A Close look

[RudeBoy]

Watching half the VFL game on TV yesterday I was mightily impressed by our full forward, Close, who is a great mark, very mobile, a smart footballer and is 199 cms. He's already 23 yrs and apparently works at our club in some capacity. Given our terrible shortage of decent forwards I wondered if we might look at drafting or at least rookieing this kid.

I'm absolutely sick of the same looking forward line of ours, dished up year in year out built around a fast declining Cloke. I'd be trading Cloke now and build a new forward line around Moore, Abbott, Cox and maybe a mobile tall like Close.

[thompsoc]

Yes Yes Yes!!!!!
I have said in a few other posts that I liked the look of him.
199 cm and 23 years of age and he works for Collingwood!
Reminded me of Darcy Moore.
Great leap and a good contested mark.
Keep a rookie spot warm please!

[MightyMagpie]

Michael Still (194cm I think) is another one who was doing well in VFL before injury.

Close has had some decent hauls (I haven't seen him play), but the 88kg listing suggests he might be a bit underweight for a KPF. He may have put on weight this season.

I asked MagpieBat about these two's draft prospects a few weeks back and he suggested that there was likely to be some interest from other club's and possibly Collingwood.

[Pies4shaw]

Get a grip, RB. You don't plan a forward line around a child who has played one good game, two rookies who have never played senior football and may never be up to it and a guy that you think might be able to be a key forward, even though he hsn't yet even made it onto a senior list. Cox, eg, kicked 5 goals yesterday - but they were the 18th through 22nd goals of a game the side won by 12.

Also, just stop bagging Cloke. Losing 23 goals to 7 is not the KPF's fault. We're all frustrated by his kicking but until we find someone else who can play the position, we can't just let him go (unless, of course, we enjoy watching the team beaten by 15 goals most weeks).

[Dave The Man]

[thompsoc]

Send him to KFC ( kids fattening centre ) to get some more weight on him.

[MightyMagpie]

[qldmagpie67]

I've been thinking about forward lines recently and now disjunction all ours is.
Are we missing the new style of forward lines ?
Hybrid style with 1 tall + a resting ruckman at times 2 mid range mobile types 2 small goal sneaks who are great crumbers and readers of the ball off packs.
Look at Hawks Bulldogs Tigers for instance they seem to have this system down pat.
Is our structure to regimental and same ole ?
How would a forward line of Moore, Grundy/Cox, Langdon, Elliott, DeGoey, Pendles do ?
If we pick up Aish & Treloar we have the luxury of using Pendles more forward and he can still hit the mid field giving others a break along with DeGoey. For mine Elliott should be a forward only not a mid as well.
Langdon is a elite reader of play and a very good mark and better than average kick (in our team)
Grundy has shown he has decent hands and he could play forward better than Witts and Cox has shown he can kick goals in the seconds.

Play Cloke on a wing aka Richo style with a never enter the forward 50 edict. Use his booming boot to get the ball deep and quick.
I've also noted how many clubs rotate more players through there forward line. Ours other than a resting mid never changes.

Interested in other views

[thompsoc]

Langdon is a poor kick and is slow to get
ball to foot.
Grundy so far has been a failure in the forward line.
And he doesn't take a pack mark.
If you watch Cox in the VFL you will see his forward work
is superior to Grundy already.
Watch how Cox leads compared to Grundy.
But you are right something needs to happen
big time in our forward line.
But you also forgot the Hobbit!

[MightyMagpie]

[thompsoc]

Grundy 17 games for 7 goals at 0.4 rate in 2015.
Worse than the Hobbit.

[Dangles]

The three tall forwards is something we need to move on from. We've been doing it forever. Time for a rejig.

[AN_Inkling]

The idea of moving Cloke on isn't completely crazy (though not far from, he is one of the better KPFs in the comp and they are extremely difficult to come by. Just look at the difficulty we've had in replacing Leigh Brown!). But building a forward line around a teenager (Moore), two players who will likely never make it at AFL level (Close, Abbott) and an American ruckman, is one of the craziest suggestions I've seen in a while, so kudos for being imaginative.

I thought you were of the opinion that we are not far from competing? A change like this would set us back 3-4 years, given you did not even suggest trading in a quality tall to replace Cloke. Building a spine is the longest and most difficult part of a rebuild. We have one in place if Reid can keep fit and we're not about to throw it away.