Originally Posted by WauchopeAnalyst
I think the draftees show a different direction. every draftee, excepting Galloway, has pretty good to great kicking skills. Elite kicking is where the game is going the Hawks have proved that and the sides that rely too much on the handball game will get found out. I think we are about to change the game plan drastically to a more kicking game. Mills is an elite kick, so is Heeney and given the right circumstances Lloyd, whose kicking skills are very good, could develop into elite. The new recruits all possess a high level of competence in this area. It is up to the senior players to improve in this area or I think they will be moved on. While Kirky had an awkward style his delivery was pretty good and Josh Francou was elite in this area.
I think our coaches have realised defence is not enough and are looking at a high scoring big impact forward line to go into the future while maintaining high degree forward defensive pressure. It is no longer enough to keep most opposition to very low scores you need to be able to score heavily and quickly against them. The Hawks have shown us and Eagles that they can exploit our defensive zones very easily and score quickly. They can also flog any team in the stoppages and win more successive clearances than any other team in the AFL simply by exploiting the other team's greatest assets. That might sound strange but it is true. The example of this is if your ruckmen are winning the taps the Hawks automatically introduce their elite mids to the stoppages and bully their way to the positions your players would normally hold and exploit your rucks. They also get more players around the ball at boundary throw ins to congest, bully the ball out by sheer numbers and then spread. Tactics that other coaches seem unable to counter. We need to be able to react quickly to these tactics.
We must be able to score when we get forward entries. This has been a huge problem and the reason we score the majority of our goals from rebounds. We need to make sure the ball is delivered to advantage and to spots where we have either the numbers or positional advantage. then we need to keep the ball in the forward 50 if it comes to ground and be able to score quickly. This I think is the way the coaches are looking to go. Yes we will still use handball but I believe the players will be encouraged to kick more often or at least look for the kicking option. We also need to have some players visit the shrink about their panicking under pressure and I believe the coaches might be looking at that too from a game point of view. If you have players blocking (shepherding) for the platyer with the ball it gives him time to weigh up the options. Our players don't do that enough they mainly look for the receive. By recruiting aggressive small forwards and mids with grunt we are going in the right direction. By the way don't write off Abe Davis as a big part of our future. He is a huge mid with incredible strength and he can virtually play anywhere, ruck, CHB, CHF, FF, Mid, Wing you name it. He is the atypical swing man, not Reid. Reid needs to play CHF ALL the time now we have Talia (194/94) who can take the KB.
I think our direction will be exciting this year and next. We might lose a few coming to terms with the new game plan but it will be worth it in the end. The footy will be incredibly exciting and definitely hard at it. Watch for a transformation of the mids. I don't know if Benny has a role here unfortunately. He is hard at it in the mids but his delivery from that area and out of defence is erratic. His goalkicking is also erratic, sometimes wonderful, sometimes very poor. He is also injury prone and that spells the end for many older blokes. I think we need to move on to the next model, new direction, new needs.
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