[QUOTE=707;776364] Clarke is doing a good job of a much needed role keeping oppositions best outside midfielder quiet./QUOTE]
Maybe if we worried more about actually winning the ball instead of stopping the opposition we wouldn't have the second lowest inside 50 stat in the comp and we might kick a few more goals. It might just help with the free kick count too.
I have a rather different 'beef'. Could we stop referring to Michael Knoll as 'grassy'. It's a confession both of our not knowing him well enough to give him a decent nickname based on his own personality / behaviour, and of our lamentable poverty of imagination. Like every sportsperson surnamed Marsh being called 'Swampy'. Wow, how creative - not!
(I will, of course, retract if there is any evidence that he knows and endorses the nickname. But I currently don't know of any.)
According to the answers Knoll gave for his 2019 South Adelaide FC profile, his nickname is ‘Knollsy’.Originally Posted by Odysseus
Not exciting - but self-endorsed.
Michael Knoll Player Profile
Well, there you go. As you say, not exciting, but at least self-endorsed.
Back to the footy (after my Knollsy interlude) ...
I would have thought we'd want a more nuanced approach than "we need to win the ball more" - no-one would disagree - "so we shouldn't use a tagger". Personally, I'm glad Longmire has found a role for Clarke that both benefits the team and allows Clarke as a young man coming from a different club to show value to his new team and so develop his own skills in ways that may benefit us even more once he's found his feet.
But, in agreeing with the "winning our own ball" idea, I'm another one in favour of Mills being giving a run in the midfield. If the experiment didn't work, this is not a season where we'd be weeping bitter tears; it would actually answer a legitimate question - what's his best role? - that would help us go forward into 2020. I don't see him as having made the progress that might have been expected of him, and I also wonder if Mills himself is frustrated at his lack of midfield opportunity. Here again, if he was tried there and fell short of his own expectations, he'd have learnt something valuable about himself and his value to the team.
Are you now the gatekeeper of player nicknames?.
I'm sticking with grassy until something better comes along.
No changes for mine.
Menzel, while he has admittedly lost some pace, was a victim of our terrible kicking inside 50 more than anything.
Clarke needs to stay, since he frees up Hewett (who has been one of our best players this past month).
At least Grassy is a little more imaginative than Knollsy. Jeez.
Clarke definitely gives Hewett more freedom and allows him to "win the ball more". The Collingwood game aside, he's won the most possessions, contested possessions and clearances of any of our midfielders, since Clarke started tagging. Admittedly that's a small sample and Kennedy hasn't played in the two games I'm referring to...
Getting Kennedy back is going to improve our work around the contest. He won the game against Geelong off his own back last year with 6 clearances in the last quarter and 13 all up. The other thing that's going to make a big difference is a better ruckman... I posted on another thread that Naismith is back training at some level and expected back for the last 6 games of the year. We now also have Knoll, McLean and Cameron as potential ruckmen. I wonder if any of them will be playing AFL before the end of the year.
I agree with the logic of rolling the dice with Mills this year when we have nothing to lose. The commentators on Saturday night were noting how he hasn't lived up to his high draft pick and they are right. Not sure why that is, but he isn't excelling in his current role. They could have kept Thurlow in the side against Geelong to free Mills up and dropped somebody else.
Using that logic
OUT: Fox
IN: Thurlow
Sinclair has to go. He is the worst ruckman in the comp.
Cameron isn't the answer but may as well see what he can do over a few games. I don't know much about Knoll but could be an interesting inclusion.
Those who watch more NEAFL than I do will have to comment on Cameron. I saw just a fraction of the stream of Saturday's game and thought there was just no urgency about what I saw him doing. Sinclair is not the most gifted ruckman in the competition, and it's arguable he's not primarily a ruckman at all; but his willingness to give his all for the team is admirable. On that basis alone, unless the NEAFL watchers can inform us otherwise, I'd have Sinclair ahead of Cameron; the other proviso being whether Sinclair is knackered at the moment and simply needs a rest.
As for Michael Knoll, again, those who've seen more of him can comment; he doesn't seem - from the little I've seen - to jump for the ball so much as use his strength to get the better position in the ruck contest. I'm not convinced that'll be effective at AFL level.
No change unless Jones is right to play.
Bloods
"Lockett is the best of all time" - Robert Harvey, Darrel Baldock, Nathan Burke, Kevin Bartlett, Bob Skilton
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