If I recall we sort of did O.K. through the centre last year.
Are there any reasons to think we may be going backwards this year, considering Gibbs will be played through there at times and Curnow and Lucas are now fit and firing?

If the argument is a simple, "We can never have enough midfielders" then that is fair enough.
If we are again revsiting the "We should have drafted a mid irrespective of who it was" then we're just going around in circles.

HF and HB are very much midfielders these days.
This is where the argument is flawed in this thread.
Close it.

We've been trying to get our half back line in order for years without a lot of success. From that list who did we have ready to go at the start of 2011.

Tuohy yet to play a game - great potential but no certainty to step and hold down a HBF.
Russell - a lay down misere, or so we thought
Bower - two years injured, no guarantees
Laidler
McKiness
Armfield - honest and hard more suited to small forwards and kicking not the elite stuff we were looking for.
Davies - honest shut down backman with about 6 games under his belt. Kicking a question.
Duigan
Yarran - just an idea and no guarantee.
Lucas - recruited as a mid - may as well name Judd, Gibbs, Robbo, Walker, etc.
OKeefe - Injured since arriving at club.
Scottland - go Scotty
White - more a third tall man certainly not the slashing linebreaker we were looking for. Lots of injuries.

So what did we have injury free with more than 50 games - Army (maybe), Scotty and Russell. Only other one with any experience and injury free is Davies. If you're building a premiership side, you'd want to have more than that ready to go.

2011 we drafted McGinnes, rookied mature-aged Diugan and picked up Laidler (more a third tall man). We got lucky with the last two and turned Yarran and our backline started to look like a genuine finals component. Now with Duigan injured, we've got players the quality of Russell Bower Tuohy ready to step. Building a team is a process and if it would be nice if every recruit could go on to play 200 quality injury free games in the positions we recruited them for but that doesn't happen very often.

Bootsma is starting to look like an inspired pick but it's much to early to pigeonhole him purely as a back flanker.

Easy
Tuohy
Russell
Bower
Laidler
McKiness
Armfield
Davies
Duigan
Yarran
Lucas
OKeefe
Scottland
White


,,,, forgot Bootsma...

Thatsalso inclusing the two boys that can step in for the two spots available , in case the 'dirty dozen' half back flankers get injured.....[/quote]

Chucking a few extra names in there to make your point

Do you like to pigeon hole or don't you have any imagination ?

yeah i pigeon hole hbf as hbf ....sorry.. ill make bootsma a midfielder...

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Why not you made Bower, and Lucas into hbf

Do you think Bootsma might have a future on the wing ?

Very Interesting comments by the Cats Coach, Chris Scott! He was being interviewed by Mark Robinson:

He makes a great case for Defense being the key. Anyway, read the full article yourself:






http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/g ... 6262230367

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Club have said walker, Gibbs, yarran n Russell will be trialled in midfield. Synbad I know we have lots of defenders but I think club want to spread net wide to ensure we develop a premiership quality defense. And some of them will move into midfield one day. Remember Ratten started as a BP. In 2012 expect Gibbs, yarran, to move to midfield plus curnow back and Lucas also so there's more midfield depth for us. Ythey also drafted bootsma and bucks jnr who loom as mid types. I think the balance is ok. Brock didn't work out.

Look believe it or not it's not just about midfield. You need defenders n rucks n fwds too. We have Judd, Murphy, simmo, robbo, scotto, ellard, carrots, we have a midfield. And in recent yrs we have added curnow n Lucas n bucks jnr n bootsma n Brock. And Gibbs n yazz were high picks who were destined to be mids and are now on the cusp. So we have mids. But you also need defenders. All premiership teams have great defenses. And u need kpps. Thus we had to go for mitch n watto n McCarthy. God wasn't long ago ppl cried we took Kane ahead of the tall Talia !! Look there mite be a slight skew towards defenders but some of these could go to midfield
one day and anyhow I thnk it's good they're being taught defense first, good habits.

Bower as in third tall defender makes him a flanker.. cos he isnt one of the two Cetral defenders.
Unless were playing with 3 central defenders .. giving us a three line defence???
Squeeze in another line of defenders back there... the ol 3 3 3 in defence. 9 defenders ... with 3 central defenders and 6 around them..
Brilliant!!!
Which would help us in playing more hbfers i suppose.
By the way .. im expecting Bower to play regularly and have a good year.
Lucas hasp layed hbf since coming to the club.So right now i would not shirk cataguorising him as a hbfer.Cos thats what he was in the games we played him.

Believe it or not.. its much easier for midfielders to play hbf.. than it is for a hbfer to play midfield.
Heaps of examples of midfielders slotting into hbf.. not many the other way.

Not many cos as kids coaches dont play their best kids on the hbf ... they play in midfield.

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Defence and Defending are two totally different things.
I thought most people have picked up on it by now.

Defence players in the back half.
Defending EVERYONE

Im pretty sure Scott would tell you Brizzy.. thats not what he means...

Who you play in the defenders spots does not interfere with how you play all over the park defensively as you defend when you dont have the ball.

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Hmm, but where does a young midfielder play when there's no room in the midfield because Judd, Carrazzo, Scotland, Simpson, Murphy, Ellard, Robinson, and Curnow have taken up all the seats plus some ??

This is the hole in your arguement Synbad. Lucas is just a kid, skinny as a rake in his first two years. There's no room for him in the midfield and he wasn't ready for it anyhow. He will move there in time.

Gibbs was recruited as a mid right? And he will move there this year. But it took 6 yrs. Why? Because he wasn't ready for it, and other reasons too.

You are overlooking also the fact the game has changed. Flankers/Mids - the boundaries are being blurred in the modern era, as game plans re-shape the way the game is played, and defense becomes more than just back six, it becomes a mindset. So we have kids like Gibbs, Yarran, Lucas, and touhy, and Bootsma who are being taught defense defense defense befor they get put into more traditional midfield roles.

But again I get back to the blurred boundaries of Mids and Flankers. Is Scotland a mid? Doesn't do a great deal of on ball stuff, you know, centre sqr stufff. But he doesn'[t do a lot of markign of opp fwds either. He's a defensive wingman or loose HBF. But he still racks up the touches and plays like a mid. These days you need your core mids but you also need flexible flankers who can run and carry and play as pseudo mids.

I also think club are looking for versatility, this is the other change that has occurred in the game in recent years.

You can go and recruit a pure mid, but what happens if he doesn't make the grade? He's thrown on the scrap heap.

But if you get a defensive flanker with talent, he might very well develop into a mid in time. He has that added bow to his game. If Ellard and Curnow don't make it they are stuffed, but a Bootsma might end up a defender OR a wingman. And one with defensive skills.

Oh, and the other obvious reason why we might have recruited a perceived high number of defenders is becasue maybe just maybe we went best available. In 2008 and 2009 we took mids with our first picks - Yazz and Lucas. Club have said from the get-go they think Yazz will develop into a mid and Lucas has Mid (wingman at least) written all over him. (it's ridiculous to think the skinny kid would slot straight into a midfield and push out the likes of Judd and Murphy and Robinson etc in his first 2 years).

2010 of course we went talls for different reasons altogether, and club should be congratulated for taking talls when they thought the better ones were there (ie: not Talia if they thought he wasn't that good).

So we often take mids with our first picks (Gibbs, Murphy, Yazz, Lucas), then after that it is best available. And that is where the flankers maybe come into it. Why take a mid you rate 6.5/10 when you have a flanker who you rate 7.5/10? Take the best available, and hope he becomes versatile. I mean it's not like we don't have a full midfield already.

Good mids who originally started as defensive flankers…

Ratten
Gibbs
Koutoufides – didn’t start as a defender per se but he is on record saying playing CHB for a while was a blessing for his overall game

+
Yarran – would well end up in midfield having started off at HFF and then HBF

+
Whitehead – I honestly reckon this kid could have become a mid if not for injury, he was on the cusp of moving upfield in my opinion

+
Johnston – started as a HFF and ended up in midfield
Hannah - started as a Fwd and ended up playing a lot of football in midfield (wing)

And this is just one team. You’ll find similar stats at all other clubs.

I think it’s fair to say Hodge is a defender initially who is now moving into the midfield.

Have to disagree with you on that one, (although I'll concede that we're probably just talking semantics).

I thought that we had about "average" luck last year and probably finished about where we should have.
Even with an unusual, (but reasonably possible), run of good luck I don't think that we were ever a chance.
I can see that we could've got past WC, but beating two of Collingwood/Hawthorn/Geelong to take a flag I
just could not see happening no matter how many four leaf clovers Setanta turned up with.

This year a run of good fortune might be enough to get us there. (That might be what you mean by "in the
mix", so on that point we possibly agree.

Coach's play the best kids in their best positions.
Good coach's also have the foresight to try players in different positions.
Just because they play a certain possie as a junior doesn't mean that's were they stay.
How many players have started or recruited for a certain position only to play their best footy elsewhere.
Most mids do not go into a footy club and assume a midfield role from the start.
There is a certain amount of dues and learning first before you are given the opportunity and responsability.
We have one of the best midfield rotations at the moment and a first year player won't step straight into it.
We have tried to add some grunt in the middle over the last few years with some success only for injuries to get the better of those players.
Players on the list that I believe can play that role include
Tuohy
Russell
Duigan
Curnow
Robinson
Mclean

Now I know some will disagree but that's my belief, without being a smart ass.

Agreed BK, we didn't beat a top four side all year
Close to top 4 though
Need Waite/Hamer/Kruezer to step up and take marks, consistently
And need Jamo to be fit and Hendo to develop
And need midfield to harden up and have more depth (Robbo, Curnow, Gibbs, Yarran) - get pushed aside too easily by Pies and Hawks mids

so you have a natural midfielder ball winner kid and you play him on the hbf???

A couple of injuries and were starting Ellard and Carrazzo in the square..

If our midfield was that great.. coal face types.
Why try to get McLEan???

thats 2 and a half years ago and we havent fixed it!
Now...were in salary cap trouble come end of year...
We cant bring anyone else in who has a rep.. we will be hardpressed to keep who we have

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To answer the thread question.

Very close.........this year or next.

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