Cloke chasing contract extension (poll added)

[mike123]

We don't kick long to him anyway. We play a style that doesn't suit him. We would be a better team with someone else there when kicking for goal.

WTF are you talking about?

 

[sirlothie]

Only 7? That's actually quite a significant number. He also played one more game then Cloke. If the both played full years Cloke would have kicked 11 more goals. You can't really say White got close.

And also that's not taking into account all the limp efforts White puts when he allows his defender to intercept mark.



Hopefully next year we don't target him at all.



They're not excuses, they're reasons.

And you haven't disputed those reasons.

He had 3 others kick more than 25 this year, you can't say he's got noone. Josh Kennedy kicked 80 and the next best tall there kicked 26.

Cloke is paid absolute top dollar so he needs to find some new tricks rather than crawl into a hole if conditions don't suit him. He needs to make a contribution week in, week out not just when we are belting bottom sides.

Pendlebury gets tagged, he finds a way around it. Cloke kicked 3 goals from Round 13 onwards, are you telling me that's good enough?

 

[THATSGOLD]

WTF are you talking about?

He won't be around when we go for our next flag. He'll be quinten Lynch by then.

 

[PicaBoo]

Only 7? That's actually quite a significant number. He also played one more game then Cloke. If the both played full years Cloke would have kicked 11 more goals. You can't really say White got close.

And also that's not taking into account all the limp efforts White puts when he allows his defender to intercept mark.

Hopefully next year we don't target him at all.

They're not excuses, they're reasons.

And you haven't disputed those reasons.

Reasons are that Cloke is a key forward, White isn't. Like it or not, Cloke's KPI is primarily scoring goals. Let's start moving some ruck work to Cloke as well and then we can compare.
You do complain about the delivery to Cloke but apparently when it suits bagging White, it is spot on?
Against Carlton, Cloke scored 1-4 . There were a few where Cloke's radar is off, just not the Hawthorn game. Luckily it was on against Melbourne.

 

[Royal Flash]

Sam Fisher skinny?

Tom McDonald was in AA form till Cloke tore him a new one, and Lynden Dunn is pretty experienced.

And your Richmond example doesn't add up, they have Rance one of the best one on one defenders in the game.

The Geelong game was lost when Bucks decided to line up Jack Frost on Tom Hawkins.

And when Tarrant left we still had Rocca and Cloke was developing, our key forward stocks were fine then. We have Cloke and White? Don't get me started on him. Moore? Not ready to be on his own yet.

But again Melbourne and St Kilda are perennial cellar dwellers kicking bags against them isn't anything to write home about, certainly not last year anyway. Rance didn't start on Cloke last year either. 2nd gamer Todd Elton lined up on Cloke and predictably got towelled up before Rance moved onto him and curbed his impact significantly.

The Frost-Hawkins match up was a blue absolutely but when we had all the momentum in the last and we had a shot in front to bring the margin to under 3 goals, who missed the easy shot and basically killed our comeback stone dead? You know who.

After this season Moore will be as experienced as Cloke was when Tarrant left. White is big and will still take a key defender and we have some quality smalls much as we did in 2007-8 to take the pressure off Moore. It isn't ideal but if Cloke keeps underperforming I can't see the justification for retaining him after 3 dud years on huge money.

In the Freo, Luke McPharlin has a good record on Cloke and Freo are a very good defensive team. The Hawthorn game Cloke had an inaccurate night, he has one games every year unfortunately it was this one. But I said before, he created those opportunities in the first place by ragdolling Brian Lake (not a skinny defender) so we wouldn't have been better off without him.

Freo are a good defensive side and McPharlin does have a good record against him but that's my point. Cloke simply doesn't contribute enough for us against good opposition as 8 goals in 8 matches against top 8 sides attests to. He played well against Hawthorn granted, but at the end of the day he missed too many easy shots (which I reckon he does more than once a year too) and we didn't get the win. As Lake said to Cloke after another miss "you're making me look good".

It was pissing down rain, not a key forwards night. The needed him the most doesn't apply, its our inside mids that we need to step up. Unfortunately they were switched off for the first quarter and De Goey was the sub for some reason.

This is bullshit, sorry. It was wet, so what? It was wet for every player. Fair enough it wasn't a game conducive to marking and goal kicking but Cloke had no impact whatsoever in a physical and team sense. He did nothing. When we needed someone to provide an inspirational bit of team play ie a great chase, hard tackle big bump he simply did not do it. He was an irrelevancy and as our supposed "marquee" forward it simply isn't good enough. Blaming the midfield is a cop out.

Why do you think people moan about delivery?

Have you ever thought maybe it was because our delivery is s**t to him.

What do you expect Cloke do to when the ball is constantly dropping short of him, kicked over his head or bombed to him when his got three defenders on him?

No forward delivery (even Hawthorns) is 100% accurate. If he gets bad delivery I expect Trav to keep leading, keep working until he starts getting results. If he starts leading to smarter spots (a frequent knock on his game) works for front spot as he did in 2011-13 then he'll start getting more opportunities no matter how bad our mids kick. Stopping presenting and resorting to wrestling with 3 opponents in the goal square clearly doesn't work but it's the trap he (and the team bombing it to him) keep falling into and as a result our forward line is ineffective. Not all Trav's fault and the coaching and mids need to take responsibility too, but imo as the number 1 forward the onus is on him.

Do you have any suggestions? I see allot of posters saying this but don't actually offer say what he should do.

See above. Trav isn't very good below his knees and is a marking forward purely but he's either forgotten or is neglecting his best assets. He simply isn't getting himself in the best positions to mark as often anymore. He seems to have fallen in love with tests of strength with defenders when he was always far more effective running straight and jumping at contests from front position. He is nigh on unstoppable when doing this but whether through game plan or physical limitations he doesn't do it enough anymore and it's costing him and us. That's just my $0.02 worth as a laymen but really Cloke should be the one to solve the issue of his diminishing returns and on exposed form from the past two seasons little has changed in the way he has approached his game.

As I explained before, he can out muscle real opponents.

If he's not out muscling them, he's on his bike taking marks up the field averaged 6.6 and in the so called three games we needed him most he averaged 7.

6.6 marks per game is nothing special especially for someone his size working up the field especially compared to previous years. His work rate has always been great but I simply don't think him taking marks on the wing is what we need him for anymore. We need more forward impact from him and I don't think our number one forward kicking mid 30's is anywhere near a decent return on what the club is paying him for and that needs to change or we should probably look at parting ways come the end of the year if that change doesn't occur.

 

[left at home]

Why is it only Travis Cloke who has this problem of being caught with 2 or 3 on him all game, you never hear any of the other big name forwards having this happen all the time.

If you want to take the big contract you have to stand up in big games. You can't have an 800-900k player deliver nothing in half the games he plays.

1st part- most of those big named players have another partner in crime to take the load off them, who go to dangerous
spaces. since dawes left who has done that that for cloke, most games its cloke or nothing. most forwards lines have a lot more
than one or two forwards to be successful that's why we have struggled. every one talks about Hawthorne and rightly so
rougthhead had buddy or hale to take the load plus at least 2 others who are dangerous as well
with many goal kickers comes less pressure, more one on ones and more chances
2/ yep your right big contract no problem with me at all. but just because he got it does not make him able
to beat half the opp back line every time. people are trying to blame him for hopefully our past problems
and not look at the whole problem of the team.
as l said cloke is a natural chf not full forward. that said, l wish his kicking for goal close in was much better than it is.
then we mite be happy with him instead.

 

[mike123]

He won't be around when we go for our next flag. He'll be quinten Lynch by then.

What's that got to do with what you said before, you're just stringing random sentences together.

Nice one TG keep up the good work

 

[mike123]

He had 3 others kick more than 25 this year, you can't say he's got noone. Josh Kennedy kicked 80 and the next best tall there kicked 26.

But Josh Hill and Mark Lecras kicked over 40

Cloke is paid absolute top dollar so he needs to find some new tricks rather than crawl into a hole if conditions don't suit him. He needs to make a contribution week in, week out not just when we are belting bottom sides.

Tell me what these new tricks are?

Pendlebury gets tagged, he finds a way around it. Cloke kicked 3 goals from Round 13 onwards, are you telling me that's good enough?

Cloke was also injured from that point onwards, but don't let facts get in the way of a good story.

 

[Kilmo]

Travis Cloke is our number one most important player by a country mile.

 

[Kilmo]

Amazing how the same people who complain about Bucks getting rid of important, experienced stars are the same people saying we should get rid of Sidebottom and Cloke.

It truly boggles the mind.

If we get rid of the whole team, imagine the cap space we could have!

 

[sirlothie]

But Josh Hill and Mark Lecras kicked over 40



Tell me what these new tricks are?



Cloke was also injured from that point onwards, but don't let facts get in the way of a good story.

Still averaged 0.5 goals a game since then.

 

[left at home]

cloke is wanting to stay at our club, and people are getting upset amazing

 

[sirlothie]

Travis Cloke is our number one most important player by a country mile.

Want to be. He's getting about 30 grand per goal. Joe the Goose gets more goals than Cloke.

 

[left at home]

Amazing how the same people who complain about Bucks getting rid of important, experienced stars are the same people saying we should get rid of Sidebottom and Cloke.

It truly boggles the mind.

If we get rid of the whole team, imagine the cap space we could have!

yep lets get rid of our best players, trade for kids then wonder why we don't make the eight
and our forward line cannot kick goals interesting

 

[left at home]

Want to be. He's getting about 30 grand per goal. Joe the Goose gets more goals than Cloke.

stats please on joe goose

 

[sirlothie]

cloke is wanting to stay at our club, and people are getting upset amazing

That's great but he has under delivered on his past contract and you can't have that. If he signs for 500k then I'll be happy.

 

[left at home]

That's great but he has under delivered on his past contract and you can't have that. If he signs for 500k then I'll be happy.

well it seems we have different position on cloke. l see his problem as a team problem rather than
its all his fault. and l would be surprised his next contract is the same as he gets now more 550-600k range

 

[sirlothie]

well it seems we have different position on cloke. l see his problem as a team problem rather than
its all his fault. and l would be surprised his next contract is the same as he gets now more 550-600k range

He's on far more than that.

 

[Vicky Park]

Hi PicaBoo, belatedly getting back to you on the Cloke 'issue'.

Is he still in our best 22? Yes.

Does he deserve the salary he is currently on, and an extension? Debatable, although power forwards, gorilla forwards, however we describe them, are AFL-wide on big $. They dont grow on trees.

Do we have an immediate replacement, or even a replacement for 2017 or 2018? No. Moore will still be coming along, although he might surprise. If Cox steps into the void by that time, I will be truly amazed.

Cloke is very frustrating, an enigma. He should be more effective than he his. He will win the vast majority of one-on-ones against a single big defender, but he is rarely one-on-one. It is one of life's great mysteries that he always seems to have two or three defenders hanging off him, yet we still pass it to him. Why dont we pass it to White or Elliott or Witts or whoever is presumably clear? Poor leading patterns? Coaching? I dont know that I can take another season of this happening.

In my view he is still very much part of our team, and one of the first selected, but I dont think he deserves a new three-year contract right now and we dont need the distraction of the contract negotiations. Power forwards who are 30ish also dont have a great track record of getting better.

 

[pablo disco bar]

Should be confident with any player having a shot from 10-15 metres out.....yet with cloke you can barely look.....some of his misses are truly amazing for a professional footballer

 

[Kappa]

Should be confident with any player having a shot from 10-15 metres out.....yet with cloke you can barely look.....some of his misses are truly amazing for a professional footballer

Demoralizes the whole team too, completely unacceptable.

 

[Black_White]

He won't be around when we go for our next flag. He'll be quinten Lynch by then.

That's disgraceful!!
Quinten should always be spelt with a capital "Q".

 

[left at home]

He's on far more than that.

yes right now he is around if reports are true 700-800 range. l did say next contract though

 

[Jasper84]

The team rule this year should be that unless Cloke is outside of 50, he has to pass it off. Even if he is 15 metres out from goal. The upshot is that no longer will the hard work of the players up field be let down by Cloke's errant kicking. He will still be contributing by taking contested marks inside 50 and setting up goals, which is better than the whole Shanky McShankerson routine we have had to suffer through for the past decade.

Myself, I would prefer Cloke to swallow some pride and just give it off instead of another year of him saying that he has solved his kicking woes by acupuncture or whatever cure all s**t he peddling at the moment.

 

[ppoiter]

That's funny, we seemed ot dispatch Geelong just fine without him last year.



Do we? Our record without him is actually pretty damned good. Especially given that we've been an injury ravaged side in the last 4 seasons.



You heard me. People need to let go. Our forward line becomes unpredictable without Cloke. It FORCES our midfield to look for options, it FORCES other players to step up.

On that last point, I agree but don't see why it means we have to get rid of him. We just need to change the way we play. Imagine if our forward structure was better and cloke wasn't getting double teamed constantly. We have the cattle to do it this way, no need to get rid of him if he's willing to take a bit less coin