stevethemanjordan

Yes rpfc. Well done for spotting that. I was using Bate as an example of someone who seems to be given chances time and time again after poor games by poster's on here while Maric is always shot down after a single senior game. He is extremely unlucky.

Man do I feel for the guy. 31 possies yesterday and I haven't heard a single word of praise about his game. How is it that people are happy to persist with player's such as Bate, who yesterday was our worst performer. Add to that we absoulutely dominated in all areas of the game, he still had zero impact and there are people on here saying that he should retain his spot. If that was Maric, people would be asking for him to be dropped. Morton was given the easiest 50 games of AFL that anyone could ask for without having to do nearly half the work Maric does. If anyone should be given a string of AFL games to get their confidence going, it should be this guy. He uses the ball unbelievably well, (which is what the team is crying out for) is quick, and has great goal sense. Give him a run of 5 or more games in our side and let's see if he can hold his own.

So is toughness..... and kicking, handballing, marking. Or playing the game Australian Rules Football in general? All I hear with him is height and endurance! It's because that is all he has going for him at this stage!

Haha. What a hilarious thread. On the Morton issue, I still get a kick out of hearing people that say he will be a future superstar of the game. Loved the Bate one too.... The next one seems to be Jordan Gysberts. He's played how many games? haha

Are you kidding? To date, Hurley has shown a lot more than Watts and therefore won't be criticized on today's performance. The criticism Watts has received has developed because big blokes in the same draft such as Hurley have progressed a little quicker than he has. Hurley is a better player and is having more influence in games compared to Watts in 2011, but I shall hold my hope that Watts will develop into the player he was drafted to be. I'll wait a couple more years but I will say that I hope at least over next pre season, Beamer and Tapscott jump in the boxing ring with him and teach him a bit of aggression.

With you all the way Mallee. A constant worry for me is our lack of quality kickers. It would be interesting to see how many on this forum have played the game at a reasonably high level cause I am certain that there are guys in my side who can kick a 15 meter pass to a player on the lead 9 times out of 10 with litle to no pressure. It baffles me how many times we turn the ball over from simple kicking errors. This is AFL for christs sake. We beat a bunch of 18 year olds by 90 points which should be expected. They had Ablett and Brown out and they beat us by a point in the third quarter. If you don't share some concern in the way our team is playing and how inconsistent we have been in the first four games, someone needs to explain the game to you again. So far, we have shown no definite signs of improvement upon last year. Why? How is it that Essendon have improved so dramatically? West Coast? All I want to see is us playing well and being much more competitive throughout four quarters. We have served up some absolute rubbish so far this season and everyone has a right to voice their concerns, no matter how ridiculous you may think it is. I'm certainly not calling for Bailey's head or for certain players to be delisted. That would be extreme. I want to see an aggressive flair to our side just like Essendon. It shouldn't take a new coach to inspire that kind of play. We have a lack of aggression and a lack of quality kickerr/decision makers in our team. We must put in a strong performance against West Coast, or else there will be a good and proper uproar on here.

Having poor agility, turning speed and athleticism in today's game already puts you on the back foot. One may have been able to get away with that some years ago but not now. It means you either have to be a gorilla forward or back KPP, but when you can barely mark the ball out in front, you're in trouble. He is no Brown, Hall or Fev. So where does he fit? It doesn't look good for Matty. Have said it all along.. The guy just isn't a 2011 AFL footballer.

Old, I am not laughing because I think he won't make it. I am laughing because I am still so surprised and shocked that people rate him as highly as they do and have him penciled in as a 'star' of the comp. I still can't work it out. Apart from endurance, he hasn't exactly got a strength to his game that the team can rely on. It will be interesting to see what becomes of him.

And the whole break out season business.... You could say that about many players in our side. "They just need a break out season and they will be a star." People need to forget draft numbers. The AFL is another world.

Why? Because he hasn't even cemented a place in our best 22. He has simply been picked because of his draf number and 'potential'. I have seen nothing that makes me think he could be a star. Yes he was picked at number 4 in the draft which says what? He was rated as a junior. Is tall, has an engine... That's about all he has shown isn't it? Everything else is at about an average standard with some traits below average. (contested ball winning ability) "just overall in skill, ability, match winning ability and proven track record:" ^ The above sentence were the measurements. Cale Morton has to this day shown a pass in skill, match winning ability is zero and proven track record is a pass if that. As for his 'ability'. Who knows? Definitely not in the top 10 most important players if we are going by the measurements of the OP.

Lolz at people that have Morton included...

Oh....my.....a-god.

I'm with you both but just wanted to add a one more thing. Player's attributes. Every player is drafted according to their natural attributes and teams decide which attributes they would like most to improve their side. Some players have more strings to their bow but are not particularly strong at a concentrated group of attributes. Other's are strong at a concentrated group and other's are remarkable at one or two. Tall KPP's with a natural hunger for contested ball, (see ball get ball attitude) are always going to stand out in their first few years of AFL football compared to a silky skilled, highly agile and quick player who has never had a natural hunger for the contested ball. Hurley has shown that this is clearly one of his major strengths/attributes. He is an aggressive player who naturally demands the ball and loves to get in and amongst the thick of it. Watts on the other hand, hasn't shown that this is one of his strengths/attributes but that is not AT ALL to say that he can't or won't improve in this area. Watts' to this stage has shown that his strengths are his agility, speed, ball handling, vision and kicking skills. If we were to compare Watts and Hurley at this stage (which for some reason people are doing), we would probably find that Hurley would be the better and stronger in one on one contests. But Watts would pants him in a kicking to leads contest, foot race, agility test and arguably a goal kicking test. With every game Watts plays and with every 'kg' he puts on he will become more and more confident,aggressive and hungry for the contested ball. I have no doubt he will get there. If you see him in huddles/listening to instructions during matches he is always nodding his head and is concentrating intensely. The kid wants learn and get the best out of himself. Please can we put this to bed for at least 3 more years. If he has not improved at that point in time and Hurley is winning brownlows and colemans left right and centre, please feel free to shoot me down.

Banking on Martin to stop a player like Goodes is asking too much and not worth the risk. Don't mind the idea of giving Dunn the shut-down role all day. Don't know if he has the engine and I also think he adds another dimension to our forward line. He takes a tall defender away as he is around 192 cm. Takes pressure off Watts and Jurrah. If I were Bailey I would be giving Grimes first crack if he plays forward and when he rotates through the middle I would assign the job to Sylvia. Grimes is rarely beaten in the air and has good pace. Sylvia has the strength and size to match it in one on one contests with Goodes and it might help Col too. Testing himself against Goodes would be great for him. My two cents. Round 1 can't come soon enough. Carn the dee's.

And this is rubbish coming from someone who is living in the past? Have a look at what kind of a team we were when he had those two top 4 finishes rpfc. Recent form suggests Dunn is ahead of Bate. Nothing wrong with supporters rating Dunn ahead of Bate. It's a progressive game. Bate is too one dimensional for 2011 AFL football. Would have been better suited to the late 80's - 90's.

Nice to get some other opinions. For me, I battle to understand whether it's a- Not enough elite kickers in our side (backline especially) Drafting problem? b- A player not being able to make the right decision under pressure, resulting in a rushed kick which misses the target. c- Bailey nailing "switch at all costs" into the backline which means they won't even look elsewhere to see whether or not there is a better option. A kick to 'our' advantage. kickout strategy problem? e- A combination of a couple or all of the above? What I feel is imperative in any case is to have a player with a sound kick and a great decision maker under pressure. This is definitely not Garland. He doesn't have a good enough strike rate when kicking out of the backline and when defenders press up and put pressure on him and the team, he seems to crumble and miss a short target or bomb long aimlessly. To me, Grimes has a better footy brain and is a smarter user of the footy. Sometimes he just gets his execution wrong. So for me he is one option to persist with. (I know him and Garland are used, but Garland is given more time kicking out). Strauss is another candidate. He was drafted for his kicking ability. It's nab cup. Why the bleep aren't we giving him a shot at kicking out?! If there is nothing long to go to, he can go short. And I feel so much more comfortable with him kicking that short one out of the square compared to Garland. So Grimes and Strauss get the nod over Garland (and any other backman) for me, but the one who I believe should be doing the kicking out 70-80 % of the time is Aaron Davey. Yes, I know he has been training with the forwards this year but let's just look at the pro's of him kicking out... * Strike rate? From the square, when he has a bit of time, he would hit targets more often and at greater pace. I see that he gets cutesy sometimes when he has little space to work with and tries to hit ridiculous targets from the smallest of spaces. But give him some space and he won't let you down. * Tag anyone? If he is being tagged heavily, (and I'm sure he will be at times this year) it will take away the concentration of the tagger. He will either be trying to zone to fill holes, or be fixated on Davey's every move. Either way, Davey has a bit of time and space after the kickout to make position up field and get back into the play. * If Davey or Grimes/Strauss kick out it means we have another tall, strong marking defender (Garland) to kick to if we opt to go for that long kickout. I really don't see how the negatives outweigh the positives on this one? The only reasonable explanation is that Bailey wants to play Davey forward which will be useless to the team when the ball is locked in our backline. If he is further up the field when the kickout occurs, her will be tagged and pretty ineffective anyway. He is not an extractor of the ball. He is a give to player with an unbelievably creative and effective kick when given space. Kicking out gives him that space and saves the whole team that 'tug of war' game we seem to have when we kickout. I won't even get started on our defensive zone when the opposition kickout... Oyoyoy...

Cheers Dappa. Would like to hear your opinion too however!

Hi all, Haven't posted for a while but have been keeping a keen eye on the topics here. (Scully one is hilarious). Anyway, forgive me for starting a new topic on this subject but I wanted to focus on our kick-out strategy and also our defensive zone, and hopefully get some idea of what you all think on the matter. Last night I was unable to watch the entire game, but from what I saw,(and even from the first game up in Adelaide) I feel we have some concerning issues with our backline. Hear me out all you anti-constructive criticism posters. Of course it's still NAB cup and I am not fretting just yet but I will say this. I can honestly not remember the last time I felt confident about moving the ball from defense to attack. I'm not entirely sure about what strategy Bailey is trying to implement from the kick outs but it is definitely our biggest weakness and something that I think will determine the outcome of many games this year. Garland is great. Agile, quick, can mark, pretty good one on one but jesus he either has terrible footy smarts when it comes to kicking and he isn't the best kick. Last night there was a passage of play where we were kicking from defense and Jones kicked it to Garland who marked it on Essendon's 50 close to the boundary. I'm not sure what was up-field but he definitely did not even glance forward. He immediately looked to switch, kicked into traffic and missed his target which resulted in an Essendon goal. I understand this is one example but too many times I noticed that we were ALWAYS looking to switch and it was rarely an effective one. When it was, we were about 60/70% chance of hitting our target which is a major concern. Essendon's defensive pressure didn't help of course. Which leads me to my next point. Where the F*@k was ours? I certainly wouldn't say their defenders are any more skillful at kicking than ours so I want to know how it was so easy for them to break our forward zone?! It was terrible. Two areas that we need to fix before we even begin to challenge for and in finals. I'm sorry if this has come across as a rant more than anything else. I am excited and confident about the year ahead but this is something that worries me. It has been like this for too long. Thinking about Garland, Warnock, J Mac and Bartram kicking from defense makes me shudder. Grimes, Strauss, Bail Frawley get a pass. Davey should kick out. Bennell ain't a backman.

Thanks Harcourt. Hearing about Jim and the fact that he has put on kg's and is feeling great really does change my perspective on the whole Scully debate. So insignificant when you think about it. Hope he stays nonetheless. Keep fighting Jimma. We're all with you. Go dees.

Many thanks DHQ, God damn new balance! Seriously...

At work, anything to report? How is the big guy? Spirits up? Mention of Scully?

Jordy tore his hammy 2 weeks ago. The man himself told me. Not the worst grade which is good.

Never heard a better post. Supporters are sometimes very biased and we all know that this forum is full of 'em ! St Kilda are the perfect reminder. Having a list full of high draft picks is great but will only get a team so far and as Grandson has pointed out, we don't even know which of them will reach their full potential and which of them won't. Add injuries to that and you are back at square one. Emphasis should not only be enforced on the playing list, but the whole club and everyone involved and I feel that we are slowly seeing a 'shift' with the MFC. As long as we continue to slowly build on this foundation, with a bit of luck I reckon our chance will come.

You're killing me JCB . You're killing me... C'mon man!

HT's call was fair enough also and that's why I had my say. I understand why Grimes has been labelled with the term "leader". I am simply saying that leadership possesses many attributes and not always and only the most obvious ones. Bruce is an example. I don't think he was a leader 'on field' as such or in the way that he played. But we all know he was one of the most professional trainers and his preparation was extremely professional also.