Thought we might do a straight swap for Barry Mitchell?
Loose translation from the Latin is - I am tall, so I hit out.
That's the equivalent of having more shots on goal but putting most of them out of bounds on the full!!
Can't say he was that successful if we were unable to take the ball away from a stoppage in a meaningful manner as opposed to throwing it on the boot and kicking forward blindly
I'm not sure if that #1 ranking is based on just pure numbers, in which case the Swans should rank highly given they do have more stoppages than anybody.
I never said we were God awful at the stoppages, but I still maintain we setup too negatively and the only time we appear to have an attacking mindset is when Goodes moves to the stoppage or centre bounce.
It's fair to say a lot of it has to do with personnel, Kennedy, Bolton, Bird, ROK and Kirky before them aren't exactly burst out of the middle players, but I just got a bit sick of Bolton, Joey and especially ROK just throwing it on the boot willy nilly sending it downfield and hoping.
My take was because they are very defensive first minded at stoppages, when Mummy puts it down their throat, they have an opponent an inch away (the guy they are trying to stop), thus the quick throw on the boot. If we can back Mummy (and Pyke is also very good if he gets the #2 gig next year) to win a lions share of hitouts, maybe we can become the hunted and put blocks on for our attacking mids and free guys up to get it and burst like we see Goodes doing at his best. Kizza is capable of playing that burst midfielder, as are a few of our young guns, although they are probably a few years from being able to consistently go on the ball fulltime.
Just my take on it all...
Driver of the Dan Hannebery bandwagon....all aboard. 4th April 09
I don't want to overstate this, but one factor is Kieren having a down year by comparison with his achievements last season. Probably injury and perhaps nervousness about the extent of his recovery are involved, but if he can get himself right and be set free to play his instinctive attacking game, we will do better. I'm not keen on seeing him used as a tagger - which he's OK at - but I'd rather see him told to compete with e.g. Judd instead of attempting to shut him down.
He reminds him of the guys, close-set, slow, and never rattled, who were play-makers on the team. (John Updike, seeing Josh Kennedy in a crystal ball)
I agree with Triple BBB's perceptions of our midfield set-up and would like to see the stoppage stats in the games we lost.
I found that in most games we lost and even in some we won, our midfielders were very reactive. E.g. wait for an opposition midfielder to get the ball first, then pounce on him.
Maybe things will change next season, where we are the hunted, instead of the other way around. We might lose the number 1 stoppage mantle, but the efficency of our midfield clearances might increase.
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