Drawing the line(s)

[Tannin]

A couple of things to notice about our side as selected on the team sheet. Yep, sure, positions on the team sheet are just paper positions these days and no-one takes them too seriously. Nevertheless, where they reflect actual playing positions (as I think several of these do) I think we can look at them and draw conclusions.


B: Jeremy Howe, Lynden Dunn, Brayden Maynard
HB: Josh Smith, Tyson Goldsack, Matthew Scharenberg
C: Steele Sidebottom, Scott Pendlebury, Daniel Wells
HF: Jordan De Goey, Alex Fasolo, Will Hoskin-Elliott
F: Jarryd Blair, Darcy Moore, Jamie Elliott

Foll: Brodie Grundy, Taylor Adams, Adam Treloar
Int: Levi Greenwood, Tom Phillips, Jack Crisp, Tim Broomhead,

Consider our talls. All three of them. Yes, three. Goldsack has a heart the size of Brendan Fevola's TAB account, but he's not a genuine tall, not by any stretch of the imagination. As for the selected CHF .... put Stui Magpie in a skirt and he'd be more of a sex symbol than Fasolo is a centre-half forward.

OK, I get it that we want to go in a bit on the small side, but whoever heard of a side with only three actual talls in it?


Now look again from another angle:

B: Jeremy Howe, Lynden Dunn, Brayden Maynard
HB: Josh Smith, Tyson Goldsack, Matthew Scharenberg
C: Steele Sidebottom, Scott Pendlebury, Daniel Wells
HF: Jordan De Goey, Alex Fasolo, Will Hoskin-Elliott
F: Jarryd Blair, Darcy Moore, Jamie Elliott

Consider the names in bold.

De Goey was carp at full forward last week. Not good enough in the air to mark it, conspicuously absent sharking the packs at the top of the square when our big men brought the ball to ground. (Umm, what big men? Who was our tall in the square? Well yes. Good point.) Nor was he invited to do anything in the middle. In fact, we played two and a half short. De Goey because he was trying to play a Travis Cloke role in a Jarryd Blair body; Fasolo because he was off with the fairies all night playing at being Geoff Hayward; and Aish because he went off injured early in the second half.

De Goey needs to be on the HFF if he's not considered good enough to join the centre-square rotation. That puts him closer to the action, gives him a chance to enter general play, and still lets him run forward for a goal as opportunity offers. Half-forward with spells in the middle relieving Adams, that's where De Goey should be used.

Sidebottom is not, repeat not a natural or even very talented wingman. He's too slow. Compare with a natural winger like WHE or Wells. Sidey doesn't get to half the contests until they are over. Yup, he can run all day, and he gets a lot of pill, but his disposal is effing terrible. Sideways, backwards, stop and prop, spin the ball in the air, handball to a mate under the hammer. From the wing on back, Sidebottom is a ball butcher. Not because he can't kick - he has sublime skills - but because he can't figure out where to blody kick it so he ends up wasting it, or taking so long to get it forward that the opposition defence has time to send out for a cut lunch and a book to read.

Frankly, there are more than a few players I'd rather see with the ball anywhere behind half-forward than Sidebottom. From this week's team they include Howe, Dunn, Maynard (a lottery but he does at least have a go), Smith, Scharenberg, Pendlebury, Wells, De Goey, Fasolo, Moore, Elliot, Grundy, Adams, Treloar, Greenwood, Crisp, Boomhead, possibly Goldy, and WHE. Or, to put it the other way around, the only players I'd rather not have it are Philips and Blair.

Put Sidey forward - flank or pocket, I don't care which - and he is a different man. His kicks spot players up in dangerous locations, and suddenly go from (on average) 20 metres sideways after hesitation to clever isolation of a teammate in a scoring position and genuine shots at goal with better than even chances of success. Mr Hesitate-and-Waste-It morphs in Dr Precision - and all because (in my view) there aren't so many options up forward and Sidey can select the best one from two or three as well as any player going around, where behind the wing he sees way too many possibilities and his football brain goes into overload and reboots itself.

Sure he's our second best endurance runner. Let him run from flank to flank and pocket to pocket and see how many backmen are still with him after a couple of quarters. If they try to run with him they'll be blown, and if they give up and just let him run, he's a very dangerous man anywhere forward of centre.

Screw using him at the centre bounces, we have 10 different players who are good at centre bounces. Forwards who can use the ball well are like gold.

WHE I quite like WHE as a half forward. But I like him a lot more as a wingman. Among other things, he provides a good go-to option to carry us out of defence and transition to attack.

Darcy Moore must, repeat MUST, play up the ground where he can run. When Moore hits packs running, he's awesome. When he stands in the goal square and wrestles, he's as effective a full forward as De Goey or Blair, which is to say damn-near useless.

Don't care where Elliott plays as he'll find ways to create goals from any part of the ground (whether off his own boot or by hard running and intelligent passing).

Don't care where Blair plays for the opposite reason.

Not sure Fasolo should be playing at all. He wins matches off his own boot about one game in three, but he's a complete waste of space for the other two games, and considering the number of matches we lose by small margins, replacing Unreliable Faz with a steady plodder who is better at the team things (a Blair say, or a Mayne) who saves us a couple of goals a week would seem to be the smart move.

[stui magpie]

agree with almost all of that except the critique on fas. ( in a skirt I would be sexier, so that's not the point of conjecture)

I like the kid, he's a brilliant ball user, smart footballer and can do things others can't.

So he doesn't quite do all the basics right, but if you watch his efforts closely during a game, he has an impact. I'm a fan.

[cityslick1]

agree with a lot of that, except anything to do with mayne back in the side... which does make me wonder about our coach vs others.

Do other fans & experts question their / other coaches moves as much as we do? Serious question. Is Bucks hell-bent on doing things differently to popular opinion, that he misses the obvious... or is too stubborn to conform to be flexible / adaptable. His failure to tag Mitchell could've been disastrous... and to hear him say he ddint hurt us was ridiculous.

I'd take a rational and smart coach over someone determined to do things 'his way' at all costs... not a great trait to have if you're heading for your fourth losing season in a row, and are frequently being out-coached.

[qldmagpie67]

Agree Tannin.
I've been a vocal knocker of Sidey's for some time.
The thing that eats away at me is people believe the rot some commentators swoon on regards to a miraculous play he produces once a week but let the dozen ordinary disposals and errors pass without comment.
Since the end of 2013 when we started to get injuries in our midfield sides have shut him down at will and put some pressure or even perceived pressure on him knowing errors or poor disposal would follow.
No one has been able to answer this question yet.
If he is elite (in the standard of a Dangerfield Fyfe Kelly etc) why when he's been coming out of contract has there never been a single news story of any club commenting on chasing him ? Unlike the true elite players in the competition he's never drawn a single line in the media of any form of speculation. He just isn't as highly rated by other clubs as he is internally at ours hence why 10 other clubs bypassed him in the draft and we fell into him on the back of 1 very good game
He's a half forward that's it
Faz is my other pet hate at the moment. He just is so in and out of games it's ridiculous.
Those 2 IMO are symbolic of every thing that's wrong at the club

[Tannin]

I think you are a bit harsh on Sidebottom, Qld. He's not the A-Grader many Collingwood people think he is, but he is a very, very good footballer just the same. The trouble is, he is too often played in roles which accentuate his flaws and do little to capitalise on his strengths.

[qldmagpie67]

[Number 35]

" What do you know about Football?, your a joke, Steele is running a muck today. NOT AN A GRADER lollllllll. I suggest you look at his 4 goals from outside50 against the Giants. Then go grab a few tissues "

[Number 35]

" I got an IDEA, lets put PHILLIPS, RAMSAY and SCHADE behind the ball, go get a life mate, no matter how much TURDS you spit, IT CHANGES NOTHING.. "[/b]

[Tannin]

^ Nope. I got it exactly right.

He's been tasked with running in off the back of the square (in exactly the sort of attacking role I said he needed) and doing very well indeed.

[Number 35]

" Sandman straight up took a huge smelly shit on your LINE. Have you still got those tissues? "

[Collingwood Crackerjack]

[MatthewBoydFanClub]

I understand what you're saying tannin but I disagree with your conclusions. Buckley is coaching a unique style of football. The half forwards are rotating with the half backs and even the mids like Crisp are taking a turn at half back. WHE is either playing wing, half back or half forward. At one stage Elliot was playing half back. I even saw Fasolo playing wing and half back. Wells seems to have a commission to play anywhere on the ground he chooses. Confused? Well I am and the opposition coach must be as well. I think Buckley has lost faith with his key position players and thus he has decided to play a full back (Dunn), a full forward (Moore), a ruckman (Grundy) and 19 mids. Will it work? No, in my opinion. We will have roughly twice as many forward entries as the opposition, given our superior midfield, but we will kick roughly the same score. And when it comes to the better teams they will put stoppers on Pendlebury and Treloar and kill our run through the centre, just like killing the head of the snake.

[Adam Treloar 3 Votes]

^ Bucks

If a forward or defender comes off for a rest there isn't always another forward or defender resting ready to come back on. So other players need to chip in to cover.

No one complained when the Western Bulldogs won a premiership doing something similar.

[stui magpie]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_twNne8XqM

[Number 35]

^

I LOVE YOU STUI, YOU MADE ME CRY