Jake Lever has been very good for a long time. Clearly highly respected within the footy club. Yes he was poor v Saints. He had lost some pace and agility. Injuries do take away from natural ability. The modern game needs quicker agile 3rd intercepting defenders like our Turner, & others like Idun, Battle, Ryan)

3 minutes ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Jake Lever has been very good for a long time. Clearly highly respected within the footy club. Yes he was poor v Saints. He had lost some pace and agility. Injuries do take away from natural ability. The modern game needs quicker agile 3rd intercepting defenders like our Turner, & others like Idun, Battle, Ryan)

The role he plays requires agility. If he was a key back playing on Gorillas- he might be okay. But he has no chance on agile forwards, which the 3rd tall generally is.. I would say that Blake Howes is a better 3rd tall option. He panics, similar to Lever, but has a much better athletic profile.

I would like to see Howes, Kentfield or Adam’s play after the bye, along with Sestan.

2 hours ago, Roost it far said:

He played a half at Casey and had 17 disposals. Hard to find form in a comp where our last 2 matches have been against suburban hacks. The VFL comp needs serious attention.

100%! The AFL need to invest in a proper secondary competition and urgently.

The VFL can still exist, but it should just be for local Vic clubs.

They need to start by creating the AFL reserves and have only affiliated clubs competing and give the option for SA and WA teams to join if they like.

The reserves listed players who aren't on AFL lists should also be paid well enough that the incentive is for all the top players will play in this comp as opposed to rural or local comps.

4 hours ago, Bay Riffin said:

people do get the level of the AFL and the difficulty coming back from injury yeah ? again and again supporters question players coming back from a long injury lay off expecting them to play at their peak.

Good clubs would make him blow out his cobwebs at Casey, not drop a player who's arguably having an AA year to bring in a higher profile player who needs to find form....

We make some dumb decisions at selection

53 minutes ago, SPC said:

I would like to see Howes, Kentfield or Adam’s play after the bye, along with Sestan.

Not much logic in this statement. Howes is playing good consistent footy & should be in the seniors. Adams has done enough to warrant a debut.

Kentfield has shown a few glimpses that he may eventually make it but is miles away from playing seniors.

Sestan is well ahead of both of them.

2 hours ago, Roost it far said:

He played a half at Casey and had 17 disposals. Hard to find form in a comp where our last 2 matches have been against suburban hacks. The VFL comp needs serious attention.

No it doesn’t matter what the team Casey plays it is for reorientation of form and confidence not to avoid playing champs or worrying how it might affect them.

Goody has some traits that he has not learned from over his time and his stubbornness never ceases to amaze me.

Not only is he slow to understand things like this, the sub rule plus making moves that enable the move to be a success with enough time.

We trailed all day yesterday and to wait to give Laurie a go till 3.4 time was not great timing. Should have been at least halfway through third quarter IMO. I know we had the opportunities all the time but it was not succeeding and better to have tried and lost than tried too late.

Not all moves succeed but you need to give them some time to be the magic you hope. Our Subs are made to feel unwanted and very much unloved IMO and JJ Bedford Sharp now and the ridiculous one Langford are all examples. Worst of course was the Semi vs Carlton!!

I am liking the changes however in our plan and the emphasis on more speed and team play plus handball and other team changes and opportunities that have worked.

We are actually a work in progress really but yesterday was very disappointing and very disturbing regarding our ability to solve problems on the run. We had all day and threatened but our skills failed us again under pressure. We need a real examination of why this happens. Is it ability or are some habits going to die too old for us to change?

Some Saints that played well were some that I feel we didn’t know much about or like Butler who once I saw his name thought he was a danger. Why would Salem or Bowey not be able to to defend or watch him if assigned to? His four goals are really the difference plus Keeler and Halls goals.

We could not produce goals from anyone really both old and new failed to hit the scoreboard for reasons that when we lose are far too consistent and alarming. Same Same is insanity and some how needs to change in our DNA or it will go on haunting this new group like the last 3 years have produced.

I hope that I am not overreacting but alarm bells ring after yesterday that old habits are very hard to eradicate and a new age is not yet in place. Goody has said this but these are learnings and we are not that good at that perhaps.

Let’s see what happens next Monday as we need this game for 4 points because we surrendered to a lesser team those yesterday.

Goodwins habit of bringing back underdone players from long lay-offs fails every time.

If we can stop the ball coming into our backline as quickly as Gout Gout with an illegal tailwind then Jake will be fine.

Needs to reinvent himself a bit. He perfected his role in 2021, there was a brilliant article written on this back then and I will share if I cna find it.

But with the way we're looking to play I'm not sure if the 3rd man in floater is going to be as prevalent and if it is then you probably need to hold your own in 1v1s. He needs someone taking the first and second key forward to be effective and the burning example of this came in that 2021 KB game in Sydney when Petty went off. With Letty returning to the forward line I don't see anything that could be different.

I hope he can get back to something good.

Edit: Article mentioned not active anymore, you'll have to stick it in the wayback machine

https://footytalkingpoints.com.au/2021/08/17/the-intercept-king/

Edited June 2Jun 2 by layzie