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You may be right, but I was there too and I mainly remember him near goals. One of us has dementia. Where am I and who are you????BBHS wrote:I was at that U18 GF at Etihad. He played mid & half forward, even some time down back. Got 29 Possessions with those 10 snags and was everywhere. Just ran riot like he had his own footy. So no didn't just play a small forward role. Played every bloody role I remember.
50-50 2 and 3 for mine, I think both are very insightful commentsTannin wrote:He looks out of sorts. He isn't holding marks, he isn't getting kicks, and he's not a shadow of the player he was in late 2016.
I present three possibilities:
(1) He is pissed off with life, with football, and especially with the club and is looking to be traded.
(2) He just hasn't managed to get his form back after injury - don't forget, he's only a youngster and youngsters don't step straight back into senior football carrying on where they left off the way 150-game players do. Just cut him a little slack and await results.
(3) He struggles to play deep forward and needs to be promoted back into the guts, which is what he's good at. In particular, he (like Fasolo) is trying to play like a KPP - flying for marks and dropping them - instead of getting front and centre like a proper small. Once Cox comes back to his proper place in the goal square and starts bringing the ball to ground, JDG will start scouting the packs and snapping truly. (Farcealolo, meanwhile, will keep trying to outmark blokes three feet taller than he is and wondering why the coach is not impressed with him.)
Which of the three do I think most likely? I'll sit on the fence and say a equal parts all three. If he can pick up 30-odd possessions and a couple of goals, he'll forget all about being pissed off and uninterested and start performing to his ability, which is enormous.
You're absolutely right. I never thought I would miss White after he was dropped. Just shows that you don't appreciate what you have until it's taken away from you.RudeBoy wrote:For all his undoubted weaknesses, of which there are many, right now our side would be much improved if we had White in the forward line. My guess is once he's recovered from his hammy, after the bye he will return and we'll have a much better structure, with both Moore and White able to assist Grundy in the ruck. With Varcoe, White and possibly Wills to be included in our team in the 2nd half of the year, we should be a considerably better team.BucksIsFutureCoach wrote:I watched the replay for the first time last night. The problem isn't our small forwards. Sidebottom won't solve anything there. Our problem is lack of height on the forward line. Even the commentators were saying it. In the third quarter all the players were doing something. Even Fasolo produced a knock on against two Hawthorn guys twice his height which produced a goal. If we keep pitting Fasolo against defenders twice his height he'll be ruined as a footballer. He's almost at that point where he should be dropped. Greenwood offered us something at F/F as well, but he's not the answer there. Just because the side won people are saying we can operate a small forward line. Well we can't. When we come up against a side who defends better than Hawthorn did and who has a midfield which can take it up to us, then it's all back to square one for us.neil wrote:agree put sidey as a permanent small forward the other sides will piss themselves laughing. Sideys great strength is his endurance so why waste in that position
Joni Mitchell Theory in praxisBucksIsFutureCoach wrote:You're absolutely right. I never thought I would miss White after he was dropped. Just shows that you don't appreciate what you have until it's taken away from you.RudeBoy wrote:For all his undoubted weaknesses, of which there are many, right now our side would be much improved if we had White in the forward line. My guess is once he's recovered from his hammy, after the bye he will return and we'll have a much better structure, with both Moore and White able to assist Grundy in the ruck. With Varcoe, White and possibly Wills to be included in our team in the 2nd half of the year, we should be a considerably better team.BucksIsFutureCoach wrote: I watched the replay for the first time last night. The problem isn't our small forwards. Sidebottom won't solve anything there. Our problem is lack of height on the forward line. Even the commentators were saying it. In the third quarter all the players were doing something. Even Fasolo produced a knock on against two Hawthorn guys twice his height which produced a goal. If we keep pitting Fasolo against defenders twice his height he'll be ruined as a footballer. He's almost at that point where he should be dropped. Greenwood offered us something at F/F as well, but he's not the answer there. Just because the side won people are saying we can operate a small forward line. Well we can't. When we come up against a side who defends better than Hawthorn did and who has a midfield which can take it up to us, then it's all back to square one for us.
P4S I'm never impressed with numbers (stats) and don't judge players performances on the numerical stats hence why I've often left Treloar out of the votes. Last weekend you were the only poster who gave Sidey a vote of any value. We all understand that he's your favourite player and he isn't mine but to say he's our second best midfielder is just down right wrong.Pies4shaw wrote:Putting Sidebottom forward is one of the silliest things people keep repeating on here. He is not a "small forward", he's our second-best midfielder. He's as slow as a coach, so he can't apply defensive pressure in the forward-line and he actually creates his goals with endurance running. Apart from which, proper analysis of the game shows that he turns up doing great work all over the field, all the time. A number of the scoring chains in the third and last quarters were created deep in the backline by him drawing defenders to him and then putting a handball out to advantage. He also cleans up around the backline and prevents the opposition scoring because he reads the game well and gets to the fall of the ball.BucksIsFutureCoach wrote:I watched the replay for the first time last night. The problem isn't our small forwards. Sidebottom won't solve anything there. Our problem is lack of height on the forward line. Even the commentators were saying it. In the third quarter all the players were doing something. Even Fasolo produced a knock on against two Hawthorn guys twice his height which produced a goal. If we keep pitting Fasolo against defenders twice his height he'll be ruined as a footballer. He's almost at that point where he should be dropped. Greenwood offered us something at F/F as well, but he's not the answer there. Just because the side won people are saying we can operate a small forward line. Well we can't. When we come up against a side who defends better than Hawthorn did and who has a midfield which can take it up to us, then it's all back to square one for us.neil wrote:agree put sidey as a permanent small forward the other sides will piss themselves laughing. Sideys great strength is his endurance so why waste in that position
It seems to me that people tend look too much at total "disposal" numbers and get very excited when some players get over 30 with whole lot of pointless defensive handballs. A 25-disposal game from Sidebottom is typically worth a 35 or 40 disposal game from any of our other mids, except the Captain.
Seriously, playing a fit Sidebottom as a permanent forward would be nearly as stupid as playing a fit Pendlebury as a permanent half-back.
yep. The improvement in performance will come as he feels he no longer has to perform each week to keep a spot. Once he feels he belongs, he'll really start to grow.BucksIsFutureCoach wrote:"Getting back to De Goey", he's a good player getting better with each game. Just keep playing him and watch for his incremental improvement each game.
