I am a bit more sceptical. What leads you to this definite conclusion?Originally Posted by 707
I am a bit more sceptical. What leads you to this definite conclusion?
Horse said this morning that we will play Mills in the midfield when we find someone to replace him in his lockdown small defender role. He also said that it is underestimated how elite Mills is at the role and how important the role is to the team. To hear him talk, the ruck and the lockdown small defender role are the most important on the field.
Hope, just hope eternal :-)
What you fail to understand is that having Mills play that Nick Smith role is key to us winning more clearances.
We don't know why the leadership group was cut from 8 to 5. Heeney may have been one of the "peripheral" leaders, or he may not have done a great job, or they may feel he needs to focus on his football first and get that right. He did have an injury-affected, underwhelming season.
Not sure if you are being ironic or not. If not, please spell out how because it is not obvious to me.
True we don't know why they reduced the size of leadership group (save that some of the leaders retired) but the fact that Heeney was not retained in the leadership (despite the retirement of others) is not so encouraging, especially when Mills, a year his junior, was retained. Horse addressed this a little bit in his chat with fans at the open training session this morning but his comments were so opaque that I couldn't make anything out of them.
Incidentally, who is gone from the leadership group? - four went out and Buddy came in.
I think Smooch, Papley and Heeney went out. Was Reg the fourth? Was he in the group? Pretty sure Macca and Kizza were not.
McVeigh was in last year’s group.
Lockdown medium defender should be the easiest position to fill, certainly not something that is the key to the success of the team
As for Mills, he certainly finished off the season very well, but Longmire's suggestion that he is an elite defender is way off the mark
Sorry I was being ironic. It’s clear as day to everyone on RWO that the midfield is our Achilles heel. If Mills is going to improve our midfield then he should play there. The LDSD will sort itself out.
You're right, I was wrong: 2019 leadership group named. I thought Macca and Kizza stepped away from the formal leadership altogether when they relinquished the captaincy but clearly I was mistaken.
As for the LDSD position, Horse has a clearly different view to you, caj23 & Mw. He said, and I quote, "[elite lockdown small defenders] are hard to find" and added that often they come to the club as midfielders (as Nick Smith did). Who am I to believe?
Horse said they will trial 3-4 other players in the role over the coming pre-season. He wouldn't name them but it's clear that Harry C is one of them (and he has excelled in the role previously) and Will Gould could be another. Horse specifically said that before recruiting Gould, the club spoke with Mark Stone (who used to coach at the Swans) and who coached Gould at Glenelg in 2019. Mark Stone told them that Gould is able to lockdown on very effectively on smaller players. Presumably this contributed to the club's decision to recruit him.
Who else attended pre-season training today? Would be good to get a report from a different source. Much of the best stuff came from the 30 minutes or so Horse spent chatting to a large group of fans. Unfortunately, because I'm somewhat hard of hearing, I couldn't hear all of it. Of what I did hear, it was mostly typical Horse, not giving very much away (but peppered with a few nuggets of interesting facts and opinions).
I went down to the training session this morning with my 12 year old daughter. I won't offer a long report, but just wanted to note that Buddy was in everything, from all the warm-ups, into the drills, and then the match sims.
There was a great deal of focus on exiting 50, and then another sim dealing with F50 entries: lots of fast ball movement and changes of angles moving up the field. I actually thought that the group looked outstanding: clean in the drills, full of voice and running in quite difficult conditions. Hayward ("Wilbur") was moving superbly, right up on top of the grass, like a big cat. Lots of upper body development. Florent was also impressive: a slinkier mover, placing long kicks to advantage consistently. Mills was playing across half-back in the simulations. Ronke looked good as well. Naismith cut a lonely figure running laps. Sinclair looked strong and focussed. Lewis Taylor, clearly stung by RWO observations of his lack of condition, was putting in hard sprints in every transition on and off the field during simulations.
Young Chad Warner was spending a fair bit of time with the tackle bag. I get the impression that he is kept in a cage and fed raw meat.
But Buddy . . . wow. My daughter gasped out loud at one of his cross-field kicks that hit a free target on the opposite wing on the chest: "he didn't even look!" she exclaimed. And hearing his advice to the younger players as well as conversations with Parker analysing something they'd just done . . . an amazing education for a young player.
And Stevie J's advice to Florent who got held up on a HBF looking for options:—"Look early, look late, then go long!"—might be a key insight into the developing game plan.
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