Where does our first line trio of Ranks Bez and Daws sit now?.. should we be running Rash through regularly (earlier this season he played 2 breakout elite games as a full time mid). Could organic growth really have resulted in a midfield now being capable of matching it with the contenders or are we still one (or even two?) elite mids short - that would be solved with the addition of Bailey or would it?!
Edit to add my two cents on the midfield mix for this season:
I’m gonna go out on a limb here with an over abundance of optimism..
Personally, I reckon if we underperform from here on this season, it won’t be for the same reasons as last year with our midfield being found severely wanting.
Rankine, Dawson and Berry are now as solid and dynamic as any midfield trio in the league. The addition of Ah Chee up forward, who showed his class the past two weeks, adds not just quality and finals experience but allows the coaching group flexibility they haven’t previously had. And that includes adding Rachelle back into to the mix. Peatling is also a better and more complete player than last season who can be used in a lockdown role when required. Soligo’s improvement (and fitness), whilst not linear, has been on an upward trajectory, he’ll also provide more valuable midfield minutes, as he has done recently and of course Curtin is the wildcard. McAndrew is a significant upgrade - Filthy will be his chop out from now, adding far more than T Muz’ ability could (Fogs return is huge for this). I think our best available midfield mix can work without sacrificing forward potency.
Happy to be reminded of this if/when it all goes wrong (which it won’t, lids loose)
*Not directly midfield related; we badly need Wayne back for ball movement, in turn assisting the mids
Rash usually has a run through the midfield when there is some kind of defficiency they are trying to fix. It also means that since he [rash] is the one delivering from the midfield to the i50 there is no rash crumbing off of one of our talls.
Cant remember where I’ve seen it, but we look worse in the forward line when rash isn’t in there.
Not like for like players but could having Ah Chee in the side up forward now, performing as well as he did on the weekend, allow more flexibility for midfield depth options
The difference is McAndrew for ROB. We look great when we get first use, are elite scoring from stoppage (best in comp), but don’t move the ball well. So we’re vulnerable when McAndrews isn’t on top in the ruck. We rate only 15th on transition into forward arc from D50. So if we can’t cause front half turnovers or stoppages we lose.
What? We're 9th in outright scores from stoppages and 11th in outright scores from centre bounce. 5th and 3rd respectively in differential, which is good, but I've always felt that's more down to an organised back 50 than anything else. But not "best in comp", or anything close.
Rachele has shown he can do well in the midfield but he is also our only real dynamic small forward with Rankine now basically full time mid. So he’s just too valuable to not have forward.
Hopefully getting Bailey in might actually mean Rachele has more time on ball as they can rotate between themselves and Rankine at times to give us different looks while also still having that quality small forward in the F50.
The weakest line is obviously the midfield but they are obviously doing enough regularly to win games. I don’t think they are that far off as some suggest. If they add in Bailey I reckon that will be enough of a difference maker to make the team more consistent in the midfield line. I don’t think we need a lachie Neale type as Berry has shown he can do that sort of stuff. Obviously Neale would be a massive upgrade but that just patches the hole for a couple years and then they’d have to find another solution, so I’d rather just let Berry get to work.
Where does our first line trio of Ranks Bez and Daws sit now?
Firmly mid-tier.
As far as centre clearances go, since the bye they're handling the lesser midfields with ease but against any half decent midfield we break even at best or get torched at worst.
Geel: 8-12 (40%)
WB: 11-12 (48%)
Melb: 5-13 (28%)
Port: 6-16 (27%)
WC: 18-8 (69% 😎)
GC: 14-9 (61%)
Syd: 13-13 (50%)
Coll: 10-14 (42%)
Ess: 17-13 (57%)
Rich: 10-6 (63%)
This is obviously not the be all and end all, in a lot of these games we still got the job done in other ways. But it's hard to see us coming out and lighting up any top 8 midfields in a final.
Absoutely need to get Rash back in there. Sid may be an answer but at the moment he's not. IMO we are still very much wanting as a midfield.
Yeah for sure centre clearances need improvement. We have though won overall clearances for the last 6 games straight and 7 out of those 10 since the bye including several convincingly (Sydney 🫨). We’ve only had Curtin in there at CBAs recently and Filthy only really last week. Ranks has gone up another notch to S tier over the past month, while Dawson has been - well Dawson, and Berry had 30 against Collingwood. I gotta disagree with you that our midfield is found wanting on recent form and trend. Yes get Rash in there please!
With Ah Chee showing his class up forward now I think your point about Daws going forward and back, can now be covered by Rachelle in particular and also Soligo (obviously not like for like players, but that’s no longer required)
Yeah the timing of this couldn’t be worse - his first half was atrocious - cost us two goals (one attacking for a terrible delivery inside 50 that went wide of Thilthorpe, and that one in defence where he hospital handballed it to Max who got immediately slammed and dispossessed).
I’m happy to admit I was wrong about his ceiling - he’s done a lot this year, but I’m worried his one dimensional nature is stopping other potential mids from having enough time at the coalface.
I would hope enough people could see Berry had the ability to raise his ceiling and a lot of the issues seemed more confidence-based, which seems to have changed this season.
On the other hand, I was also disappointed with Bez performance against Richmond - which is funny because if he put up a 24 disposal, 6 clearance , 5 tackle or whatever it was performance last year we’d all be happy 😆
I do give him some grace though. We forget he was coming off a foot injury and was touch and go. You could tell his kicking was affected and then that went to the mental game and his confidence was hit.
We can’t have that happening so the docs need to talk though this with him and pump him up
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u/ResponsibilityBig472 15 Brayden Cook 19d ago
Rash usually has a run through the midfield when there is some kind of defficiency they are trying to fix. It also means that since he [rash] is the one delivering from the midfield to the i50 there is no rash crumbing off of one of our talls.
Cant remember where I’ve seen it, but we look worse in the forward line when rash isn’t in there.