be changed to suit alot talls anymore due to the fitness level of players which means they can flood back so unless you mark you are stuffed. Use good talls but you need runners and more runners.

[juspen]

Have to disagree - take a look back at round 17 2002 - 16 players over 191cm took the field that day against the Bombers.

[plugger66]

Have to disagree - take a look back at round 17 2002 - 16 players over 191cm took the field that day against the Bombers.

Was that the yorkshire ripper or you.

[saintsRrising]

I think one factor is that what is "tall" is now being redefined.

Once upon a time 6ft was quite a respectful height for a footballer.....and now it is basically just a rover...LOL if we still had rovers that is.

190 odd cm used to be very tall...taller than some ruckmen...ie Jeff "Pup" Sarau was 190 cm and our first ruck.....but now we are seeing players of that height who are gifted mobile athletes and who definately not lumberers.

Take Sam Fisher for example....his best football so far has been on the flank.

Max was ahead of his time...being able to play easily na variety of heights. Lately he has been our FB but I still regard him as the best BP in the competition.





I certainly do not think that you want a team chock full of 200ish cm lumberers (ie Kosi, Gardiner etc) anda forward line with too many slow talls would make me nervous.....but I also think that the height of players is increasing and that very athletic players are now in greater proportion and that taller (ie 190 ish) athletic footballer are now more common.

The current free running nature of AFL where less one on one is played with less packs has meant that the very nimble or hard at in and under types are less required....still required yes..but not as much.

Or the other way to look at it is that playing so much in space has allowed these taller athletes to emerge as their lack of nimbleness is not the handicap it once was.

Blake for example is suited to this role as he is tallish with a huge engine so that he can run and run...if only his disposal skills were better though!!!!!

[saintsRrising]

Have to disagree - take a look back at round 17 2002 - 16 players over 191cm took the field that day against the Bombers.

We played Freo.



Do we have to put up with this troll???

[bigcarl]

Too tall for the way footy is played these days..

maybe we ought to change the way footy is played and play to our strengths.

to be honest i can't see a problem with "tall" so long as they can all play the game and most of ours can.

I disagree. Footy cannot be changed to suit alot talls anymore due to the fitness level of players which means they can flood back so unless you mark you are stuffed. Use good talls but you need runners and more runners.

well we are fortunate to have good talls who can run. riewoldt, blake, gilbert, sam fisher ... even bj

i'm all for going in with a tall forward line as very few teams have the tall defenders to match kosi, roo and fraser and, for example, gilbert.

move the ball in quickly to this tall forward line and it will be very difficult to stop.

simply a matter of playing to our strengths and exploiting others' weaknesses.

but i'll go with whatever works. whatever it was we were trying to achieve last season clearly didn't

[Oh When the Saints]

whatever it was we were trying to achieve last season clearly didn't

It worked from Rounds 1-7 and from Rounds 12-22.

Quite nicely actually. We won 62% of our matches.


There was that period for four weeks where we had 24-28 players to select from, and the team fell apart.


But why would you change something that worked well for 18 rounds of the year?

[bigcarl]

But why would you change something that worked well for 18 rounds of the year?

i wouldn't be holding 2007 up as an example of success.

[Oh When the Saints]

That's disingenuous.

I was not calling 2007 successful.

You said that whatever we were trying last season didn't work.


I disagreed - IMO it did work.

The fact that it works does not equate to success - there are other factors.


But it worked.

[plugger66]

whatever it was we were trying to achieve last season clearly didn't

It worked from Rounds 1-7 and from Rounds 12-22.

Quite nicely actually. We won 62% of our matches.


There was that period for four weeks where we had 24-28 players to select from, and the team fell apart.


But why would you change something that worked well for 18 rounds of the year?

Not sure 62% of matches will ever win a flag so we must improve from last year even excluding those rounds you mentioned. Will we that is the big question but going very tall in the forward line is not the answer.

[bigcarl]

Will we that is the big question but going very tall in the forward line is not the answer.

well that's where you and i differ. a mistake, imo, to just go back to the one dimensional forward set-up that hasn't been good enough in recent years.

will be interesting to see what happens. Whether we'll take some chances or again be satisfied with mediocrity

[mad saint guy]

and guys like gilbert and blake can also play taller than their height, which is what makes them so valuable

How does a defender play taller than 194cm?

I suspect that just about every team in 2008 will be playing the tallest regular 22 in their history. Under 183cm is now small. 184-190 is medium. 191-197 is tall and over that is ruckman height.

Our tallest team to ever take the field in a single match would have been one of Thomas' last few games.

Against Brisbane we had Goddard (192), Riewoldt (193), S.Fisher (191), Brooks (198), Gehrig (195), Blake (191), Koschitzke (197), Ackland (196) and Rix (197).

9 players over 190 and 5 over 195.

[bigcarl]

Our tallest team to ever take the field in a single match would have been one of Thomas' last few games.

Against Brisbane we had Goddard (192), Riewoldt (193), S.Fisher (191), Brooks (198), Gehrig (195), Blake (191), Koschitzke (197), Ackland (196) and Rix (197).

9 players over 190 and 5 over 195.

we won that quite comfortably as i recall. they were so focussed on riewoldt, fraser and kosi that a lesser light named barry brooks stepped in a kicked four or five.

they dropped brooks for the match the following week against melbourne because it was wet, a mistake i thought at the time.

[Oh When the Saints]

plugger66, I agree that we need to improve from 62% of matches (roughly 14 wins per year), but IMO that's not going to come through game plan/football philosophy, but through fitness and keeping our players on the park.

Will we that is the big question but going very tall in the forward line is not the answer.

well that's where you and i differ. a mistake, imo, to just go back to the one dimensional forward set-up that hasn't been good enough in recent years.

will be interesting to see what happens. Whether we'll take some chances or again be satisfied with mediocrity

Disingenuous again.

Playing a smaller forwardline is not accepting mediocrity. It's merely an alternative approach.

A "one-dimensional forward set-up" is one with a host of tall players IMO.

A multi-faceted forwardline would be one that included a whole range of players with different attributes and sizes.