Cale Morton

[Maldonboy38 6,403]

I don't like bagging our own, but I have restrained myself long enough. Morton is becoming a starting 22 liability. His first touch today, from the back pocket was to direct a kick to centre-half-back (???) and kick it straight down an oppositons throat for a goal. I don't question his gut-rnning or his positioning, but his lack of marking ability and atrocious foot skills mean we end up in sight of losing games we should win. Players like Bartram and Brad Miller come to mind here. IMO he is now a liability and needs to be told so.

.

[Meggshome 0]

The Sub is supposed to have an impact. To my mind, Cale's impact was mainly to help keep the Tigers in the contest...grrr I am watching Pies v Swans what a contest. We can't afford to have too many players selected each week that value their personal safety over the good of the team (Morton, Strauss, LJ, Bennell), the Hawks, Pies and Cats have eliminated these types. If Cale really aint into it he should have a rest next week.

[Sir Why You Little 37,046]

Cale's kicking skills cannot be used in the backline ever again.

[stranga 328]

Haha, tend to agree. I have serious concerns over this bloke.

I also agree, serious concerns. Disposal terrible, decision making worse, softness even worse than that. Never seen a player plateau or go backwards as much from his first 20 games. Maybe we cut him too much slack in his first season.

[stevethemanjordan 6,952]

Surprise surprise....

Didn't see this coming at all.

[titan_uranus 25,020]

Kicking is atrocious. Running effort wasn't very good either.

The latter may have something to do with being the sub. The former has nothing to do with that.

[Mad_Melbourne 877]

positive = made an effect as the sub, he did have 8 touches, not all of them were the best, but he finds the ball amazingly!

negative = disposal can be amazing, but it can be atroscious at times as well. Annoyed me today when he was on the forward flank where he should have run hard at the ball, he jogged to it and it bounced away from him and it resulted in a goal

[jacey 333]

negative = disposal can be amazing, but it can be atroscious at times as well.

I don't think skills are a technical issue with Cale. I rate Cale's kicking as good as Colin Sylvia's.

Remember Colin Sylvia was bagged for his skills and decision making earlier in his career.

Col showed signs of skills but he did turn them over too. With consistency and more importantly confidence, Col's kicking has become reliable.

There is a lot of similarities btw young Sylvia and Cale's path in the AFL.

Col put his head down and worked hard on his game. I have faith Cale will too.

Edited June 26, 2011 by jacey

[Brayshaws' Helmet 143]

SPUD. SOFT. Doesn't run or man-up.

yeah agreed, the manning up in the last quarter was shocking... giving his man like 10 meters, once was on D.Martin at the stoppage and just sitting off him not moving. Waste of space, trade him.

We were hot and up and firing until he came on then richmond started pegging it back

[Harrisonrules 273]

Consider yourself advised. Also, I may as well pre-warn there will be some additional Morton threads appearing before the end of the season I suspect.

My issue with Morton, in particular from the weekend's game:

He's tall - and like many talls he isn't super quick over 15 mtrs, is slow to drop to boot and obviously has trouble with kicking technique (as mentioned).

Too compound this though, he isn't strong in aerial contests as you would want a tall to be.

Being that he's never going to be a KP player - he's a life midfielder right? So what is the benefit of his height as a midfielder? It's an attribute that just hampers him in honesty.

I too just can't see a place for him in the hectic contested footy that is now being played. We need to take a hard line with players like Morton, I'm sure he wouldn't be playing if we didn't have injuries.

Your observations are poor. He is one of our better long kicks. Short kicking is his suspect point. His hands are excellent. Has taken numerous contested (not necessarily pack) marks this year. Has a particularly light frame, which needs time. I guess you are another supporter who watches from home on the TV. Frankly your inability to judge is obvious and does nothing for the morale of the club.

[Little Goffy 14,579]

If he's going to be a best 22 player it is going to be as the guy who just spends all day running up and down wing giving an option. Remembering that his base fitness is as good as Scully or Jones when not screwed by injury.

He doesn't seem particularly potent as a playmaker, and the kicking lets him down, no question. But I think he would be our player most vulnerable to poor pre-season condition / injury interruption.

For Cale to be best 22 in this growing team, he needs two main things to happen -

1. Consistency and confidence in kicking and decisions. (one comes with the other so often)

2. A sustained injury-free period.

[btdemon 482]

I don't think skills are a technical issue with Cale. I rate Cale's kicking as good as Colin Sylvia's.

Remember Colin Sylvia was bagged for his skills and decision making earlier in his career.

Col showed signs of skills but he did turn them over too. With consistency and more importantly confidence, Col's kicking has become reliable.

There is a lot of similarities btw young Sylvia and Cale's path in the AFL.

Col put his head down and worked hard on his game. I have faith Cale will too.

Sylvia has fundamentally good kicking technique. Morton's is flawed.

[RalphiusMaximus 6,054]

Unbelievable.

I've just finished watching the game and I honestly don't see what everyone is complaining about. One bad kick right after he came on. That's all he did wrong. He took some good saving marks in defence, ran hard to provide an option and collected 8 disposals in just over a quarter on the ground. It wasn't a highlight-filled effort. He didn't come on and kick five goals or collect 19 disposals in a quarter a-la Scully, but he was solid and broke up several attacks that could have hurt us.

Seriously, some people on this forum need to get a hobby. They can't be happy with a good win, so they need to find a player to pick on. Now that Cam Bruce has moved on it looks like they've all decided that Morton is their patsy. Pathetic.

[Jaded No More 68,965]

Unbelievable.

I've just finished watching the game and I honestly don't see what everyone is complaining about. One bad kick right after he came on. That's all he did wrong. He took some good saving marks in defence, ran hard to provide an option and collected 8 disposals in just over a quarter on the ground. It wasn't a highlight-filled effort. He didn't come on and kick five goals or collect 19 disposals in a quarter a-la Scully, but he was solid and broke up several attacks that could have hurt us.

Seriously, some people on this forum need to get a hobby. They can't be happy with a good win, so they need to find a player to pick on. Now that Cam Bruce has moved on it looks like they've all decided that Morton is their patsy. Pathetic.

Absolutely.

Nobody, bar Petterd in Round 1, has given us anything as a sub this entire season. Bennell did less than Morton as the sub last week, and Bennell had the luxury of coming onto the ground when we were 10 goals up.

I have a lot of time for Morton, and yes he is going through a very ordinary patch. Confidence is very hard to gain and very easy to lose. I think he needs a solid pre-season and a proper role in the team that he can play in with a certain level of consistency, which I think is something he has lacked for his entire career.

The haters are clearly not coping with having so many good players on the list and nobody to hang crap on.

[Akum 2,660]

Unbelievable.

I've just finished watching the game and I honestly don't see what everyone is complaining about. One bad kick right after he came on. That's all he did wrong. He took some good saving marks in defence, ran hard to provide an option and collected 8 disposals in just over a quarter on the ground. It wasn't a highlight-filled effort. He didn't come on and kick five goals or collect 19 disposals in a quarter a-la Scully, but he was solid and broke up several attacks that could have hurt us.

Seriously, some people on this forum need to get a hobby. They can't be happy with a good win, so they need to find a player to pick on. Now that Cam Bruce has moved on it looks like they've all decided that Morton is their patsy. Pathetic.

Totally agree; I also watched the game again the afternoon. His first bad kick led to a point, not a goal. But none of his other disposals led to a goal, or initiated a piece of play by the Toigs that led to a goal. He was never the direct opponent of Martin. And he made good position on a number of occasions to give the defender with the ball an easy release. Some people see what they want to see.

It was decided to recruit him, ahead of all the alternatives, because of his strengths - his huge tank (combined with good pace after the first few strides), his uncanny ability to find space, his good aerial skills for an "outside" mid, and his ability to move the ball a long way up the ground very quickly because of a long low penetrating kick, plus the fact that he was extremely difficult to match up on. He also had weaknesses - he was an out-and-out spud with his defensive game, with contested ball, when put under pressure, with avoiding physical contact, and with his short game.

So considering we'd recruited him for his strengths, we started by letting him play to his strengths, in a similar role he did for WA in the TAC Cup when he won the best player award (I didn't know this until Dermie mentioned it last week). He got on his own a lot, racked up possessions (almost all uncontested), and looked the goods. We could have kept doing this - that would have been the option chosen by Essendon or Richmond, to name two.

But after his first season, we chose the "development" route - to stop making it easy for him and to work on improving his weaknesses and forcing him to become a more "complete" player. This meant playing him where his weaknesses would get maximum exposure, and to some extent sacrificing "output" for the sake of "development". I'd say he's improved a lot with physical contact, improved a fair bit with his defensive game and with contested situations, but he's still shaky under pressure and with his short game (his kicking action allows him to kick very well for long low kicks but will always be a problem for short kicks unless he learns to use a different action when kicking short). He's been given a lot of roles that he's not suited for, and most of the time he's worked hard to improve himself (whenever his workrate slackens, he gets dropped).

It was similar with Stef Martin. He started as a very promising tall defender, and 2009 & 2010 might have been a lot easier for him if he'd been kept there, but we had a surplus of good tall defenders. What we needed was a tall strong forward & 2nd ruck, and before 2011 it seemed to me like he was a square peg that we were trying to squeeze into a round hole. Some were even wondering whether he may be delisted. But it's all come together for Stef, for a number of reasons but a lot of it is because he's physically much better conditioned.

When the time is right, we'll decide that output takes priority over further development, and his output will be better for having had the development phase. And we'll have a potent attacking weapon who will make great position for hard-pressed defenders or outside mids and move it quickly into a forward line chock-full of both long and lead-up options and great crumbers.

[jnrmac 20,101]

Totally agree; I also watched the game again the afternoon. His first bad kick led to a point, not a goal. But none of his other disposals led to a goal, or initiated a piece of play by the Toigs that led to a goal. He was never the direct opponent of Martin. And he made good position on a number of occasions to give the defender with the ball an easy release. Some people see what they want to see.

It was decided to recruit him, ahead of all the alternatives, because of his strengths - his huge tank (combined with good pace after the first few strides), his uncanny ability to find space, his good aerial skills for an "outside" mid, and his ability to move the ball a long way up the ground very quickly because of a long low penetrating kick, plus the fact that he was extremely difficult to match up on. He also had weaknesses - he was an out-and-out spud with his defensive game, with contested ball, when put under pressure, with avoiding physical contact, and with his short game.

So considering we'd recruited him for his strengths, we started by letting him play to his strengths, in a similar role he did for WA in the TAC Cup when he won the best player award (I didn't know this until Dermie mentioned it last week). He got on his own a lot, racked up possessions (almost all uncontested), and looked the goods. We could have kept doing this - that would have been the option chosen by Essendon or Richmond, to name two.

Nice post Mrs Morton.

[Mono 455]

.......

It was decided to recruit him, ahead of all the alternatives, because of his strengths - his huge tank (combined with good pace after the first few strides), his uncanny ability to find space, his good aerial skills for an "outside" mid, and his ability to move the ball a long way up the ground very quickly because of a long low penetrating kick, plus the fact that he was extremely difficult to match up on. He also had weaknesses - he was an out-and-out spud with his defensive game, with contested ball, when put under pressure, with avoiding physical contact, and with his short game.

.......

Interesting post. And he may well work out for us. But by your own analysis, there is no way he should have been a top 10 pick.

[rpfc 28,501]

Interesting post. And he may well work out for us. But by your own analysis, there is no way he should have been a top 10 pick.

Was wondering where you were.

Good thing Morton is struggling, otherwise you'd have nothing to type about...

[H_T 3,049]

Unbelievable.

I've just finished watching the game and I honestly don't see what everyone is complaining about. One bad kick right after he came on. That's all he did wrong. He took some good saving marks in defence, ran hard to provide an option and collected 8 disposals in just over a quarter on the ground. It wasn't a highlight-filled effort. He didn't come on and kick five goals or collect 19 disposals in a quarter a-la Scully, but he was solid and broke up several attacks that could have hurt us.

Seriously, some people on this forum need to get a hobby. They can't be happy with a good win, so they need to find a player to pick on. Now that Cam Bruce has moved on it looks like they've all decided that Morton is their patsy. Pathetic.

RalphiusMaximus, my comments on Cale are in the Game Day thread.

I think he could be a victim of coming on in a game that was high intensity, high contested possession, high tackling game. It's not his strongsuit.

That said, Cale appeared indecisive at times, not in tune with the tempo, and as I said in the game day thread, appears as if he is the rabbit caught in the headlights with the ball. Instead of slagging him here are some of the things he needs to work on given today's game is more contested....to make him a more positive player: -

Improve tackling

Improve blocking/shepherding for teammates

Improve decision making

Improve contested marks/possession

Improve accountability

I think his execution is ok and his uncontested marks and uncontested possessions are ok. He is an outside tall mid that can have the benefit of outmarking some opposition. He can come undone physically and when indecisive looks well out of sorts. Cale needs to be aware that when it's time to go to meet the ball instead of letting it come to him. He needs to win more one on one's when the ball is on the ground, granted difficult when he can be pushed off the ball so easily - so he has no option but to increase his strength. He needs to work harder on his core strength as well as upper body strength to survive in today's game.

[Pata 16]

Came on and instantly had an impact, IMO...

(for Richmond)

Yeah. Came on and instantly turned the ball over.

[Guest Artie Bucco]

There's a lot of supporter ignorance when it comes to the development of Cale Morton.

Just as there was with Garland, Frawley, Jamar, Martin, Watts (any comment Hannabal?)...

Special mention to Strauss and Bennell, in my opinion.

Give him more time - he will be very good.

Edited June 27, 2011 by Artie Bucco

[Rogue 585]

There's no doubt Morton is struggling a bit this season, and I think that much of the criticism at least has some sort of valid foundation.

However, he also has strengths and while he hasn't come on as we would have hoped I'm not willing to write him off yet.

[Arrow 1,257]

he's fine with the ball Morton's issue has and always will be he's an idiot. We're squashed back in the back 50 against Collingwood and he stands in one spot waving his hands not moving expecting someone to kick it to him 70m, did the same thing twice on Saturday. If he makes a lead it would create space and an option yet stands out the back hoping for an easy kick. The bloke doesn't think. I think his disposal most of the time but especially his marking is very good, but he does not do any team things and the Joel MacDonald marking contest showed that clearly, whilst on Saturday there were instances in which it occured again. We all know he doesn't have the body to be Brent Moloney but on his salary there is no excuses for avoiding any body contact whatsoever and his stand-off attitude suggests just that.

Edited June 29, 2011 by Demon Land 7