Four-headed monster

[Grantysghost]

IF... Barrett is on board THEN... do we need to reconsider?



IF ...
there are many, many doubters of the sheer height in the Naughton-Darcy-Ugle-Hagan-Lobb forward line combo

THEN ...
I'm really keen to see how it could work. They've all got footy brains, they may just work it out.

He's a Norf supporter too. Really keen to see how it will work : read : really keen to laugh when it doesn't.

[Happy Days]

Yeah it’s dumb but I also wanna see it. It’s pretty much like when they rebooted Jackass last year.

[mjp]

I'm genuinely curious about the 4x tall forwards thing.

I still remember posting last year that it just might work at Marvel but it would NEVER work at the MCG. I maintain this is true...the thing is, we have never really seen it tried 'in anger'.

Last year, we rolled it out at the MCG in R#1 then Lobb immediately got injured and then Darcy got injured and, well...we never really saw it again. Now that Naughton is (I assume) playing the high role - and we have Weightman and a MUCH improved West running around...I don't know...I think it's worth a look.

Would a look like 4-talls scare me as an oppo coach? Honestly probably not because contested marks are hard to come by and if you have a player who averages ONE per game that's elite...so having tall marking players is only going to get you 4-5 shots on goal each week from marks and free-kicks (best case)...so having 4 of them would make me think (as an oppo coach) that there would be a lot of chances to sweep the footy away and score on the rebound...BUT. On the off chance that a couple of them start catching it and kicking straight, that could be a long (LONG) afternoon for the defenders.

Anyway, it's worth a shot.

p.s. Please don't talk about "Well, there's only gonna be 3 of them on most of the time blah blah....there are only so many rotations to go around and all of Naughton, Jamarra, Lobb, Darcy and English will get looks in the forward half...there are 100% going to be 4 of them out there as Weightman + West can't play 100% game time as small forwards...

[Scraggers]

In the presser there was mention of the possibility of Lobb playing back. I'm not sure if this was to pinch hit if Jones and O'Donnell are swamped or resting one of the four-headed monsters without costing an interchange. It will be interesting either way.

[Jeanette54]

One item worth noting is that Jamara's ground level efforts are beginning to show improvement. Could he ever duplicate Aaron's incredible efforts when the ball hits the deck? A small who can play taller is an asset, but a tall who can play small, when the situation warrants it, is worth their weight in gold.

[GVGjr]

It's a risky decision to play 4 talls and it smacks of a bit of heartache decision for the MC in who they should actually play.
My guess is that we want to give Naughton reduced minutes against North so that he doesn't go into the more critical game against Port without some on field time so we are prepared to gamble a bit on the structure this week.
I don't think we will see 4 tall forwards on the ground that much so it's going to be shuffle with the 4 talls and English. Perhaps Tim also gets a lighter workload tomorrow.

The concern is if we lose a smaller midfielder type early in the game which might then pressure us to stay taller than we might otherwise want to do.

[lemmon]

In the presser there was mention of the possibility of Lobb playing back. I'm not sure if this was to pinch hit if Jones and O'Donnell are swamped or resting one of the four-headed monsters without costing an interchange. It will be interesting either way.

I wonder why that's not Darcy? He's played as the marking interceptor as part of a back 6 before where I'm not sure Lobb even knows what a back 50 looks like.

Deep down I want to see the four up front - because who doesn't like the fantasy of four 197cm+ marking beasts plucking everything - but I don't like the actual practicality of it.

Kind of feels like the thinking of match committee is - "Lobb was too hard to drop, Darcy is too good not to play, North are mostly crap. Let's roll it out for a week and it'll be easier to drop the worst performer against Port".

I don't think that's the kind of reasoning you'd see from a side that's chasing success and would've preferred we'd made a tough decision, but let's see if they do all play forward.

[Pleather Sole]

Did Lobb spend time on a wing last year with success? I have a vague memory of it but don't remember against who or if it worked?

[Axe Man]

Beveridge said he was excited to revisit his experiment with a four-tall forward line now that Sam Darcy had significantly advanced as a player since early in 2023.

?We?re in the land of the giants. We haven?t had the three 205-plus centimetre boys in the team together much at all. During the pre-season last year we did, and that was against North Melbourne coincidentally,? Beveridge said.

?That looked OK, but during that period Sam (Darcy) was still in the infancy of getting a taste of what AFL football was about and maybe not quite ready at that point in time.

?So a year and a bit on, with his maturity, Sam is probably the keystone to it all really, with whether or not you can do it.?

Darcy or Rory Lobb could spend time on the wing or behind the ball, but Beveridge said he would not give any clues as to how he would fit the key quartet.

He said he could not look Lobb in the eye and drop him after his terrific performance against Fremantle before the bye.

?Philosophically, from a management and a coaching point of view, you just can?t omit a player like Lobby who was probably in our six most influential players against Fremantle,? he said.

?It?s almost like Darwinism in the team and natural selection ? he has to play. I couldn?t walk up to Rory and say, ?Hey mate, we can?t fit you into the team balance?.

?Let?s face it, at his best he?s a very good player, Rory, so fitting them all into our front end will be a challenge at times ? you?ll probably just need to hang on and have a look at the variations of where they all play.?

Link

[EasternWest]

It's a terrible idea. Narc on this.

[Uninformed]

Keen to see how it goes. I like the idea. But will it work?

[mighty_west]

Curious to see how we go with such a tall side, with Jones and JOD to obviously take Larkey and Zurhaar, they might try and stretch us with Teakle forward too at 203cm or so, he did clunk a few nice grabs last week, does English then zone back or either Lobb or Darcy, or do we simply back ourselves for them to have to move him on one of Lobb or Darcy? I guess it all depends on how the game is panning out.

The main concern for me, obviously with rotations and never really having all four at once in the forward line is not getting in each others way again, we have seemed to be getting that right over the past few weeks.

The plans of Naughton to be eased in with less game time further up the ground could then rotate with Lobb at CHF, Lobbly just seems to play better when moving around more and not being stuck closer to goal, leave that for Darcy, Lobb also rotates with Timmy in the ruck, Jamarra and Darcy to work together inside the 50 arc, one leftie, one rightie, one moves / leads out one way the other the opposite side, could work in theory right?

[bornadog]

Curious to see how we go with such a tall side, with Jones and JOD to obviously take Larkey and Zurhaar, they might try and stretch us with Teakle forward too at 203cm or so, he did clunk a few nice grabs last week, does English then zone back or either Lobb or Darcy, or do we simply back ourselves for them to have to move him on one of Lobb or Darcy? I guess it all depends on how the game is panning out.

The main concern for me, obviously with rotations and never really having all four at once in the forward line is not getting in each others way again, we have seemed to be getting that right over the past few weeks.

The plans of Naughton to be eased in with less game time further up the ground could then rotate with Lobb at CHF, Lobbly just seems to play better when moving around more and not being stuck closer to goal, leave that for Darcy, Lobb also rotates with Timmy in the ruck, Jamarra and Darcy to work together inside the 50 arc, one leftie, one rightie, one moves / leads out one way the other the opposite side, could work in theory right?

We could have a 5 headed monster at times if English wonders down there

[jeemak]

Did Lobb spend time on a wing last year with success? I have a vague memory of it but don't remember against who or if it worked?

From memory it was his starting position but he was more floating, possibly to try and get him into the game and enable Naughton and Jamarra to work together at starting positions better.

He wasn't great during that period.

Lobb is relevant if the team makes him relevant by giving him TOG and using him as a focal point. He's possibly one of those guys who struggles to create his own opportunities more so than others. It's problematic for a third in line tall forward, but unlike other third in line tall forwards he can genuinely ruck.

[HOSE B ROMERO]

I'm just a bit concerned. With it being the second half of the season and heading towards finals, i would like to see our structure settled by now. It may well get us a good win today and then we would be loathe to change it. But i don't see it bringing us success against top teams.