Surely not Scott. It might be Jake or Harry that goes out, or Laidler. You can't ignore Tom if he tears it up. Every chance an injury will happen.
Surely not Scott. It might be Jake or Harry that goes out, or Laidler. You can't ignore Tom if he tears it up. Every chance an injury will happen.
Interesting point. With no injuries, who would go out for these 3?Originally Posted by ScottH
Biggs and Laidler are the 2 obvious ones. But who would be the 3rd? Lloyd? Mitchell? Cunningham? I would reluctantly say Mitchell, just hasn't played enough senior footy this year and would prefer the speed of Cunningham and Lloyd.
I think they've left Mitchell too late to be included in the finals. I think they are giving him a run or two in case another midfielder goes down in September.
Lloyd shouldn't be left out IMO he has been terrific. His disposal is so good and much cleaner than a number of our players. Completely different to Mitchell and I don't think it's been a coincidence our midfield has look much better balanced since Lloyd came in
Wow, people are really understating Mitchell's talent. Sure, the balance of the team may have been off at the start of the season but I don't think the difference between winning and losing came down to swapping out Mitchell for Lloyd. LRT and ROK were also in the squad, remember? In our first 4 games Mitchell was twice in our leading four disposal-getters in pretty poor team efforts.
Maybe I was misunderstood. I'm not suggesting the turn around in form was because of the Mitchell out Lloyd in alone. I agree Mitchell is a terrific player but I think the midfield balance has definitely been better since Lloyd has been in the team and Lloyd shouldn't be dropped just so Mitchell can come back. I think Mitchell probably needs to compete with bird for a spot in the senior team.
Mitchell needs to be in the inside three group to play finals. The inside three incumbents are Kennedy, Bird and Parker.
He won't edge out Kennedy or Parker if they are fit because they are vastly superior players. Bird is the only player Mitchell can dislodge. It will depend on Birds recovery from injury. To put his case Mitchell needs at least 10 tackles, 20 hard ball gets, over 30 possessions and two goals. This may decision making harder for Longmire.
There is no way the team will go into a final with Kennedy, Bird, Parker and Mitchell. That makes the team too slow. Only three will be selected.
Wow you agree with me Matt
Given Matt's assumptions about incumbents, which I'm inclined to share, Tom would make a good sub with impact in the engine room. I think that at present the other three are more versatile - tagging, playing forward and kicking goals - but the engine room is a good place to have impact.
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)
If Birdy got anywhere near that each week he'd win the Brownlow. Even Nat Fyfe is only averaging 23 Disposals, .8 Goals and 3.7 Tackles per game.
All Tom needs to do to impress Horse is "Play His Role"
Last edited by aardvark; 24th August 2014 at 09:35 AM.
I think the point is , and I agree , for Tom to play finals instead of bird he would need to have such a commanding and outstanding game as highlighted by those numbers
Apart from Matt's assertions about "Horseball", is there any evidence that 3 supposedly slow midfielders is a given.
If 4 such succeed in winning even more ball and extracting it (mostly) to advantage and letting some potent forwards kick (mostly) goals - that could both help our score and limit their score.
Might even be a winning formula
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