Braithy wrote:
Sidefx wrote:
I think he does need to be judged on his numbers, as a team we have let our team defensive work as a whole slip and because we have players in positions that are supposed to have an offensive side but are not, we are even more likely to lose.
Most are only praising Ollie for his defensive work, running totals (not meters gained) and the most useless individual stat, pressure points.
All while dismissing his role is 2 parts as a wing, his role needs to be both defensive and offensive.
And although he runs all day, a lot of the times he is ineffective due to his size, speed and skill (but still racks up the PP's).
Don't get me wrong, he does some nice things but most of the time he requires other players to come in and help, especially going forward.
At least Acres has a bigger frame and can win his own ball and not require other players to help him out in his role.
Ideally (not that we can), Ollie needs to go back to the 2's and bulk up, build on his speed, skills and awareness and do more work in the forward half of the ground.
Telstra Tracker Dogs game:
L.Bramble 16.1k
E.Hollands 15.3k
M.Cottrell 15k
B.Acres 14.8k
L.McNeil 14.4k
As an FYI both Ward and Callaghan didn't make the top 5 in the GWS game for km's (Ollie 2nd & Acres 5th) and they only had 26 (14&12) pressure 'acts' between them to Ollies 23 and Acres 18 but they killed us on the wing.
Funnily enough the more important stat for a wing of meters gained we were annihilated, Callaghan 449m, Ward 436m to Acres 339, Ollie 143m.
As for the highlighted part about Ollie being quick.........that is a hard no.
Most of the time he is closing when a player is slowing down their last couple of steps before hitting their targets with no conceived pressure.
Suggesting he should be replaced is valid IMO, the only issue is we don't have anyone better until Cottrell gets back in form or if they move his brother to the wing at the expense of a half forward spot.
Raz and Martin might need to be available for that to even be a possibility.
All the above is why losing Doc has had such a massive affect on Ollies game IMO, he's still not able to hold down such an import spot on his own yet.
that's an excellent post. how has losing doc, added to the regression of ollie's game in your mind?
from where ollie was last season and what he was doing, compared to this. i can't help but feel he's been given specific instructions from the coaches to work defensively not not so much in attack? he's rarely in the F50. tells me theyre trying to vacte that area a little for our prime weapons.
but, i'm only guessing.
i still think in a team that mostly doesn't like doing the dirty things (in our losses, these always stand out to me) - tracking back, tackling, smothering, 1%'ers etc ... ollie has a place in the team despite not getting many possessions. but i'm not overly fussed on possessions. when we're up and about & cripps is getting 40 and walsh 35, hewett 30 etc i'm not sure how much ball there is to go around?
i'd love to see ollie's heatmap from this season to last. the eye test tells me he's being used primarily as a defensive wing.
I see your point, however I guess I view it a little different.
I don't think his game has regressed, more he has been exposed a lot more and is why his impact has dropped and his numbers are down.
Doc has been playing the wing with Ollie when he was available, this made Ollie less accountable, allowed him to float back or forward more and allowed him to learn the role better in space with less pressure from the bigger bodies.
I don't disagree he has been told to work more defensively from coaching, however a good wing can hit targets inside the F50 as well as run back to D50 and help out defence, yet most don't spend as much time in there as ours do and especially Ollie.
I am sure they have tailored the role to suit him, but as I keep saying, it's at the expense of the team structure by having to have other players help him out in his role.
And I am sure if you go back through the games this year and even watch the ones to come you will see the opposition target him regularly to rebound the ball as it's a higher % chance for them to get it forward and in most cases they do.
As for our prime weapons, we had 3 key forwards on the weekend and we couldn't even kick a ton. Our delivery into F50 has been weak from our midfield and wings for years and hurts us even more when we play against faster teams that can rebound better from our bombs.
There is definitely a spot in the team for some of the defensive work Ollie does (let's not lie, some of it is pretty ineffective also) and I'd say if that is solely his role then he should be on the half back line. The issue is, he'd get out marked by the forwards too much and he doesn't have the size, speed or creative foot skills to be a rebounding defender.
Personally I think our wings play too defensively, especially when we get a quick turnover deep in D50 and we have to hold the ball up because our wings are not on the exits and we need to wait for the half forwards to get back closer to our F50 to link.
Another way to look at it, like on the weekend, is that Ollie spent 75% of his time in the defensive half with half of that being in D50, therefore his opposition player was either in their F50 or sitting outside of it blocking up the exits without a man for easier repeat entires and making it harder for us to rebound.
Either way you want to look at, having your wings so deep defensively all the time is at the cost of offensive ball movement and ultimately goal scoring.
Here's a good video on the wingers role.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKgiot540Kg&t=252sMaybe I'm just thinking about it too much, but I would like to see more of our players playing their roles solely to see how good we actually are, the Geelong game was the closest so far.
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