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The Bulldogs Bite
30-06-2008, 01:18 AM
Honestly believe we are changing the guard as far as a forward line structure is concerned. Not exactly that you must have all 6'ft blokes who can run, kick & mark - but the days of having a gun CHF/FF to win you games of football is basically gone.

I don't intend to harp on about this too much because it's not a success until a flag is won, but my point is, other clubs will have to now seriously start looking at the types of players they recruit for their forward half. We have a very wide spread of capable goal kickers - our forwards are all consistent players that are able to kick 1-4 goals a game and set others up. Jonathan Brown commented on this, saying it's impossible to stop because we have so many options.

It's "nice" to have a gun FF, but I'm not so sure they are helping their sides. If you take a look below you'll notice a familiar pattern;

Lions: Brown & Bradshaw combo - lethal - but two players can't kick 16+ goals every week. The Lions lack fire power even though they have two of the best KPF's in the comp.

Blues: If Fevola fails to kick less than 5, they're not going to win many games. They've improved from other years but even so, they've won their last few games because of Fevola. Against the better sides, Fev's impact is minimized and Carlton lose.

Richmond: Richo's had a different role this year, but only because having him up at FF meant they had no other options. If he didn't kicka bag, it was hard for them to win. They've changed that around, trying to develop Hughes, Morton etc. and have had some success.

Fremantle: Pavlich is a superstar, and to a lesser extent Tarrant. Again; if Pav doesn't play well and kick 5+, Fremantle struggle. They really don't have too many other options.

St. Kilda: Riewoldt, Kosi & Gehrig prior to injury. It worked about three, four years ago. Not now. Too top heavy and they really struggle to kick winning scores, hence their defensive tactics. Riewoldt & Kosi are average goal kickers too - so it hurts them. Milne's their other one but he's largely inconsistent. Key - restrict Roo/Kosi & the game's won.

Hawthorn: They could be excused for not being put on this list, but there's enough evidence to suggest that they rely on two men to forge a winning score at the end of the day. They're lucky both Franklin & Roughead are in career best form, but the two games they've lost has been because both were restricted. Williams is not as dangerous as he was & Rioli (understandably) has dropped off a bit. They aren't in dire need of more goal kickers, BUT, going into a Finals series it's not great to rely on two players so heavily. They've struggled every time these two haven't blitzed it and that has to be a worry. Hodge kicking goals is really helping them, though.

Obviously you could add a couple of other sides (Eg. Essendon) but you get the point. If you take all of the above into account and you match them to The Dogs, Cats & Swans - you see why these three teams are ahead of the rest. Dogs have Minson, Cats Mooney & Swans Hall to act as the FF/CHF in the setup and whilst they rarely 'dominate' games, they usually contribute every week either kicking a few or in Minsons case, setting them up. These three sides have a wide range of scorers and it proves much harder to handle. Franklin, Roughead, Fevola, Pavlich Brown etc. are all better KPF forwards than Minson, Mooney & Hall - they're all absolute superstars and ARE hard to stop, but the point is, when they are - their teams really struggle. The Pies are unlucky they've had injuries but their set-up works too. Rocca/Cloke to contest with Didak, Davis & Medhurst - it's a dangerous & hard to stop forward line.

With all this being said, I think this is where football must go - if you want to win a premiership, you really can't afford one main target to such an extent that it hinders the rest of the side when they aren't performing. Whether that's something that's coached (IE. Not instructing them to kick it to the gun FF 80%+ of the time) or whether it's to do with recruiting, I'm not sure - it might end up being a bit of both - but I don't think you can ignore the facts. 5 or 6 forwards are harder to smother than 1 or 2, and I think we'll see a real push for this in the coming years.

It's basically our weapon this year and along with other obvious factors, why we're better than we were in '06 (relying on Johnson). Whilst Geelong did this last year, I think we've further emphasized on it this year and therefore believe it's going to be a trend or pattern that other teams are going to HAVE to follow if they wish to keep up.

1eyedog
30-06-2008, 01:47 AM
Honestly believe we are changing the guard as far as a forward line structure is concerned. Not exactly that you must have all 6'ft blokes who can run, kick & mark - but the days of having a gun CHF/FF to win you games of football is basically gone.

I don't intend to harp on about this too much because it's not a success until a flag is won, but my point is, other clubs will have to now seriously start looking at the types of players they recruit for their forward half. We have a very wide spread of capable goal kickers - our forwards are all consistent players that are able to kick 1-4 goals a game and set others up. Jonathan Brown commented on this, saying it's impossible to stop because we have so many options.

It's "nice" to have a gun FF, but I'm not so sure they are helping their sides. If you take a look below you'll notice a familiar pattern;

Lions: Brown & Bradshaw combo - lethal - but two players can't kick 16+ goals every week. The Lions lack fire power even though they have two of the best KPF's in the comp.

Blues: If Fevola fails to kick less than 5, they're not going to win many games. They've improved from other years but even so, they've won their last few games because of Fevola. Against the better sides, Fev's impact is minimized and Carlton lose.

Richmond: Richo's had a different role this year, but only because having him up at FF meant they had no other options. If he didn't kicka bag, it was hard for them to win. They've changed that around, trying to develop Hughes, Morton etc. and have had some success.

Fremantle: Pavlich is a superstar, and to a lesser extent Tarrant. Again; if Pav doesn't play well and kick 5+, Fremantle struggle. They really don't have too many other options.

St. Kilda: Riewoldt, Kosi & Gehrig prior to injury. It worked about three, four years ago. Not now. Too top heavy and they really struggle to kick winning scores, hence their defensive tactics. Riewoldt & Kosi are average goal kickers too - so it hurts them. Milne's their other one but he's largely inconsistent. Key - restrict Roo/Kosi & the game's won.

Hawthorn: They could be excused for not being put on this list, but there's enough evidence to suggest that they rely on two men to forge a winning score at the end of the day. They're lucky both Franklin & Roughead are in career best form, but the two games they've lost has been because both were restricted. Williams is not as dangerous as he was & Rioli (understandably) has dropped off a bit. They aren't in dire need of more goal kickers, BUT, going into a Finals series it's not great to rely on two players so heavily. They've struggled every time these two haven't blitzed it and that has to be a worry. Hodge kicking goals is really helping them, though.

Obviously you could add a couple of other sides (Eg. Essendon) but you get the point. If you take all of the above into account and you match them to The Dogs, Cats & Swans - you see why these three teams are ahead of the rest. Dogs have Minson, Cats Mooney & Swans Hall to act as the FF/CHF in the setup and whilst they rarely 'dominate' games, they usually contribute every week either kicking a few or in Minsons case, setting them up. These three sides have a wide range of scorers and it proves much harder to handle. Franklin, Roughead, Fevola, Pavlich Brown etc. are all better KPF forwards than Minson, Mooney & Hall - they're all absolute superstars and ARE hard to stop, but the point is, when they are - their teams really struggle. The Pies are unlucky they've had injuries but their set-up works too. Rocca/Cloke to contest with Didak, Davis & Medhurst - it's a dangerous & hard to stop forward line.

With all this being said, I think this is where football must go - if you want to win a premiership, you really can't afford one main target to such an extent that it hinders the rest of the side when they aren't performing. Whether that's something that's coached (IE. Not instructing them to kick it to the gun FF 80%+ of the time) or whether it's to do with recruiting, I'm not sure - it might end up being a bit of both - but I don't think you can ignore the facts. 5 or 6 forwards are harder to smother than 1 or 2, and I think we'll see a real push for this in the coming years.

It's basically our weapon this year and along with other obvious factors, why we're better than we were in '06 (relying on Johnson). Whilst Geelong did this last year, I think we've further emphasized on it this year and therefore believe it's going to be a trend or pattern that other teams are going to HAVE to follow if they wish to keep up.

That's mean! Fifteen years ago I was told by my coach at Newtown in the GFL that I was a good forward but if only I was 3 inches taller! (I'm 6'1). Now you're telling me small forwards are the way forward? If only I had of known this 15 years ago I would have set the world on fire:rolleyes:

Rocket Science
30-06-2008, 04:46 AM
Very good point.

Scoring by committee, I like to call it. We're benefitting greatly from such an even, efficient and multi-pronged spread of avenues to goal.

Running with a small-to-mid sized forward set-up is an increasingly deliberate tactic one notices being employed by other teams during the season, sometimes embraced whole heartedly pre-game (albeit occasionally due to forced restructuring through injury), and sometimes the result of mid-game tactical switches.

Obviously worth noting nobody can quite pull it off like we can at the minute, but the point is it's a much more legitimate way of structuring within forward 50 these days as opposed to the traditional view of it being little more than a poor mans makeshift forward setup.

LostDoggy
30-06-2008, 12:34 PM
Great post Bulldogs Bite. Have been harping on about this for years.

One point that I would add to your great analysis:

Goalkicking midfielders are worth their weight in gold (or goal, as it were). They spread the goalkicking load even further, as if a team can ensure 10 - 15 players (forwards and centres) chipping in with one or two goals a week it will kick over 100 points regularly. The three teams that you mention (Dogs, Cats and Swans/Bloods) all have gun goal-kicking midfielders added to their spread of goalscorers --

Dogs - Coons/Griff/Gia/Gilbee/Hill/Eagle,
Cats - Ablett/Bartel/Ling (incredible conversion rate)
Sydney - Goodes/Everitt/Jolly/Moore

Whereas all the other teams you've mentioned have gun midfielders who don't score very much.

If anything, goalscoring midfielders make their forwards even more effective because the defensive load has to be spread further and thus rendered less effective.

Mofra
30-06-2008, 12:52 PM
Good points, but I'd add one further.
These days, no player is goign to dominate for 22 rounds. When a team relies on 2 main forwards, negating one goes a fair way to winning the game.

We have 4 players who can genuinely kick bags on a semi-regular basis - Murphy, Johnno, Aker & Welsh have all kicked 25 goals or more this season. Hahn or Minson invariably kick 1-2 each, whilst Cooney and Gia can kick multiple goals, Griff has added goal kicking to his bag of tricks, Gilbee is as good as a goal pr game defender, and then we have cameos by just about everyone else.

Basically, we can afford to have 1 gun forward have a crap game every week. I don't think other teams have this luxury - at least not to our extent.

bornadog
30-06-2008, 12:55 PM
Honestly believe we are changing the guard as far as a forward line structure is concerned. ............................................................ .................................................
It's basically our weapon this year and along with other obvious factors, why we're better than we were in '06 (relying on Johnson). .

I agree with your analysis, however, I believe we have been doing this since Eade began. If you take the four seasons to date that Eade has coached us and add up all the goals, we have kicked more than any other club.

2005 - ranked second, down by 22 points
2006 - ranked third, down by 34 points on 1st.
2007 - ranked eighth, the last 7 games killed us.
2008 - ranked first.

Adding up all the points for, we have kicked 8349 (doesn't include last Saturday) compared to Geelong 8166.

Contrary to common belief (and media hype), we haven't relied on Johnno to kick goals in previous years, although he kicked more than others, we do share it around alot.

The big difference this year is the defence compared to previous years. From 2005 to 2007 we may have kicked the most goals but also had alot of goals kicked against us.

The Bulldogs Bite
30-06-2008, 04:03 PM
I agree with your analysis, however, I believe we have been doing this since Eade began. If you take the four seasons to date that Eade has coached us and add up all the goals, we have kicked more than any other club.

2005 - ranked second, down by 22 points
2006 - ranked third, down by 34 points on 1st.
2007 - ranked eighth, the last 7 games killed us.
2008 - ranked first.

Adding up all the points for, we have kicked 8349 (doesn't include last Saturday) compared to Geelong 8166.

Contrary to common belief (and media hype), we haven't relied on Johnno to kick goals in previous years, although he kicked more than others, we do share it around alot.

The big difference this year is the defence compared to previous years. From 2005 to 2007 we may have kicked the most goals but also had alot of goals kicked against us.

No doubt it still worked, even with Johnson as a main target, but this year is the difference between kicking the highest scores but also maintaining that against the best sides in the competition. The ultimate test will come against Geelong who have a very solid backline, but so far to date, we've held up well against tigt backlines (Sydney, Adelaide).

Our defense improving has been quite unbelievable, especially since Williams & Everitt have arrived, because players like Morris & Hargrave especially are in career best form. I still believe we relied too heavily on Johnno a few years ago, the guy kicked 60 odd goals for us? That's an unbelievable effort as an individual but for us to take the next step, we needed a wider spread - and this year we've had that more than anyone else.

Perhaps the most pleasing thing is that this year, you can't pinpoint one particular aspect of our game that's made the 'sole' difference. On every single line, we've improved our game, and you can make strong cases for our forwards, mids, backs & so fourth.

bornadog
30-06-2008, 05:10 PM
Perhaps the most pleasing thing is that this year, you can't pinpoint one particular aspect of our game that's made the 'sole' difference. On every single line, we've improved our game, and you can make strong cases for our forwards, mids, backs & so fourth.

You have hit the nail on the head, a TEAM effort.