Our Captain - down on form?

[Piesnchess]

Why not throw Moore in, or around the centre, give him a chance to free up his game, touch the leather, and hes damn fast, he sprints along like a gazelle, just free him up, maybe for one quarter, see how it goes.

[Take_a_Screamer]

I would move him to the fwd line...

Collingwood urged to drop Darcy Moore to VFL as more damning footage emerges of captain
https://au.sports.yahoo.com/collingwood ... 43432.html

'Almost at that level': Kane Cornes urges Collingwood skipper Darcy Moore to consider VFL stint
https://www.nine.com.au/sport/afl/news- ... 5jtkj.html

[Pies2016]

One thing I can guarantee is that Moore is playing under instruction from the coaches. His instruction, as part of team defence ( whether right or wrong ) is to play off his opponent. If he was asked to play alongside his opponents back shoulder, then that’s what he would do. For whatever reason, his execution of leaving his opponent and impacting the immediate contest is well off and he’s continually getting caught in no man’s land. It wasn’t a problem last year and possibly an opposition tactic is to now establish greater distance between Moore and the rest of our defenders. This makes leaving his opponent to help out a more difficult judgement call. Personally, it looks like Moore doesn’t have as much trust in his teammates as last year and he’s trying to be all things to everyone in defence and the end result is impacting his game more than others.
Probably the best solution is a lot of tactical analysis over the off season and a tweaking of the defensive structures and personnel that the opposition hasn’t seen before. I would doubt if we’re going to see much different over the next few weeks.

[lazzadesilva]

If we aren’t going to see any difference in the way Moore plays in defence, let’s be proactive and play him in the forward line. Sometimes I feel that Moore, Howe and Cox among others would be extremely hard to match up on. Also we do currently have a plethora of defenders to fill the void in the backline. Something like that has to happen and risks have to be taken now to pull this season out of the fire. We cannot wait until it’s all too late.

[The Black and White Lion]

Moore is always going to be handy playing forward. He's played a lot of games back and I'd say his best performances and best moments have been behind the ball and with the game ahead of him. I think his best game forward was an early burst of 5goals at Marvel or whatever it was called back then.

He's in a funk. Our whole defense is in a funk. We haven't been blown away so the damning footage from the world is on fire media click baiters is maybe a far way off. Our performance in the middle of games is where the game is being lost and that's on the whole team, not just our Captain.

I fear that our defense will suffer even further if we strip it of Moore given our best 6 from last year is already missing Howe (inj or fwd), Murphy (medically ret), Naicos/Pendles. Other than the first 3 rounds of tripe, I feel our team has suffered from instability the most pushing players around to fill forward holes first instead of replacing fwds with reserves. Howe, Frampton and Markov have had this to varying degrees.

At least with Kreuger fit, we've been able to lock down one KPF position consistently with effort and mixed results.

If we do decide to trial Moore out of the back 6, I think Frampton and Dean need to both play KPBs with Maynard, IQ directing traffic and some rotating HBs. If Moore does go forward he's going to have to juggle Fwd Ruck support inside 50 or round the ground with Cameron and Kreuger.

If McStay comes back this week against the Hawks, I would be surprised that Moore moves out of the defensive 50 however and he may rediscover his field kicking skills with McStay leading up to the wing and capable of a strong mark

[Pebbles Rocks]

I spoke to someone on the weekend who is a physiotherapist and knows people in the conditioning team at Collingwood. He confirmed Darcy has a foot problem that is causing him a lot of discomfort. She said he can barely put his boots on at the moment. This issue is not enough to stop him playing but it clearly hampering his movement.

[Take_a_Screamer]

^^^ so, he needs to go on the injury list and recover properly...

[Haff]

I spoke to someone on the weekend who is a physiotherapist and knows people in the conditioning team at Collingwood. He confirmed Darcy has a foot problem that is causing him a lot of discomfort. She said he can barely put his boots on at the moment. This issue is not enough to stop him playing but it clearly hampering his movement.

Heard the same for JDG. Thats two important cogs in our team under clouds. Accept that all players carry something but if you're at 80% you are not elite and we dont have the cattle to cover for you.

Should we lose on Saturday then the season is cooked. Cotton wool, book the surgery, give Freo pick 5 and we just cop a cluster %$^ of a trade and hope season 2025 we get something back for our money.

[LaurieHolden]

The trouble with posts like this is we're never privy to what else is going on behind the scenes.
He's not in 'witness protection', it simply needs more insight than posting for effect to point out the plainly obvious.
We all get it that he's down on his AA output, blind Freddy can see that.
He's clearly labouring, and I suspect it won't be until seasons end well find out what ailments (as all footballers do) he's been carrying through the season.
The subsequent comment re the physio would go a long way to explain his inability to cover the ground and get to contests.

Reality is Darcy Moore at half capacity is delivering greater output than Dean and Frampton, our only other tall options we have on the list when Howe and SSP hopeful Eyre have been injured and Murphy retired.
I look forward to seeing how the core of the old firm of Howe, IQ, Maynard, Moore interact to start to move our backline back to nameplate capacity over the next few weeks. Then we might see a version of Darcy Moore that is more consistent with what we know he can deliver albeit I don't think we'll see anything greater than 75% output this season, he's clearly playing lame.

[The Black and White Lion]

I also think Maynard's ability to play well in the face of injured shoulders the last few years has probably masked some issues. But if Moore is carrying something, it certainly hasn't been masked given his output this year.

[jonmac1954]

Part of Il Capitano's form woes is lack of a genuine big hard marking backman who can body the ' monster ' forwards. Lack of quality BIG backman limit's how much Moore can intercept and create.
We need that drive we saw in '23 that had teams nervous of entering our backline and freeing up Moore will take both the physical and mental pressure he seems to be suffering down a notch or two.