Our Midfield

[wimberga]

I have alot of discussions with my mates about the quality of our midfield.

How do you think the likes of Boyd, Cross, West, Cooney, Gia etc Compare to the other midfields in the competition?

Plenty of room for discussion on this one, so lets hear it:)

[LostDoggy]

Is the ruck included in the midfield? If we play Street there every week we would want our smaller midfielders to be the greatest in the league which I doubt they are.
Overall they aren't at the elite stage (WC 2 years back) but I expect better things this coming season.

[hujsh]

I have alot of discussions with my mates about the quality of our midfield.

How do you think the likes of Boyd, Cross, West, Cooney, Gia etc Compare to the other midfields in the competition?

Plenty of room for discussion on this one, so lets hear it:)

We have allot of options for now and for the future so with a little weight and the right balance of players in the midfield at the one time we could really be up there now that Hudson is feeding them.

[Go_Dogs]

I think we have a good mix of players who should be able to play through the centre next season, guys like Cooney and Griffen are going to be crucial to off-set the West/Cross/Boyd types who do their jobs very well but aren't the quickest/fastest/goal scoring type of midfielders we need in the mix to achieve a nice balance.

This year I expect those younger guys to again have better seasons, and if the likes of West and Cross, who through injury last year struggled at times and missed games, have big seasons again, along with Boyd, it's quite a good mix.

As Ernie pointed out the ruck is crucial, and Hudson sure seems like he'll help a lot. He'll do reasonable tap work, contest the ball after the tap and is pretty good around the ground too. We didn't have any of that last year really.

[GVGjr]

Is the ruck included in the midfield? If we play Street there every week we would want our smaller midfielders to be the greatest in the league which I doubt they are.
Overall they aren't at the elite stage (WC 2 years back) but I expect better things this coming season.

I include the ruck in midfield discussions.

[Scorlibo]

On paper, when you look at each individual player in our midfield, it is a very good midfield. The likes of Cross, West and Boyd have all established themselves individually as being some of the best midfielders in the league, however, when you look at the stats on clearances, we are constantly getting smashed.
You wonder why this is, and I put it down to our rucking. Ever since Darce got injured, we have struggled to find a capable ruckman. Street seems to get a fair few hitouts (he is 211cm after all), but doesn't appear to place his taps as well as he could. The others, Skipper and Minson just don't get their hand to the ball often enough. Skipper is probably just too short and will never dominate the taps. Minson is still relatively young and I'd expect him to improve his tapping with age.

Hudson could become one of the best pick-ups we've had just because he will bring so much improvement to our midfield division.

[Dogs 24/7]

Our midfield is good but not great. A touch slow and not hard enough at it in my opinion. I think Cooney and Griffen might be the key players if our midfield ever becomes the strongest in the competition.
Cross and Boyd get a lot of it but they don't hurt other teams every week.

[hujsh]

Our midfield is good but not great. A touch slow and not hard enough at it in my opinion. I think Cooney and Griffen might be the key players if our midfield ever becomes the strongest in the competition.
Cross and Boyd get a lot of it but they don't hurt other teams every week.

Would you suggest them as potential trade bate should there be a player that we need/want who's club is going to need something good in return

[Dogs 24/7]

Would you suggest them as potential trade bate should there be a player that we need/want who's club is going to need something good in return

No but they do need to have quicker players around them. Any trade would have to be an excellent one for us before we would consider it.

[hujsh]

No but they do need to have quicker players around them. Any trade would have to be an excellent one for us before we would consider it.

Yeah the trade would have to be good for sure but more could we afford to lose either of Cross or Boyd?