bondiblue wrote:
Sidefx wrote:
Unfortunately none of the wings are yet to show they can be damaging by foot, something we are missing on a wing.
No point running all day if you are ineffective with your disposals and you have too many turnovers or your kicks lack penetration.
Martin or Williams would be the closest we have aside from Saad and we know where they play most of the year.
We need a Bolton like player to hit the leads and give our two forwards the best chance against a good defence.
Stat's are usually overinflated in a game where there are so many goals kicked by one side, it's the stats in a game against a defensive team like the Saints that matter.
Not all teams will be so outmatched in the F50 like last weekend and the delivery has to be more creative and accurate.
And in that Saints game, Acres 0 goals and 3 SI's and Hollands had 0 goals and 3 SI's.
But even then the Score involvement stat can be misleading as the stat can be received at half back.
Quote:
Score Involvement: Number of scoring chains where a player was involved with either a disposal, hitout-to-advantage, kick-in or knock-on. If a player has two disposals in the same scoring chain, he is credited with one score involvement.
It doesn't truly represent the quality of disposal, which if we want to be a finals team and win, quality matters a lot more.
I view the game different to you I guess, Acres spent 62% of his time in the defensive half of the ground and most of his disposals (only 6 in the corridor) were not of great difficulty hence his DEF%. Don't get me wrong, he's playing a great defensive role for us.
Hollands is a great runner and 100% commits himself, other than that he doesn't really offer much by foot that I've seen so far.
I agree Cottrell is a much more damaging kick than them both and has the toughness.
LOB is a great runner also and most of the time choses the harder option for his disposals and as a result can tend to put other players under more pressure, but he is not tough enough and he fails to halve the contest when required. If only we could get LOBs leg with Hollands running and commitment, awesome.
Either way,
after 7 rounds of Hollands and Acres you could probably ask Charlie and Harry how confident they are of getting hit lace out in the F50 by either of them.If it is above 50/50 I'd be surprised, which is my point.
We lack a Marc Murphy (when fit of course) who used to have the forwards salivating when he had the ball delivering it to them from the middle or a Bolton on the wing who does the same.
Even that smug pumpkin head, Dangerfield was calving them up with his entries on the weekend.
We still lack that polish that other teams have with our F50 entires IMO.
You are all over it Sidex, and I appreciate the reality check.
I see where you are coming from with the highlighted sentence, plus identifying the lack of polish of our wings, "a couple" teams have. But I do expect some polish to come from mids Docherty Walsh and Cerra as the game plan evolves and the midfielders play more games together.
Quote:
analysis by Champion Data has uncovered the best kicks at every team
While Carlton topped the list approaching mid-season last year, [with elite kicks] the number of Blues in the top 50 has been impacted by the decline of one and injury to another.
“We’ve seen a notable decline from Zac Fisher, who after 11 rounds last season had the second-highest kick rating in the competition behind Collingwood’s Scott Pendlebury,” Mobilio said.
“In 2023, Fisher has gone 5 per cent below expectation, which is the second lowest at the club behind Ollie Hollands.
“Carlton is also missing Zac Williams, who was elite by foot last season.”
... The Crows and Carlton are the next best with four. The Blues came out on top mid-season last year when they had six players in the top 50, but that number has slipped to four this season.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/afl-2023-champion-data-analysis-reveals-players-with-the-best-kick-rating-at-every-club/news-story/0f69e53249d0eb7335c2acea14abbe40You have drilled deep into stats and thanks for sharing.
Whilst I don't think the Saints game without Saad Docherty (and Williams) is a good example to use to judge the wings with our slow chippy chippy bomb bomb play by the mids, I can see that maybe Hollands needs a rest and has done his job setting the standard for ground covered.
Cottrell is the favourite to take a wing from Hollands over the unreliable LOB and the developing Binns.
Its all coming together for Carlton after round 7.
There is no perfect team, and every team has displayed a bad quarter, half and game. Every team is getting a feel for their evolving game plans and sizing up the oppositions weapons.
Its nice and early in the season and we are getting players back from injury who will need some game time to catch up with the rest of the team, and its happening.
Cottrell isn't far away.
Having the defensive run out of the team does have a difference up the ground, we seen that on the weekend and what it looks like when we have it back.
However, when it comes to finals, the teams in the top 8 will mostly have good defences and we need to be able to pry them open to the advantage of our forwards.
And if our wings and mids are unable to do it, then we are either relying on our Half forwards or small forwards to make that connect and that comes at a price in the F50 with our keys being double teamed, zoned out or taking marks down field.
As another example in the Adelaide game (Saad played), another team with a great defence, Acres had 1 goal, 3 score involvements and Hollands had 0 Goals and 2 score involvements.
They also had - clangers (Acres had 4, Hollands 0), kicking efficiency (Hollands was at 40%, Acres at 52.9%)
Cottrell would be the ideal fit for a like for like replacement for Hollands, as you know I think he's needed a rest for a few weeks now.
However, I know you say LOB is unreliable but I don't see him that way.
The issue LOB has is the game style Voss wants him to play (high contact, defensive first) and us supporters are only gaging his ability on him hitting contests and his body work at them.
But I look at him as a pure outside player, the one you want on the outside wing in space where possible linking from the defence to the forwards.
A lot of the indigenous players play like this, they avoid contact as much as possible, but they also have zip and x factor in their favour.
So surely as our game plan is developing and our defence is getting really solid with great depth, we can start to look at having some outside players with some foot skills to make our rebounding more dangerous and giving our forwards better options to take marks in the F50 instead of half way up the ground all the time.
Plus we would start to get a more structured attack and less chaotic ball movement forward, which is something I think Voss and co are trying to get going........we just need the right tools.
That's why I suggested Saad on a wing, the perfect fit for better delivery even though I know Saad may not have the tank required for the wing.
Either way we need to start looking ahead to the second half of the year and what our ball movement looks like heading towards finals and so far this season and TBH the last half of the year of 22 our kicking into the F50 has been suspect at best.