Our ruck to midfield connection

[WarrenerraW]

I have concerns regarding Grundy and our midfield's understanding of his ruck work. He is by far the premier ruckman of the competition (there's no doubt about that) but how many of his hit outs actually go to our team's advantage... Time and time again I see opposition sides running away with the ball after Grundy wins the hit out. It shouldn't happen as often as it seems to.

Are our midfielders not positioning themselves correctly in an advantageous position to win the clearance; or, are opposition teams giving up on trying to win a tap and instead choosing to rove to Grundy.

There was an example of this last week on the boundary. Treloar is positioned in front of Grundy thinking he was going to get an easy tap down. Instead, Grundy taps it to his right and it falls to a freo player standing alone. Why did we not have someone standing there in to a: mark him and b: take the clearance.

Look, I know we're not going to win every clearance but we should be winning more than we do because we're winning the hit outs. If we improve our reading of Grundy's hitouts and position ourselves better then surely this will improve. I'm wondering if it's a communication issue between our midfielders or if we lack strength in the midfield...

I believe that if this facet of our game improved then we'd be 5-6 goal better side.

[Raw Hammer]

Our centre square positioning is horrible.

[BazBoy]

With experience of Pendles and Beams our centre square positioning should be close to best

Grunt of Adams and what he don’t get Sier picks up —I await that

[BazBoy]

In times past we had rucks and rovers

Polly Farmers would put it down Goggins throat
Big Nick would likewise feed Gallager
Thommo to Wayne Richardson

Sure it’s 21 st century but there are still 18 players per side and can if they have enough intelligence stand in a position and the ruckman can tap it to them

It ain’t bloody rocket science

[Pies2016]

If my memory serves me correctly, our three best clearance players relative to clearances per centre attendances are Adams, Sier and Pendlebury.
Two of those players virtually haven’t at all this year to date.
Our 2018 finals campaign was a great achievement considering our injuries and it’s no coincidence that Adams and Sier were involved through the entire campaign.
DeGoey is also a natural inside mid but is hampered by a niggle, so there’s another inhibitor to our clearance plans.

I don’t see Beams, Treloar and Sidebottom as natural clearance mids but they are good enough footballers to remain competent wherever they play. You want those guys receiving the ball in space, not have them be forced to shovel it out to Phillips and Mayne or our high half forwards.
The day both Sier and Adams both start in the middle together, is the day both our centre clearances and forward 50 entries improve.

[stui magpie]

Grundy prefers the short distance tap which, if repeated often enough, is predictable to forward scouts and opposition line up accordingly. It also makes them easy to shark as it's in close.

Using the Treloar example, he dropped it to Treloar several times. He may have noticed that he had someone sitting on him and went elsewhere.

Grundy doesn't have a height advantage most times, which makes it more difficult to be able to clearly direct the ball where he wants in a straight contest. He needs to have a few different options, longer as well as short, and players prepared to judge from how the contest shapes, where he is likely to hit it to.

From memory, Aaron Sandilands used to win the majority of hit outs, but Freo rarely won the clearances.

When I played ruck I used to set the midfield up for centre bounces with one in front of me, one running past on my left and one behind to my right. Sometimes with a clear run at it, I'd drop it behind the other ruck, the bloke behind him would snaffle it and handpass to the bloke running past. But do it a few times and the opposition quickly set up to spoil

[BazBoy]

Grundy taps and ruck clearance when we won some earlier games were way better than last few due to Adams in side
If Grundy saw no outer players he knew if he tapped close in Tay would muscle for pocession

When Tay and Bull come in watch for better outcome

[Pies4shaw]

[stui magpie]

^

I think you answered your own question. He taps it short as we don't have midfield speed. By tapping it short to a congested area, it increases the chances of it either being sharked or the receiver being tackled, both of which negate a hitout to advantage.

It's not that the other team are roving to him better than us, they just get to react and either tackle or dispossess our players and get the clearance because it's in congestion.

[Johnno75]

Midfield was hammered today. We are lucky Dees had absolutely no polish. Grundy looked sore and battled on, bye has come at the right time. Good to have the Bear back and will get better but convinced that Adams is our most important midfielder and we need him cherry ripe to go deep into September.

[Haff]

It’s clear to me today Grundy is the second best ruckman. Gawn beat him today but he had his moments. Bear and Adams will make the difference IMO.

[Fino]

Spot on, need Adams in badly.

[Jezza]

Sier provides a better balance to our midfield than Beams does. I'm excited for Adams' return as well.

Melbourne dominated us in the clearances (46-29), but it isn't overly surprising as Melbourne is the second best clearance side in the competition as opposed to us who are ranked 15th in this stat.

[Dave The Man]

Grundy was playing with a Sore Neck today

[masoncox]

Sier got 23 disposals today.
Not bad for first time up