stevethemanjordan

Interesting you say that yet you remain so confident Oscar will develop into a great key defender.... Oscar is the least mobile and slowest key defender we have. Hardly conducive to a zone defence.

Here's a highlights package from last year (his second year): In this video he makes spoils and marks against players including Brown (North), Bruce, Mason Wood (destroyed us), Lobbe and takes one between Dangerfield and Hawkins. Who the fark do we have that can do this apart from T-Mac at his best which isn't that often these days? This bloke was performing these acts in his second year! His second year! Look at the bloke's strengths. He has a highlights package like that in his second year. We have no key defender that even comes close to being able to perform in all the areas he does. He possesses midfielder attributes as well as sound key defensive ones. He is so unbelievably rare it's offensive some of our own supporters don't appreciate players like Lever enough. The 'who's going to mind player X' talk is generally a furphy. Yeh there are always preferable matchups, but there are so many other variables that come into play. If you look at all the best teams, their entire unit works in tandem to mitigate an opposition attack but obviously the better, more talented and more versatile your key defenders are, the better chance you're going to have at stopping a key forward. If we land him, it'll be a godsend. Bribanes two young defenders even showed how good they're going to be in few years time. They have similarly well-rounded games with only a few weaknesses. Melbourne supporters overate Oscar and Frost enormously.

Bring him home boys. 2020 leadership group of: Viney, Lever, Petracca, Brayshaw, Gawn and Hogan. Best in the business.

He'd only be a 50/50 chance of connecting properly though.

Case in point: Oscar spoil goes over the back and straight to a Brisbane player. He rarely spoils with conviction and I hardly see him get a full fist on it at all.

You're a funny poster. I'm not sure how many times you need reminding of how the term 'whipping boy' comes about. But I'll remind you, again. Players who generally make many errors are the ones who get stuck with the name. So the reason why Oscar, Frost, Tyson and Watts are highlighted so regularly on demonland is because of the frequency and type of errors they make vs the positive pieces of play they're involved in. Yeh, all players make errors/mistakes, I don't need reminding. You've pointed out Lever's on Friday night. But the reason he is not a 'whipping boy' is because of the sheer volume of positive play he creates or is involved in. A small example of one attribute being the way he kills a contest with his spoiling. Not just getting a hand on the ball which allows a spill. Genuinely killing a ball so that there's a reset in play. Lever displays this skill at a level that is completely incomparable to Oscar's. The way he spoils compared to Oscar is like chalk and cheese. There is spoiling then there is killing a contest. Lever almost always kills a contest when attempting a spoil. Compare that to Oscar who is 50/50 at best to even get a spoil in, let alone kill a contest. That is one example of many I could give you in regards to the two players. Marking, awareness, composure, speed, ball use, aggression. You can't compare them as players because Lever is so far ahead of Oscar in all of those areas in the game. The goal/scoring saving moments that Lever makes are out of this world. Therefore, a few mistakes from him isn't going to get the same reaction given the level he plays at for the majority of the game. All great players who make mistakes cop far less for it because of their ability to win contests they shouldn't, create scoring chains from nothing, save what would otherwise be certain goals and the list goes on and on. Why so hard to understand?

Hope Oscar is watching Lever tonight. He's giving a masterclass in effective spoiling. Take note.

Pffffftt. No. I love Oscar, I don't know what you're talking about.

* Two of those...

Good is generous. I am stubborn. But Oscar is definitely not a good player yet. He is a developing one who is still really inconsistent during games.

Can see that happening. I like it. Maybe Carlton can be lured by more ex-GWS players in any of Tyson, Bugg or Frost + a pick.

Clearly we need Lever. Frost and O-Mac in tandem are as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.

I can't understand these sorts of statements. If he were a Melbourne player would you think otherwise? What were you thinking Viney or Hogan would become after their first years? What about Selwood after his first year? There's generally a reason football media people, team-mates, past players etc predict these things early on. Lever is the full package. Personality traits, football ability, physical attributes. He possesses all the building blocks to become the player he is predicted to become. Just like those others I've mentioned. And the reason you pay overs sometimes is to land someone of that quality. Keep in mind he was pick 14 in his draft year. A year in which he didn't play a single game because of a knee reco. He was a talked as a potential number 1 pick before he did his knee. In an injury interrupted second year of football, he will potentially make the 40 man AA squad as a key defender. I'd say that's a fairly good indication that with a full pre-season and injury free season he will be an AA defender soon enough.

Agree with JTR. Gone are the days where you draft a Mal Michael-sized full back. The game requires more from key position players now and big guys are more and more agile, athletic and fast. So the same needs to be said for key defenders. They need versatility. And Lever has that in spades. Watch highlights of him on YouTube and you'll see how good he is. If anything, Oscar will be closer to the "gorilla" type that posters seem to long for. He just needs to continue to put weight on to match it physically with the big guys. Getting Lever will also relieve Oscar from having to do things that he can't which clearly he is having to try and do at the moment. Lever would solve so many problems. I don't even know where to begin.

^ It hasn't been posted yet, because it's got nothing to do with the subject of this thread..

No, she's also from Melbourne and is part of the reason he is weighing up a move back south.

Thanks Goody.

Watching them in action is probably the best evidence.

http://m.afl.com.au/news/2017-08-02/all-silent-on-leverdemons-trade-speculation Already my new fav MFC player

That doesn't mean Lynch was always going to stay at the Crows but you also haven't provided any evidence to show that Lynch met with any other clubs. You are recalling that we were "a long way down the track with him". Please share the evidence. It's funny that you list Hogan as elite and a player who'd command that sort of coin but not Lever. To say that he has "potential" only at this stage means one of two things: Either you are the typical demonlander who doesn't really take notice of other players and who exaggerates our own talent pool or you just don't know a good footballer from a bad one. Let me put it this way. If posters on demonland believe that Oscar has the potential to be one of the best Full Backs in the game, then Lever is going to go down as the greatest defender to have ever played the game and will be made immortal. Lever is the best young defender in the league without question and to suggest he only shows potential is [censored] crazy.

I don't interpret it that way. Meeting with an opposing club's officials and players as leverage to get a better deal with your current club seems a bit extreme. You can do that by simply holding off signing until you're satisfied with an offer from your current club. Clearly he is considering a move if what's reported is true. And if it happens, i'll be in heaven.

It's not Sat-man, look at the positives in life. Relax. As for your footy IQ comment, I agree that you'd expect those youngsters to improve in that regard. But by how much? Not all players are blessed with that attribute as a natural ability so I think it's foolish to expect that they'll reach any great heights in that aspect of the game. Generally, high footy IQ is something players possess before they come into the system. Yeh you'd expect Frost, Oscar and Jayden to make less errors during games the more experience they gain. But they'll never be high IQ footballers.

A perfect example of our lack of footy IQ in our defence is clearly seen within the last 40 seconds of the match. Hunt goes in one-hundred miles an hour for a ground ball in the middle only to be beaten to it by Gibson. Hunt both misses the ball and then more importantly the tackle. Low footy IQ move at that time of the game. Then have a look at the next play and where the ball ends up. We have Oscar zoning what? Absolutely nothing. He has zero awareness that Cunnington has crept forward and ends up taking an uncontested mark. The entire idea of zoning is to eat-up the space so that uncontested marking options aren't so easily identifiable. Oscar is standing way too close to Jetta when this play unfolds and is just generally clueless about how much space he has left on his right side. Jetta, Salem and Hibberd are our only high IQ defenders. Hunt has some great attributes but isn't a composed footballer. Oscar and Frost do things that are unfathomable. Therein lies the problem. Solid defence and zonal pressure comes from high IQ footballers.

The problem is absolutely simple. We are playing two under-developed, under-performing and inexperienced key defenders in Frost and Oscar for two reasons: 1 - Injuries this year. Our best and most experienced key defender has been playing forward for the obvious reasons and another senior defender in Colin Garland was hit by a season-ending knee injury in pre-season which hasn't helped in regards to players needing to perform at their best to retain their position. In this case, our key defenders. 2 - The footy department took an enormous gamble over the off-season in my eyes, in both not providing a like-for-like replacement for Lynden Dunn and not providing enough cover for injuries. I called for us to bring in a mature-aged key defender to provide stability, depth and room for both Oscar and Frost to develop at VFL level. Whilst I complain about Oscar's form, I can see quite obviously that it's the football department to blame for the predicament that we're in. And it frustrates me to no end. I've said it numerous times but it's completely circumstantial that Oscar and Frost are playing AFL football weekly at the moment. No other team with key defender depth and quality would be playing them as regularly as we are. It was a mistake that falls at the feet of the FD and clearly they know it given we're chasing Lever hard. A player who is the same age and games experience as Oscar. Oscar and Frost might well become AFL standard key defenders although I have my doubts. They're missing way too many key ingredients presently and it's my view that with every game we go in to carrying both of them, the risk of us conceding easy goals is increased.

Agree whole-heartedly but your observations will be falling upon deaf ears. The 'improvement levels' of Frost and Oscar are both hugely exaggerated on this forum. I saw a first gamer today play for Adelaide who showed greater attribute diversity in his first game than Oscar has in his latest. Speed, intensity, decision making, spoiling ability. Oscar and Frost are both just really average and limited players presently. And that's really all I care about. Clearly we need better quality and experienced key posts if we're to take another step.