Champion Data ranks Saints 7th best midfield

[Harvey To Hayes]

"In another surprise, St Kilda’s emerging midfield group is ranked seventh, higher than Geelong (eighth), West Coast (ninth), Adelaide (11th) and Hawthorn (12th).
St Kilda’s favourable assessment is based on its breadth of established talent, with eight of their nine classified midfielders considered either above average or average, including top-ranked ballwinners Jack Steven, David Armitage and new recruit Koby Stevens."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/m ... abca9192bf

Interesting, but they also had Pies at number one so you need to take it with a grain of salt...

[CarlD]

Grain of salt taken.

[dragit]

[To the top]

And surprise, surprise the Mighty Collingwood are top!

What a nonsense!!

And it just proves the calibre of people Murdoch panders to and relies on to buy his neo-con rubbish.

[Toy Saint]

Collingwoods midfield is actually quite good, they just have crap forward line and crap defense, that's why they're a crap side.

[To the top]

To be fair, I would take Treloar.

And they must be strong because their other prized recruit, Aish, can not get a game.

Or perhaps that is because he can not get a kick!

Aish = Templeton

Too light and no pace.

Should have stayed in the SANFL

[Zed]

To be fair, I would take Treloar.

And they must be strong because their other prized recruit, Aish, can not get a game.

Or perhaps that is because he can not get a kick!

Aish = Templeton

Too light and no pace.

Should have stayed in the SANFL

Took him a while to settle in but Aish played every game in the 2nd half of the season and got better as the year went on. Kid can play. Have a look at his decision making and ball use. He is class. Their problem is they have a crap game day coach.

[Impatient Sainter]

I reckon thats where we will finish next year between 5th to 8th - but Collingwood premiers I dont think so!

[Bluthy]

The issue with this analysis is, its looking at how players are performing in the here and now. To make predictions you really need to look at the potential clubs have in the midfield going forward ie their top picks. Where we've had the edge on Melbourne is we've already had an elite midfielder in Steven and close to one in Armo whereas they really only had Jones who is a great leader but probably only a B+ midfielder. But Melbourne have stockpiled some high pick midfielders like Petracca, Brayshaw, Oliver, Salem etc that should start to bloom over the next few years. GWS have insane high picks on their books too that will take some time to mature even though they already have high quality onballers.

We've done well to really flesh out out midfield with some good depth despite not using our very high picks on a straight out onballer. The really exciting things is the ones that are probably under the radar stats wise but are showing signs they could explode - Acres, Gresham, Steele, even Billings as a possible onballer. If we can get some genuine A-grade, even elite, out of those and land a quality big fish midfielder then I think we can be right up there with the best midfields.

[saintsRrising]

Gaining both Steele and Stevens would have added to our ranking.

Getting Gresham this year too has meant that in a 2 season period that our midfield is looking a lot better and moreso with Ross arriving form.

Our midfield is now starting to look like a solid and useful unit. If we could add another real gun to what we now have, then we start to look like a genuine Top 4 Team and contender. Moreso as we now look to have virtually ever position covered:
- Tall forwards
- Medium forward
- Tall backs
- Medium backs
- Small backs - perhaps a bit light in this category with Geary being our stand out. But he can still pay many years
- Rucks

The running hb who is a great kick would be improved if we gained an elite. But with Savage etc we are ok in this department.

Ruck/forward. It would be great if Pierce could bloom into this. However I personally am more than comfortable with Carlisle following the opposition tall forward into the ruck to give Hickey a chop out and to instead play an extra mid than a specialist ruck/forward. Or rather Roo as he will in 2018 be playing the tall wing/utility role again.


I am EXCITED about watching the Saints in 2017!

[IanRush]

Lethlean from the AFL owns Champion Data?

Grain of salt data.

[To the top]

Freeman is the "X" factor

[wally]

Aish had a very good finish to the season