Preview How I and the rest of the comp views Collingwood in 2015.

[Dazb86]

They'll be inconsistent.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Some people would prefer to troll through threads looking for mistakes rather than actually comment on a topic at hand I guess

EFA

 

[TBoyleSuperstar]

I see Collingwood as one of the teams battling for those 10 to 6 positions. There are a lot of teams that are there and there abouts at the moment, and Collingwood are amongst that group. Adelaide, West Coast, Essendon (depending on pending rulings), Geelong, Brisbane, and possibly Carlton are all around the mark, and could have really good years or poor years.

Not sure Collingwood are at the level of Hawthorn, Sydney, Freo, Port or North, and I think Gold Coast will finish top 6 this year.

Midfield is sound, with two A Graders in Pendles and Swan, but drops off from there, which is where the loss of Beams really hurts.

Defence is quite good, though I think the loss of Maxwell will affect them in terms of leadership and organisation.

Forward line still needs a foil for Cloke, so unless Reid gets back and can stay fit, I think this will again be a struggle for them.

Good group of kids that should be pushing up, and a reasonable run with injury should see them play finals.

 

[Collingwoodity]

Odd post.

Your face is odd

 

[Adam H]

Your face is odd

How would you know?

 

[Collingwoodity]

How would you know?

Dal Santo and Riewoldt told me .

 

[Slax]

Have the makings of a good list, but for the most part young and reliant on a few injury prone players to compete with top 8 sides. The players that will dictate whether Collingwood make the 8 or not.

Reid - he is vital to Collingwood winning, and is one of Collingwood's 3 most important players because of what he offers (Pendelbury & Cloke the others), if he continues with what now seems constant run of injuries it will derail the season.
Cloke - Collingwood need to find a foil for him, Reid fits this role, but without him there no-one else has really looked like doing it consistently. Elliott is more of a small forward who can take some leaps and runs hot and cold. If he gains consistency (which one would hope for a player entering 4th season) then could see his output increase to 40+ goals.
Swan - where is he really at? If people think the Swan of 3-4 years ago is suddenly going to return I think people are in for a shock. Whilst will still be good, not sure he will return to AA calculations.
Siddebottom - he must take the next step and relieve pressure from Pendelbury, is now 24 and expected to be entering his prime. At his best is AA, but he seems to only do that once every 4 or 5 weeks.

Ruck - Witts and Grundy have the makings of being an excellent ruck duo, but both are still young and need some help. A lot will depend on how their development goes this year.

Injuries - Collingwood had a poor run last year and get that again finals are gone.

Prediction - will just miss the 8, 11 wins. They are in the group fighting for 6-12 where a lot depends on a bit of luck with injuries and ability to win some tight games.

 

[Lefthanded]

I see Collingwood as one of the teams battling for those 10 to 6 positions. There are a lot of teams that are there and there abouts at the moment, and Collingwood are amongst that group. Adelaide, West Coast, Essendon (depending on pending rulings), Geelong, Brisbane, and possibly Carlton are all around the mark, and could have really good years or poor years.

Not sure Collingwood are at the level of Hawthorn, Sydney, Freo, Port or North, and I think Gold Coast will finish top 6 this year.

Midfield is sound, with two A Graders in Pendles and Swan, but drops off from there, which is where the loss of Beams really hurts.

Defence is quite good, though I think the loss of Maxwell will affect them in terms of leadership and organisation.

Forward line still needs a foil for Cloke, so unless Reid gets back and can stay fit, I think this will again be a struggle for them.

Good group of kids that should be pushing up, and a reasonable run with injury should see them play finals.

Generally agree with your write up. Curious if you have forgotten or don't rate Richmond? (I would have thought they'd be in the mix for your 7 to 13 and certainly ahead of Carlton)

 

[Ken Bruce]

Tall mids like Penlenury or Fyfe (190+) are pretty hard to find though.

Thank you Timmy, this is exactly the point that I have been trying to get across. Thanks for wording it a little better for me. They are very hard to find indeed, which is why I was surprised the Pies didn't jump at Langford, Laverde or Lamb...especially after missing out on Bontempelli last year who from all reports they were quite keen on.

I hope youre right. If Brown can get back to his best and Keeffe can continue the improvement he was showing up until last year, then we will have genuine flexibility with Reid (and Moore for that matter). We could even play Reid as one of those "tall mids" we seem to be so desperately short of.

It also wasn't unheard of for Moore to move through the midfield last in in the TAC cup for Oakleigh and play as a rover *similar to how Hawthorn have used Roughead in the past*. It wasn't a common occurance but I did happen, his agility is something out of the box for a kid his size and he could be anything. I've got a feeling Collingwood will probably develop him as a CHB in order to free Reid up to play forward.

 

[Adam H]

Dal Santo and Riewoldt told me .

Great follow up post.

 

[Collingwoodity]

Great follow up post.

I was going for about the same quality posts you usually regurgitate in Collingwood-related threads.

My favourite pearler from you was pre-draft. Christian Petracca is a "once in a generation" type player and St Kilda would not pass on him for anybody.

 

[Adam H]

I was going for about the same quality posts you usually regurgitate in Collingwood-related threads.

My favourite pearler from you was pre-draft. Christian Petracca is a "once in a generation" type player and St Kilda would not pass on him for anybody.

Things change and Im not involved in drafting are you? I still think he is a once in a generation player who will hit the AFL by storm but we needed a gun young key forward moving forward so went the best big guy. Pretty simple really.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Thank you Timmy, this is exactly the point that I have been trying to get across. Thanks for wording it a little better for me. They are very hard to find indeed, which is why I was surprised the Pies didn't jump at Langford, Laverde or Lamb...especially after missing out on Bontempelli last year who from all reports they were quite keen on.

Yet in the same breath you rate Maynard as an absolute jet. Go figure.

Time will tell whether any three of these players you name will be any better or worse than the 186 cms players in the draft. Or as good as Pendlebury and Fyfe. Bontompenelli is a furphy. Hes an absolute jet and we never got the chance to draft him. We never looked likely either. We took Scharenburg anyway so I have no idea what point youre making. I will stick by my original premise that youre just trolling.

 

[MarkT2]

We attended to that at the draft. Nobody under 185.... six ft 1 in the old money. Plus Crisp, still a youngsster. Add Scharenburg to that from the previous draft along with Langdon who is already etablished and its clear that moves are in place to rectify the situation down the track. Seedsman is another taller youngster who was in an out of the team last season due to injury. Its not easily rectified overnight but plans are definitely afoot. The only shorter players picked up (Greenwood and Varcoe) are already established AFL players.

If anybody can find that magic wand, Blair for Fyfe please!

We can't have attended to it if it is a problem now. We may have stared on that path but we didn't remove ourselves from the lack of height issue because our 22 for the 2015 year will continue to have the issue. It will take player development, list culling and trading to address this and other list issues. That's a 2+ year process from here.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

It also wasn't unheard of for Moore to move through the midfield last in in the TAC cup for Oakleigh and play as a rover *similar to how Hawthorn have used Roughead in the past*. It wasn't a common occurance but I did happen, his agility is something out of the box for a kid his size and he could be anything. I've got a feeling Collingwood will probably develop him as a CHB in order to free Reid up to play forward.

Yep.

Brown and Reid fully fit will give us tons of options. Tons more options if Grundy and Witts can start showing some potential in the forward line.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

We can't have attended to it if it is a problem now. We may have stared on that path but we didn't remove ourselves from the lack of height issue because our 22 for the 2015 year will continue to have the issue. It will take player development, list culling and trading to address this and other list issues. That's a 2+ year process from here.

The entire list is a 2+ year process regardless. I'm a bit more optimistic than that, 1+ for me. If the kids come through as we hope and some taller listed players like Scharenburg MAcaffer Seedsman Gault and Karnesiz come through 2015 succesfully after injury then height will be an irrelevance. The likes Of Blair Kennedy Williams Toovey Dwyer Thomas Sinclair etc will be no longer best 22 (or even on the list at all) and willl be replaced by better taller models. Even Goldsack (who is the right height) could be replaced by a better player.

 

[mike123]

I feel like I have just answered this. I believe that tall mids are important because your club went to the draft claiming that they wanted to address the fact that they lacked height in the midfield.

We did, we lacked medium midfielders, tall midfielders we have with Pendlebury, Crisp, Seedsman and Karnezis,

I do not have an obsession with height, I am simply outlining the issues in your list that your club wanted to rectify going to the draft.

This is not an opinion of mine, these are claims that your club made going into the draft, before they then drafted 3 medium sized midfielders.

The club said we wanted to add height, not 190cm+ players. If the club wanted 190cm+ players we would have drafted them. If the club wanted One of Lamb, Laverde or Langford why didn't we draft them when we had the chance?

I'm not exactly sure what you're getting so confused about or why you keep going around in circles.
Feel free to stop asking the same questions over and over and simply reread my previous posts.

Because you seem to misunderstand what the clubs means when they say "height".

Feel free to put a real argument out there instead of drive this in circles.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

The club said we wanted to add height, not 190cm+ players. If the club wanted 190cm+ players we would have drafted them. If the club wanted One of Lamb, Laverde or Langford why didn't we draft them when we had the chance?

Because we thought De Goey looked a better possibility and they were all taken by the time we got to Maynard (who Ken Bruce has hypocritically gone mad for) and Goodyear. Oh and also because we had already taken a very versatile and mobile tall in Moore. Who knows, he may end up in the midfield himself!

(But you know all that of course...)

 

[Ken Bruce]

If they had considered him a gun in the making who would slot into a team round 1 he would have been a clear top 10 choice but none of them saw him that way.

There is nothing to say that Derek Hine doesn't see him as a gun in the making that could play in round 1. There is every chance that Hines rated Maynard in the top 10 but simply rated De Goey higher and had to wait until pick 30 to snap him up.
Manard is a very hard at it footballer who thrives on the contest and looks happiest when he is putting his head over the ball and crunching blokes. At different times he reminded me of Brayshaw, not as balanced on both sides of his body but just as hard and manic in his tackling. I feel like he has the right approach and build to have an impact early on.

Then on top of that you want to place 2 established senior players in Toovey and Williams behind Maynard in round 1 selection.

Toovey will be important early on because of the lack of experience in your back line. However I can't see both Williams and Toovey playing beside each other in the backline of your next premiership side. IMO there is only room for one of them, and considering you're not a realistic premiership threat it would make sense to play the kids.
In saying that though if I had to pick out of the two I'd probably go with Toovey because he can play on both talls and smalls, and Maynard because he is a weapon.

As to DeGoey my use of pedigree was slightly out of definition. What I meant he is a high draft pick from a solid footy background. Again if you are that avid TAC watcher I am interested to know why you have a contrary view to Hine

If thats what your opinion is based on then you should also know that Maynards dad played 198 senior games in the SANFL!

As for my opinion of De Goey:
If you have a look at the top 30 picks in last years draft you'll find that it is dominated by Vic Metro and Vic Country players. Despite the the fact that South Australia won the U18 national championship they had very few players drafted in comparison to the Vic sides.
The Vic sides definitely came across as the more professional and better conditioned teams in the national carnival and the amount of players drafted would also indicate that they had the most talent.
Unfortunately for us the only thing that the kids from SA cared about was playing in a successful side and it became quite evident early on in the carnival that all the kids from Vic cared about was making themselves look good in order to get drafted.
Vic Metro in particular played a very selfish brand of football. Blokes would try to run down the wings, dodge 3 or 4 blokes only to get run down from behind, or they would hold onto the ball for too long instead of playing first option football only to turn it over or have ping from outside 50.
De Goey was one of the main offenders for these selfish on field acts. When they come off they look flashy and catch the eyes of the recruiter but there's just something about a bloke putting himself ahead of the team that rubs me the wrong way.

I saw him play several games at the nationals however admittedly I did only see him play for the Chargers twice during the TAC cup, which by all reports was where he played his best footy. One of those games he went down with an ankle before quarter time which was a shame.

I'm not cynical these were just my observation that I made while watching him play. I hope that he proves me wrong (and I'm quite sure that he will) because I am a big fan of TAC cup football and the more blokes that get drafted from the TAC Cup and pave out successful AFL careers the better IMO

 

[TBoyleSuperstar]

Generally agree with your write up. Curious if you have forgotten or don't rate Richmond? (I would have thought they'd be in the mix for your 7 to 13 and certainly ahead of Carlton)

Yeah, was an oversight. The Tigers will be there and thereabouts again for finals

 

[Ken Bruce]

We did, we lacked medium midfielders, tall midfielders we have with Pendlebury, Crisp, Seedsman and Karnezis,



The club said we wanted to add height, not 190cm+ players. If the club wanted 190cm+ players we would have drafted them. If the club wanted One of Lamb, Laverde or Langford why didn't we draft them when we had the chance?



Because you seem to misunderstand what the clubs means when they say "height".

Feel free to put a real argument out there instead of drive this in circles.

Mike I implore you to please re read my previous posts. The average height of players on your list has decreased since last season. This is a FACT so I don't know why you're arguing.

You're a complete waste of my time, please stop replying to my posts.

 

[mike123]

Mike I implore you to please re read my previous posts. The average height of players on your list has decreased since last season. This is a FACT so I don't know why you're arguing.

Yet you still haven't give a reason to why height is important.

You're a complete waste of my time, please stop replying to my posts.

The only one wasting time is you not giving a proper argument.

 

[Ken Bruce]

Yet you still haven't give a reason to why height is important.



The only one wasting time is you not giving a proper argument.

Please re read my previous posts. I'm not wasting any more of my time.

 

[MarkT2]

The entire list is a 2+ year process regardless. I'm a bit more optimistic than that, 1+ for me. If the kids come through as we hope and some taller listed players like Scharenburg MAcaffer Seedsman Gault and Karnesiz come through 2015 succesfully after injury then height will be an irrelevance. The likes Of Blair Kennedy Williams Toovey Dwyer Thomas Sinclair etc will be no longer best 22 (or even on the list at all) and willl be replaced by better taller models. Even Goldsack (who is the right height) could be replaced by a better player.

What you call optimism I call unprecedented. Even the youngest flag side in decades of 2010 built over 5 years from the drafting of Thomas & Pendlebury. This list can't contend in 2016. The age profile, the player type composition and the class just can't add to a real contender in that time frame unless unprecedented recruiting takes place at the end of 2015. There isn't one aspect of the list composition that doesn't need more than player development which itself is uncertain anyway.

 

[mike123]

The average height of players on your list has decreased since last season. This is a FACT so I don't know why you're arguing.

Nice work troll, but its not a fact.

In: Brenden Abbott 186cm + 5
Out: Peter Yagmoor 181cm

In: Mason Cox 211cm + 12cm
Out: Ben Hudson 199cm

In: Jack Crisp 190cm -3cm
Out: Nick Maxwell 193cm

In: Jordan De Goey 187cm
Out: Dayne Beams 187cm

Matthew Goodyear 185cm + 2
Out: Luke Ball 183cm

In: Levi Greenwood 181cm
Out: Martin Clarke 181cm

In: Michael Manteit 186cm - 2
Out: Heritier Lumumba 188cm

In: Brayden Maynard 187cm + 3
Out: Caolan Mooney 184cm

In: Darcy Moore 198cm + 6
Out:Quinten Lynch 192cm

In: Travis Varcoe 180cm - 1
Out: Kyle Martin 181cm

We gain 22 cm in this off season.

Please re read my previous posts. I'm not wasting any more of my time.

Your posts don't give any reasons why height is important. You just say it is and harp on it all the time. You go off the club when they say they look to add height but their opinion is invalid when it comes to the actual draft choices. We actually have even increased height but you insist its a problem.

You can't even get your facts right but claim I'm time wasting here. Your right, I am wasting time, my time...

Can't believe I bothered to argue with this fool.