The real problem is the midfield!

[Bloody Hell]

Having a detailed thread blaming the loss on Bevan, and a detailed thread blaming the loss on Hall, it seems the commonality between the two is that the midfield was abysmal.

15 years ago we had a good attacking midfield.

5 years ago we had an excellent defensive midfield.

Now it seems, when push comes to shove, we have a midfield that can't deliver into forward 50, and can't cut it off in the midfield.

There is no doubt that delivery into 50 has been terrible this year, and the back 6 have had far more pressure on them than usual....so the question is - Where's the problem???

[robamiee]

we have no real outside gun midfielders, unless we chuck goodsey in there, and even then.

We dont have a Judd, Cousins, Ablett, or even the yng midfield brigade of Carlton..

we have for good reason built that defensive midfield as that is what we have worked with and in the years where it was a contested game and 1 on 1 footy it worked well. But is hard on the body and our boys are showing the signs of all those years of battle hardened footy.
The game is now about attack at all costs..

I would even throw shaw in there at times if we are stagnent just to get some run..

But the next couple of yers are goijng to be interested on where we find a KPP players

[Melbournehammer]

aaaaahhhhh the perenial.

i actually think we are seriously lacking everywhere.

do you draft a key ruckman or do you let pike take 3-4 years.

do you draft key forwards given micky o and bbbbbbh

do you acknowledge that bolton apart we have a lot of triers at best in the backline

do you acknowledge that apart from those days where goodes is on song we have a blue collar midefield but one which is going backwards in hardness and pace ?

i just want to them to compete and be competitive. and i hope that in a few years we again have a team which is capable of winning every game (even when essendon were unbeatable we could have beaten them at telstra dome in 2001 had kelly not kicked into caracella on the mark and fletcher not gone crazy - i just don't get the feeling we could even get close to geelong at the moment.

[10Totti10]

Its the young talent we r bringing in. Give it a couple more years. Bird, Veszpa, Jack, etc r all the future of the midfield and its going to take a couple more years to develop. Kirk's getting older, Bolton is still good, and Goodes is clearly not at his best. Plus before MOL and Hall came in we practically had no forward line to kick to and ROK was struggling because of it.

[Bear]

I think our midfield, although lacking a little class and depth, performs quite well.
Specifically, McVeigh, Kirk, Jolly, Jude, Bird, Goodes all do pretty well. Beyond that, depth is an issue.

Now, back to the Bevan thread...

[hammo]

Certainly in McVeigh and Bird you have the start of a more than capable, attacking minded midfield. Meredith one assumes will end up there as well and Veszpremi also. Goodes is always going to be a handful when he plays there.

But for now we are playing to our 'strengths' and the most consistent midfielders we have are Kirk and Bolton.

McVeigh's problem is that he now attracts the opposition's number one tagger. He looks to have the class to overcome it but there will be quiet days. Jude had similar issues when he was younger too as I recall.

[DeadlyAkkuret]

I'm hoping next year our midfield will consist of Bird, Meredith, McVeigh, Vespremi, Kirk and possibly Bolton for that experience we'll still need.

Goodes can float through as usual and if Hannebery comes along like we're all hoping then we have the making of a precent (Was going to type pretty decent but decided to keep this typo lol) midfield that should be able to play with more flair and risk-taking.

[Bas]

Its the young talent we r bringing in. Give it a couple more years. Bird, Veszpa, Jack, etc r all the future of the midfield and its going to take a couple more years to develop. Kirk's getting older, Bolton is still good, and Goodes is clearly not at his best. Plus before MOL and Hall came in we practically had no forward line to kick to and ROK was struggling because of it.

It will take time. Look how long its taken the Saints to become a real force. Well so far..........

[dimelb]

I suspect Shaw could do what Willo used to do.

[SimonH]

Last weekend's game is not a good exhibit A for the 'our midfield is crap' theory. We took on what is probably the best midfield in the league, even without Gazza Ablett, and basically tied with them on clearances (40:39).

And yet we got smashed in contested possessions 133:90. That's a symptom of poor disposal (and superior Geelong disposal) right around the ground, not just in the midfield. You don't get that kind of disparity when clearances are so even if the contested possession contests are 50:50 (like clearances are). They were largely weighted 40:60 or 30:70 against us because our disposal put the next player behind the eight-ball.

[liz]

(Warning - long. Very long. And probably rambling.)

I only got home to catch the end of the third quarter of this evening's game but there were a couple of snippets from the commentary that caught my ear.

One was Leigh Mathews suggesting that midfields don't win games per se, but rather that it is forward line pressure that really makes the difference.

A little later on, they noted that the inside 50s were pretty much even for the game, despite the huge discrepancy in the scoreline, indicating that the Pies had at least got a reasonable amount of the ball.

There's a strong argument (one I heard Wayne Carey once argue passionately) that a raw inside 50 count is a fairly meaningless stat, and it makes a huge difference where and how the ball comes inside the forward 50. Notwithstanding this, this evening's game does indicate that the Pies weren't completely smashed in the midfield, though I presume an analysis of the game would show they were under far more pressure when in possession in midfield than the Saints were. But even in the small part of the game I saw, it was evident just how quickly the Saints forwards closed down any space on the Pies defenders, and this has been apparent from other Saints games this year.

I am not sure that we were ever quite as good at that forward line pressure as the Saints currently are (and Geelong can't be far off) but I reckon it is one are that we have fallen away a fair bit in.

Something else to ponder is that both the Cats and the Saints have had the core of their current stars for quite a while - certainly back in the 2003-6 period both were spoken about as potentially very strong squads. For the Saints, this was built on the back of Riewoldt, Koschitske, Ball, Dal Santo, Hayes and the now departed Harvey, while for Geelong the core was seen as Scarlett, Ablett, Corey, Bartel among those still starring for them. Both teams had their moments of being highly competitive during that period but were nothing like the dominant forces they both seem to be at the moment. Now something has "clicked" and they are close to unbeatable. We can say this with some certainty about the Cats, given they've been dominating for two and a half seasons now. We'll have to wait and see whether the Saints can sustain their current form for even the rest of this season, yet alone beyond. Yet there is something about them at the moment that makes me think they will keep going for a fair while yet. (Even when they were on their unbeaten run at the start of 2004, one got the feeling that there was still a fragility about them, and it could all come to a shuddering halt. I don't get that feeling about them at the moment.)

So what "clicked"? It has been well documented that Geelong did some soul searching after their disappointing 2006. It has also been mentioned in the press that the team openly challenged Ablett to get himself really fit. The result? He turned himself overnight from a very good midfielder to one of the best players we've seen in a decade. And off the back of that, the likes of Bartel and Corey found more consistency and became true elite mids too. Then other players who'd been sometimes good, sometimes flaky players stepped up to, to the point where the whole team gained supreme confidence in themselves and each other. I don't think you can underestimate the effect of that level of confidence in turning a very good team into a sensational one.

The Saints currently are getting full service out of injury prone Ball and Hayes. Dal Santo has found an intensity that seemed lacking over the past couple of years. Goddard has got over the knee obstacle and become the A grade player he always threatened to become, while Kossie is also playing far better than he seemed destined to play. Throw in Riewoldt, who has always been great when fit, and they clearly have a core of half a dozen sensational players. But the point of this ramble is that this core playing at their best has then elevated the also-rans to another level. We all knew what Milne and Schneider were capable of sporadically. But now they are doing it consistently. Players who looked marginal AFL players, like McQualter, Geary, Jones, Dawson, Gwilt, Gilbert now look fantastic. Some of this might just be the maturing process of these players themselves but I reckon a lot has to do with the confidence they've got from feeding off the core. None of those players was a junior superstar, drafted with a top pick. Many have come via the rookie list.

Look back even at our team from 2005-6. While we probably never had quite the same star core as the current Saints and Cats, we did have Hall at his peak, Williams, Goodes playing consistently, Kirk emerging as a star in his own particular way, and these players dragged the likes of Buchanan, Matthews, Crouch, the newly acquired Jolly, even LRT to new levels.

So I guess my point is that while there may seem to be a huge gap between the best squads and the rest, not that much really needs to change to close the gap. You can look at a list and determine half the players are really marginal AFL standard. But if you can find just half a dozen absolute stars, get them playing consistently at their best, and instill a discipline and self-belief in the rest, a mediocre team can quite quickly change into a world-beater.

(Looking at West Coast shows the same but in reverse. After 2006 they were lauded as being of the verge of a dynasty based on how young a squad of brilliant players they had. Yet when you took Cousins and Judd out, many of those young superstars looked anything but, despite the likes the Cox, Kerr and Glass remaining. Their critical mass of true "superstars" just wasn't enough to drag the rest along with them.)

The unknown for us is whether we have even the nucleus of half a dozen potential superstars currently on our list. If we do, at least half of them are two or three years away from when they might be expected to start playing consistently, and another couple of years further away from their peak playing years. Goodes and O'Keefe might have long enough left to still be able to make a real contribution when others mature. McVeigh certainly should have. After that we have to keep our fingers crossed that at least four of Bird, Vezspremi, Meredith, Currie and Hannebury can become as good as we dream they might be capable of, and that at least two of White, Murphy and Johnstone can become at least highly competent KPPs.

Possibly we need to keep our toes crossed too.

[Bloody Hell]

Last weekend's game is not a good exhibit A for the 'our midfield is crap' theory. We took on what is probably the best midfield in the league, even without Gazza Ablett, and basically tied with them on clearances (40:39).

And yet we got smashed in contested possessions 133:90. That's a symptom of poor disposal (and superior Geelong disposal) right around the ground, not just in the midfield. You don't get that kind of disparity when clearances are so even if the contested possession contests are 50:50 (like clearances are). They were largely weighted 40:60 or 30:70 against us because our disposal put the next player behind the eight-ball.

Whose "crap" disposal? OUR crap disposal.

[Bloody Hell]

I am not sure that we were ever quite as good at that forward line pressure as the Saints currently are (and Geelong can't be far off) but I reckon it is one are that we have fallen away a fair bit in.

I can explain this with two words - "Nick" & "Davis"

It's a fair point though. I like Jared Moore - he tries his guts out, but he's hardly built for speed, and speed = pressure.

There's no real speed at all on the forward line.

I could write some names but I won't.

Maybe the Bevan forward theory has some merit.

[liz]

Maybe the Bevan forward theory has some merit.

I think the Bevan on the forward line theory has a lot going for it. Not only can he add pressure, he's generally a pretty decent shot for goal too.

Problem seems to be finding anyone else even half capable of playing on the small, quick forwards. Wonder whether it would be worth trying Jack there, following in Crouch's footsteps. He's doing some decent tagging jobs in the midfield at the moment - Bartel on Saturday, excellent shutdown on Power in round 3 - but he's not really winning much of the ball himself.

[ScottH]

Score Sources.

Well, that tells a good story.