Rookie 43. Emerson Jeka (2023 - )

[Turbocat]

To be fair many of the Hawks supporter comments seem consistent with discussion on their board dated before his delisting. He had more defenders but the criticism was the same

Fair? Maybe.

They can do what they want on their board. Post rumours or what ever. I like interaction with other reasonable supporters but to me... what Id say what is fair on our board is to give a new player a chance before allow disparagement on his courage. Not all the comments were of the base kind but I dislike anyone questioning players that way... especially as I can almost certainly guarantee that some of these guys have never had to do it themselves. Any person that has the temerity to put on boots thinking it will be a laugh and a bag of lollies will soon find out that playing is something that will test you. 100kgs coming at you at superman speed ... its not for everyone. But any kid that comes from an age related comp to an open comp... to then have guys like Hawkins size to deal with. I think its fair that some take time to cope and build up to it.

He is 22 going on 23. He has skill and talent. Lets just see how he goes. He may fail. Lets give him the chance to fail before we allow aspersions to be cast on our board by non Geelong people. "Grow a heart and a backbone?" ... Fair?

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Fair? Maybe.

They can do what they want on their board. Post rumours or what ever. I like interaction with other reasonable supporters but to me... what Id say what is fair on our board is to give a new player a chance before allow disparagement on his courage. Not all the comments were of the base kind but I dislike anyone questioning players that way... especially as I can almost certainly guarantee that some of these guys have never had to do it themselves. Any person that has the temerity to put on boots thinking it will be a laugh and a bag of lollies will soon find out that playing is something that will test you. 100kgs coming at you at superman speed ... its not for everyone. But any kid that comes from an age related comp to an open comp... to then have guys like Hawkins size to deal with. I think its fair that some take time to cope and build up to it.

He is 22 going on 23. He has skill and talent. Lets just see how he goes. He may fail. Lets give him the chance to fail before we allow aspersions to be cast on our board by non Geelong people. "Grow a heart and a backbone?" ... Fair?

All I'm saying is their narrative was consistent.

They do all agree though that he has some serious skills and athleticism. There's a lot to work with and he has every opportunity to prove them wrong.

I feel like he was definitely delisted too early given the injuries etc last year. You can still see the highlights from his last game on the afl app and you can see his contested marking in the backline is very good. Previous years his kicking efficiency has been very good. I don't think Hawks really tried him as a defender very much, so there's huge scope for him to put it all together

Check out Emerson Jeka's Highlights from RICH v HAW, Rd 22 2022

AFL Stats - AFL.com.au

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www.afl.com.au

 

[Gazza Greatness]

Jeka has excellent marking and kicking skills but plays somewhat laconically with perhaps intensity issues (Hawthorn knock?) but none the less there's a bit to work with given his young age for a bigger bodied player. Guess it'll will come down to him and how much he wants it, which pretty much goes for all AFL footballers but he's no dud, has ability..... we can live in hope!.... Go Catters!


Emerson Jeka - 'Hawthorn AFL highlights'


Emerson Jeka - 'Hawthorn highlights'


Emerson Jeka - 'Hawthorn VFl highlights showreel ONE'

VFL Showreel, R7: Emerson Jeka highlights

Enjoy Emerson Jeka's standout VFL performance for Box Hill

www.afl.com.au

Emerson Keka - 'Hawthorn VFL highlights showreel TWO'

VFL Showreel, R11: Jeka jumps towards fantastic four

Emerson Jeka continues to make strides in the VFL with another strong aerial show that included four goals

www.afl.com.au

Emerson Jeka - (Prior Hawthorn, when young)

 

[Jimmy Yamazaki]

He is on the rookie list, so I'm not expecting much from him, but he is ready to play from round 1 as a mature KPP cover if needed. So seems like a decent pick up to me that costs nothing.

 

[Fleabane]

Some players don't make it first time.

Hopefully this is a kick start he needs .

Hope so for his sake. He had a lot of supporters at the Hawks, with his natural talent. I'm really pleased to see him getting a second chance and hope he's great for you guys.

 

[calder_daddy]

The posters sticking the boots in wouldn’t have watched more than his 2 minute highlights video and wouldn’t have a clue the type of player he is.

Same people who I’d hate to have a beer with, they would find something wrong with it

#coast#coasterstoowet]]

 

[Warhorse]

The posters sticking the boots in wouldn’t have watched more than his 2 minute highlights video and wouldn’t have a clue the type of player he is.

Same people who I’d hate to have a beer with, they would find something wrong with it

#coast#coasterstoowet]]

Rubbish. He was just delisted by Hawthorn. He is crap

 

[Art Vandelay_]

Rubbish. He was just delisted by Hawthorn. He is crap

He also cost us SFA and is a break glass alternative to Tim O'Brien if we get a defensive injury crisis.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Rubbish. He was just delisted by Hawthorn. He is crap

Yeah it's definitely worth noting that the Hawks just offered a multi-million dollar long term contract to Sav to take up a key defensive post and they still took a look at jeka and said, nah not that desperate.

Still, worth a punt and I'll cheer for him

 

[Shadow89]

Rubbish. He was just delisted by Hawthorn. He is crap

He was delisted by Hawthorn for the same reason we just delisted Kroeger - a lot of injuries and decided to just cut their ties and look elsewhere.

Had he not been injured as much as he was, they may have been more inclined to stick with him and see if it worked out. As it stands, he's got a 1 year contract with us and is just KPD depth for now. If he's over his injury woes though, you never know - he might surprise.

 

[Turbocat]

He has some ability. Can mark and kick the ball. Worth a shot as a 22 year old rookie.

 

[Kobe Gryant]

He was delisted by Hawthorn for the same reason we just delisted Kroeger - a lot of injuries and decided to just cut their ties and look elsewhere.

Had he not been injured as much as he was, they may have been more inclined to stick with him and see if it worked out. As it stands, he's got a 1 year contract with us and is just KPD depth for now. If he's over his injury woes though, you never know - he might surprise.

Agree, I'm not seeing a reason to freak out here like many are.

It's a rookie pick in a shallow draft year. We really had two options.

1. Do you take the second coming of Hayball who's odds on to never play a senior game?

2. Or do you take a guy who's got a few issues, but clearly has talent and fills depth in two of the most important areas of the ground?

Feels like a pretty easy decision for mine.

*****************

Jeka will most likely fall into one of these categories.

1. It either works out perfectly, Scott, Stewy & Co develop him into a star, and we've got a 10 year key position gun for the future

2. It doesn't quite work out, but he's handy depth and helps the VFL team remain competitive.

3. It doesn't work out at all, and he's off the list in 12 months time.


Regardless of which path this takes, it's a selection in the rookie draft. Minimum risk with the potential for high reward.

Conway, Neale, COS, SDK, Henry x2, & Edwards are all developing talls that we expect to be around for a long time and play really good football for us.

We've still got Jezza, Hawk, Stewy, Kolo, Stanley & Blitz who will be playing plenty of senior footy too.

It's more than okay to have Furphy, Foster & Jeka as low risk, high reward types as well. Every club does it.

We get into this weird mindset sometimes on here that to have a quality list every player from 1-40 odd has to be a superstar.

That's literally never been the case. Go through every dynasty sides list, there's a handful of blokes you've never heard of on every single one of them.

 

[Mr Meow]

Agree, I'm not seeing a reason to freak out here like many are.

It's a rookie pick in a shallow draft year. We really had two options.

1. Do you take the second coming of Hayball who's odds on to never play a senior game?

2. Or do you take a guy who's got a few issues, but clearly has talent and fills depth in two of the most important areas of the ground?

Feels like a pretty easy decision for mine.

*****************

Jeka will most likely fall into one of these categories.

1. It either works out perfectly, Scott, Stewy & Co develop him into a star, and we've got a 10 year key position gun for the future

2. It doesn't quite work out, but he's handy depth and helps the VFL team remain competitive.

3. It doesn't work out at all, and he's off the list in 12 months time.


Regardless of which path this takes, it's a selection in the rookie draft. Minimum risk with the potential for high reward.

Conway, Neale, COS, SDK, Henry x2, & Edwards are all developing talls that we expect to be around for a long time and play really good football for us.

We've still got Jezza, Hawk, Stewy, Kolo, Stanley & Blitz who will be playing plenty of senior footy too.

It's more than okay to have Furphy, Foster & Jeka as low risk, high reward types as well. Every club does it.

We get into this weird mindset sometimes on here that to have a quality list every player from 1-40 odd has to be a superstar.

That's literally never been the case. Go through every dynasty sides list, there's a handful of blokes you've never heard of on every single one of them.

It's beneficial to have a competitive VFL side as well, if at his worst Jeka plays solid footy in the magoos and puts his hand up in an emergency, that's still not a bad outcome.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

It's beneficial to have a competitive VFL side as well, if at his worst Jeka plays solid footy in the magoos and puts his hand up in an emergency, that's still not a bad outcome.

I feel this way about Stevens and Mannagh as well. At a minimum we'll get plenty of entries to Neale/Foster and Edwards/Furphy will get mids who can make the most of any they can deliver.

 

[Kobe Gryant]

I feel this way about Stevens and Mannagh as well. At a minimum we'll get plenty of entries to Neale/Foster and Edwards/Furphy will get mids who can make the most of any they can deliver.

I feel like we say this every year, but if we can get a little bit of luck with injury, I think we'll have a very good VFL team.

If everyone stays relatively healthy, we'll have some senior guys running through there as well, and we should have the much feared depth that we thought we were going to have last year.

 

[Generalissimo]

I feel like we say this every year, but if we can get a little bit of luck with injury, I think we'll have a very good VFL team.

It seemed to me like every time we needed a bloke to put together two or three solid weeks in the VFL to get some touch and match fitness we'd have another bloody bye.

 

[Kobe Gryant]

It seemed to me like every time we needed a bloke to put together two or three solid weeks in the VFL to get some touch and match fitness we'd have another bloody bye.

Yep, it's a completely broken system.

It's no coincidence IMO that we often see our players play better football in the seniors than the magoos.

They're stuck in a poor side with GFL talent running through there, on park football grounds with no continuity.

If we can finally get some luck with injury, we should be able to make that a very good side in theory, with us having 25-35 very talented players fighting for 23 spots...but it never seems to work out that way.

We'll just have our usual 8-10 nagging injuries as usual, that's what the footy Gods have us in for.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

It seemed to me like every time we needed a bloke to put together two or three solid weeks in the VFL to get some touch and match fitness we'd have another bloody bye.

Yeah that was ridiculous

We should organise practice matches with other clubs during bye rounds

 

[BORIS332]

Yep, it's a completely broken system.

It's no coincidence IMO that we often see our players play better football in the seniors than the magoos.

They're stuck in a poor side with GFL talent running through there, on park football grounds with no continuity.

If we can finally get some luck with injury, we should be able to make that a very good side in theory, with us having 25-35 very talented players fighting for 23 spots...but it never seems to work out that way.

We'll just have our usual 8-10 nagging injuries as usual, that's what the footy Gods have us in for.

We averaged 10 injured players per round in 2023, and it seemed to be our best 23 players mainly.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

We averaged 10 injured players per round in 2023, and it seemed to be our best 23 players mainly.

View attachment 1863311

Stop, you're giving me ptsd

 

[Flips]

We averaged 10 injured players per round in 2023, and it seemed to be our best 23 players mainly.

View attachment 1863311

The average of figures in that graph is 8.1

 

[calder_daddy]

We averaged 10 injured players per round in 2023, and it seemed to be our best 23 players mainly.

View attachment 1863311

Those 6 weeks in the middle of the year killed us

 

[Oisin_the_Goat]

We averaged 10 injured players per round in 2023, and it seemed to be our best 23 players mainly.

View attachment 1863311

Think we might need to implement Klopps (liverpool coach) system of using AI to manage injuries through game minutes and training loads.
Or maybe they need to make a football manager game for AFL to train the medical staff and coaches.
Or maybe I just need afl football manager in my life. Won't be the same with our communist trade system tho

 

[Oisin_the_Goat]

Jekas interview didn't strike me with confidence. Almost seems dissapointed he didnt go to the bombers. Who would want to play in that hell hole.

 

[BORIS332]

Jekas interview didn't strike me with confidence. Almost seems dissapointed he didnt go to the bombers. Who would want to play in that hell hole.

I got the same impression. It was a weird interview from him.