Its Time for Another

Bad news. This killed most of his pre season last year and apparently hampered him throughout most of this season. I couldn't understand why they wouldn't have rested him in this dud season to make sure he was over it. Maybe rest doesn't help. Sounds like training and playing doesn't either.

I've seen billboards advertising a cure for that problem.

I would hazard to guess this also reflects game plans. Bulldogs not a high marking team so have a game plan based more around keeping control of the ball with short passes to close targets where they can retain control of the ball. Whereas to a lesser extent Tigers kick longer and we kick longer kaos balls to contests. GWS are more of short kicking team as well. Not sure it's accurate they were top 3 worst kicking teams. Stats are only ever as useful as how people choose to use them.

Swans did OK in 2012 winning a Premiership. They went out straight after it and got a biomechanics specialist purely to work on the squads kicking skills. He was using all sorts of far out methods. He was filming everything they did and each part of their kicking techniques and working on improving them. They recruited a bloke a year later who was going OK. He'd won a couple of premierships. He had a weird kicking action when he arrived where he went right out on an arc. They retrained his kicking style after he arrived. He's going OK. He's now 7th on the all time goals list and about to pass 1000. His name is Lance Franklin. In theory you're right that you might expect 18 year olds to arrive with perfect kicking skills. But that's a fantasy. At least they have finally appointed a resource to focus on kicking technique. It's awesome he's gone out there to find whatever it takes to get the improvement. Instead of being upset about it you should be wrapped the Club's doing something about it. In 2018 we were the best converters inside 50. We're not miles away. Cheer up. Look on the bright side of life. Things are being done.

The term "kill the fatted calves" comes to mind. Calves to the slaughter.

For anyone like me who is just wondering a bit about him being 171cm. Anthony McDonald Tipungwuti is also 171cm. He seems to go alright. Just in case you, like me, incorrectly thought Kozzie should be categorized as a "small" forward just because he is only 171cm. Here's an interesting quote by Jay Clark on 171cm AMT, in his article today about Brown being selected. "Essendon’s forward line is already stacked with gun mid-sized goal kickers including Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti.........."

There's no restriction anymore. They can play whenever and as often as you want them to.

Out of interest can anyone explain why we didn't pick him in the Rookie draft where we had several picks and didn't use them and then just a few days later pick him through the SSP as a rookie. On the face of it a bit strange. I thought the point of the SSP was to have players train through the whole summer so you could make a decision on them on 6 March.

Haven’t changed my favourite players on here for a few years. Just did an addition. I’m having visions of Cyril in attack and Byron in defence. Excuse me for a moment. I’ll be back in a little while.

Seriously hope you’ll still be giggling in 4 years time and we’re all very happy campers.

Nah he's coming to us not from us. Mind you Steven Armstrong got dumped by us and went to Eagles and played in the Premiership winning team in his first year there. There's a few others better left unsaid.

I wonder how the salary works in a situation like this. If he survives till the deadline on 6 March and Dees decide to take him as a rookie knowing that he might not even play in 2020 or a large part of it, wonder if there are any salary cap concessions. Like there are with players who go on the long term injury list except in this case he's coming in on the long term injury list.

Just listened to SEN for a couple of minutes. Someone on from Saints. Pretty sure it was their Head of List Manager James Gallagher, Gossige asked him if Saints had pick 3 who would they pick. He said unprompted, Jackson then mentioned Aish. Probably snakes and ladders but still that's what he said.

Haven't heard this before. Pray tell.

Big stretch to blame go home factor on the Club. Something wrong with Hawthorn and Geelong? Franklin (wasn’t even go home factor) and Kelly.

Marty's very busy. Spargo Trac Langdon Yeh, yeh I know who it is.

I assume on the basis of Saty's previous observations that this was Marty Hore at work again. Slowly working his way through the list.

The rule says "directly". I assume that means you can't trade it to a club and directly trade it back from the same club. I believe if it comes back having been through another club it would be ok.

I've only seen a handful of players who aren't natural forwards turned into effective key position forwards. There's so much that goes into the position. Knowing how to read all the play down the field, knowing where to run to on a lead coupled with the skills to have running patterns to lose key backs, then kicking and marking skills. Massive risk to take someone on for this if they don't have a background in it. I have absolutely no idea about Jackson with any of this, there's just not enough footage. It's just got gamble written all over it.

Serious question. How do you know this. There's so little footage I can't get a handle on him at all. I'd say t's not possible to get that idea without seeing him.

Buckenara rates him at 18 in his phantom draft. Seems to have gamble written all over it. Drafting for unexposed potential. Hopefully will develop into a forward, hopefully will learn to kick, hopefully will grow a few centimetres, hopefully won't go home. Hope they've done serious homework on the last point. Having watched the finals I would have said the standout trait we need is elite skill. Clearly not addressing that weakness here. Gotta trust Taylor I guess. Buckenara has Pickett at 35. Fair to say our picks would be looking very different if he was our recruiting boss.

Stats are interesting aren't they. They're only as good as how they're used. There's only been 2 ruckman picked in the top 10 since 2006. One a success, one a failure. I'd have a pretty educated guess that most ruckman are taken on as project players quite late in the draft. So that stat may not be that surprising or significant in picking Jackson if he's a freak like Nick Nat. I haven't seen or read anything that puts him in that category but Taylor and team have earnt my trust so if they pick him I will have to bare knuckled trust their judgement.

One of my concerns is lack of height, however, this chart on afl.com.au on the height of current ruckman is an interesting one. If he grows a bit more he won't be that far off the current crop. CLUB PLAYER HEIGHT Adelaide Reilly O'Brien 202cm Brisbane Stefan Martin 199cm Carlton Matthew Kreuzer 200cm Collingwood Brodie Grundy 203cm Essendon Tom Bellchambers 202cm Fremantle Rory Lobb 206cm Geelong Rhys Stanley 200cm Gold Coast Jarrod Witts 209cm GWS Giants Shane Mumford 198cm Hawthorn Ben McEvoy 200cm Melbourne Max Gawn 208cm North Melbourne Todd Goldstein 201cm Richmond Ivan Soldo 204cm St Kilda Rowan Marshall 201cm Sydney Callum Sinclair 200cm West Coast Tom Hickey 201cm Western Bulldogs Tim English 205cm

Seriously rjay who's going to read anything you write when they have to get past your avatar first. What a gatekeeper.

Primary list can be just 38. Bennell and Brown can go onto rookie list from SSD so we have 6 rookies. Healthy salary cap next year.