Midfield guns that push forward and kick goals could be crucial to your team’s premiership hopes
PATRICK Dangerfield plays forward against the stronger teams, Robbie Gray has doubled his time spent forward and come finals time, expect Dustin Martin to wreak havoc there too. Meet the dual-threat movers and shakers.
AFL News
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
THEY are the multi-threat stars who hold the key to their team’s fortunes.
In another tight season, it is the individual heroics of these midfield-forward dynamos that could prove the difference at a pressure-packed pointy end.
With only two games separating the top seven teams after 13 rounds, the Herald Sun has taken a closer look at the players who could ultimately split them.
BAROMETER: EVERY CLUB’S ROUND 13 INJURY LIST
EXPERIMENT: LIONS TRIAL POTENTIAL RULE CHANGES
CRACKDOWN: TIGERS ON ROUGH END OF PENALTY BLITZ
Dustin Martin, Patrick Dangerfield, Robbie Gray, Jordan de Goey and Luke Parker are among the match-winning ballwinners who are as damaging around the ball as they in front of goal.
For their respective coaches, they are the weapons of mass destruction but where and when they get aimed is what makes fascinating reading.
Dangerfield’s deployment is dependent on the calibre of the opponent. Against top-eight teams this year, Geelong’s Brownlow Medallist has spent 47 per cent of game time forward.
However, against the weaker bottom-10 teams, he has played only 31 per cent forward.
Dangerfield has gone from spending only 17 per cent forward in his 2016 debut year with the Cats, to 26 per cent last year and 39 per cent across all of this season.
The moustached midfielder is spending more time close to goal anyway, but clearly coach Chris Scott feels he needs Dangerfield forward more often against the best sides to generate a winning score.
Martin is spending three-quarters of his 2018 game time in the midfield. It is almost identical to the corresponding stage of last season, but like Dangerfield, he drifts inside 50m when the whips really start cracking.
In last year’s finals series Martin spent 39 per cent of time forward — up from 27 per cent in the home-and-away season — including a whopping 61 per cent in attack in the preliminary final dismantling of Greater Western Sydney.
That night, 12 of Martin’s first 16 touches led to a Tigers score.
This year, Port Adelaide scores nearly two goals more per every 100 minutes of play that Gray spends in the forward line.
From Rounds 1-8, the Power’s answer to Gary Ablett only did that for 40 per cent of games.
In the four matches since, and with Port taking its forward half game to a new level to win three of those, Gray has spent a huge 83 per cent of game time forward.
De Goey’s emergence as a potential long-term star of the competition has come after showing his qualities in both areas of the ground.
Across the season he’s spent 63 per cent of total game time forward to kick bags of six (against St Kilda) and five (Brisbane Lions).
But his eye-catching 30-disposal performance against Melbourne on Queen’s Birthday came courtesy of a game in which he spent 86 per cent in the Pies’ engine room.
Come finals time, he looms as Nathan Buckley’s answer to Martin and Dangerfield.
Watch every match of every round of the 2018 Toyota AFL Premiership Season. SIGN UP NOW >
Originally published as Midfield guns that push forward and kick goals could be crucial to your team’s premiership hopes