Billy in the middle?

[Mr Miyagi]

https://www.afl.com.au/news/367740/the-billy-experiment-why-a-high-flying-pie-is-clocking-midfield-minutes

[Born to Pie]

[Mr Miyagi]

Yeah I know, how the hell are Pendlebury, Treloar, Sidebottom, Adams, Sier, Wills going to fill the hole left by Wells?

[LaurieHolden]

The retirement of Wells, the situation with Beams coupled with Varcoe's recent injury has necessitated the move to give us more outside class through the middle.
Treloar and Pendles can't carry the season between them and Treloar tends to run forward of centre.

Perhaps a different player in Elliott has emerged post repeated soft tissue injuries and enters 2020 with, touch-wood, an uninterrupted pre-season.
As a result the high leap has been gelded but he has more tricks than that. He's always been quick off the mark, is agile and when it comes to field kicking he's one of our best. All traits that would serve us well through the midfield.
Post the 2014 & 2015 seasons he was always earmarked for midfield time. His 16 season then became a write-off.

So with outside players in Treloar, Pendles & Elliott coupled with inside of Adams, Wills & Sier, the engine room looks well balanced and gives us a fresh look for 2020.

That'll allow Cal Brown to hold down a forward 50 position. He can kick 30 this year and he'll bring the same defensive pressure that Billy gives us.

[Rick]

I’ve always thought he had some very similar traits to Robbie Gray at Port.

[K]

[BazBoy]

Has Billy,s kicking slipped both field and goal kicking and if so does he mentally freeze up with the back of his mind worrying he may injure if he
goes full on

[K]

His set shots last year quite often skewed off the outside of his right boot.

[BazBoy]

Our 2018 goal scoring was brilliant with Thomas ,DeGoey Miocek and Stevo

Not so in 2019

[inxs88]

One of the more stupid ideas from our match committee.

[glasseyevfx]

don't see how its stupid. DeGoey had leg issues and needs time in the fwd line as does Varcoe. Stevo rotates a bit to the midfield too. Pedders and Sidey are getting older and Beams out. Our list lends itself to heavy rotating options I think.
Couple of years ago a lot was made of Swanny rotating off the bench to great effect. If the afl want to stymie that practice, having rotating forward is a good way around it.
Billy is a good competitor and can play taller than expected - so long as his hammys are good he and the team may benefit for having him rotate through there.
We may see a resurgence of form from him. Just so long as he doesn't forget how to tackle it may be a brilliant move - should upset the opposition defense if nothing else.

[AN_Inkling]

Our midfield has issues and needs reconfiguring. Elliott is one player who might be able to help add a bit of pace and creativity. Stephenson is the other, with a greater possibility of impacting.

Elliott already played a certain amount of midfield last season, mostly on the wing. We have a lot of medium to small forwards, they all need to be able to rotate through the middle.

Probably the more interesting mention in the article is that WHE has been training as a defender. Again, possibly to address a weakness. Ball movement from defence needs improving. Could also be because we're down a couple of defenders to start the season.

[Albert Parker]

Elliott (with Treloar) were the 2 best players in the match sim the other day. Elliott was in the midfield for the entirety.
He added genuine pace, good skills and was very lively with tackling and pressure.
Based upon what I saw, I'd welcome him spending time there.

As noted Jordy isn't fit enough to spend large chunks in the midfield unfortunately. He's the mobile, wrecking ball-type that we need in there to exploit Grundy's tapwork, ,which remains an area of development.

If Cal Brown is to kick 30 goals this year, he'd need about 300 shots on goal. He can crumb, but is the worst set shot of our forwards by a stretch. Even before a game he can't nail (50% of) set shots. I can't see it, but sometimes these things are confidence driven..

WHE still played mainly up forward, matched against Howe.

[inxs88]

178cm Elliott is hardly the solution in the middle. Prefer Sier starts living up to potential, Crisp gets a run through their and we see the emergence of Tyler Brown across the Wings

[BHPIE]

Yeah nah