New duo to give Dees run
Midfield power play
MELBOURNE’S plan to turbocharge its midfield’s running power in the trade period will ultimately deliver its star onballers more rest time next season.
The Demons acquired two of the best endurance runners in the game when they picked up bargain duo Ed Langdon and Adam Tomlinson, from Fremantle and Greater Western Sydney respectively.
It filled a void for the Demons, who last season flipped as many as 15 players through the wing position in a bid to provide better defensive cover and outside run.
Langdon, 23, and Tomlinson, 26, are expected to slot straight into the outside midfield spots to provide a better balance and more outside class.
The bonus is that the gutrunning pair, who usually only go to the bench once or twice a quarter, will give their teammates more opportunities to rotate and catch a breather.
Tomlinson averaged 85.3 per cent playing time in 2019, while Langdon was up at 86.1 per cent. They both topped Hawthorn’s Tom Scully (84.1 per cent), who is considered the best midfield runner in the game.
Langdon and Tomlinson’s tanks will mean ball-winners Clayton Oliver, Angus Brayshaw, Jack Viney and Christian Petracca will be allowed to soak up more minutes of rest time swapping in and out of the engine room.
Next year, the Demons want their clearance winners to maximise their time on the field and take advantage of the dominance around the ball.
Melbourne football manager Josh Mahoney said the trade acquisitions would give the Demons a more complete midfield brigade.
“It’s been an area of the ground we’ve wanted to fill for a little while now — our outside run,” Mahoney said.
“And now we’ve got two locks that can play on the wing, and are really going to add some flexibility in our midfield and some variety of what we can do in there.”
The Dees, on the back of a miserable year finishing second last on the ladder, have an excellent position in next month’s draft with two top-10 selections.
Max Gawn is in line to spend more time up forward next season as Tomlinson can play in the ruck.
Improving players’ fitness is one of the club’s priorities under new strength and conditioning boss Darren Burgess this summer.
“This is going to be a really important pre-season for us,” Mahoney said.
“Last year we had a short one, a lot of guys had operations and certainly that played out in the season that we had.
“They are already working on some programs that Darren Burgess has set and they will be back on in mid-November and definitely training hard.” NEW Zealand is dreaming of a new era of netball dominance over Australia after securing a drought-breaking win on Australian soil.
The Silver Ferns overcame a six-goal deficit to snatch a 54-53 win over the Diamonds in Sydney yesterday, taking a 2-1 lead in the four-match Constellation Cup series.
Sparked by veterans Laura Langman and Maria Folau, New Zealand stunned the crowd of 13,497 at Qudos Bank Arena as they held their nerve better in the frantic closing stages.
Australian-born Ameliaranne Ekenasio made the winning shot with 20 seconds remaining after both teams made errors in a pressure-packed final five minutes.
“The last two minutes was sheer determination and grit,” Ferns’ coach Noeline Taurua said.
It was New Zealand’s first Test win over the Diamonds in Australia in three years and it came after the Silver Ferns beat their trans-Tasman rivals in the World Cup final in England earlier this year.
The Silver Ferns can clinch just their second Constellation Cup series win in 10 attempts and their first in seven years if they win the final match in Perth next Sunday.
However, a win by any margin will be enough for Australia to retain the Constellation Cup on percentage as their two losses were by a combined two goals while they won game two in Auckland by six.
“It would be massive and it’s an opportunity for us after the World Cup,” player of the match Langman said.
“We really do want to send this newage Ferns into the future and have a little bit of dominance in our side.”
Yesterday’s loss was another heartbreaker for the Diamonds after one-goal defeats in the Commonwealth Games and World Cup finals as well as the opening match of their current series.
“We had our opportunities in the second quarter to really push on and we didn’t and that shows the character of the Silver Ferns and the rivalry of the two teams,” Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander said.
“They are still using their patient ball really, really smartly at the right times and we’re still not able to get ball back in that situation.”