i know people get sick of hearing it but if astbury and griffiths are defenders we are seriously short of tall forwards and taking at least one would have to be a priority if not two.
elton 197/92 19yo junior player.
mcguane 192/91 26yo mature player. plus a dud to go with it who is clearly there for security. what a lousy situation to be in once again.
riewoldt 195/93 24 yo development/mature player.
vickery 200/95 23 yo development player. even here we can question the management is he to be our future #1 ruckman if so he should be classified as a ruckman first forward second.what the hell happens when we start playing him 30 40% of the time in the ruck? rely on elton or mcguane pppllllleeeeaaaessssee.
this area to me is in crisis. its an area we have so few of, and of the few we have their roles are questionable we cant ignore it we have to do something about it asap.
by placing astbury and griffiths as defenders it means our tall defender stocks are okay.
astbury 195/92 22 yo development player. 22 games.
griffiths 200/100 21 yo junior player. 18 games.
grimes 193/87 21 yo junior player. 17 games.
rance 194/93 23 yo development player. 66 games.
chaplin 195/100 27 yo mature player. 140 games.
darrou 190/97 19yo junior rookie player. 0 games.
to me the numbers for tall defenders is spot on with the above. ideally we could do with one less junior 18 - 21 and one more mature 25 plus player with about 100 games to his name.
when you look at games played you can see why chaplin or an experinced player like him had to be taken.
finally i have to say im bemused by the club going down this path with astbury and griffiths i dont see either as a defender and i certainly would not be developing both as kpds given the structure of the list.
I think you put too much emphasis on it, they can go either forward or back, so its a moot point really.
imo not enough emphasis is put on it. it is about numbers. we dont go into game day with just 5 talls we go in with 7 possibly 8.astbury and griffiths are being developed as kpds their versatility only comes into it if we cop an injury on game day.
the list is down to just 12 talls including ruckmen. including below standard mcguane and the rookie darrou how many rookies make it..
we just cut moore, graham, browne, post, miller and wright. and replaced all of them with chaplin. the numbers are totally inadequate. especially when 1/3 are juniors and another 1/3 are development.
so if astbury and griffiths are utilities we effectively have
4 tall forwards
4 tall defenders
2 tall utilities
2 ruckmen. 3 if vickery is indeed a ruck/forward.
the numbers dont change because we have 2 utilities. the utilities allow us to rob an inadequate peter to pay an inadequate paul.
for ten yrs we have been going thru exactly this and for ten yrs nothing has changed. we still wonder why we never ever build any depth in this area.
we have a list of 44 overall including rookies. we can easily cater to 16 talls on our list leaving 28 places for mids and flankers which is plenty. atm we have no tolernce for failure with our talls. with just 12 we fail to cater to injury and development and are relying on virtually every tall on the list to make it. it just doesnt work that way. we are relying on junior and development talls to play significant roles. it should not work or be that way.
list break down for me should go
ruckmen
4 - one mature, two development, one junior.
tall defenders
6 = two juniors, two development, two mature/ vet. if utilities are a part of the 6 fine.
tall forwards
6 - two juniors, two development, two mature/vet, again if utilities are a part of the 6 fine.
sml/med forward flankers
4 to 6 - again with an even spread thru the age groups. could be as few as 4 due to mids who can play forward.
sml/med defensive flankers.
6 - four medium two small with two in each age bracket.
genuine mids
18 - mainly big bodied well rounded. obviously some will be exclusively inside and some will be exclusively outside. age breakdown six juniors, six developing, 6 mature/vets.
like the flankers it could be less if need be. that is if we have flankers who can be decent contributors as a part of rotations.
the above basically caters to two players for every position. the mids flankers can vary for obvious reasons but the talls cannot it is a minimum. it caters to depth development experience and importantly all list needs.
i agree its even better if your talls are versatile but this should not alter your numbers. its like saying martin is a forward we dont need more mids because he can play there too.
if we want to be a good developing club we need to actually have the right numbers to develop. we need to balance out the list properly and stop putting too few eggs in the one basket.
it the above means at both richmond and coburg there would be a good spread of experience and a good structure at both.
by my reckoning we are
2 ruckmen short possibly 1. me id err for two.
4 to 6 mids short
either 2 kpds or 2 kpfs short depending on where you place the utilities. or it could be one of each.
we have 7 picks left all up i think. 3 or 4 mids, 2 or 3 kpps and 1 ruckman would be on my list this yr.
