Past #2: Brad McKenzie - pick #18 '11 draft - delisted end '16 season - 37 games for NM - Norwood '17

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Rooboy 96 said:
that is all we need, one year too many from Spud, some need to know when father time has caught up, and father time is banging down Spud's door.
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roos_fanatic08 said:
I sincerely hope not. Has been an excellent servant, but he has been well off for most of this year.
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He might not go on but with our lack of strength across the field I wouldn't be against it.

I have others ahead on my "delist/retire" column if he does go around again.
 

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I've been on record as pro Giving McKenzie A Chance for a while.

If they're serious about rewarding VFL form and guys working hard on what's been asked of them, he has to get a run soon.
 
RobZombie said:
I've been on record as pro Giving McKenzie A Chance for a while.

If they're serious about rewarding VFL form and guys working hard on what's been asked of them, he has to get a run soon.
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Why?

From all reports he has been very ordinary all year in VFL, but now has played a couple of decent games. Would have thought he was well back in the pecking order for games rewarded on form.

Surely Nahas, Wood, Dumont, Fordham, McDonald and potentially Warren would be ahead. (forgetting LT for now where his case is a bit of an anomaly)
 
Too slow. Reactions, leg speed, decision making are all too slow to make it at this level. A compromised draft was 2011, but a poor decision none the less.
 
Augustine said:
Well what about Nick Dal Santo? He's not fast, not amazingly evasive, not particularly physical. But he's a cool head, accumulates a lot of footy and is a wonderful user of that footy by both hand and foot. For me this is the player McKenzie could be (but I admit it looks extremely unlikely he'll ever get there as things stand).
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I think you'll Find that NDS has very good speed over the first 10-15 metres , he also possesses better than average evasiveness and most importantly while he does get on the end of handballs when linking up he also can win the contested ball .
 
shinboner spiggs said:
Too slow. Reactions, leg speed, decision making are all too slow to make it at this level. A compromised draft was 2011, but a poor decision none the less.
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I can understand why they picked him. In a compromised and already shallow draft they went for the kid with an outstanding attribute. Unfortunately he hasn't developed other areas of his game to this point.
 
Mark me down in the 'affirmative'.

His contested game is better than made out. I think with some continuity his hands in traffic will be fine. Has a little bit of the basketballer sort of ballhandling in his game.

More to the point, is a serious weapon with his vision and kicking. If he's improved his tank and smarts enough to get into positions to receive and now has a bit of form then we'll have ourselves a very handy linebreaker.
 
deano28 said:
I think you'll Find that NDS has very good speed over the first 10-15 metres , he also possesses better than average evasiveness and most importantly while he does get on the end of handballs when linking up he also can win the contested ball .
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McKenzie will never be a beast contested ball winner, super evasive, or super quick. But if he can get those attributes up "above average" or at least to just "average" then he could be a dangerous player to have.

It's such a tough one. He hasn't ever shown nearly enough in the chances he's been given. And yet I'm reluctant to put a line through a player with such good kicking. The key to Hawthorn's success is that almost all their players are wonderful kicks. You certainly can't say that about us. You only need to re-watch North vs Hawks from this year to see the contrast.
 
Augustine said:
McKenzie will never be a beast contested ball winner, super evasive, or super quick. But if he can get those attributes up "above average" or at least to just "average" then he could be a dangerous player to have.

It's such a tough one. He hasn't ever shown nearly enough in the chances he's been given. And yet I'm reluctant to put a line through a player with such good kicking. The key to Hawthorn's success is that almost all their players are wonderful kicks. You certainly can't say that about us. You only need to re-watch North vs Hawks from this year to see the contrast.
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That's really the key, is it?
 

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King Corey said:
Mark me down in the 'affirmative'.

His contested game is better than made out. I think with some continuity his hands in traffic will be fine. Has a little bit of the basketballer sort of ballhandling in his game.

More to the point, is a serious weapon with his vision and kicking. If he's improved his tank and smarts enough to get into positions to receive and now has a bit of form then we'll have ourselves a very handy linebreaker.
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Yep can win his own ball if needed but is smart enough to know he is better used as an outlet with his elite kick.
Has good agility also (proven by top 10 testing at draftcamp) which makes up for his lack of speed.
I liked what I saw on Saturday from him and after a month of good form he is ready now or in the next week or 2 for sure
 
LCynic said:
That's really the key, is it?
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Screen Shot 2015-07-20 at 5.26.48 pm.png

Now this is a very simplistic way of assessing which team are the best kickers seeing as a) it includes handballs, b) doesn't take into account the difficulty and importance of the kicks attempted (eg Essendon do a lot of chipping the ball around seemingly aimlessly whereas Hawks go for those difficult killer kicks a lot more). But it gives you some idea of how good they are.
 
Give him a crack, hasn't had an oppurtunity this year and has been our most consistent over the past month.

Gibbo offered bugger all on the weekend, I wouldn't mind if Mckenzie was sub he has shown he can find the footy as sub before.
 
LCynic said:
That's really the key, is it?
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Of course it's the key.

I have been banging on about it for ******* years now.

Gibbo is undroppabe to us, leadership group, the works, for them he was a s**t campaigner with no pace, no skill, insufficient vigour and played no games. None.

I have McKenzie ahead based purely on the fact he has AFL standard skills.
 
Saintly31 said:
Why?

From all reports he has been very ordinary all year in VFL, but now has played a couple of decent games. Would have thought he was well back in the pecking order for games rewarded on form.

Surely Nahas, Wood, Dumont, Fordham, McDonald and potentially Warren would be ahead. (forgetting LT for now where his case is a bit of an anomaly)
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Round 8: 13 disposals, 5 clearances, 5 one percenters
Up to here he had shown signs of decent work rate without finding enough of the ball. Since then he's upped his possessions without necessarily dropping off his contested numbers.

Round 9: 18 disposals, 7 tackles, 6 clearances, 1 goal
Round 10: 18 disposals, 5 marks, 4 inside 50’s
Round 11: Bye?
Round 12: 24 disposals.
Working in tandem with Bastinac through the middle of the ground, Brad McKenzie was impressive on the way to 24 disposals. He ran hard to create, with eight handball receives.
“It was his best game for the year, playing both inside mid and on the wing,” Brown said.
“He used the ball really well and was clean while also tackling strongly and competing well.
“It was really pleasing and an all-round good game.”
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Round 13: 22 disposals, 6 marks, 4 inside 50’s
“He’s backed up really well from previous weeks and he’s in a good vein of form. Everything about his game is going well at the moment.”
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Round 14: 19 disposals, 4 tackles, 3 clearances.

Sure, not dominating but a good 6 week block of solid form. For all the complaining this board does about inaction at the selection table, this one seems like a no brainer to me especially giving our kicking troubles and a couple of injuries to guys in similar roles.

I've only seen him once on TV this year and a few times at training, but his general work rate inside and outside looks much improved from when he was last dropped to me.
 
I reckon he does need to play a few games at some point this season, just so we can give him one last decent crack at it and either he sinks or he swims - same with Harps too. But let's do it next week when we're at home rather than interstate - we don't need any extra concerns going into an interstate game, especially given our recent record at the Gabba.
 
ArjenTheGreat said:
To be fair, Jmac only recently adjusted to the level, same for Jacobs, Tarrant, Nahas...

Anyone would be more useful than Gibbo right now.
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Yeah but Jacobs and JMac both started in the backline which is (was) easier to break into than the midfield. Tarrant is a key position player who has always (in my opinion) shown glimpses and Nahas has been fantastic since he came to North and prior to that was at Richmond (Nuff said).

Gibbo has been s**t lately but i don't think anyone would be more useful than him. We could drop Gibson this week and bring in Harper and he would no doubt get 5 possessions (one of which would have half the board creaming) and 3 tackles and I don't think the team is better off.

McKenzie I think is in a similar (albeit better) boat. He could come in and get his 12-15 touches but that is nowhere near enough for a full game from an AFL level midfielder (except Rioli seemingly but let's be honest, he's more along the lines of NDS/Pendlebury and not Cyril). Everyone bangs on about his disposal but his average Disposal Efficiency at AFL level last year was 76%. Gibbo's was 75% last year but has dropped to 72% this year. Now DE is only a stat (and we could argue until the cows come home about it's accuracy/relevance) but it's a stat I would except McKenzie to dominate Gibson in given relative opinions of their skill levels on this board. Don't get me wrong, McKenzie can and has kicked a few bullets in his time but I've also seen him kick his fair share of howlers too. Not dissimilar to Mullet in the last two weeks. Fishy has a great leg on him but he hasn't been great by foot in his 2 afl games this year.

If I'm really generous and extrapolate that 4% DE advantage out and say 85% of McKenzie's disposals are acceptable vs Gibbo's at around 70%. I'd still rather the team have Gibbo there for 25 outlets/possessions a week than have McKenzie there for 13. If (and that's a big IF) he could come in and play Gibson's role and get 20-25 a week, I'd take him. But I just don't believe he can do that at AFL level.

As it stands, we can't afford another 15 possession/game midfielder in a side who's best 4 midfielders (NDS, Swallow, JZ, Cunners) average 93 disposals between them. Hawthorn by comparison get 88 disp/week out of Lewis, Mitchell and Hodge alone. This team will never be great without at least 3 midfielders who can be relied on for 28+ possessions every week.
 
Smoocher said:
If Mckenzie gets a game I'm staying in my hotel room in Noosa and watching game on TV.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk.
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Is that pro bmac, or negative bmac Smoohcer??? What are you doing if he don't get a run, going to the game, or going to the boozer and heckling the locals?
 
ozzyoslo said:
I hope your wrong saintly.........club cannot afford to be wrong on our 1st picks.
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That's true, but really it was a very poor draft - we are one of many clubs to end up with a high draft flop.

Some clearly see more in him than I do Ozzy, so who knows, he might be given longer to show talent of AFL quality beyond just kicking.
 
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