Cloke chasing contract extension (poll added)

Does Cloke deserve a contract extension?

  • Yes, just give it to him, we need to lock him in for beyond 2017

    Votes: 10 23.3%
  • No, not at all, he is over-paid and under-performing

    Votes: 7 16.3%
  • Prefer to wait and review season 2016

    Votes: 26 60.5%

  • Total voters
    43

Smokeyr67

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I like the idea of Cloke playing a very shallow CHF, Moore playing a mobile/leading role in the forward fifty, and a resting ruckman (depending on matchups/weather etc) as the third forward tall. As long as Clokes capable of playing such a role, I'd love for him to be on the list.
 

ottoman

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I quite often find myself in awe of Clokes contested marking ability. It really is a thing of beauty. But ultimately if he can't convert what's the point.

You may be a real ladies man, with the looks of a Brad Pitt and the charm of a Casanova, but at the end of the night if you can't get it up whats the point.
 
I quite often find myself in awe of Clokes contested marking ability. It really is a thing of beauty. But ultimately if he can't convert what's the point.

You may be a real ladies man, with the looks of a Brad Pitt and the charm of a Casanova, but at the end of the night if you can't get it up whats the point.
Sorry, until the last line i thought you were talking directly to me
 

Eddierules

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Anyone old enough to remember the year Brereton played with Sav Rocca he absolutely made Sav holding back packs putting himself between Sav and his opponent clearing pathways etc .Clokey is a major asset and needs support from his teammates for him to excell or maybe a decent fwd line coach.
 
I quite often find myself in awe of Clokes contested marking ability. It really is a thing of beauty. But ultimately if he can't convert what's the point.

You may be a real ladies man, with the looks of a Brad Pitt and the charm of a Casanova, but at the end of the night if you can't get it up whats the point.
Not sure that's his problem:rolleyes:
 
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.
Thanks for that. Agreed with most of it Indeed a part of the problem is the delivery which is as you say is subject to predictability and poor execution. But his execution still needs improving otherwise we have the same discussion next year.
The coming season should be better for Cloke . Better quality delivery from the midfield and Swan as a foil. For his coin we just can't afford an ineffective fwd of his caliber. Like Buckley, it is time to perform in line with expectations before we can talk about extension.
 

mike123

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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.

How about you watch the two games against Melbourne. Who was the difference against the perennial cellar dwellers.

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.

Good point with Moore, but White is just not AFL standard and good enough to a keep a defender interested in him. If we had another AFL standard key forward and Cloke wasn't performing I'd see the merits in trading him, but then again if we had an another AFL standard key forward Cloke wouldn't have 2 defenders on him all the time, would be performing and we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

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.

Was injured and subbed off against West Coast, then played underdone when he came back against 2 finals size. Don't think there was a larg enough sample size against top 8 sided to judge him.


This is bullshit, sorry. It was wet, so what? It was wet for every player.

Don't ask me so what when you know the answer, in fact you admit it later in the next sentence. As you admit yourself "it wasn't a game conducive to marking and goal kicking"

:rolleyes:

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.

I'll have to take your word for it because I'm not watching that game again, but I'm pretty sure he did some of those things. The thing with bumps they're not always shown.


No forward delivery (even Hawthorns) is 100% accurate.

Never said it was, not sure what this has to do with anything. Hawthorn still have much better deliver than us.

If he gets bad delivery I expect Trav to keep leading, keep working until he starts getting results.

He does keep working, he just doesn't get results because of reasons I've mentioned 100 times.

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.

That's a lie, if he keeps working for the front spot but our mids keep kicking over his head (which happens allot) then he won't get better opportunities.

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.

When its bombed on his head he's forced to wrestle.

Not all Trav's fault and the coaching I and mids need to take responsibility too, but imo as the number 1 forward the onus is on him.

Onus is on him to do what? Bag our forward stuctures Jack Reiwoldt style? Go in the midfield get 30 touches and kick it to himself?

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's still getting into spots to mark, he averaged 6.6 marks this year.

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.

The thing is the kicks he's getting is forcing him to wrestle. It doesn't give him the chance to jump at the ball.

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.

Agree


6.6 marks per game is nothing special

No but can't say he isn't makring the ball.

especially for someone his size working up the field especially compared to previous years.

Compared to previous years when he had better delivery and better support.

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.

So instead of leading to the wing and over wroking his opponent he should stay inside 50 an wrestle?

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.

I think that's the club should be more proactive in trying the fix in gameplan and structure and getting players that can actually kick the ******* footy (James Aish is a good start) and not leave it Cloke to just magically get better like you seem to want him to do.
 

mike123

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Anyone old enough to remember the year Brereton played with Sav Rocca he absolutely made Sav holding back packs putting himself between Sav and his opponent clearing pathways etc .Clokey is a major asset and needs support from his teammates for him to excell or maybe a decent fwd line coach.

This, This, This This, This, This, This.


This what I love about him and we need to see more of...


Look what happens when someone else helps him out in a pack mark situation.
 
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Anyone old enough to remember the year Brereton played with Sav Rocca he absolutely made Sav holding back packs putting himself between Sav and his opponent clearing pathways etc .Clokey is a major asset and needs support from his teammates for him to excell or maybe a decent fwd line coach.

Cloke is no babe in the woods like Rocca was though. A. Rocca did that job for Cloke when he started... it's Cloke's job now to do that for Darcy...
 

mike123

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Cloke is no babe in the woods like Rocca was though. A. Rocca did that job for Cloke when he started... it's Cloke's job now to do that for Darcy...


But lets trade him so he can't.
 

THATSGOLD

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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.
If that happens he may as well leave. His job is to kick goals (which he fails)
 
Ots not like he average two goals a game or anything
3 games were half his score. Take away those and suddenly the equation becomes 1.2 goals a game.
 
Ots not like he average two goals a game or anything
If you want to look at averages, him and Jack Riewoldt were statistically similar last year. Yet one was AA and the other had a below average year. Stats don't tell the whole story because they don't relay out on the full, missed clutch shots, free kicks given away purely out of frustration and the player's expectancy to perform at a standard befitting of their large contract.

Cloke is best 22 in any team, few would argue.
Is he overpaid compared to what he delivers? I think so. I struggle to think of any key forwards who would be on a wage similar to Cloke except for maybe Franklin and Boyd. It's a hell of a lot of money to be spending on a player who by his own admission has underperformed. Which is always going to make you wonder if the money could be better spent on a different player who can actually deliver when required.
 

Horaceg

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It's never as simple as it looks, but he always seems to lean far back when kicking, skying the ball. Would probably work well punting in the NFL post-AFL where the air time is important.
Needs to land it inside the field of play, not once or twice but all the time. He may struggle.
 

Prestige Presti

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Somebody feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but the main reason for Clokes output dropping is because he has been required much further up the ground.

In 2013 he was for the most part of the season a FF playing deep, our midfield was capable of moving the ball much faster then our current day team and we were able to take advantage of playing him deep and he almost won the Coleman.

During 2014-2015 because of our poor footskills and big changes in midfield he has been utilized up the ground to provide a target on the wing and to assist ball movement, which he has done, this year in particular he was going quite well until his injury against West Coast, almost top 5 in the Coleman from memory. And when he came back it was quite obvious he was still hindered from the injury. With all respect to Jesse White, having no damaging second talls for the past 3 years has been of no assistance to him, the emergence of Moore will surely see Cloke given the extra space the more Moore improves.


I think this year could be huge for him, in the off season we've recruited players that will greatly assist Clokey, Howe is a bloke that can play further up the ground, and we've drafted quite a few medium forwards (Crocker, Smith) as the club has identified this as our biggest weakness, even Caff is returning to his former role. With those bigger guys capable of playing up the ground, and the increased capabilities of our midfield, I would imagine that the club would be looking the utilize Cloke deeper, you only have to look at the Melbourne game as an example of what can happen if we play Cloke in a deeper position.
Whilst he has one of the biggest tanks of all key forwards in the comp, he is also one of the best deep marking threats when on song, and as mentioned, as our midfield improves so will the number and the quality of our forward 50 entries.

As Bucks has mentioned, it's quite 'laughable' to suggest we will trade Clokey and he is a massive part of what we are building for our next flag tilt, for all the reasons listed above, I'd back Cloke to improve over the next 2+ years as the midfield does, and this year in particular I believe will server as a reminder of what the big lad is capable of.
 
Cloke's delivery into the forward line is shithouse though. All he can do is wheel around on his left boot and bang it in long without looking, never spots up a target.
Probably my biggest bug-bear when it comes to Cloke. Watching a few old games on Foxtel yesterday and he's always been the same. It seems to me like he panics a bit. If he doesn't identify a target within the first couple seconds he just lets loose, instead of being a bit more patient. When he does have a target, he can be quite a good field kick.

As for extending his contract now, unless he is a bit more realistic with the terms, I don't see any necessity for it
 
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